The Price Is Right

[yogi]

My wondering about how you ended up in Knoxville was more or less rhetorical given that your brother ended up living on a boat. Y'all have the same roots but different flowers. That is amazing to me.

I can fulyl appreciate why you made the decisions you did and how that all resulted in living where your wife was born. That is a familiar scenario in that my best friend from Chicago also ended up in Franklin, Tennessee, because that is where his wife was born. My father-in-law retired and died in Iowa. That too was due to his wife being born there. All I can say is that I am happy to know my wife was born in Chicago, exactly where I was born. Neither one of us have even a remote connection to Missouri so that I have no logical explanation for why we are here. Well, I do, and I'm certain I explained it elsewhere at least briefly. It had to do with health and finances, which is exactly why you are in Knoxville. We didn't have any out of Illinois ties so that we could have ended up in any of the 48 contiguous states. When I win the lottery and am a multi millionaire, I know we would move from this house. I have a feeling, however, we would stay in Missouri but in a more populated and up scale area. It's nice here, which is fine, if you like nice.

[Kellemora]

I actually loved living in Missouri, and really didn't plan on ever moving. Especially after I got my house exactly the way I wanted it for my retirement years. But you know what they say about the plans of mice and men often go astray.

I really wish Debi's dad didn't die when he did, because then our house would have been finished and we could live there.
At least the floors and roof and walls were plumb and not sagging, hi hi.
But I did the best of what I could do with this house here.

I guess being the oldest child, also brings with it certain expectations and commitments we must do, whether we like it or not. You learn to like it to keep from being miserable over the situation.

Even if I had the money, I no longer have the physical ability to do what I want to do.
And nobody ever does anything as well as I would do it for myself.

The area we live in here, overall, goes downhill a little bit more each year. Lower and lower income people move in, and/or the houses are bought up and rented out to really low income folks.
Although I'm so poor now, I couldn't afford to afford to live here if we didn't already own the house.

[yogi]

I must empathize with your lament about not having the physical ability to do what you always enjoyed doing. I really don't expect to win the lottery, but I do have a few ideas about what I'd do if I did. It's all fantasy to be honest. As you well know money gives you some power, but there is nothing that can replace a healthy body. Not all the money in the world can do that. While I'm physically still capable of doing many things, I experienced a lot of depression when I retired because my reason for being suddenly evaporated. That same feeling occurs when you lose physical ability to illness, I'm sure.

In many ways living here in MO is a downgrade. Yes, it was expensive to live near Chicago, but the lifestyle was upscale by comparison. I could not afford all the things I wanted up there, but the fact that they were readily available was a plus. Then, too, yesterday while traveling down the main drag somebody in a Maserati pulled up along side me at the stop light. A Maserati! It must have been a politician is all I can think.

[Kellemora]

I was never what one would call rich by any stretch of the imagination.
However, for a number of years I had a very high disposable income, which is why I could afford some of the fancy cars I had.
Although I did save some money, more often than not I bought something that would appreciate in value.
Although in some cases that backfired on me too, hi hi.

I did manage to save up about 10 grand, back when I only earned like 150 bucks a week.
It was very hard to set aside that much for savings. But it was there should an emergency arise.
But by the same token, interest rates were low, so the money didn't actually grow by much.
And the things you had to buy had doubled and tripled in price.
So the actual value of my savings went down considerable.
I used that money to buy the 1976 50th Anniversary Black and Gold Trans-Am!
Good thing I did, even though my ex-wife took the car and left me with the payment book when she split.
She would have got my saving either way, hi hi.

Moving from St. Louis County, Creve Coeur area, to South Knoxville was a major downgrade for me.
But then my financial situation at the time was less than comparable to this area, hi hi.

[yogi]

I had money taken out of my paycheck and put into the company credit union account. It was a meager sum, something like $25 each paycheck for nearly all the 36 years I worked there. Back when I was making $2/hr that savings was substantial, but when I got up to $20/hr it was trivial. Regardless, I never stopped the savings in all those years. I did, however, withdraw a time or two for major purchases. When I left, there was enough in that account to put $10,000 into a mutual fund. It was a growth fund with some downside risk, but none of that mattered because this was just some cash I didn't have a use for at the time. Well, that fund today, twenty years later, is worth six or seven times the initial investment. There were years when I lost about half of what was in there, and then there were years when it all came back and then some. I believe that is the fund I drew upon to buy the Silver Yogi and all the peripherals that went with it. That fund is still running today and is the location where part of my wife's IRA forced withdrawals go. Thus I don't know off the top of my head how well the fund is doing, but a growth of 700% over twenty years is nothing to sneeze at. I managed to beat inflation, but probably would not last two years if that was all the resources I had today.

