High school had this program that I donated a large sum of money to my senior year out of the goodness of my heart.
Chicago introduced me to what poverty really was like. Running into homeless people who I empathized with quickly depleted the cash or change I would have on hand. I have been regulating what I give to people but whenever I can help a person out on the street, I do my best to do just that.
If I were in that situation, I would want help. Plus, most of these people are victims of a system that props up the rich and takes from the poor.
XIII. The Tradition of Work
I’m no stranger to work. This tradition was and should be in every child’s life. While no child will want to do work, it will give him or her the ability to take on arduous tasks that take time and consume energy later on in life.
I had a chore list to complete that my mother and father helped develop. It divided the tasks up between my brother and I. The chore list did not last long though.
As I grew older, I preferred to just be told what to do when it needed to be done because I would not remember to look at the chore list. I was a bit unreasonable in my teenage years when it came to being a helpful member of my family. But, slowly, that was what my mother did---leave lists of things to do when it was time to do it.
Outside, weed pulling, lawn mowing, weed whacking, lawn edging, and sweeping were all chores that I would be asked to do in the hot summer. Indiana weather isn’t particularly hot but for the past five years, it hasn’t been pleasant either.
Whether I did these tasks for an allowance or stipend was up to my parents as it should be. My mother liked to reward us for our work with cash so we could have money to spend or save. But, towards the end of high school, I preferred to have her just keep it and give it to me when I really needed it because I was working a job at a movie theatre.
Learning to be organized and contain my “pack rat” lifestyle was my mom’s goal for me when I was growing up. In the work I did, I was often asked to rearrange and organize my room so I could keep all the material objects and pamphlets/flyers I collected to keep as mementos.
I am a collector at heart, a person who likes to save things to be remembered later. It isn’t that I have a bad memory. I think it has to do more with worrying I will forget the true beauty of certain experiences that I have in life.
XIV. The Tradition of Business
This tradition did not exist in my life. Or if it did, I am struggling to figure out when I would have been called upon to value business.
My dad works a shop that creates electrical parts and circuit boards for equipment that other businesses use to incorporate in the products they manufacture. I often went there to clean up his shop and pull weeds in his parking lot. I was tasked with maintenance but I was not incorporated into the business as a person who would help run it in the future.
Ralph describes his father helping clean up after a flood. I have never been in that situation. I do not know what I would do in that situation. Weather has never created a situation where I had to come together with friends and family and pull through the mess.
Someday I will be tested and I suspect I will work with others to get things back to business as usual.
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