December 5, 1964
Yay! It’s snowing! It’s also 12:30, but who cares? We’ve got about 3 inches already. Oh, the silent beauty of the first snow - untouched by snowplows, shovels and booted feet. I got $3.50 at the Os which drags me up to $20.35 - not bad!
Somehow, as I see those innumerable tiny flakes swirling down, I can’t think about money at all.
I went to the dentist and found I have three cavities - rats! They’s all small, though. I hope it’s a Merry, Merry Christmas.
December 5, 2022
Once again, I am caught between the mundane and the sublime. Snow-money-snow-cavities-Christmas, all in the course of ten sentences. My mind is still a bit like that, my writing less so (thank goodness).
To dispense with 2/3 of the topics, I still love snow, and I haven’t had a cavity in years.
I used to get a small amount of spending money, starting at ten cents a week when I was seven. This money could be used for whatever I wanted: candy, comic books, going to the movies. When I started high school and was old enough to babysit, I was put on a clothing allowance instead. My parents continued to pay for shoes, underwear and warm coats and jackets, but I was responsible for everything else. My clothing allowance was $5 a month. It’s a big reason I learned how to sew; back then it was actually economical to make my own clothes. Besides, at 5’9””, I was finding it hard to find clothes that fit. My babysitting efforts paid for the non-clothing everything elses, which in November and December was mostly Christmas gifts. The neighbors who paid me $3.50 for six and a half hours were my best and more frequent customers. Most families paid $1-1.25 an hour. The Os were my favorites for other reasons: they stayed out much later than most people and lived right across the street, so I never needed a ride home. Our town was pretty rural, and being driven home by a tipsy dad was never fun.
Pro writing tip: if you ever need an example of a non sequitur, hoping for a Merry Christmas right after giving a dental health update will certainly do.