When I was a kid

When I was a very young boy, my brother and I were awful. We were so bad in the grocery store, our mother mostly refused to go with us. Consequently, my father took us to the store after payday every two weeks. He would usually buy us a large, one pound or so bag of hard candy for my brother and I to share after we got home. He pretty much left it up to us to eat what we wanted right away or save some for later, knowing we wouldn't get another bag for two more weeks.

Some years later my mother was ready for delivery with my sister, so my father's mother came to stay with us for a while to help my mother with the new baby and to watch me and my brother. Friday evening was payday and we went to the store and as usual my father bought a big bag of candy. However, when we got home from the store, my grandmother opened the bag of candy and gave me and my brother one piece each, saying she would dole it out one piece per day and that way it would last the whole two weeks. Neither me nor my brother said anything at the time and while my father heard the rules she had devised, he said nothing either. My mother was in the hospital because in those days women often stayed in the hospital for about 5 days when they had a child even with a normal delivery. Monday, my father went off to work leaving me and my brother in the care of grandmother. And, Monday's was washday. We did not have an automatic washing machine but an outside building that included two very large concrete wash basins with built-in washboards. Grandmother was in the wash house scrubbing the clothes when my brother and I devised a plan. (We were 4 and 5 years old at the time.) One of us would slam and lock the door and the other would knock the board that propped the wooden window open and lock it also from the outside. Then, we ran back into the house and dragged a dining chair to the refrigerator to reach the bag of candy on top of the refrigerator where grandmother had put it after Saturday's and Sunday's allotment of candy. We could hear grandmother yelling, "Boys! Unlock the door!" Nothing doing, we were working on the bag of candy. Of course, we didn't stop until the bag was empty. Still, we didn't dare open the door to the wash house. All day she was cooped up in the wash house. I don't remember if we even had electricity to that building back then. Finally, about 4:30 PM my father came home from work. "Boys, where is your grandmother?" he demanded. About that time grandmother heard noises and started yelling. He opened the door and she was really mad. She demanded that he whip us for locking her in the wash house and not letting her out all day. But my father must have reasoned that he shared some responsibility for what had happened because he had not spoke up when she laid down the new rules for the distribution of the candy. He didn't whip us but told us that what we did was wrong and that we should tell grandmother we were sorry. Our daddy was like that. He loved us and always tried to teach us. I'm not sure grandmother ever forgave us for that stunt, but the story was told over and over as we were growing up. I'll never forget it.

Another story that I remember involved smoking. When we were very young, my father smoked. However, when his gums began to bleed and his dentist told him that his smoking was contributing to the cause of the bleeding, he quit cold turkey. He never smoked another cigarette in his life. Back then, in the mid 40s, I don't think there was any talk of the dangers of smoking. Whenever someone would come to visit at our house, most friends of my parents knew that they did not smoke and if they had a lit cigarette when they got out of the car, they would usually flip it into the yard before going in the house. Of course my brother and I would wait for the door to close and run around to the front yard, pick up the burning cigarette and then take it to the backyard for a couple of puffs.
One day (again, we were both very young, maybe still 5 or 6 years old at the most), my father told us of an incentive plan to NOT smoke. He promised to give us each $100 if we did not smoke until we were 21 years old. $100 was a lot of money back then and this was quite an incentive not to smoke and we agreed to the plan. However, when we were alone and talked about the plan, we said, "why didn't he tell us sooner?", thinking we had already violated the terms of the plan by sneaking a few puffs before he had even told us of the plan. Later in life when I would tell my friends about he plan, they would invariably say they wished their parents would make them a similar offer. I really did worry about the deception for many years but didn't take up smoking even occassionally until I was in about the 10th grade. After a best friend's mother happened to mention to my mother that she was impressed how long I had not been influenced to start smoking like her son. However, when my mother asked her direct if I smoked in her presence, she said that I did. My mother said she did not want me sneaking around to smoke and that if I was going to smoke, she would rather I did it openly. Of course, I took this as an opportunity to openly smoke in my room at home, realizing that I could have never collected on the $100 dollar offer anyway because I had taken those first puffs before the incentive plan was ever offered. However, I did quit smoking when I was about 21 and can't stand to be around people who are inconsiderate smokers. Similarly, my brother did not collect on the $100 offer either, but my sister and, I think, both of younger brothers that came after my sister all were incented to never start the habit and they did collect $100 when they were 21. By the way, I made a similar offer of $1000 to each of my daughters being careful to make the offer well before they had an opportunity to sneak a puff and develop a feeling of guilt that surely my father would have excepted if only I had the courage to tell him about the incident(s) prior to the offer being made. By the way both of my girls collected the $1000 offer and neither of them ever smoked a single cigarette as far as I know. For sure, neither of them took up smoking.

