50 Years They Grieved

 I never met my older brother Robert Jr. He died in the early 1950s, before I was born. I asked my mother about him only one time. She looked sad and said, 'It was something they’d just give you a shot for now.' 

She and my father grieved my brother, their firstborn child, for fifty years—until the day they died.

I am ok. I got that shot. But today, when Trump cancels mRNA research, blocks cancer studies, and dismantles USAID, he is not abstractly stalling science or halting aid. He is in reality choosing death for children, grief for parents.

We must find a way. Or fifty years from now, how many young mothers and fathers will still grieve - because we failed to act when we could?

--- Randy Winn, West Seattle

Thanks, Pete!

My first full-time job in the private sector was in the 1980s, as a computer programmer for Coleco Industries of West Hartford, Connecticut - the Cabbage Patch Kids company. Our systems analyst’s name was Pete, and our senior programmer was also named Pete. I don’t think I was hired just because my name is not Pete, but it may have helped.

Every year we got forms to fill out concerning how much of our pay to put into a defined contribution retirement plan. One of the Petes asked me how much I was putting in. I said, “I'm gonna put that off for another year. Right now, I’m just making expenses but I’m sure I’ll get a raise next year and I’ll save most of that.”

“Randy, that will never happen. Your lifestyle will always rise to match your paycheck,” said one of the Petes. “When you get a bigger paycheck, you’ll find more to spend it on.”

I bristled inside. I knew in my heart that I had all the virtues and was a mountain of self-discipline. I definitely would save prudently when the time came … just not now.

Pete quietly said, “They match your contribution. 100% match for the first 3%.”

That got my attention. Free money got my attention. I signed up for the max.

Years went by. I got raises, but Pete was right: my lifestyle expanded to fit my paycheck. There was always an opportunity, a need, or just a chance to enjoy life a little that coincidentally fit the amount of money I had saved at the credit union. That mountain of self-discipline was a comforting illusion, good for my ego but not so good for my savings.

Then came the housing industry collapse around 2008. This was a tragedy for millions or maybe tens of millions who lost everything, but for me it was an opportunity to stop paying rent and start paying a mortgage - therefore building equity. I had not been willing to risk my retirement savings on the theory that housing prices would keep climbing - I knew from experience it ain’t necessarily so - but buying into a depressed market was attractive.

And … it was possible only because of that 3% every paycheck going into an account.

(The full story is more complicated due to employer changes, but just roll with it, ok?)

I pulled out enough for down payment, paid taxes and penalties, and moved into the house I live in today. After refinancing during the 2020 collapse, I am now paying less for my 4-bedroom house than I would pay to rent a 1-bedroom apartment 3 blocks from here.

The lesson I’d like to pass on is not that you should hope for financial collapse. That is a bad plan for many reasons.

I feel that waiting until you make enough money to start saving is not going to happen. There will always be something else to spend on - especially if you have kids or other responsibilities.

What might work is to take that money out of your paycheck before you see it, and adjust your lifestyle to what you got left. Nothing in life is certain, but this worked for me and might work for you.

I appreciate that too many people are working too many hours for too little pay to get by, and I don't have an answer for that. But if you can put that 3% away before it hits your paycheck ... and especially if you have employer match ... it might pay off for you as it did for me.

I have lost track of most of my Coleco buddies, but I owe them this: Thank you, Pete, wherever you are. And whichever one you were!

How To Get Flowers Without Making Your Wishes Known

She wanted cut flowers, and she did not want to say it; her husband was just supposed to know.
He had never thought much of cut flowers; to his way of thinking, they lasted a few days, and died, generating waste. He preferred live plants, and would take her to nurseries where she pointed at something and he bought whatever it was. But, really, she wanted cut flowers, maybe once a week, to put in a glass vase on a table in the kitchen or on the coffee table, like they did in classy homes.
She found someone to buy her flowers, a regular customer at her workplace. The flowers looked nice on her desk and she hadn't have to tell anyone what she wanted. Soon they were dating, very discreetly at lunchtime and on weekends when she told her husband she was going shopping for women's things. There were several years of this, and then she discovered he had a wife. He told her that it was o.k., his own wife was fine with an open marriage, but she knew that it was not right to be the other woman unless you ended up married, like her mother had done.
She broke it off. She was sad, really sad, and her husband noticed. He took her to  a nursery where they spent a lot of money on plants that he still has today, and still enjoys. Eventually she divorced him and she never had to tell him about the cut flowers.
She died alone. At her funeral there were lots of cut flowers, huge sprays in her favorite colors, which goes to show the lengths it takes to get what you want if you aren't willing to say anything about it.
#microbio

Jimmy: The First Friend

From preschool to 2nd grade I played with a boy down the street named Jimmy. We built a rocket launching station next to the Bernard and Marie's cow pond, where out space probes could splash down, solemnly pondering the advantages of solid vs. liquid fuel in the rocket we would build and the adequacy of a pot lid as a radar dish.
He had cooler toys and I was embarrassed when as a teenager his mother brought home a lamp from the lingerie section of the store at which she worked. It was a section of a female body wearing leopard-print briefs and lit from within, and image that convinced me this was a family of wealth although in retrospect the fact that they were a four member family in a two bedroom house would suggest otherwise.
We gradually parted ways when I went off to school. We briefly reconnected over the internet, but he was a rabid Reaganite and soon unfriended me.