By Mike Johnson
The three stages of a man’s life:
A&W.
BMW.
VFW.
My development got stunted in the first one.
With my deep fixation on stores, restaurants and treats, you’d think I experienced starvation as a boy.
I was given enough food alright; it just wasn’t always the food I wanted.
A child of depression-era parents, I was fed a steady diet of “No’s.”
I don’t “no” about you, but I inwardly chafed having to run my dreams through parents for approval.
Somehow, I sucked it up until age 11 – the minimum age required to get hired for newspaper routes.
I’d sold candy door-to-door and shoveled the occasional driveway for money pre-11, but there wasn’t enough time, energy or parental freedom to make either a steady income stream.
Like other kids, we had to stretch our Easter and Halloween candy throughout the year, and be satisfied with receiving gifts on just birthdays and Christmas.
“No, No, No!” was the answer to other requests.
So, when the frustration of all those “no’s,” finally met the steady cash flow of paper route money, the slingshot of freedom to buy my own treats tattooed a permanent welt.
Stores, restaurants and treats have been under my skin ever since.
Giving an 11-year-old kid cashflow, a bike and a summer off from school was like handing us the keys to a Ferrari.
We might own it, but were never taught how to drive it.
We mostly kept it on the road but there were certainly a few nasty “accidents.”
We (my paper route buddy Dave & I) realized we were elite because nobody else had such independence.
We had perpetual income and 10-speed bicycle transportation.
While other kids were limited to the neighborhood, we pedaled to other SUBURBS.
The closest A&W Root Beer Stand was a good 4 miles away.
In Golden Valley, an entirely different suburb.
Most kids in our neighborhood had never even been there by car.
As long as we were back by supper, we could get a carhop to bring our Momma Burger baskets right to our bikes at the speaker box, as often as we desired.
Which was less than you’d imagine because we also spread our money around to McDonald’s, Zapata’s, Sol’s Superette, Lietzke's Bakery, Tom Thumb, The Quarterback Club, the bowling alley snack bar, and when we really splurged, the all-you-can-eat Anchor Inn.
All those “no’s” hammering me as a kid, did the favor of pushing me to discover workarounds that got me to “yes.”
I had no idea as a kid that the “no’s” only get more frequent, much larger or more painful as an adult.
I thank God that I learned early to think differently and summon the self-discipline to behave differently enough to get better results.
Those life skills would plow through enough “no’s” to get to the most important “yes’s.”
Like going to A&W anytime I want.
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More:
Love Your Kids? Make Them Work
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