Frugality is just a game for me…a game which I really enjoy playing. Dumb game, you say. Compared to what? Throwing a ball through a hoop? Using a stick to hit a ball into a can? Whacking a ball with a stick and racing around a diamond? Having a donnybrook free-for-all brawl trying to advance a ball passed a line in the dirt (sometimes mud)? Throwing various objects (javelins, discuses, hammers, shot puts) into the air? I see less as more… and I don’t see that as dumber than other sports.
Besides maybe I’m not the crazy austere nut…maybe the more-is-better people who use plastic money to buy plastic goods are the brainwashed crazies. Could be. Anyway I’ve had some experience enjoying living on less. I grew up in a family of 12 kids, so there weren’t excessive toys… but who needs a ball to hit when you have sisters. JUST KIDDING SIS!
In high school I went off to a boarding school run by Benedictine brothers and monk’s (probably a plot by my sisters to be rid of me). I was very impressed by the Benedictines’ vow of poverty, simple life styles and self sufficiency. A brother’s wardrobe consisted of two cowled habits…he wore one while the other was in the wash. As for self sufficiency, they even had a power plant to produce their own electricity and steam heat. Our electric hallway clocks ran a little differently than the rest of the world but we only noticed it when we watched national news on the TV in our recreation room.
The Benedictines ran their own farm. The hogs fed us (we ate a lot of pork link sausage for breakfast) and we fed the hogs (we were warned never to put tooth picks in the after meal table scraps because it might get caught in a pigs digestive system). The monks also baked all our dark whole grain bread and the bakery gave the whole abbey a good aroma.
From the seminary, I went to the military…again another Spartan lifestyle. All my military clothing: the dress greens, the fatigues, the kakis, headgear, shoes and boots along with winter over coat and utility jacket fit into one duffel bag. When we bivouacked, we carried what we needed on our backs.
When I got to Southeast Asia, I saw how simply and happily 3rd world people lived in houses built on stilts with metal roofs. I drank homemade rice wine from a big wooden barrel on the porch of a paddy farmer who raised eight daughters on five acres. They all seemed happy, well fed, and well clothed in Thai silk sarongs.
Eventually I rented my own hut on stilts (reminds me of my brother’s river camp, actually) for $10 a month. It was my week-end escape so that I could pretend for a bit that I wasn’t in the military and taking orders. With a battery powered radio blasting out Thai music, a mosquito net covered hammock swinging on the roofed-over veranda, a bottle of muscatel, and a papaya tree growing up beside the house, it felt more like paradise than poverty.
So FYI, if you should see me now enjoying my retirement in my country bungalow on four acres…gardening, fishing and hammocking…don’t think that I am just being lazy when I am actually in training…to bring home the gold for team USA when being tight finally does become an Olympic sport. ---Honey, could you please pour me another jigger of muscatel?
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