Chapter 27

The President of the United States or the Governor of Oklahoma will never call me to head up their finance department.

As a writer at the newspaper where I work, my stories are usually focused on news or features on somebody that one of my bosses thought was interesting, or they owed a favor to.

I have seldom gotten the chance to write about things concerning a person’s finance. The only one I can recall was some thirteen-year old computer geek in Tulsa. He had written a program that supposedly could beat the stock market.

During the first month, it did. The program analyzed all the stocks available through the New York Stock Exchange, and his returns were excellent. Fortunately, he did not actually have money to invest, just a program to play with.

One of his teachers knew somebody important at the paper and word filtered down that I should write a story about the techno-wiz. The kid could have benefited from more spankings as a child. He was rude, gross, uninteresting and a person who will probably graduate from college at the age of 17, shortly before he writes some software that makes him a billionaire.

After that, I figure the kid will lose whatever sanity remains and he will wind up in some padded room, sucking his thumb and watching SpongeBob SquarePants reruns for the rest of his life.

I checked back with him two weeks after writing the story. His program had crashed and burned. If somebody had invested a thousand dollars, they would have less than four hundred smackers left.

My 401K has not performed great, but it certainly beat the dork’s program.

What I have learned about finances, it has been the old fashioned way. I read books, magazines and study the internet. I don’t want to be another Suze Orman, giving out financial advice and calling everybody “babe”. I just want to be literate with my finances.

That is why and how I started saving money, maxing out my retirement funds and getting rid of debt. I have not paid a penny of interest in the two years since paying off my truck. I will never get rich off the piddling salary I receive, but if things continue the way they have, I will have a safe and secure retirement.

I used to struggle from paycheck to paycheck, just getting by. Then I developed a budget and stuck with it. It was hard and I gave up a lot of things that used to be important, like beer, but in the long run, it paid off. I started seeing the money grow in my accounts, plus not waking up to a hangover also was nice.

My father never taught me one thing about money. I had to learn a lot of other things on my own, also. Dad never gave me the “birds and the bees” talk either, which I am forever grateful.

When I was a kid and asked my father questions about money, the reply was usually something along the lines of “that’s none of your business”. I had no idea how much money he made. My parents always seemed to be doing okay since they had a nice house and newer cars.

The newspaper used to print the news, along with what seemed to be money as the ad revenue just flew in. Dad could sit back and let all the local businesses bring in their ads, along with money to pay for those ads.

Over the years, our little town has lost businesses as the old timers have retired and in many cases, their successors have not inherited any of their father’s or mother’s business sense. Solid businesses that fought off Wal-Mart for so long by giving good service and only slightly gouging the customers have closed, brought down by the burdens of trying to make changes that should never have been made.

I knew the paper wasn’t bringing in as much revenue with the loss of ads, but I also figured it wasn’t that big of a deal to my father. He should have everything paid off and kept his expenses to a minimum, at least in his business.

During my return to Langford, I had been surprised several times. Those were just slight nudges. Dad was about to hit me with the biggie sized one.

“We’re in a little bit of a jam,” he admitted.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“With, you know, the paper.”

“Okay, what kind of a jam? Strawberry or grape?”

He didn’t get my joke. Not that I blame him, it wasn’t all that great.

“With the money thing. We’ve been kind of, uh, struggling. If we don’t get the paper out and bring in some money, we’ll lose everything.”

“Why would you lose everything? What’re you talking about?”

“Michael, we’ve been losing money for the last five years. I’ve had to beg and borrow just to stay afloat.”

I was getting a sick feeling again, thanks to my father.

My father owned an older two-story building downtown that housed the newspaper. It was one of those old brick buildings that everybody thinks is charming, until they have to work in it or on it. It’s always hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But the roof only leaks when it rains.

His equipment is old and needs updated. I just figured he was too cheap to change and didn’t want to go digital.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

His look told me more than any words. Dad looked more terrified to tell me his financial situation than he was of whatever it was that was rapidly killing him.

“Michael,” he began, trying to choose his words, “it’s just plain bad. When it started going down, I expected it would get better, like it always did before. This time, there wasn’t the recovery. We did okay during the elections when we could stick it to the political candidates, but other than that, we’ve been flushing money down the toilet like there was a magnet down there pulling it in.”

“Go on,” I urged him. He was a little cautious.

“I had to take out a little loan at the bank,” he continued. “Just to get us through the winter. It didn’t help, just added something else that I had to pay on. We never were much on saving money. What I brought in, usually went right back out. I still had solid credit, then, and got a couple of credit cards to buy supplies and things.”

Dad had to pause and take a drink. He was getting the white stuff on the corners of his mouth. I watched him stick his tongue out for some reason and run it around his lips.

“How bad is it?” I asked. He held up a finger. Dad wanted me to be patient, something I did not want to be.

“It just kept getting worse,” Dad added. “I got another card, one of those that promises not to charge any interest for a few months. I thought that was a good idea, but I filled it up within two months, along with the two I already had. I was having a little trouble with my checking account. Somehow, I got off and got overdrawn. I decided the only way to get out of this mess was to borrow against the newspaper and pay off the credit cards and the loan I already had with them. This was before the banks merged, back when things were good around here.”