When I told my accountant buddy I was moving here into a zone where the cost of a house was 20% less (at least) than up by Chicago he thought I was making a mistake. I sold the old house at a profit and would be libel for taxes on that. Well yes, but only the profit over a certain amount was taxable at the time and I did not make that much profit. Thus I paid no capital gains tax or regular income tax. I thought that was odd and possibly in error, but I had a tax specialist do the forms that year and was never called on it by the IRS. My friend, however, moved to Franklin, Tennessee and bought a house slightly more expensive than the one he sold. That strategy assured he did not have to pay taxes on the capital gains. Well, that's nice. He has a house bigger than what he needs and no money in the bank after leaving his old house. I don't know which one of us made the better decision, but I hear he can get all the rye bread he wants in Franklin.

[Kellemora]

I would have been sitting pretty if my wife's insurance would not have capped out, or if she wasn't sick for so long.
At one time, I had over 21 houses in my inventory slated for renovation work. That would have kept me busy for the next several years. But after 9/11 I had to dump as much stuff as I could as fast as I could.

My dad knew the guy who made the glue for bowlers blisters.
It was actually a much simpler product than my AZ-NO3 product was to make and package.
Over the years the guy built up a name for the product, and I think every bowling alley in the U.S. sold it.
His son took over the business, but within a month after his dad died, he sold the company.
They produced it under the name Ebonite X-Tra Skin, and probably still do.
But I'm sure sales are slim now that Super Glue became the best replacement, and don't sting either.
I think some of the super glue companies actually make a product just for bowlers.

I've made a few simple things that took off for a very short time, then sales fizzled out, as folks figured out they could make their own after seeing how mine was made.

[yogi]

I'm not a shrewd investor nor do I even consider myself knowledgeable. I made some good guesses when the time was right, but most of it was based on common sense and logic. As much good fortune as I had, it could easily go the same route that you experienced. My wife had breast cancer about a dozen years ago and I thought for sure that was the beginning of the end. I don't really know how much of the insurance quota she used up treating her illness, but I'm fairly certain it's at least half of what is allotted. The next major illness could do to me exactly what happened to you. The moral of the story is that it doesn't matter how well you are doing when catastrophe strikes. There is nothing such as catastrophic illness insurance, but even if there were it would be outrageously expensive and not affordable by the people who need it.

There is no price on trying to save one's life. Attempting that has broken the finances of many good people. There is no social mechanism in this country nor government entitlement to support people who have become destitute due to illness. I suppose that would be an argument in favor of national health insurance because there would be no cap in that case. It wouldn't make us healthier, but at lease we might have a chance at decent housing in our old age if the medical bills were not an issue.

I didn't realize there was such a thing as bowlers blisters. That's probably because it's been half a century since I've been inside a bowling alley. And, to treat it with super glue is mind boggling. Who would have thought?

[Kellemora]

I have a friend who lives in the UK where they have nationalized health coverage.
Everything is FREE, except for the things they don't cover, which is a mighty long and big list of things.
His daughter had EDS, not covered. It took his a couple of years of begging for money to get enough sponsors for her to get her operation. He now has a group started for EDS victims their socialized medicine won't cover.
All medications are supposed to be free, but this means the medications THEY PICK for you to have.
This doesn't mean the medication THEY PICK will work for you, when one they don't cover works just fine.
There are a couple of medications Andy has to buy for himself, because the supposed equivalent doesn't work at all.

Although I cannot change my current insurance, even during the open period.
But what irks me is, after the open period closes is when we get notices of how much our insurance is going up.
Mine shot up another 46 bucks starting in the new year. Mind you, my SS only went up like 18 bucks. So I'm further in the hole.

What also irks me, is those of us struggling to pay our bills living only on SS, cannot seem to get any help.
While other younger folks who could work, don't, and are getting three to four times more than seniors get.
No wonder they can afford new cars and steak dinners! Everything is paid for them, including housing and food and utilities.

