My 2 cents worth,

I grew in a house hold where both my parents worked. We didn’t get an allowance because according to my dad he already fed, clothed and put a roof over our head. It didn’t seem fair at the time but later on in life I understood what he was saying. I wish I could talk to him now. He passed away on the 11th of April 2023, his health hadn’t been good for close to 3 years. My dad instilled in me the belief that when ever possible you need to save as much money as you can for retirement if you are able to do so. I know the last 15 years that he work for Sears Automotive that he was putting 15% of his check into his 401K. I only made it to 13%. I still had almost 2 years before I would be able to draw the full amount from Social Security and I had at one time thought of working till I was 70. A young lady I used to work with slammed her hand down on the desk and said No! “When you get able to retire and draw social security you do it”. I waited till I was 65 and drawing Medicare and Tricare for Life (retired military health care) before I decided to give it all up. The stress of dealing with idiots on the interstate both in cars and semi trucks, I just didn’t want to do it anymore. When I was a kid growing up that is all I wanted to be was a truck driver like my next door neighbor Mr Dowdle. He drove a flatbed every now and again up north to get tractors and such for Moody Equipment and Supply. It was a tough job for so long back then because they didn’t even have air ride seats much less air ride tractors or trailers. I think so many of the older drivers died early because their kidneys were all beat to pieces. The first old truck I drove for American Freightways had been wrecked so it did’t turn to the left so well. I learned to deal with that fine with a 28 ft trailer but those 40 and longer trailers were a pain in the butt.

American Freightways was a great company to work for. They paid great, had really good benefits and they paid the insurance premiums for all their workers. We got really good raises too, at least 65 cents every year. It was hard work especially for me as I had been working in the production dept of a CBS affiliate TV station for the last 5 years, 9 months and some odd days. I liked the job at the TV station but the pay sucked. I have a degree in Radio/TV/Film and their starting pay was $4.75. I was pissed but I didn’t have much choice because my part time job at Sears Credit I wasn’t getting any hours. They wouldn’t let me go tempory full time like they had in the past. I couldn’t raise much stink because my dad worked at the Sears Automotive store. If I raised a stink it would come back on him and I sure didn’t want that. Those cheap buzzards at the TV station didn’t even pay their bills on time. They eventually got bought by Gannett. A lot of the people that I worked with got fired so I was glad I wasn’t there to see that.

American Freightways was sold to FedEX Corporation around February of 2001, for around 1.1 Billion dollars, at least that is what I had heard. I wasn’t really happy about it but what was I to do? Quit a job making almost $22 an hour? Not likely. Then we were told that we were gonna have to start paying part of the health insurance that American Freightways who was no where near as big as FedEX Corporation had been paying. That sucked the air out of a lot of people and we lost a bunch of drivers over it. They had told us the name of the company would stay the same. What a joke, it wasn’t 3 months later they changed it to American Freightways, a subsidary of FedEX. Then about 3 months later they changed it to FedEX Freight East. FedEX Freight West was a company that had been called Viking Truck Lines. The noose tightened every so slightly. One of the principals of Sheridan Garrison was to always have fun. That concept went out the window rather quickly. The task master was at hand and when he said jump you said how high.

I had bought a few shares of American Freightways stock but between trying to save to buy a house and other expenses I couldn’t find the extra money to buy a whole bunch of them. When it changed to FedEX Freight East and then to FedEX Freight I had around 65 shares of stock. I had money coming out for savings, insurance, and 401K. I didn’t have any xtra to buy a bunch of stock that they were only taking like 1% out of my check to buy. See we couldn’t buy stock at a discount like the people on the board of directors could. I always thought that rather sucked! We scrimpted to buy what stock we could and they could buy it at $7 when the actual price was $25 and then sell it for a hefty profit. Then the economy took a nose dive in 2008. A bunch of guys I had worked with for close to 9 years got laid off. Two weeks later they were looking for part time dock work after they had laid off all but 5 of the full time dock people. You work part time you don’t get any benefits at all which saves the company a boat load of money. I was pissed and the only thing I could do to retaliate was to sell my stock.

I think I bought some Walgreens stock and a few other ones with the proceeds. My buddy thinks I am weird because I don’t like to spend money. I try to always save my money to buy stuff. I am not a big fan of credit card debt. We always pay off our credit cards but now everything is so high you can’t afford to eat out and you can’t afford to buy it to eat in either. My dad retired from Sears and got a job at Chenal Country Club just so that he could play free golf. He worked there for 11 years before some new pro the club hired ran all the part time guys out. I wonder who he thought was going to clean the club members clubs and carts. Some people feel elevated above their peers because of their station. Funny you put your pants on the same as I do. My dad said he couldn’t just sit on the couch and watch tv all the time as he would most likely die so he got a job delivering cars for the Toyota dealership. He loved driving to different places and seeing what was there. All the money he and my mom made they put in the bank as a cushion for when they got really old. My dad was retired for longer than I had been working. That is crazy.