What the Hell Would I Do With A Million Dollars?

Innocent Enthusiasm 

It was the 1960s. 

Watching television, I was sitting on the floor near my father's recliner, his typical evening TV-viewing spot in the living room. Mother sat in her chair across the room. Both parents would have been reading, working crossword puzzles, or doing handiwork while the evening programs aired. 

I was in my late adolescence - that delightful pause between impressionable and curious and not yet jaded or disappointed by anything life might rain down upon one. 

Living in the States ten miles from the Canadian border, we picked up three grainy stations from our neighbors to the north on a black-and-white television. This was long before mobile phones, the Internet, and computers. Advertised in a commercial on one of the Canadian stations we happened to be watching was a sweepstakes with a grand prize of $1,000,000.

Money was never a topic of conversation in our family. I was ignorant about anything financial aside from my nominal weekly allowance. Nevertheless, a million dollars sounded like a lot of money to this naïve Midwestern kid.

"Dad, you could win a million dollars," I piped up excitedly. 

His reply resonates with me today as if heard only yesterday: "What the hell would I do with a million dollars?"

I had no idea. What would a person do with that sum? I didn't reply. In that era, children didn't question their parents anyhow, not that I was particularly interested in the subject. But I clearly understood that accumulating money was not an important goal in life. 

Witnessed Values

I'm grateful for having been raised with this perspective about money from a young age. The idea of becoming "rich" never crossed my gray matter. Throughout my adult working life, I have been fortunate to earn substantial sums, but at other times, I have barely eked out an existence. 

Regardless of my situation, wealth accumulation neither mattered nor appealed to me. Whether I died rich or as a pauper has always been irrelevant. As I grew older, I began to avoid friends and colleagues whose focus was money, money, money.

My core values were entrenched from that interaction with my father, along with the years of my youthful upbringing.

I recall my parents' generosity and donations. The Community Chest (precursor to the United Way charity) chap came by annually. My father sat at his desk and wrote out a check. Every Sunday, another went into the wee white sealed envelope for the church donation. Other contributions for church and charitable community endeavors were a given. My parents were among the first to lend a hand if any neighbors needed aid. Never were the amounts, or the deeds, discussed or commented upon.

It was simply how life was lived.

My parents reared five children, at times under challenging circumstances during the Great Depression long before my birth. Though still not well-off when my brother and I were raised later after three older sisters had flown the coop to college or marriage, never once did I hear a discussion about money. 

As a result, I grew up with no fear or angst related to material comforts or the almighty dollar. This engendered my philosophy throughout my life: There will always be enough, at least if you believe it.

Walking the Walk

In college, I took several accounting courses and handled the bookkeeping for my then part-time employer, a grocery store owner. During this same period, I prepared my parents' income tax returns. One year, being quite proud of myself for doing what accountants are supposed to do, i.e., reducing tax liability, I proudly announced to my father that I had saved them X dollars in taxes.

His response was, "Are you sure I'm paying enough?" The idea of trying to cheat the government or not paying his fair share of owed taxes was tantamount to theft.

In many decades of work thereafter in various professions, I cannot recall a single person lamenting that they didn't pay enough in income taxes. 

That was my father's personality and my parents' value system, which I admired and respected. I hope that I have, in some small measure, adopted their same attitudes and priorities.

Your time is valuable. I'm honored you chose to spend some of it here. Victoria😎🙏

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