[yogi]

I too had a friend in England with whom we discussed many things, National Health Services (NHS) included. She would always take pride in saying how "free" the healthcare was compared to what I told her about our system. In the end she had to admit that it was not free at all. There was a tax that everybody had to pay to the NHS every day you were employed. My argument pointed out that even if there were no specific tax for healthcare, somebody had to pay for it. Those doctors and nurses did not work for free nor were any of the drug companies donating their wares to the cause. The bottom line is that their nominal tax base was/is double what we are paying here for taxes. I never did the math, but it would only be logical to assume the increased taxes they are paying is equivalent to our insurance premiums. The cost of healthcare does not change much regardless of which country you are in.

My scheme for universal healthcare would not be as stingy as what we know about the NHS in the United Kingdom. There might even be some incentives in my plan for preventive care. We had such a "Well Care" program at Motorola which forced everyone to see a doctor at least once a year in order to get the company sponsored healthcare insurance. Under my scheme those folks who do not participate in the well care would have to pay for certain things out of pocket. The idea behind that would be to reduce overall costs by catching a lot of diseases early enough to treat them and avoid the need for long term care when possible. There would be no difference in healthcare based on age. Retired folks would get the same things the working folks get. And yes, the working folks would be paying for the retired folks' healthcare which is all calculated into the costs for premiums (taxes). The more or less fixed costs would eliminate the situation you refer to wherein your SSA benefits do not keep up with the cost of insurance premiums. Essentially being retired would eliminate the cost of healthcare from your budget, unless you choose to ignore the Well Care suggestions and pay for certain things out of pocket.

Social Security never was designed for or intended to be the sole source of income during retirement. You are among millions of others who suffer from that fact. Inflation is an economic reality in our capitalistic system but as you can testify to the rate of inflation is not equal across the board. Some things increase a lot more than others. That is the main reason SS benefits cannot be the sole source of income. It's a losing situation unless they change the system. Unfortunately, the only change in SS benefits I've heard of lately is the elimination of it.

[Kellemora]

Of the big companies I worked for, they had excellent health insurance for us.
But by the time I reached retirement age, we had to give up whatever insurance we did have and go on Medicare.
Then to cover what they didn't we needed a Drug Plan and a Supplemental Insurance policy.

Don't forget, I did my thesis on the Social Security System. It was doing much better than it should have been doing too.
There is no way, even if every baby boomer retired, that they would even make a dent in their surplus.
They hit their goal of no more payouts to anyone who didn't pay into the system like 4 years ahead of the projected schedule.
After that, no one would ever get back more than they paid in, unless they lived beyond like 85 years old, and then it depended on how much they did pay in during their working career.
The problems were not with Social Security, but the government borrowing from it, and then stealing from it, and then taking over all of SS funds completely.
SS was supposed to remain independent of the government, but that was short lived wasn't it.

Had SS not been ruined by the government, every retired person would be getting three times more than they are currently getting. I truly wish I would not have lost my thesis in the floods, because it would be a real eye opener for many, and with full documentation too.

[yogi]

The untouchable SSA reserve fund has indeed changed it's nature since the time you did research for your thesis. It is no longer untouchable. That reserve fund did not have anything whatsoever to do with the amount of the benefit you were entitled to. That benefit amount was and is based on what your average earnings were for a certain 10 quarters prior to making your claim, plus the amount you contributed as premiums during your entire working life. Even if you were able to pay the maximum amount, you were only entitled to a percentage of your average salary. I think 80% was the maximum, but it could have been less. That means if you wanted to continue your lifestyle the same way you lived prior to drawing your SSA benefits, you had to come up with at least the 20% difference. Most people did not get the 80% for various reasons so that a supplement income was considered necessary by the Social Security Administration.

The reserved fund was a brilliant design to make the SSA system self sufficient. It is the only reason that fund is solvent. Because those reserves no longer are exclusive to the SSA, the solvency of the system is in jeopardy. Some folks think it will go bankrupt in just a few years, while others say it's more like ten year s. The bottom line is that insolvency is a given unless something is changed.

SSA, as you well know, is not a healthcare benefit. You may use your SSA payouts to cover your healthcare premiums in certain cases, but they are two different things. When you and I were employed the companies we worked for had one single insurance policy that covered all it's eligible employees. That was called group insurance because everybody in the company's group paid the same premium and received the same benefits. As far as the insurance company was concerned, the cost of paying claims was averaged across the board. Healthy people in the group, who never made a claim, paid for the healthcare of their less fortunate coworkers. Oddly enough, nobody complained about that arrangement. The suggestion that the exact same idea be applied to healthcare in general, for every citizen of this country, for some reason gets a lot of resistance. Well fine. I hope the complainers are happy that they have to pay so much for healthcare.

