Tag Archives: five dollars

Charcoal

Charcoal: (v) to cook over charcoal.

My dad tried hard.

I didn’t know it at the time–I was a teenager and I thought he was an old man. He was pretty old–older than most of the dads.

Sometimes he would imitate joy over having me as a son. I was usually watching television at the time, and unaffected by his attempts at
conversation. Then, when I needed five dollars to take a girl on a date, he distanced himself from me–protecting his pocketbook.

We never connected. But to his credit, he never stopped trying.

He even decided to go out and buy a really cheap grill from Buckeye Mart, complete with charcoal briquettes and lighting fluid. He was determined to grill hamburgers in our back yard.

He had no experience.

The first half hour was spent trying to figure out how to ignite the charcoal. Then he ended up wasting about two pounds of hamburger because he didn’t know you were supposed to wait until the fire went down. I faithfully stood by his side watching as he told me I would be taking over the grill in just a few moments.

I never did take over the grill.

The charcoal he bought was so cheap it wouldn’t stay lit and the lighter fluid was bargain brand and not very effective.

So at the end of the excursion, my father presented a platter of hamburgers that looked like charcoal briquettes, and some that were still raw.

It was a fiasco.

It would have been fine if he had laughed at himself or admitted his lack of foreknowledge. But he didn’t. He blamed Buckeye Mart for having inferior products and me for not being adequately motivated.

It is not a good memory.

But it does remind me that a sad man–who happened to be my dad–kept trying to please a very bratty son.

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Billion

Billion:(n) one-thousand million.

Dictionary B

I certainly feel that one of the signs of aging is beginning to pine for former times, “when things were better.”

Matter of fact, if one could avoid that nostalgia, he or she could always appear to be contemporary, therefore potentially more youthful.

But somewhere along the line, a little grump appears in the stump speech.

  • You start recalling when candy bars had more nuts in them.
  • Or Coca-Cola cost a mere fraction of what it does now.

I heard one old fellow heave a huge sigh and explain that loaves of bread used to have twenty-three slices, and now a mere nineteen. (Who has time to count bread??)

I avoid this kind of activity like the true plague it is. It is certainly the moss growing on a crumbling tombstone.

Yet…I do have to admit that I am curious about when a million dollars stopped being a lot of money.

Matter of fact, the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” might just evoke the response from the common man, “It’s a good place to start…”

I believe this was all caused by the introduction of the word “billion.”

I remember as a kid, “billion” was something you said when referring to an idea existing somewhere beyond the stars. Matter of fact, when you said it, you’d giggle.

“Maybe we could get a billion of ’em! Ha-ha-ha.”

Now we spend a billion dollars on toothpicks in the mess hall on army bases. (Don’t hold me to that stat. I’m just attempting irony.)

We even have people who are billionaires.

This isn’t right.

I don’t mind people having money; I just don’t know if you need a billion of it.

Somewhere along the line, to cease the insane greed for more and more material goods, we have to calm down the language of covetousness.

We need to teach our children the simplicity of enjoying five dollars because they fully understand … the complexity of earning it.

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