Selling Frogs at Church

Awesome post.

As a kid, I raked leaves, cut grass, eventaully delivered newspapers (big money). As a real young kid, I remember collecting bottle for recycling.

Tried to open a small business making fireworks, until one blew up in my room, during assembly. Mom put a stop to that pretty quick.

C'mon, you said light....

"You little children have NO CLUE, NONE as to what it takes to succeed, let alone merely get by and support yourselves. You have parental subsidy, governmental subsidy, all of which not only shields you from the full effects of the real world, it stunts your growth from ever becoming a real adult. Worse still, it spoils you in the truest sense of the word. It decays you, it destroys your worth. It makes you a worthless human being because instead of offering something of value to society, be it a skill or labor, you offer nothing. And even worse than that you are entitled. You demand, because of your mere existence, other people take care of you. You're entitled to this. YOu have a right to that. Gimme food, jobs, health care, housing and spending money".

Sadly, so true of many in today's society. In the early seventies(about age of 10-12), I had my whole street locked up for lawnmowing / snowshoveling. My parents were so busy trying to create the illusion of being UPPER-middle-class that often not much trickled down to us kids. Through my hard work I was able to run with the kids whose parents showered them with stuff. I learned at a very young age though that those who earn things appreciate them much more than those who are given them.

Thanks to the brainwashing of Canadians to believe we have primarily a peacekeeping history, many have lost completely the fact that we only have what we have because other Canadians sacrificed SO much.

Being immigrants in the days before bucket loads of government assistance, we moved a lot in pursuit of higher wages and lower rents. My first job was pruning Christmas trees at 25 cents an hour - and free puppy as a bonus. Less than six weeks after graduating from high school I was in the Air Force and on the way to a commission (yeah, I know, government job...). Still, I really have nothing in common with the silver spoon crowd.

Aviator, yes, it's a government job but what helps most military personnel, even air force, to avoid the entitlement mentality that infects so many public employees is that what in the British services they called the "X" factor when doing civil service pay comparisons: You will go where you are told to go and do what you are told to do when you are told to do it, for as long as it takes or until relieved, even if it appears certain to cause your death. Or, as the old wording had it, "you will answer the contrary at your peril."

Aviator and The Tooner:

You're both wrong. The military (I was RCAF) is NOT a government job. It's different and you bloody well know it's different. I'm glad it's different and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Bcer, I concur wholeheartedly except that I wouldn't have minded a little more pay so I wouldn't have to get that second job. Folks tend to forget that you are military 24/7/365 and at the call of Her Majesty and country. No overtime or bonus pay for working long hours or during a holiday. Thankfully, my wife and children knew why dad wasn't home for Christmas dinner. These days I hear whiners crying about how a couple of techs got dropped off by some lake to enjoy some fishing while the helicopter was on a training/currency flight. I'll be they were some of the same crowd calling for the military to shovel snow in TO.

Oh yeah, during my stint I had the pleasure of enjoying Turdeau's wage and price controls along with Crouton's wage freeze while my rent didn't.

Excellent post Cap'n. I well remeber spending my summers collecting cans/bottles,then moving on to golf balls when the cans went dry.Selling those Xmas cards for a buck or a prize.Seeds in the spring,and then the big jump in pay to newspapers!(had to be 12 at the time to legally sell 'em).Hell,even when I went camping with my Grandparents,Gramps and I went fishing in the AM and bottle collecting in the PM.And so on.
Now the little f$%kers whine if their gubermint check is even 1 hour late. Fuddle Duddle them all!

Great post,Cap'n Cap... I well remember shovelling driveways in winter and raking lawns in fall, singing X-Mas carols door-to-door..anything to make $.

12 Blue=$4.25 small pack-o-smokes=$0.60 Bus fare=$0.15

All told...$5.00 was a party

Gawd I'm old....*sigh*

Bcer - I know it's not a "government job" like the rest - I was end running our resident trolls who would have called it such. Nothing focuses one's attention on politics like being tracked by SAMs while on frozen pay for one's principal earning (ie, pensionable) years! That's one of many reasons why I'm not a Liberal.