Again, I must say that I empathize with you because I am in pretty much the same situation. I happen to have other sources of income than SSA benefits, but the cost of healthcare and medications is out of control for me as well as it is for you. The increase I received from the SSA benefits is slightly less than the increase in premiums I must pay for health insurance. In fact my health insurance premiums, medicare included, take nearly 40% of my SSA benefit. Unless the system is changed, that percentage will only increase as time moves on.

[Kellemora]

I am fortunate in a way. Although my SS check is small, I did manage to pay off the house I live in, so I don't have a rent payment or mortgage payment I would have to make.
By the time most folks do get to retirement age, they should have paid off their house, it's just a shame our real estate taxes don't stop when you retire and have a lower income from all sources.
We still have to pay for our utilities, health, homeowners, and car insurance, plus all the taxes they entail.
Many families rely on their kids to support them in old age. But not all lift a finger to help in any way.

The government appears to be able to pay out a lot of money to folks who don't deserve getting any money at all.
But claim they never have enough for those who should be getting it and don't.

[yogi]

I know I put afloat this concept for your perusal in the past. It would not offend my sensibilities if my only income was a small allowance for personal items and an occasional dinner at KFC with the government paying for everything else. They have enough money to do that for every citizen in this country. While that concept is nothing short of socialism and communism, the mechanisms are already in place to facilitate such a scheme. We would all be equally treated under that system, and being as wealthy as we are as a country we would be treated quite well. It's Utopian and demonstrated to be a faulty concept by many countries today who are trying to achieve such a system. The reason it can't work is that we humans are not all equal. We are all different and have our own unique combination of good and bad characteristics. The system we do have in place accommodates those differences quite well. Anyone who has the desire to excel is under no constraint to try their best. Problems arise only when we consider the rewards for being exceptional. It boils down to money and a capitalistic economy. There is no better motivation to success than the money and subsequent power it brings along with it. This type of reward system is seen by many as flawed because it encourages corruption by those who can't or do not want to exert an honest effort. Maybe so. But, the combination of a democratic republic and a capitalistic economy has brought this country to the acme of success that is envied by every other country on earth.

Unfortunately the success of the system we have in place is predicated on honor. The loopholes that do exist are easily exploited by those who choose to be less than honorable in executing their role in governance. There is a lot of talk about the collapse of our system of governance due to the excess of dishonest people in powerful positions; they are not all politicians either. At one time I thought it was impossible to dismantle something that has been so successful for so many hundreds of years. I've not given up hope on the system, but there sure is a lot of room for doubt.

[Kellemora]

Being a Democratic Republic, We The People do have the power to quit electing those who are not in our best interest.
But somehow, folks got tied to Parties, instead of Individuals. So they vote for a party and not pick out those from either side that they would like in office.

Governments are very good at handling OUR MONEY, they waste much more than they should, pocket exponentially more than they should, and let a few odd dollars fall toward influential groups.

I think Social Security was a good thing, especially for folks who lost everything for one reason or another.
But to create other funds for couch potatoes to live on for generations, that I don't go along with.
The elderly and infirmed should be taken care of, considering the amount of inflation that wipes out whatever saving they may have had.

The 2-bedroom apartment I lived in, back from 1972 to 1978, the rent was $112.50 per month and included the stove and fridge. Yes I got a good deal there, since most 1-bedroom apartments were a 100 bucks.
When I moved out in 1979, my apartment was rented out for 300 bucks a month.
Until he sold the place, the landlord never raised the rent on seniors all the time they were living there.
So some were only paying like 85 bucks a month rent.

I sorta followed in suit when I bought the 6 houses with tenants in them. Whatever the rent was, that is what I kept it at. Now I'm talking about 2-story all brick homes, and none of them were over 325 dollars per month.
A couple I renovated and rented out again, I did so at 400 bucks a month on a 1 year lease, not renewable.
All the other houses in the area of my rentals were in the 500 to 750 buck a month range.

Now, a 2-bedroom apartment is often over 1000 dollars a month, and some as high as 3000 a month, and those are a long shot from luxury apartments.

My point in all of this is.
If you retired in the 1970's and had a nice nest egg that could provide 200 bucks a month in rent for the next 20 years.
But rents had climbed to over 1000 a month since you retired. You will run out of money before you die!

