Life with Pratts – Page 24 – Prattling before the Pratfall

Between Two Ears

Pioneer SX-440 receiver; Pioneer SE-20A headphones; Garrard 40B turntable with Shure M91ED cartridge; Realistic MC-1000 speakers

Behind the high school version of me in the picture above was a pair of Realistic MC-1000 speakers from Radio Shack. MC-1000’s are now a butt of jokes in audio circles, but only my steady girlfriend had more of my undivided attention than my stereo system did at that time.

Consumer Reports gave the MC-1000 a Best Buy rating. I bought a pair with money earned working at a restaurant (following my night working as a carny). At the time they cost $100. That’s equivalent to $600 today, which will still buy a very good pair of speakers.

When I quit the restaurant at the end of high school I was earning $1.85/hour, or about $11.50 today. The summer after graduation I worked for the town’s school system at the incredible rate of $3.00/hour, or $18 when adjusted for inflation. I could easily have been killed by an accident that happened while doing unsupervised and dangerous work for that job, but I escaped unscathed.

Even with the money spent on girlfriends, comic books and related items, and the stereo and records for it, I managed to save $2500 for college. That’s $15,000 in today’s money, which wouldn’t get anyone past their freshman year at even a public 4-year college.

P.S. to mih — We met 50 years ago this month. You were the one who told me I should get a job.

Uncle Sam Loves Me

Does the federal government play April Fool jokes? Because I have received a second $1400 economic stimulus deposit from the U.S. Treasury.

Follow-up: I have confirmed that the money, automatically deposited in my name, is mine. Every other family member has received their $1400.

It Was Time

Four years ago today, after 36 years with the same company, and 40 years since graduating from college, I became unemployed by choice. The founder of the company once told me that I had a job for as long as I wanted it. When I told my boss why I was quitting, to assume Durable Power of Attorney for my father, he offered me a 3-month leave-of-absence. For a variety of reasons, both practical and personal, I no longer wanted the job.

After my father’s stroke, for several months I commuted between Boston and Phoenix every other week, with no end in sight. I knew that being free from my job for the following three months wouldn’t be enough, and that definitely proved to be true. Disregarding every other consideration, I had always liked the idea of retiring 40 years after graduating from college. When I told my father that his stroke made it easy for me to act upon that idea, he laughed and said, “Glad to have helped!” That was one of the few lighthearted moments we were able to share in those difficult ten months between the stroke and Dad’s passing.

Dying with your boots on should be by choice, and not by necessity. Thanks to the way the founder set up the retirement plan, I had the money to quit.

Who Cares? Why Bother?

Robert Crumb – Despair #1 (The Print Mint, San Francisco, 1969)

I’ve finally gotten around to reading this article from five months ago. Why did it take me so long?

“As we age, it’s harder to have a get-up-and-go attitude toward things,” says Ann Graybiel, an Institute Professor at MIT and member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Sleepytime, Here I Come

I’m feeling some side effects from the J&J vaccine. I went to bed at midnight and didn’t get up until 10. In the middle of the night I woke up shivering, and today I have that vague “I must be coming down down with something” feeling. It’s Sleepytime tea time, then back to bed for me.