The words that come to mind this morning are those of “Wimpy,” a cartoon character in the Popeye series, who said, “I’ll give you 5 cents tomorrow for a hamburger today.” That request appears to sum up the state of private finances and general economy in the U.S. today. For some time now, Americans have relied on borrowed money and borrowed time, and truly have not been in charge of their financial destiny.
Not so long ago, things were different. Imagine an age without electronic gadgets, when people actually engaged with the people with whom they were keeping present company and were not plugged into a communication device.
During World War II, most every family had a radio and it was around that radio that the family gathered to hear the latest news, music, and theatrical-like presentations. The radio probably crackled, buzzed and whistled with all kinds of static. However, it was a major conveyance of news.
Jump ahead to today. As soon as I publish this message, it will be read in places I will never visit in my lifetime. I know this is true, if only because of all of the SPAM that shows up, from distant places. We have more ways to communicate than ever before. Yet, we are becoming a society that is dismally unaware of how to manage money and that hurts all of us.
Ration Stamps from World War II
The 1940s seem to have been a decade of beginning awareness of the importance of financial stability. The government encouraged recycling by its messages on the back of every ration stamp booklet.
When you have used your ration, salvage the TIN CANS and WASTE FATS. They are needed to make munitions for our fighting men. Cooperate with your local Salvage Committee.
Everyone pitched in to turn “junk” into weapons in an age that published the song, “Junk Ain’t Junk No More.”
Mothers were now in the workplace and every dime counted. A popular song of the era was “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” A dime would, after all, at least buy a cup of coffee to warm a person’s innards, if only temporarily. A song of the 1920s reveals the thoughts of someone down on his luck: “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”
Another admonition on the Food Rations Booklet was, “If you don’t need it, DON’T BUY IT.”
Today, we are a people entrapped by credit like prey in a spider’s web. Yet, our own selfish needs are to have it all and do that … now! “We’ll just charge it,” has become the mantra of the younger generation, a group who is finding it increasingly difficult to pay even the interest on their credit cards, as they go up, up and out of sight.
In 1945, my father founded a Credit Union, the first of 17 that he would ultimately start. His idea was to help others by way of financial education. “Save for a rainy day,” “A hand up, not a hand out,” were slogans I heard him repeat when I was a child. By 16 years old, encouraged by Dad, I had started my own account to have a place to save babysitting money and “watch it grow.”
My father left it up to bankers to consider ways to fleece the public and get rich. My father was never rich. Toward the end of his life, when he was still well enough, my parents had a Ford truck with a camper and took little trips from NH to Maine. That was the extent of his travel. Yet, he was rich in other ways. He read books and National Geographic and U.S. News and World Report. He was informed about the world, and in his own way, assisted in improving the world and making it just a little better because of his 63 years here.
To his credit and his sound management, the Granite State Credit Union, that John E. Grace (1911-1974) founded in 1945, then called Utility Workers Credit Union, is thriving and has branch offices all over the state of New Hampshire, as well as a main branch in Manchester, where it originated.
When I think of money, I can’t help but recall the example my father set. Like him, I am not rich, not in dollars. Yet, I am rich in experiences, in friends, and in knowledge that I continue to seek daily. The greatest freedom is in “owing no man.” We have $0. credit card debt. There is nothing that I have gone without that I don’t miss. Teach your children in the way you’d want them to grow … before the material goods of the world turn their heads.
Patricia Cummings