[yogi]

The reason I am living in O'Fallon and not in a Chicago suburb is due to that last paragraph in your post. The real estate taxes alone would drain all my resources before I died if I continued to stay there. Of course I am making estimates about the end of my life and the rate of increase in taxes, but the mechanism is exactly as you point out.

Also a fact of life is inflation. It's built into our system of economics and governance regardless of who is at the helm. The alternative is a planned economy where inflation, if any, is manipulated by the powers that be. The only way that is possible is via an absolute dictatorship governance and a controlled economy. Check out how things are working in the Russian Federation to get an idea of how well that works.

There is no doubt that the system we have in place today, 2021, can be improved upon. That can only happen, however, if an agreement is reached by those democratically elected officials in public office.

[Kellemora]

My cousin Thomas, moved out to Jefferson County and bought a new house in a revamped subdivision out there.
The taxes on the land, as improved ground was only like 150 bucks a year, the houses were taxed separately from the land at that time, and was based on the footprint square footage. So a 2-story house paid the same tax as a 1-story if their footprint was the same size.
Within about five years time, they changed how they calculated the tax on the house to the normal way of square footage of usable living space. An unfinished basement was only pennies, first floor the highest, and second floor a little less than first floor. Plus they almost doubled the land tax at that time too.
After another three years, they combined all the taxes together and increased them of course, until his annual taxes were higher than they were back home, but back home at tripled also.
He sold his house and moved way out to a rural area. Bought a 20 year old ranch home on five acres of land, and his total taxes there only came to like 350 bucks a year. Then they too began going up by about 25 to 35% each year after that, as the town grew up around him. But he came out smelling like a rose, because property values suddenly shot up due to some larger factories moving out there. So he subdivided his property into like six 1/2 acre lots and two 3/4 acre lots, the rest was taken up by an access roadway to the lots.
He didn't sell the lots, he leased them on 40 year leases, but after he got sick, somewhere around the 20 year mark, he ended up selling the lots to the folks who built houses on them at the current value of the lots.
With all that money, he moved back to a small house in St. Louis County, closer to the hospitals, which was probably a good thing, because he made use of the hospitals many times before he finally gave up the ghost.

You know my ancestors were in Germany at the time Hyperinflation hit there.
If it were not for some ancestors moving over here before that, and could invite the relatives they left behind to come join them, I wonder what would have become of them? Probably they would have died from starvation like so many others.

Although we haven't seen hyperinflation here yet. But to senior citizens on fixed incomes, it can seem like hyperinflation to us.

[yogi]

Hyperinflation, the true form of it, is actually a pretty rare phenomena. Think about Afghanistan, for example, where there has been a magnificent change in the government recently. Hyperinflation is real there and the least of their problems, but as you noted basics such as food and health care become extinct in that kind of economy. The common people do indeed suffer from it all, but somehow they survive. Germany today is a world class country which may in fact have more influence economically and politically than the good ol' US of A. I don't know what would have become of your family if they had to endure the atrocities that brought about hyperinflation, but I'm guessing they all are as durable as you. They would have survived, somehow. After all, the corrupt people in power would have nothing if it were not for the servitude of the people they are abusing. They need to keep them around.

A lot of things have happened in this country of ours that I thought were impossible just a decade or two ago. It's hard for me to perceive the circumstance that would being about 1000% inflation rates, but it is indeed possible. You must know that the people in congress play chicken with our budget and our debt limits whenever they want to own the opposing political party. The threat is that the United States Treasury's AAA bond rating would be tanked if we defaulted on our debts or went bankrupt. I concede that kind of situation might dry up the money supply without touching demand, and voila. Instant hyperinflation.

What you and I are experiencing today is the correct and predictable result of a recovering economy. We were in the pits of it all during the pandemic but now we are climbing out and demands for goods and services are skyrocketing. While all that is true we are not actually gaining much ground yet. We are simply coming back to a point where the economy was before pandemic time. The momentum of the recovery could take us into a glorious economic state, but I have my doubts about the current lot of congressmen being capable of doing such things. In the mean time people like you are falling behind due to what would in other circumstances be considered normal growth. It's a very good thing for the country to be recovering and growing. It's not good that us fixed income folks have no way to grow just to keep pace, not to mention get ahead. The answer is, of course, for us to vote out the reprobates and get people in office that truly have our best interests in mind. Yes, indeed that is the solution. However, it's about as likely to happen as me winning the Power Ball drawing tonight. I do have a ticket by the way.

