The changing and diminishing value of money through time

Apr 06, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

Here is a story I told to some children I saw playing “de other day”.

A long time gone a family outing was planned to somewhere in the mines (Mackenzie, where bauxite mining took place) and which was a frequent location chosen for outings/picnicking.

But this kind of activity for us was infrequent and whenever it came about we (children) would get all excited and long for the day to dawn. So we were all in our minds set until the day before when my mother informed us that we would no longer be going.

These trips were virtually free, since there was no fee for transportation, but where the money/cost was required was for the preparation of the food basket-food for about eight of us that were going.

And so our excitement vanished! No money, no food, no outing. Later on that very day I was sent to the market, and along the way I found a 10-dollar note – that brown piece of paper, man! I couldn’t wait to get back home. We children were trained differently back then; in no way I was going to spend that money, $10! To buy what?

When I got home and gave it to my mother in all excitement, she followed through with questions: you find this? Where? Whilst going? Anybody see when yuh pick it up? Then finally “oh right, keep yuh mouth shut, we going to the outing”. She then began preparing the cost for the basket, and this Mr. Editor, I can vividly remember what that $10 took care of.

In our food basket was chicken chowmein, Roti and Curry, cook-up, channa, patties, sandwich, sponge cake, buns and sweet drinks (Bottle). And as a reward for my find, she bought me a brown pair of socks and a lime green short sleeves shirt!

This story came back to me quite recently while watching children playing some of the games that we adults played when we were like them, I intervened and began chatting with them, a few of them had money between $10 and $100 but it was difficult to get them to make the connection or fathom the value that $100 was capable of then. It was strange telling them that $20 was the car fare from Linden to Georgetown when they were paying $20 for an icicle; that one dollar is made up of 100 cents.

I amaze, bemuse and amuse my audience with my “fairy tale” story of time gone. They took out their monies and looked hard at it in pure amusement, and loaded me up with questions. Such is the changing and diminished value of money through time.

Frank Fyffe

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The changing and diminishing value of money through time

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