By Don
My first experience with doing something for money was shoveling snow off a neighbor’s sidewalk for 25 cents, 50 cents to include the driveway. Before that, I wrangled an allowance out of my parents for ten cents a week which was spent at the drugstore at Johnny the Cop’s corner for Life magazine. I sometimes had a few dimes and nickels and used them playing Ski Ball at a local amusement park, which I usually snuck into through a hole in the fence. My friends paid at the entrance and I met them at the seesaws. Now they are too dangerous for kids to visit alone.
One day I even carried water for the elephants. I made a few cents but the big deal was getting within ten feet or so of the animals. Then I became a painter boss’s helper (Rudy) and learned how to paint houses. In the beginning, just the back of a garage. A year later I fell off a ladder and dropped 20 or more feet into a large soft bush but was unhurt. Then I worked some Saturdays which led to sometimes working during the summer. By junior high school I was being paid almost the same as the other hired hands — Andy the Italian and Fred, the German. I got to where I was about as fast as they were.
Once in my high school, I pushed the wrong button on the elevator and got off by mistake in the belfry next to the huge bell. It was 12 o’clock and it rang and rang. I almost dropped the paint. As I progressed as a painter I realized we were not poor, not cheap, but very frugal as working class people and were still not fully recovered from the fear of the Great Depression of 1929-1939 which effectively ended only with the advent of the second World War and the required industrial expansion. But I knew little of this history at the time.
I worked more during the Clemson years as the first year cost a bit over $1,000 plus uniforms, books and transportation which escalated each year. To compensate, my father did additional commercial work like churches and schools to increase income and keep me at Clemson. I once went outside a church to get something out of the truck. I was in all white painters coveralls and ran into two men with signs that were picketing my dad because he had left the painter’s union. We had words but they left me alone. Lesson one in life’s labor vs management issues. In total I suspect that my Clemson education cost about $8,000. The ensuing Navy education was better and more importantly, it was free.
At Officers Candidate School at Newport, RI, otherwise known as OCS, I was paid $85 per month which included free room and board. This was for four months until graduation. The following numbers are not given for any reason other than it shows historical monetary facts that, except for inflation, remain the same in today’s world.
Don’s last government paycheck
On arrival at Pensacola, my pay was $222.30 per month plus $47.88 per month subsistence. When flight pay started it was $100 per month so that an Ensign student pilot got $370.18 per month. When we retired in 1976, by the grace of congress our pay was $1,655 plus $250 flight pay or $1,905 per month or $22,860 per year. The smartest thing I did was when a flight instructor walked into my BOQ room in Kingsville, TX selling mutual funds, was buy one. For a very long time $100 per month went into a mutual fund. I never saw the $100. It was an allotment from my pay straight to the fund. As a result, while a bachelor at Bermuda I could cash my mid month paycheck at the coffee mess. Remember, after the auto accident, some of my squadron mates said I would probably marry Doris to keep her from suing. As reported earlier...Yes she did, and the money was used for the honeymoon.
Our first house in Meridian in 1961 cost $13,700. Our last condo in Lighthouse Bay cost $160,000. Real estate and mortgage costs have made renting a better deal in most places. For many folks today, the elephant in the room is healthcare. Doris and I In have been most fortunate in that we have supplemental medical insurance that dovetails with Medicare plus a Navy pension. Now, in our old age, that is proving out to be another of the Navy’s legacy. Another part of that legacy is that, like Elvis, after I leave the building, Doris gets my Social Security pay and has a paid up government annuity. She has earned it.