[Kellemora]

In the old days, a family usually stayed in the same area their whole lives. Sometimes even living on the same property for generation after generation. Heck, even my family was like that for nearly 100 years.
But with travel, kids going off to college, marrying someone from someplace else, it is not uncommon for family members today to live far away from where their parents are.
Also with this mass migration to other parts of the world, nobody is left to help take care of mom and dad, or grandma and grandpa anymore. And sadly, most don't really care, because they are struggling doing their own thing.

My great-grandparents, grandparents, and even my own parents up until the late 1960's all pooled resources, not meaning money here per se. But we bought in large bulk items that were then shared with all the family members (actually sold to them at cost). All the years my grandma on my dad's side was still alive, she maintained a huge board of things like produce and vegetables, and family members would initial the items they wanted during our next trip to the market. When there was enough initials behind a product that we could buy and entire pallet full, that is what we did, and everyone was notified that what they wanted was in, and to come and get it.
It was not uncommon for us to pull one of the tractor trailers over to the Topmost warehouse and load it up with cases of canned goods. We were not cutting our local grocers out by doing this, because we would get a better deal than they could, and we would let each of the local grocers that carried Topmost brand canned goods, get them from us for the lower price.
Plus, besides buying for our own family. Being members of the Des Peres Businessmen's Association, sometimes we would pool together large ticket items, like cars or trucks to get whopping good deals for all of us. Mostly with things like delivery vans. When we bought four or five, we would get two for the drug store, one each for the local farmers who needed one, one or two for the grocery delivery guys. The car dealer was not left out either. We would order all ten or a dozen trucks from one dealer this year, another dealer next year, etc. One of the dealers we used was Roper/Danz Ford. I remember them because when dad ordered a fleet of trucks, they would give him a car at cost. Nothing fancy though, dad didn't like fancy.
Perhaps the next time they ordered a fleet of trucks, they would get them from Yates/Stevens Ford. Occasionally we would get some from Rauscher Chevrolet. But before I knew what they were doing, we had all kinds of trucks on our place. Some were made by Dodge Brothers, who predated just Dodge. And a few cars like grandma's Woody, or grandpa's early cars like his Moon Automobile when he was younger.

Grandpa built an empire, and my dad's generation tore it down!

[yogi]

I'm guessing that it was a lot easier for your grandpa to build an empire in his days than it is in 2022. For one thing there was less competition back then and all that was needed was hard work and some business acumen. Since I literally have no first hand business background It's hard for me to say what has changed, but I feel confident that the ethics of it all today isn't what ti was 100 years ago. The story of your grandpa's success is the American Dream. We did, and my still. live in the land of opportunity. The close knit family you describe is the base from which your grandpa's business evolved. The next generation was more mobile and independent because that is what growing societies do. They expand. Thus the foundation of the business ethics developed and built upon by your elders simply didn't exist in his progeny. Today it takes more than hard work and clever ideas to build an empire. You have to be prepared to engage in combat should you reach an influential level in your field. The competition is fierce and every business is fighting to stay alive, particularly in today's economy. That's hardly conducive to empire building, certainly not from a family base on up.

We can lament the success and ultimate demise of the business empire you were part of building. The more positive approach would be to celebrate the successes of the past and be comforted by all the individual people your business touched and improved the quality of their life. It may not be what it used to be, but you can say you were there at one point. You know from experience what success truly is.

[Kellemora]

It is amazing when one stops to think, my great-grandpa cracked rock by hand for road building for 12-1/2 cents per day.
Saved up and bought a small farm. Mainly to grow his own produce at first, then expanded a bit more each year. Until they were raising enough to open their own Market which also grew. But back then, all of the employees were family members and relatives, same when i was growing up sorta, except we did have a hundred or two that were not relatives.

But I must say, it does boggle the mind looking back over the years at what my grandpa did accomplish. He built the best greenhouses available, had that massive boiler room with two boilers, and that 100 foot tall Weiderholt Chimney, and you know those things didn't come cheap, hi hi.
Grandma used to talk about trading their sugar ration stamps for fuel stamps so they had enough gas to deliver their flowers. And many folks were glad to do so, because they couldn't afford to use their vehicles anyhow, but they wanted their sugar.
Nobody in the whole county knew that grandma was making her own sugar for her own use, not for selling it. Not the same kind as you bought from the store though.
Folks were not afraid to work hard, especially if they could land a job somewhere during the depression. People still died, and folks sent flowers, because it was what they did back then, and often in a big way too.
And that is probably what saved the florist in the first place when many other businesses went belly up.