Dad's Root Fear

The other night as I washed up the supper dishes, I caught myself scrubbing out a used sandwich baggie and realized that was something my Dad used to do. As I clipped it to a clothespin to dry, I chuckled, thinking the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.

OK, I’ll admit it. Daddy was a tightwad. And people say I take after him, so I’m sure I inherited some of his stinginess.
At any rate, there I was re-using this old baggie, and I started to ponder the roots of Dad’s crazy penchant for penny-pinching.
Victor Robert Schoen was born in 1929, living his first years as the Great Depression bore down relentlessly on America. As an impressionable child, what fear and desperation did he and others of his generation witness and absorb during that terrible era? I can only imagine, but I’m sure it’s something you never get over.
Maybe that’s why his whole life, despite his respectable bank balance and his standing in the community, he continued to do things like pull apart two-ply Kleenexes, carefully saving one ply for later. He also wore the same pair of jeans for decades until they were practically as thin as that half-a-Kleenex!
Maybe fear of being without is what compelled him to use out-of-date salad dressing and casually pull meat out of the freezer that’d been stored there for years.
I’ll never forget the time he came over for dinner, and I was chopping up some vegetables and throwing out the ends and rotten parts into the compost bin. He stuck his hand in the garbage, pulled out some pitiful scrap of something and said, “Look – it’s perfectly fine!” And ate it. That’s my Daddy!

“It’s perfectly fine” has become a catch-phrase for when I’m showing signs of becoming miserly in the extremis.
But don’t think I had Ebenezer Scrooge for a father! He had his generous moments. And being tight-fisted was only one of his many traits. He was also creative, witty and intelligent. And much of his thrift makes good sense to me now, especially in this age of re-use and recycle. Heck, I wouldn’t think of throwing out a pump-bottle of lotion without cutting it in half to get out the last remains. (Do you know how much is left in there? I’m on week two of “empty bottle.”)
We all make our own way in this world, but sometimes our similarities to our parents are hard to ignore. God forbid the economy ever gets as bad as it did back in ’29, but if it does, I hope that my instinct will be to act out of optimism and compassion, not fear of loss and deprivation.

Rest his soul, my father passed away just over five years ago. But every day I’m reminded of the little things he did. Not all good or all bad, just uniquely ... Daddy.
Playlist:
1. Daddy – Julie London
2. Thrifty – Napoleon Dynamite Soundtrack
3. Kid Fears – Indigo Girls
4. Patches – Clarence Carter
5. Cat’s in the Cradle – Harry Chapin
6. Daughters – John Mayer
7. Keep It Between the Lines – Ricky Van Shelton
8. Father and Son – Cat Stevens
9. Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast – Eddy Arnold
10. Old Man – Neil Young