Being an old skinflint in old-time Phoenix


As I was watching a movie recently that had been filmed in the 1940s, I heard someone's uncle being described as an "old skinflint". I looked up where the word supposedly originated, but I'm not convinced, but suffice to say that it's been around for a long time, although you really don't hear it much. It means an old person who is very cheap, very miserly, refuses to spend money.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't consider myself an old skinflint, not that I don't have the grey hair for it, but mostly because a true skinflint has plenty of money and is just too cheap to part with it. When he does have to spend money, it's a painful thing. The old skinflints that I've known in my life tend to use graphic terms when they've had to spend money, some of which has made me wonder if it really hurts them that much? Seems a shame. Spending money can be wonderful, especially if you're buying some ice cream!

I posted that pic up there of old-time Phoenix, at Central and Washington, not because I'm implying that anyone there was a skinflint, but of course someone in that picture might have been. Skinflints tend to take a closer scrutiny, and there's a difference between someone who's poor, or thrifty, versus someone who is an old skinflint. Usually you have to know them, up close and personal.

Age, of course, is important when identifying an old skinflint, and they have to reveal that they have the wealth, but just aren't willing to part with it. I find that old skinflints can be lavish on what they buy for themselves, but will often never be able to get much enjoyment from the things they buy. That person in the buckboard there, for example, might be an old skinflint who bought the finest buckboard available, but is too miserly to change the shoes on his horse, or to fix that wheel that ran over a rock and continues to go "clunk-clunk". Of course I'm just making this up, this is just an old postcard.

I grew up in Minneapolis, raised by parents who had seen the depression, and learned the value of taking care of things, and not being wasteful. And I've been good about that kind of stuff all of my life, maybe too much, and often to the point that I had to stick a crowbar in my wallet a few times to get something good, or to get it fixed properly. And as I drift into my golden years I see that very fine line between being an old skinflint, and being someone who is wise with my possessions, and my money.

But, like I say, I really don't have a chance to be an old skinflint, I just don't have the bank account (or gold bars buried in the backyard). It's my desire that when people look back at my life, they will include the word "generous" when they describe me - maybe not with money, but with things that I could share.
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