Memory of Grampa Jenkins
Jun. 26th, 2013 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captain_slinkyMy maternal grandfather, Gordon Jenkins, was one of the greatest characters I've ever met. This is a short remembrance of him that just hit me out of nowhere last night.
Grampa Jenkins was always looking to get rich quick. His mailbox was constantly FULL of sweepstakes entries, contest forms and chain letters that PROMISED him up to $10,000 is he would just mail a dollar to each of the 10 people at the top of this list and then send similar letters to ten of his own friends with HIS name at the top. I think I may have been the only one of his grandkids that took any interest in these get-rich-quick schemes, which is why he shared a secret with me one day.
One day when I was maybe 10 or 11, back in his wood shop where he made all sorts of toys and clocks and tables and everything, he told me to "C'mere" because he wanted to show me something. From under his workbench somewhere, he pulled out a metal can about the size of a pop can. "This is it" he whispered. He excitedly/conspiratorialy told me a pretty long story regarding the value of a Nickel, how it used to buy him a double-feature movie with popcorn and a soda-pop and a Hershey's bar the size of your head, and how he had seen on TV a story from a get-rich-quick guy all about how this guy had started small just by saving Nickels and before he knew it he was a MILLIONAIRE, so he had been saving his Nickels for a YEAR now and *shake shake shake* the can was full! Time to count our fortune! We opened the can, poured it out on the workbench and counted it all up... it was just over four dollars.
A tense moment passed as we both just stared at the coins. Then he spoke, with no change in his shocked/disappointed facial expression:
"Damnit".
I don't know what lesson I learned from that episode, but it's stuck with me all these years :)
Grampa Jenkins was always looking to get rich quick. His mailbox was constantly FULL of sweepstakes entries, contest forms and chain letters that PROMISED him up to $10,000 is he would just mail a dollar to each of the 10 people at the top of this list and then send similar letters to ten of his own friends with HIS name at the top. I think I may have been the only one of his grandkids that took any interest in these get-rich-quick schemes, which is why he shared a secret with me one day.
One day when I was maybe 10 or 11, back in his wood shop where he made all sorts of toys and clocks and tables and everything, he told me to "C'mere" because he wanted to show me something. From under his workbench somewhere, he pulled out a metal can about the size of a pop can. "This is it" he whispered. He excitedly/conspiratorialy told me a pretty long story regarding the value of a Nickel, how it used to buy him a double-feature movie with popcorn and a soda-pop and a Hershey's bar the size of your head, and how he had seen on TV a story from a get-rich-quick guy all about how this guy had started small just by saving Nickels and before he knew it he was a MILLIONAIRE, so he had been saving his Nickels for a YEAR now and *shake shake shake* the can was full! Time to count our fortune! We opened the can, poured it out on the workbench and counted it all up... it was just over four dollars.
A tense moment passed as we both just stared at the coins. Then he spoke, with no change in his shocked/disappointed facial expression:
"Damnit".
I don't know what lesson I learned from that episode, but it's stuck with me all these years :)
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Date: 2013-06-28 05:44 am (UTC)He needed to step up his game. My mother liked to tell a story about how, when I was 5, she noticed that I went into their bedroom every morning and picked up change off the floor where my father had dropped it. She followed me back to my secret stash in my closet and I had a jar with, turns out, about $75 in change. So I guess the secret to making your fortune is to follow someone who drops money all the time.