PAST TEACHER GRIPES

My parents worked countless hours building a hardware store from scratch. When I was a kid, I was unaware of how many sleepless nights they experienced because of financial worries. 

I was, however, aware of the opportunity, about once every other year, for our family to take a week long vacation to South Dakota, where my father had grown up. 

On the flip side, though, outside of Christmas and Easter when the store was closed completely, holidays were always family work days: the regular employees tended to want those days off and would have to be paid time and a half if they did work. (Which my parents really couldn't afford.) So my brothers and I would be pressed into duty.

At the local high school there was a sweet married couple; the husband taught social studies and the wife taught math. My brothers and I all had these two in class and benefited greatly from their teaching. They knew our family.

One day the social studies teacher was in my parents' store to do a bit of shopping. He got to griping to my dad about how poorly paid teachers were. Not finding tons of sympathy for his suffering, this man finally protested, "Well, how would you like it if you and your wife were forced to get by on a combined income around $50,000?!"

My dad just smiled and said, "I would be absolutely ecstatic if Carla and I were able to earn that much each year!"