Over 50 years ago, I learned to crawl. (It was well over 50 years ago by the way). Then I learned to walk and run and jump and grab life by the short hairs and just have a lot of fun. No cares, no worries, nothing to be concerned with.

Yeah as I grew I needed money. A twenty five cent a week allowance was not going to cut it. So since I was cutting our lawn one day for some extra allowance the neighbor yelled over at me, *"Hey buddy, when your done there how about my lawn"? I said I'd have to ask my dad if it was okay. It was after all his mower.

Well my dad said fine if I wanted to help him out and be a good scout I could. So since I just finished our lawn, I topped the lawn mower tank up and rolled it over to his house. He asked if I could do the front and the backyard also. No problem Mr. Blah Blah. I said.

About an hour and 10 minutes I was done, so I started to push the lawn mower back home, and out his front door he pops asking me to wait a second. So I wait for him at the end of the driveway wondering if I missed a spot or something in the backyard, the front looked just fine. All that worry for nothing, he wanted to pay me for cutting his grass. He gave me ten dollars. That was way way to much money.

When I got home I told my dad and asked if he could take half of it back to him. My father agreed that ten was to much and five should have been a fair amount. So my father and I, (he had to almost drag me because I was embarrassed ), went back to the neighbors home and my father explained that i felt ten dollars was to much and that I was happy to just help him out. Well an agreement was reached, five dollars for the lawn care job, and I would return again as needed.

It was a fantastic summer. He spread the word to some of the other older folk in the neighborhood, and before I knew it I was having a blast mowing yards for money. By the end of that summer I had amassed enough money to buy myself a Sears Schwinn Ten Speed Bicycle. It took a lot of work, it was hard work at times, but it was mostly fun.

The next summer I was old enough for a paper route and I had the bike to make the deliveries. The newspaper route lasted for a year, but it lead to a few weeks of picking prunes, but that is another story for another day. Prune juice is the one substance that will cause levi jeans to stand on there own, it was such a messy job.