“When I moved back to my hometown after a brutal breakdown in my marriage, I stayed with my folks.
I was 36 when I moved back to Iowa, after being away for 20 years. I visited occasionally, but I lived in the south and their home was in the Midwest, so it wasn’t often.
Mom and Dad gave us the best childhoods anyone could want. We were a paycheck-to-paycheck family and what would be considered poor, but we never knew it. Dad made wooden furniture in the basement for our Barbie dolls every Christmas. Mom sewed Barbie clothes on an old machine in her bedroom. Our house was the favorite place to play Barbies when our cousins were around. We had the neatest stuff to do it.
I never heard my parents argue about money. My siblings are older than me, and they say it happened. It would be surprising if they didn’t; most couples do. My Dad was custodian of the elementary school and mom worked as a clerk at one of the town’s grocery stores.
While I was adjusting to my new situation, Mom and Dad took care of me. Ok, they spoiled me. I wasn’t unable to get a place of my own and I just hadn’t yet decided where to land.
I tried to give the folks money and they refused. “You need to hang onto that money, you may need it,” Dad would say.
I took the long way in doing it, but I settled in my hometown. Jobs were scarce. I bought one of the local bars. Owning a bar is a cash business. I always had cash on me and I decided to spread some around.
I ate lunch at the folks’ house almost every day. Once a week, I hid a couple of hundred-dollar bills around the house. I would put one in the freezer, inside a dish, or on the piano keys for Mom to find.
Both were retired and Dad had decided to help Mom by doing all of the dirty dishes every day. He found hundred-dollar bills inside stacked dishes and coffee cups, tied around the dish soap and under his pillow. They got the biggest kick out of this. However, I think that I enjoyed it the most.”