Bringing Home the Duncan Phyfe: Chapter 11

"Saving Up"

When I taught English (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away), I sometimes used "what ifs" to help students start creative assignments. All fantasy and science fiction starts with a magic "what if?"

There is a huge “what if” that recent generations seldom imagine. This “what if” was very vivid to my parents and to their parents and grandparents. It goes something like this:

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“What if… everything you've used as collateral for a loan or anything you have in your possession that's not yet fully paid for... had to be put in your front yard and a collection agency came and said, ‘Pay off this debt now or we take it away?’” This “what if” could be about mortgages on farms or homes, loans on cars—anything purchased on credit. Baby Boomers and all the generations to follow are thinking, "Wait a minute. That can’t happen. They can’t do that.” But those who lived through the Great Depression are thinking, “That’s not a ‘what if.’ That’s an ‘I remember when.’”

Take, for instance, that new Firestone refrigerator my parents bought in April of 1951. Today's consumer would pull out the plastic and rationalize using the credit card this way: "If I'm confident that can save enough money to buy this unit in six months, why not take it home now and pay it off over time?" People with good credit do this all the time, and it makes sense in many cases--especially on necessities (like a refrigerator) or items that hold their value.

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My father, however, and many people of his generation, did not want to owe anybody anything. For some, it was a matter of pride. To Dad it was also a matter of fear. The kind of fear you don't talk about. The kind based on experiences you'd rather forget...

like walking home from school as a small boy to see all of your household furniture on the front lawn and your mother and older sister sitting on the front porch crying and your mom looking up and saying, "We lost the house." You don't talk about things like that. You just look for the box that has your stuff in it and ask, "Do I get to keep this?" And deep down inside, you begin to hate not knowing when something is really yours.
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So Dad and Mom were big on saving up to buy things, and in time they passed it on to us kids. "It's half the fun of owning something," Dad once told me. "If we could just go out and buy anything we want whenever we want it, we'd never learn to choose between things that matter and things we'd tire of in a week. Think of it like this, Tom. If you start saving for something and a month later decide to save for something else...that's okay. At least you didn't waste your money on something you really didn't want that much. That's one of the best things about 'saving up.' The other good thing is the feeling you get when you pay for what you've saved for and know it's yours."

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For my folks in that first year, "Paying as you go" meant driving a '39 Ford with "round" lines and dull paint while some friends were driving the flashiest new car designs ever to roll off a Detroit assembly line. It meant a wedding night at Aunt Edith's house; coming home to tiny upstairs flat and a bed bought from Dad's third grade teacher; laughing with friends when the spring popped through the center cushion of the couch from Dad's cousin. It meant talking about hamburger as if it were a fine cut of steak... it meant a wooden ice box on the apartment stoop until the day they walked into Star Oil with all the cash in hand. But it also meant feeling rich enough to have a butler as Dad poured "M'lady" a glass of milk from their new, paid-for refrigerator.

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Saving up is a lot like the joy and intimacy of marriage itself. It's not just the getting of something that matters; it's the wanting it enough to sacrifice for it and wait 'til it's rightly yours.

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During this frugal time of life, however, Dad had a secret. From the day he started working at Bell Telephone (two years before their wedding), he was doing two things on a regular basis: (1)he was buying shares of AT&T stock and (2) putting money into the Telephone Employees Credit Union. They had a regular banking account, too, but he started a nest egg where all the pole climbers, and wire pullers, and phone repairmen, and switchboard operators put their savings. He liked what the pamphlet said when he made his first deposit:

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“The purpose of this credit union shall be to encourage thrift among its members…and provide an opportunity for its members to use and control their own money on a democratic basis in order to improve their economic and social condition.”

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Dad liked the sound of that. He was "saving up" for a dream.

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Note: It is sheer coincidence that this is Chapter 11, a term used to describe a bankrupt business that is allowed to continue operating in spite of failed credit and unpaid debts.