A picture rests in an old photo album and it brings memories of the holidays. Old songs around an upright piano, family around a dining room table, and pets that have come and gone. I love a picture you can hold in your hand. Something about the way it feels when it rests there in your palm. It’s as though the scene is alive in some way and those who were captured on that day, in some small way, are alive again in the palm of your hand. The feel of a hand held picture is old, smooth, sometimes yellow with age and yet not quite as old as those whose images reside therein. One picture I love to hold was taken circa 1946/47. This image of my people, most of them gone, stays at my mother’s until this time of year when I bring it out and we, she and I, talk about these wonderful gifts we were given through the years.  There, still seated around a large table in the dining room of my grandfather’s house in Knoxville, Tennessee, are my grandparents, three aunts, two uncles, two cousins and my parents.  They’ve been in an album for 65 years now, frozen in time and with lives still to live. And each one meant something special to me.

There sits Uncle Jack, newly returned from the war in the Pacific where he fought malaria and the Japanese. From him I learned a man can be tender and yet strong enough to lead and accomplish much in life. He became a respected physician in Concord, NC. Uncle Melvin whose name was never mentioned without it being a part of “Aunt Dora and Uncle Melvin” can be seen smiling up at his Dora. They were inseparable throughout life, she was the homemaker and he worked for the TVA in Sevierville, when going to work was considered a privilege. To my knowledge, he never missed a day. The other two aunts lived there at the big house on Freemason Street we all called home for many years. One was Nancy who was indeed special and never left the side of her parents. Her hands can be seen in the picture, one resting on top of my grandfather’s shoulder. Gnarled from arthritis, she used them to knit beautiful quilts for each new member of the family. Quilts that still keep each of us warm after all these years. The other was Jo, simply one of the angels God chose to send back to earth to take care of our family and play the piano during special times. Her story is too long to tell but in the picture she has no idea of the influence she will have on all of us who follow.

My mother and father, newly wed, sit side by side, not realizing they will be blessed with sixty four years together and …they were mostly good years.  And somewhere under a chair, in a corner or lying in the kitchen, there lies a dog. For sure, there lies a dog. Most of these wonderful people sleep in the photo album until they live again in someone’s hand. For now, it’s mine but in time hopefully, someone else will hold them in their palm and bring them back for Thanksgiving or Christmas when they can hear the bells outside rung by cousin Betty Hart or hear ol’ Chipper barking at the moon. This holiday season; take a picture of the loved ones in your life. Make it one you can hold and remember, years from now they will sleep in the photo album until they live again in the palm of someone’s hand. Holidays are so much more than stuff.

I guess you’re all sitting around wondering how you got into such a mess with the family finances. Not me…I know how I got here… financial “planning”. I first picked up on the problem when a financial advisor looked at me, a senior citizen, and asked, “What are your long range plans”? That was last year and I should have moved on then but stuck around for, “we should start saving for your daughter’s college education” (she graduates in the fall) and then I heard, “they’ll be a wedding soon, you’ll want to begin saving for that” (she got married last May). No, the only financial “advice” I’ve ever taken to heart came in the form of a question from my dad, who used to ask me why my brother came home with pockets full of quarters from bagging groceries while I spent the day playing basketball at the gym. “What’s wrong with you?” he would ask. In fact, “what’s wrong with you” became his mantra during my growing up years and we’re not even Buddhists.

Sometimes I wish he had taken one of those positive thinking courses and learned how to say, “What’s right with you?” At least one of us would have felt better. Well, at sixty-one all’s I know is I still haven’t answered that question and as I sit here in a house that’s so tight your ears pop when the doors open, and saving money with the thermostat set to “arctic” I wonder if I ever will. It got so cold in here the other night the artificial flowers died. Money has never been my strong “suit” although I do have some wealthy friends. And I believe that most wealthy people that manage to stay wealthy are either smarter than me or have more energy. I always try to find comfort in the fact that I can most always find something wrong with a wealthy person, although I do have one perfect, wealthy friend. There are bright spots in my economy. For instance; the stock market’s recent roller coaster ride doesn’t bother me as much as some people because my wife’s been that way for years. Up one day, down the next. And just like our economy, if she’s down, a monetary infusion will bring her back up. Of course that can bring on inflation and with the weight gain she’s back down again so... I have this liquor cabinet fully stocked with Perrie.

Drinking lots of water helps keep me fiscally regular and better able to deal with her inflation. We don’t really have a budget here at our house. I get a “quarterly” allowance and by that I mean she doles the money out in small amounts, thinking me playing with quarters might be a way of relieving stress, I suppose. I never make any large purchases anyway and if I want to travel, I always have plenty of change for toll roads. I think of myself as her charity and that makes us both feel good. Dad’s still alive by the way. Saw him the other day. He said, “What’s wrong with you?” I said, “It’s this economy Dad, it’s got me worried I won’t be able to pay the bills.” He looked at me from the corner of his eye and said, “Well, guess you could ask your brother for a loan.” I grinned, “No thanks Dad; I’ve got plenty of quarters.” Our nation seems to be in more of a financial mess than I, which is scary. You’d think with all the financial “advisors” running around in Washington they could get this thing right. Can you lay off a congressperson?

I wonder if Mrs. Obama handles the finances in that house, her being a Harvard grad and all, seems reasonable. Presidents don’t need lunch money though and I guess his driver would pay the tolls. But wouldn’t it be something if she did? “Barrack, here’s two dollars in quarters, now watch that wasteful spending and don’t forget to vacuum the Oval Office.” I have learned how to cut corners here at home but can’t go into those now. The dishwasher’s starting the dry cycle and if I don’t get to it soon I won’t get any beans with the weenies.

