Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk
Prompt#3 Money
The year I turned ten, I wanted my parents to buy me an Easy-Bake Oven or a Barbie doll for my birthday. My friends had these toys, and I wanted to receive at least one of them on my first double-digit day.
Unfortunately, New England weather wasn’t being kind to its farmers in 1965. We were experiencing the driest summer of a ten-year drought.
The fields didn’t produce enough hay to feed the cows through the winter. The pressure of feeding a herd of hungry cows and five kids weighed heavy on my parents.
They had to resort to buying hay from Canada. The rumbling sound of the big truck filled with hay bales pulling into the farmyard was bittersweet that winter. On the one hand, it meant that the animals wouldn’t starve. But, on the other hand, spending a premium for Canadian hay was a drain on their meager resources. My parents struggled to pay the mortgage, the property taxes, and feed their own children.
It was also the year that my little brother became fascinated with the process of collecting milk from the farm. Whenever the milk truck pulled into the yard to collect the milk, he would run out to watch. He would observe the man pull the hose out of the truck, attach it to the valve at the bottom of the milk tank and pump the milk into his tank truck.
One day he decided to play milkman. So he grabbed his wagon and a hose and went into the milk room. He unscrewed the cap at the bottom of the tank just as he had seen the milkman do a hundred times. Then he stood back as he literally watched my parent’s money go down the drain of the milk room floor.
I will never know how my dad could keep his cool when he discovered what my brother had done. I’m sure that he felt despair knowing that there wouldn’t be a check coming from the dairy that week. But, he explained that he couldn’t be angry with him because he knew that my brother didn’t do it on purpose, that he was just curious.
On my birthday I struggled to hide my disappointment when I only got a pair of socks for a present. Of course, I was crushed, but I honestly did understand that there wasn’t enough money for gifts that year.
I would like to believe that those years taught me an important life lesson about money. I learned that feeding hungry cows that depend on you for survival or having a compassionate understanding for your son when he makes a big mistake is more important than receiving an Easy-Bake Oven or a Barbie doll for your birthday.
With Love & Energy by the Pond,
Laurel