“How big was the loan?” I asked.

“Seventy five,” he answered. “I paid off the loan, the credit cards and borrowed a little extra to help me get by.”

I didn’t know a lot about newspaper finances, just enough to realize that Dad’s little paper could not generate enough income to pay that kind of debt and provide him with money to live on. I doubted that my parents had changed their lifestyle and with Dad going to the doctor every time he sneezed funny, that would only increase their outflow.

“We were okay for a few months,” he said. “That was when the banks merged. Before that, they both bought ads every week. The new owners of the bank didn’t believe in advertising and cut me off. Then, the hardware store closed. They owed me like four thousand dollars.”

“Why’d you let them charge that much?” I asked.

“They were supposed to be selling and just waiting to close, then I’d get my money. The only thing I got was the notice of bankruptcy.”

For a small business that is struggling, that kind of loss would hurt, especially when the owner already spent the money, believing the old “check is in the mail” story.

“Why didn’t you try to sell the paper?” I asked.

“Because that newspaper was my life!” he shot back, showing more life than I had seen from him in years. “Our family has always had the newspaper! I couldn’t be the one to lose it.”

That took a little out of him. He had to rest for a spell before returning to his story.

“Five years before all this, our downtown was booming,” Dad said. “It was starting to look like a ghost town. The few new businesses we had were all on the highway and rarely advertised. One month, I couldn’t make the loan payment. I used one of the credit cards. They kept me going for a year. When they would get full, I’d get another one. After I had four of them full, they wouldn’t let me have any more.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“Two years ago.”

“How have you gotten by the last two years?”

“I’m getting to it. I had to do something. All the newspaper’s assets were tied up with the bank loan and I couldn’t get any more credit cards.”

I realized how he had gotten by the last two years.

“Dad, you didn’t!”

“I had to, son.”

I knew what he had done. He had borrowed against his house, probably more than it was ever worth. Mom would have signed the loan papers, never realizing what she was doing, trusting my father to do the right thing.

“How much do you owe on the house?” I asked.

“It’s kind of tied in with the newspaper loan now,” he answered.

“Okay, how much do you owe on that loan?”

He started staring at the wall again. Dad took a deep breath before delivering another blow.

“Around one forty,” he answered.

“You owe one hundred and forty thousand dollars?” I asked. This was too much. I expected maybe fifty thousand, but not that much. “On your house and the newspaper?”

He could only nod his head, refusing to look at me.

In most places, their house would be worth one hundred thousand. In Langford, the value of homes had gone down. The people who could afford a nice house like that, would rather go somewhere else. They were too scared Hispanics or transient white-trash might actually move in next to them. Plus, a newspaper that was losing money, could never sell for much, I knew that.

“Dad, how could you do that?” I asked.

“We had to survive.”

“Is that all you owe?” I asked. I had the bad feeling there was something else he had not said

“Well, yeah, except for the credit cards.”

I buried my face in my hands. No horror movie had ever gotten me this badly.

“How much?”

“Around fifty or so.”

My father owed around two hundred thousand dollars. People his age should have a nice nest egg built up, not worrying where the next meal was coming.

“Dad!” It was all I could say. Mom was going to swallow her fake teeth.

“The bank’s got an attorney writing me nasty letters,” he added, more good news.

“What are they saying?” I asked.

“That if I don’t get the loan caught up within the next two weeks, they’ll foreclose on me.”

“You would lose the newspaper and the house, right?”

He nodded.

“How much is due?” I asked.

“Around four thousand.”

That had to be four months. But it couldn’t be all he was behind on.

“What about the credit cards? Are you behind on them?”

That was obviously a stupid question

“How much is due on them?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied.

“Give me a ballpark figure.”

“Four or five thousand. They call me day and night, wanting money. Now they’re calling your mother. I just tell her it’s taken care of until the next call.”

I figured my father was probably fudging on the figures a little bit. It would probably take about ten thousand to get him caught up. I had six thousand in a money market account. The rest of my money was tied up in accounts where I couldn’t touch it.

That was money I was building up to someday put a down payment on a house. Living in an apartment gets a little old at times, just throwing your money away and having neighbors living on the other side of a wall.

“I can’t believe you did this,” I said. The words hurt my father, but probably no worse than how he already felt.

He nodded again. Now wasn’t the time to throw more salt on his wounds, it would not do any good and I got no satisfaction in trying to hurt him.

“I won’t be here to see it,” he told me. Dad was crying now, big tears that were slowly falling down his cheeks.

“See what?” I asked.

“Your mother lose her house. Losing me will be tough on her, but she can survive that. Losing her house will do her in.”

It had felt like my life was on a rollercoaster since I returned to Langford. Now, the rollercoaster was taking a deep plunge. One that was so far down, I couldn’t see the bottom.

“What can I do?” I asked.

His answer was in the form of a request, one that I didn’t think was possible.

Chapter 28