Getting an allowance from your parents seems to be an old-fashioned idea. My grandfather used to tell me about how he would pay my dad for mowing the lawn, washing the cars and other chores. Even though it sounded like low wage slavery to me, he was adamant that allowances were the only way to give your kid money. Make him or her earn it on a steady basis. In granddad’s opinion, the millennial method of ‘rewarding’ children was way too easy and expensive. For him the ‘modern brat’ learned only what instant gratification was, how to demand things, not earn them.
Mr. Logan moved in next door about three years ago and in a short while we got to know him fairly well. He was single but seemed to always have a pretty woman hanging around. My dad used to call them eye candy, mom called them gold diggers. Mr. Logan was a damn good-looking man, about 6’2, 200 pounds, with deep chest, broad shoulders, narrow waist, solid looking butt, and long athletic legs. To use a much-used cliché, his face was chiseled from fine marble. We would see him jogging almost every day, and if the day was hot, he would be covered with sweat. Even though I was not yet sixteen years old, Mr. Logan caused a lot of fluttery stomachs when I saw him like that. No boy in my school had the effect on me Mr. Logan did. I would not have dropped a pass from Mr. Logan if he threw one my way. Apparently, he had the same effect on my mother because one day she was gone, Mr. Logan’s house was empty, and the next time dad heard from her, it was through a divorce lawyer.