Generosity: More Than Money

Ginter Botanical Garden.  Copyright 2012: singeronthesand

The world of the generous gets larger and larger;

the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

Proverbs 11:24

My father was born in 1913, into the generation that went through the Great Depression.  His family was not exactly dirt poor, but they certainly weren't wealthy either.  Dad was in the nuts and bolts end of the newspaper industry - foreman of the composing room - but that was not the only source of his income.  He had many, many other little cottage industry jobs to bring in extra cash on the side.

Dad was a hoarder when it came to his money.  He gave Mom all she needed to run the household, but most of the rest of his money went into U.S. savings bonds, savings accounts and certificates of deposit.  He spent almost nothing that wasn't absolutely necessary.  I love to tell the story of my teenage years, when my father decided to get central air-conditioning.  As we lived in Phoenix, Arizona, that was a capital idea!  We had been living with two huge evaporative coolers, which didn't work well when the temperature passed 100 degrees.  He had a friend of his install the unit, and that wonderful summer we basked in the unbelievably cool temperatures of central air. Then the electricity bills came.  When Dad turned off the ac in the fall of that year, he never turned it on again.  Ever.  Over the years the unit rusted out and finally collapsed.  In Dad's mind, the price for comfort was just too high.

By many standards, my father might be called stingy.  He was, however, the most generous man I've ever known.  True, Dad was not free with his money, but he was more than generous with his friendship, his time, and his talents.  If a neighbor needed a hand, my father was the first volunteer to show up.  He did endless odd jobs for friends and family, volunteered his time to credit unions and the Masonic Lodge, worked at the State Fair, mentored younger men in the Naval Reserve, and never missed an opportunity to help someone in need.  As his kindnesses grew, his world expanded to included friends numbering in the hundreds.  Everyone loved my dad, and I am so proud that he was my father..