When I was about 6, my grandpa was visiting. He, my mom and I were in the grocery store where I discovered a $5 bill lying partially hidden in the oranges display. I grabbed it! “Look what I found,” I exclaimed.
My mother solemnly informed me that we’d have to turn it in to the cashier at the front of the store. “What?” Grandpa retorted, and proceeded to explain exactly what would happen to the $5 bill should we follow that course.
I have absolutely no recollection of what I did with the money, but can you see how that experience might have impacted, good or bad, my values regarding money?
This is the same grandpa who was visiting another time and happened to discipline me more severely, I concluded, than I deserved for that transgression. I skulked into the hall closet where it was dark and I could really feel sorry for myself. There I discovered his dress pants hanging on hangers. Aha…an opportunity for pay back. I proceeded to take scissors and chop each pair of pants off at the knees. When I was discovered, my mom….Well, this is a good place to end the story.
My grandpa died when I was a know-it-all teenager. I remember sitting at the foot of his rocking chair listening to him pick his old banjo. I never, ever, got around to asking him about him. I was simply not old enough to be interested. I wonder what his own feelings were about the $5 story; I wonder what his feelings were about my shenanigans in the closet.
What would you give to have had the foresight to capture your parents’ and grandparents’ life stories before they left you?
It’s easy to do, you know.
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