My Dad was a cheapskate. He was more than thrifty. “It’s his way, my mother would say to excuse his perniciousness which hurt me and curbed my enthusiasm for events and opportunities, field trips as a child. In my parents’ defense, he was the sole breadwinner, a public school employee, an institution with salaries renowned for being lower than in private industry. To their credit, they also established college funds for each of the four children.
Cheapskate is a very informal word always used negatively, always an insult.
Because my dad grew up on a farm during the Depression, that’s not the source of his thriftiness. The family thrived on its huge vegetable garden and my grandmother kept chickens so they ate chicken and enjoyed farm-fresh eggs. There was a dairy cow for milk and pigs to be butchered for bacon. A life of contentment and relative luxury while most people suffered through food kitchen lines.
My mother’s parents were school administrators during that Depression, so they, too, were always paid.
It was a control thing, me thinks. He famously didn’t allow my mother to work outside the home, despite her college degree. He made the money so he could mandate how it was spent. Miserly like Scrooge, he was stingy. He once won a beautiful blue Schwinn, perfect for me to ride to the country store or a friend’s house. But – no! The bicycle rusted away in a storage unit, not winning anyone anything.
Perhaps a wee bit narcissistic, perhaps a bit possessive of what he had earned.
Nevertheless, he was a jolly man, quick to quip and laugh. From him, I inherited freckles and a give for limericks and puns.
Recent Comments