I usually don’t watch infomercials but the Debbie Boone Lifestyle Lift has definitely gotten my attention. If I thought we could do to the inside of this house what she does to the outside of peoples’ faces, I’d try it. The reality is we are now living in either a used furniture store or a pawn shop, as the years have taken their toll and the place is sagging like a rapper’s drawers. The furniture, which used to be very comfortable, now sits so low to the floor I can barely get off the couch. I need a couch like that new commode we bought…easy on, meditate, easy off.  Also, time has either slowed down or come to a screeching halt. The four clocks, visible from the couch, are showing most of the time zones (think Greenwich) at any given time with the exception of the grandfather clock, a Register, bought a mere thirty-three years ago, which has hit nary a chime in so long I’ve forgotten what it sounds like. We’ve had several “experts” come look at the old boy’s chimes but they all “struck” out. I found this “jewel” of a clock at a paint store when I was painting houses for love money, not the love of money. The guy at Sherwin Williams said it was a bargain at $300.00 but he failed to mention it would only run for one year, after that it was designed to take up wall space and collect dust. I wonder if that store is still in business. Love money is money you give your wife when young and in love instead of hiding it like I do now. I wonder if people in “relationships” paint for love. But I digress. Here I sit, in the middle of the furniture store watching infomercials telling me I’m falling apart and I see my stuff falling about all around me.

We have one leather chair one could mistake for an elephant from a Tarzan movie, a stereo so old it only plays Sinatra or disco (not a bad thing) and drapes that came with the house… a house designed by two of the most frugal individuals to ever have a job. Married they were, divorced I’m told now, finding out if perhaps one can live cheaper than two. When they built this place they must have had as a goal, seeing how few electrical outlets they could install and still run appliances or televisions. Then we come along and set furniture in front of what few plugs there are. Not small tables or chairs mind you but bureaus, silver cabinets and bookcases.  We’ve got more extension cords around here than the White House, which is not good when you can no longer find your feet. The good news is we’ve discovered Good Will and pawn shops! What was usually a boring Saturday morning watching healing services and Rifleman on television has now become the great shoe search. This is where we enter a closet that has no light and try to match pairs of her shoes to take to Good Will…a process that could be considered infinite and which entertains us until we get hungry.

She owns more shoes than Imelda Marcos with more arriving nearly every day via UPS (what a wonderful company). Am I grateful for all this stuff? Of course I am. It took thirty years to make money and be able to afford this junk. Like ol’ Steve Martin said a few years ago, “Having stuff doesn’t make one any happier, it just takes away the worry of not having stuff.” Well, gotta go, time to dust some furniture.

There’s been a lot out lately about surveillance, spying, and phone tapping, with Jay Carney the White House press secretary saying, “The president didn’t know about it until he knew about it.” So what’s the problem? There are a lot of things that go on around here that I don’t know about until I know about them and that’s probably a good thing. I like to consider myself the president of this house, making sure we all have the same amount of money, health care, and cell phones. I even act as a bank from time to time loaning money to my daughter as soon as my wife gives me the cash. We never talk about her paying interest, would be a worthless cause on this end, but the other side of the issue is she won’t borrow on Sunday (religious thingy) but won’t work either. But I digress. Some days I get the feeling there are things going on out in the yard that need surveillance. With twelve inch thick storm windows, (I haven’t had a breath of fresh air since 88’ but we must be saving at least two dollars a month) about the only thing you can hear from inside are cement trucks (if they’re mixing) and car stereos. The trash disappears on Fridays, and I still haven’t figured out what’s going on there. I’d like to know who’s pulling the tops off all our flowers. Some say deer but I’ve never seen one.

A four year old boy lives next door and wanders this way on ballgame Saturdays, worries me he could be the one. There’s also the issue of squirrels mating in at least three large pines, thankfully in the back, but still, we’re not running a bordello for brushy tails around here and that requires proof that it’s actually taking place. They can take that business down the street, literally. A camera or perhaps a personal drone flyover once in a while might solve the mysteries. On the inside, where do I begin? We are considered middle class, at least for a few more months. With that comes shoes and of course we cannot make it with one pair so we wear one pair and leave the other pair where the rest of us can trip over them. Surveillance would show the culprit (probably the one with the most shoes and that would be you know who). A kitchen camera pointed in the direction of the sink would show who insists on putting their dirty dishes in there as opposed to the dishwasher. I have to believe it’s the guy who married my daughter…duh. Will you tell me what type of person refuses to use a glass more than once…for the same drink…water!? A camera would also reveal the person entertaining roaches around here and that would be…you guessed it, the water drinker. A camera, with lights of course, might even show the roaches enjoying “Disney” rides carefully constructed with greasy plates in the sink designed with roach fun in mind. “Hey mom, can I ride the roast beef and gravy plate tonight!?” And of course what I consider to be the homeland security issue of the year. Who’s pooping in the den? It’s not the water drinker. He’s too busy clogging up the main artery in the hall bathroom. So that of course leaves Herkie, male Maltese. No one would believe the female Maltese would do such a thing except me and I can’t prove it without surveillance. So, think about it. With all that’s going on around here right under my nose, why in the world should I care about who our government is spying on across the ocean?  I’m the one who needs the surveillance. A good camera should do it however. Until someone from France, or Germany decides to poop in my den I think I’ll leave the drones and phones to the guys in Tampa and D.C..