Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

First Dollar

No matter how much money or success one hopes to make in life, the journey starts with one dollar or one step. Usually the first dollar is the hardest to make.

Most human beings, at least the ones in our culture, start making a dollar here and a dollar there in their teen years. If I made any money during my adolescence, I owe it to my tenacity because I grew up with an overprotective mother who wouldn't let me babysit or mow a lawn or do anything else for "strangers" who were in fact our neighbors and friends. If I did anything for anyone, she would be around watching me and would have me do it as a favor, and not for money. After all, according to her, money was dirty; I had everything I needed and one didn't eke out monetary gain from friends. In spite of living under the thumb of such a character as my mother, I still made my first dollar in my teens. This is such a long time ago that I remember the whole experience in a haze.

A daughter to one of our family friends, one I'll call F, was struggling in school. F had a few problems as a child. She was too fat and painfully aware of her size, and I suspect in hindsight, she also had learning disabilities, which people didn't know, understand, talked about, or admit during the fifties. Otherwise, F was a pretty girl and quite nice. A year younger than me, she was running the risk of being left back in a time when schools didn't let anyone repeat a year. To the best of my recollection, her wealthy parents always had a tutor for her for one subject or another, but F hated the tutors and had crying fits after they left. Her mother didn't want her to drop out of school and was pushing her to the max.

I, on the other hand, was her opposite. I was in an accelerated all-girls school and doing very well. F's aunt thought, because F related to me as a friend, I should be the one to tutor her since she seemed to be the most relaxed with me. My mother jumped in and said I should do it, but as a favor. F and her family wouldn't hear of it; at the end, for the sake of F, my mother had to accept their offer.

So I started tutoring F in practically all her subjects. She didn't always listen to me. She never wanted to do the work, and at times, she would daydream while I was trying to explain something or other to her. Whenever she did that, I told a joke, and once drew a caricature of her face pouting, which made her laugh. Although eventually our sessions turned into clowning, she made some headway, and her grades improved. Her family was happy.

My dubious success of tutoring F while I was in ninth grade opened the door to my tutoring others in lower classes than me for the rest of my school life, for finally, my mother had consented to it if the students came to our house for the lessons instead of me going to them.

Much later, I received a teaching license, but when it came to teaching high school, I didn't like the experience at all. Although I still cherish the memory of my so-called success with F and other students who followed her, I dropped out of teaching after six months.

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Prompt: How did you make your first dollar? Baby-sitting, paper route or..... Have fun with this.