An Only Slightly Fictionalized Memory

The Early Years (Savings)

Savings – how can I forget savings! I always had a piggy bank. Any money I got – birthday presents, BINGO and 31 (a card game like blackjack that we played with my dad and his friends). All of it had to go into my piggy bank. My dad would stake the kids, and he pretended not to see my hand reach over and slide some of his change towards me when I lost my pot. I always ended up with money; I was not allowed to spend it. I look back and see a powerful message – I start out with money, I can always get more, I always end up with money, and I have to save it. I lived my life that way until two years ago. Six months after my mother died I purchased a house on a hill with a Bay view – much more fitting my income than the adequate, comfortable, modest house I had lived in in East Oakland. A few months after that, I bought a Volvo – an upgrade from my fourteen-year-old Honda.