May 19, 2000

Mel returned from retrieving the mail recently, slapped a handful of credit card offers down on the table, and shook his head.

“I can remember a time when I couldn’t beg, borry or steal 15 cents an’ now I got two an’ three credit card companies a day badgerin’ me tryin’ to give me all the money I want. Bet thur havin’ to plant more trees jist to supply paper fer all the mailers we been gittin’ from these dudes.”

“Yeah. And from the way they’re doling out credit, they must be growing money on them,” I added.

“I guess to some extent, credit’s a good thang, couldn’t operate without it. An’ I ain’t against credit cards, if you know how to hold the line. But seems to me a lot of young married couples is shore nuff missin’ out on some mighty important lessons because credit’s a way too easy to come by these days. Used to, you had to prove you wuz creditworthy, develop a credit history. Not anymore. And it wuzn’t all that long ago that you couldn’t buy ever’ play purdy you wanted. In fact, lots o’ times, you couldn’t eben buy thangs you really needed. Made you stretch yore brain some...had to be resourceful an’ come up with alternatives, make do with whut you had. Taught you how to be resourceful an’ self reliant...”

“Like they say, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention,’” I chirped.

“Remember when folks fixed thangs that wuz broke? I mean, they got out thur tool box, took apart whutever gadget wuz broke, repaired it, put it back together agin, and it wuz good as new.. Nowadays, it goes in the trash an’ they go buy anuther’un. Prob’ly charge it on a credit card.”

“I remember you dismantling lots of chainsaws, weedeaters, and small appliances, but I don’t recall you putting too many of them back together again. When you did reassemble one, you always had a handful of nuts and bolts left over,” I commented.

“Me an’ Eric’s fixed more stuff than most people break in a lifetime,” Mel growled. “You forgit I’m a blacksmith by trade?”

I noted that blacksmithing was a good skill when it comes to working on farm equipment, but a bit of an overkill when it comes to fixing a clock or a vacuum cleaner.

“I still say you learn to be creative when yore forced to live within yore means, and the way to learn resourcefulness is to git a li’l dirt an’ grease under yore fangernails. Lots of people today thank thur too good fer that.”

“Maybe it’s a matter of ‘comparative advantage,’ where the person decides their time could be better spent doing something else. Take a lawyer for example. If he or she can make $200 an hour advising a client, it would be silly to spend three hours trying to fix an electric can opener when they can buy a new one for $25.”

“You got a point,” Mel grunted, “but don’t you agree we learned an’ awful lot by doin’ without, strugglin’ to make ends meet, an’ makin’ do with what we had?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but we sure were awful slow learners.”