{"id":1180,"date":"2014-06-13T10:56:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T15:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2014-06-15T15:52:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T20:52:19","slug":"dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1180","title":{"rendered":"Dad"},"content":{"rendered":"\"My<\/a>\n

A story about my father on Father\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

I was seventeen and wanted to buy a Fender Rhodes electric piano.\u00a0 One problem.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have the cash to buy it outright.\u00a0 And since I wasn\u2019t eighteen I\u2019d need Dad to sign the papers so I could finance the purchase.<\/p>\n

Know this.\u00a0 I was a hard worker.\u00a0 The day I turned 15 I started working as a stock boy in the linen department of the Maison Blanche just up the road from East Jefferson High School.\u00a0 I took other jobs too.\u00a0 Worked at a health club out at the lake front.\u00a0 Worked as a greenskeeper at City Park Golf couse.\u00a0 I was no slouch.\u00a0 I was a hard worker.\u00a0 At least I felt I was.<\/p>\n

I remember making my case.\u00a0 I forget whether it was at home or\u00a0in the car.\u00a0 That was where my Dad and I had a lot of our best conversations \u2013 either in the den of our house with Dad on\u00a0the LazyBoy and me on the rattan couch or the two of us sitting (unbuckled) on the felt bench seat of a Ford Fairlane.<\/p>\n

I laid it all out.\u00a0 I had nearly one hundred dollars, good for well over twenty percent of the purchase price.\u00a0 How I\u2019d save money over the coming months and make the monthly payment.\u00a0 How I\u2019d finance the ongoing expenses.\u00a0 How I\u2019d save for this and spend for that.<\/p>\n

I was thorough.\u00a0 I was confident.\u00a0 I had it all figured out.<\/p>\n

I could tell Dad was genuinely interested in what I was saying.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t much interested in the substance of it all but seemed fascinated in what I was trying to accomplish, and how I thought I could make it work.\u00a0 But Dad, being Dad, couldn\u2019t help but probe and test in a number of different areas.<\/p>\n

Did I really think that spending all this for an electric piano was the best thing I could do with the money?\u00a0 Were there any other alternatives?\u00a0 Would I actually follow up and dedicate time to playing the piano and making it all pay off?\u00a0 Did I really think there was any future or benefit in playing in a band?\u00a0 Would I devote time and energy to make it successful?\u00a0 And if I thought I could, how was I going to do that and still work, be a member of umpteen social organizations, stay on the high school golf team and meet the other obligations that I already was having a hard time meeting?<\/p>\n

As usual, Dad was cutting to the heart of issues I was ill prepared for.<\/p>\n

And the more Dad pushed, prodded and probed the more testy I became.\u00a0 Finally, there seemed to be nothing left of the logic or practicality of my plan.\u00a0 My beloved Fender Rhodes was quickly becoming an empty, silly, foolish exercise.\u00a0 So I blurted out:<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, Dad, I\u2019m paying for all this.\u00a0 It is my money and it is what I want to do. \u00a0I\u2019m paying for it.\u00a0 I\u2019m working for it.\u00a0 I\u2019m not asking you for a handout.\u00a0 Besides, it is not going to cost you anything.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Dad smiled.\u00a0 Dad smiled a grin that at the same time expressed both admiration and pity.<\/p>\n

I could tell that he was delighted by my drive and independence.\u00a0 But I also knew from his face that he was disappointed that I was missing something very fundamental.\u00a0 There was something I wasn\u2019t getting.\u00a0 Something very basic that Dad had hoped I would understand, but I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Dad went quiet.<\/p>\n

Then he smiled at me and said in a very deliberate but kind and loving tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSon, let me explain something to you.\u00a0 It is all<\/strong> my money.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that to make you feel bad, or to make me feel good.\u00a0 It is just the way it is.<\/em><\/p>\n

You may think that you\u2019d be paying for this.\u00a0 That\u2019s not quite right.\u00a0 Whatever you spend, your Mom and I have to make up for somewhere else.\u00a0 Whatever you spend on this is money that you don\u2019t spend on something else … car insurance, school expenses, clothes \u2026 the list can get pretty long.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now I want to help. \u00a0 I admire that you want to work and earn and save money to make it happen.\u00a0 But don\u2019t ever think that when you spend money on something like this it isn\u2019t costing other people money.\u00a0 It is.\u00a0 It always does.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the biggest mistakes is to think you are independent, that what you do doesn\u2019t affect someone else.\u00a0 It does.\u00a0 Especially when it comes to family, time and money.\u00a0 Because what you spend in one place, is something that you don’t spend in another place. \u00a0It’s all one.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course Dad was right.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t close to being self-sufficient.\u00a0 And our family wasn\u2019t wealthy.\u00a0 I was a young, dependent child with the fantasy of making one transaction \u201cindependent\u201d of everything else.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n

My Dad\u2019s line \u2013 it is ALL my money \u2013 taught me a lot about life. \u00a0It was a recognition that things are always more linked and related than people think.\u00a0 People imagine being able to isolate or compartmentalize themselves and their actions.\u00a0 Being \u201cownable\u201d only to themselves.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t work that way.\u00a0 One action almost always impacts or influences something else.<\/p>\n

Dad had the same view about family and faith.<\/p>\n

Family is recognizing that everything you do affects the family members\u00a0around you. \u00a0Everything.<\/p>\n

And faith means that every day is a gift not a right; every action, a blessing not an achievement.<\/p>\n

Thanks, Dad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A story about my father on Father\u2019s Day. I was seventeen and wanted to buy a Fender Rhodes electric piano.\u00a0 One problem.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have the cash to buy it outright.\u00a0 And since I wasn\u2019t eighteen I\u2019d need Dad to sign the papers so I could finance the purchase. Know this.\u00a0 I was a hard…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}