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The Choice

Life is about choices isn’t it? With every choice we make, there comes a consequence. It could be good. It could be bad. Action, reaction. Yen and Yang.

When I was a kid and I wanted something that was above and beyond asking for, I worked for it. I earned it.

If we had a surplus in our garden I was allowed to pick it and sell it in town. I’d go door to door asking whoever opened it, if they were interested in the produce I had loaded in the back of our truck.

Then when I was 14, I landed a job in a clothing store on Main Street in town. I earned $4 a day plus one half of one percent of my monthly sales.

The summer after I finished high school, I worked in a clock factory earning $1.50 an hour.

When the fall of 1970 arrived, I had scrimped and saved enough to attend school at The University of Southern Mississippi that was 165 miles away. My parents surprised me when they dropped me off in front of my dorm. My father handed me a check that was enough to cover most of the first quarter’s tuition that was just over $300.

I was shocked and hesitant to take it, but he insisted. I knew that was a lot of money to him. Aside from an occasional five dollar bill tucked into a letter from my mother that was all there was.

I lucked up and got a job working in the university’s library fifteen hours a week. I discovered there was an affluent neighborhood near campus and those folks didn’t mind hiring an aspiring college student to do their yard work. I was the only kid in the dorm that had a yard rake perched in the corner of his dorm room.

I was at USM for two years when I realized I wouldn’t have enough money for the third year. So I decided to transfer to Mississippi State University. It was close enough to home that I could commute. Still I was lacking funds for a whole year. So I went to the student aid office and tried to get a loan on my own.

I discovered that the paperwork required my parents to fill out forms about their income and assets. The income would have been easy. There wasn’t much. I knew that. However I hit a wall when I was reading over the form concerning assets.

That would have meant them putting up the farm, livestock and equipment as collateral. I just couldn’t do that.

It was at that moment I remembered something my father had always drilled into my head. Never buy something you can’t pay for and be careful what you own because it could own you.

The paperwork went into the trash.

That year I worked in the university’s Special Collections Department on the second floor of the library. On weekends I worked at the clothing store I’d worked at during high school and I also helped out at a rural water association.

By that time my father was battling cancer and my mother was battling depression. So I was trying to take care of them and the farm.

At the end of my third year I ended up with a B average. I don’t know how.

I barely had enough money to fill up my gas tank. I knew a fourth year wasn’t in the cards. So what did I do?

Plan B. Always have a plan B.

I quit school, got a job working construction and didn’t look back. For the most part I worked manual labor until I was 63 when the mill I was working at closed down.

Never did a bill go unpaid or a payment missed. We never bought something we couldn’t pay for and I always remembered my father’s advice, be careful what you own. It could own you.

Why have I shared all this? I share this in light of all that has been going on lately.

I never wanted a handout. I never expected one. I wanted to pay my own way. Of all the legal documents I signed over the years I never expected or received an escape clause.

Would I have taken one? Sure! I most definitely would have. But only if I had earned it and never at someone else’s expense.

If I wasn’t willing to let my parents risk their home and farm to finish college, I wouldn’t take food off someone else’s table.

Remember this, There’s no such thing as a free puppy. There are always hidden costs and someone has to pay.

You have a choice. Choose wisely.

_______________
Rick Algood
September 2, 2015

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