Rolling in Cash!

My eighth grade year was a year of huge ups and tremendous downs. Not unlike many, I suspect, I was emotional, hormonal, full of self-doubt and insecure. My family experienced great upheaval and we carried many burdens. All too many of them were highly public.

In considering what I’d like my Grandchildren to know about me in the eighth grade, I pondered it all. Good and bad. Lovely and ugly. A story... long forgotten... came to mind and reminded me of many good and kind things and people of my youth. THAT is the story I would like to share.

I began to babysit in the 8^th grade. I’m talking serious babysitting. As many as 4 to 5 nights a week, I might be taking care of any number of children. Sometimes, families would combine their children and I would care for them. I had a major business going on. I had a regular Tuesday night gig with 2 little girls whose Daddy was in Viet Nam and their mother played bridge on Tuesday nights. If you wanted me on Saturday night, you better call early in the week, because I usually was booked by Wednesday night. People would call and ask me if I could refer someone to them if I were unable to babysit myself, so I had a free referral service going, too.

I earned about 50 cents an hour. For your 50 cents, I would fix dinner, clean up the kitchen, entertain and bathe your children, put them to bed and generally straighten up the living room before you came home. For a limited few, I even helped with the laundry. I might do all of that and come home with $2.50. My families LOVED me!

I was hauling in the dough, I tell ya! Far more than I could possibly spend. At least, far more than I could have spent when I was 13. My spending skills have improved since then.

Early in the fall, when I had accumulated $20, I decided that I needed to put my money in the bank. Without consulting anyone, I got on my bicycle one afternoon after school and rode down to the bank where a member of my Daddy’s church was a senior officer. I parked that old blue bicycle outside, dusted off my skirt and marched in, $20 in hand.

When asked if I could be helped, I announced that I was there to see Mr. Gene McKinney. The nice receptionist asked if she could tell him who was calling and I said, “Miss Mollianne Buster.” I was acting in what I supposed was a correct, business-like manner. After all, I was about to do business with the bank.

Mr. McKinney was as kind a man as I ever knew. He was grinning ear to ear when he came out of his office and ushered me in. He asked me what he could do for me, and I pulled out my $20…in dollars and quarters…dumped it on his desk and told him I would like to put my money in the bank, and I’d like him to take care of it for me.

As if I had a whole crop of cotton money to invest, he carefully explained that what I needed was a passbook savings account. He left me sitting at his desk and went out and got the paperwork. He helped me fill it all out and made the deposit slip for me. He promised me solemnly that he would take good care of my money and he instructed me in the deposit and withdrawal procedures. He told me it was much better to make deposits than withdrawals and explained that my money would earn interest. He asked me if I was tithing to the Curch based on my earnings and exclaimed, “Good Girl!” when I told him of course I was.

As I left, he took me around and introduced me to the tellers and told them that I was the newest bank customer and that they were to take care of me and my money when I came in.

Very satisfied that I had done a wise thing, I put my blue passbook into the basket of my bicycle and pedaled home.

My mother met me with a smile. Mr. McKinney had wasted no time in calling her and telling her that I had just made his day.

For the next 5 years, until we moved away from that wonderful small town, I would find Mr. McKinney on Sundays and shake his hand. “Are you taking good care of my money, Mr. McKinney?” I would ask. Again, as if my little account (which, by the way grew to the princely sum of about $400 before we moved) was the most important account he had, he would answer, “Why, yes, Mollianne! I am personally watching over your money and it is safe and sound.” He would give me the biggest smile and his eyes would twinkle.

My formative years are full of people like Mr. Gene McKinney, all of whom could be characters on the Andy Griffith show. I am so thankful that I grew up in a small town and knew such people. These adults who treated me with dignity, even when I barged into their place of business without an appointment, were a wonderful example of how people ought to act.

Looking back now, I’m sure I was a funny child and probably a source of amusement for many in that little town. But I am oh! so! grateful for the opportunity of growing up in small town America with those men and women of such character. They set a high standard for me in how to conduct myself in my business and with my fellow man.

And, to be honest, I couldn’t wait to get out of that hick town when I was a teenager. I was sure that things were happening everywhere else in the world. I suppose that time is a great teacher and now I appreciate that time and place and am very proud to say that I’m from Kennett, Missouri.