Another story involved my father trying to teach me and my brother the value of money. From the very beginning, my father opened savings accounts for each of us in our own names. My father had a safe deposit box at the bank and would take us with him to go into the safe deposit vault at least once a year to deposit a $25 savings bond that we got for our birthday. We also got a weekly allowance and were expected to save a portion of the allowance, depositing it at the savings and loan and getting our passbooks updated. Then, several months before Thanksgiving one year, my father bought two baby ducks, one for me and one for my brother. We were to take care of them and feed them and the deal was that my father would buy the biggest, fattest duck and we would have it for Thanksgiving. The loser had to wait until Christmas to sell his duck. Of course, there was a compitition between me and my brother with me usually managing to keep my brother's duck from the feed until mine had eaten his fill. Consequently, my duck was the fattest by Thanksgiving and I got my money first. Nevermind that we were eating my "pet". That never crossed my mind. It was strictly business as far as I was concerned. Later, the animal compitition was upgraded to dairy calves. But this time, the objective was to raise the calf until it was old enough to be bred by a neighbor's beef type bull (usually a herford or a black angus) and the cow would have a calf and we would sell the excess milk and eventually sell the calf to my father who would have it butchered and put in the freezer for steaks and Sunday roasts. Again, the proceeds for at least the calves went into our savings accounts. We weren't allowed to blow it on foolish stuff. Then, one day, my father came to us with an offer to buy a vacant lot next to the property my father owned. The land had become available and he told us that if we wanted to buy it, we could use the money from our savings accounts to buy it. Otherwise, he would buy it himself. Eager to spend our money on ANYTHING, my brother and I jumped at the chance and bought the lot. I doubt that it was really in our names, but we knew it was ours and our father could always be trusted no matter whose name it was in. Years later, he had the opportunity to buy another lot next to the one we bought, but by now the value had gone up. He offered to buy our lot for the value of the one he was going to buy. Of course, we jumped at that too and sold it to him for a tidy profit. Again, the proceeds went right back into our savings accounts as I recall. After I graduated from high school, I still had the passbook savings account and those little deposits and the cashing in of the annual savings bonds had grown to a nice next egg that helped me get started when I got married. Why don't parents do those things with their children any more. Simple things that helped teach them about money and saving a portion of what they earned. Then investing the money to grow even more when the right opportunity comes along. Even if it was all subsidized by my father.

Family

Shortly after completing a 4 year tour of duty with the Naval Air Force, I married Susan in 1965. We celebrated 42 years of marital bliss June 18, 2007. Our daughters, Sondra and Rachel, live in Fort Worth and Chicago, respectively. We have one beautiful grand daughter, Morgann, who lives with her mother in Fort Worth. Her interests include rock climbing.

A short history of Ray Smith

Hello. My name is Raymond Smith and I live north of Houston, Texas in Montgomery county near Lake Conroe with my wife Susan. We are both retired and have two daughters and one grand daughter. We are members of First Baptist Church of Conroe and attend services regularly. We had a new house built shortly after retiring and have lived there for just over a year now.