The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question actually comes in the form of a meme.
Talk about it….
The Water Cooler – What Are Some Things You Thought Were Indicators Of Wealth When You Were A Kid?
36 comments
I thought the kids who had their birthday parties at the Red Barn or Straw Hat were rich.
If neighbors had a swimming pool, had a Cadillac or Lincoln, wife had a fur coat, hired a maid, butler, housekeeper or landscaper
The super large box of crayons with the sharpener in the back.
YES! or the scented markers!
Anybody that owned a Cadillac or a Lincoln. When I was a teenager, there was a kid in school I hung out with. Ed would come to my house on weekends, and we’d go out and see what kind of misadventures we could get into. One day, he invited me over to his house, and there was a Cadillac and a Lincoln parked in the driveway. I had known him for a couple of months, and he never indicated he came from a rich family. It turned out that his father owned a country club and casino in Stateline, Nevada, and he was the nephew of Danny Thomas, and Marlo Thomas was his cousin.
Air conditioning, swimming pool in the backyard, wall to wall carpets, having real butter at a meal other than Christmas or Easter, picture windows, color tv, going out to eat. Cheers, all!
A color TV was huge.
A Barbie house or car.
I, and my 4 siblings, went with our Mom & Dad to visit my Dad’s Godfather’s House. First time we met him. Not sure where it was, but it was a bit of a drive. The Godfather had some kind of an ice cream business. Gave us ice cream to snack on. His wife was dressed well and jewelry. They had a maid who served the ice cream!
It was very weird for me.
Any friend who had his own room was considered rich in my eyes–comes from someone who grew up in a family of eight children who had to share everything!
A boat
@Paul
A houseboat.
if they had a pool and if only one parent worked
Car or cell phone.
Now kids come with a cell phone at birth
Growing up in the small farming community the local successful wheat ranchers would buy a new car every two years and often would be a Cadillac. And often they would go on a yearly vacation in winter, usually Hawaii. Color TV? No, it was still B&W when I was a kid but a TV itself, my family was a little behind on getting one of those.
BMW, Color TV, house with upstairs, food to share with friends.
Obviously a cadillac and the basketball hoop with a plexiglass backboard.
Big box of Crayons with the sharpener got me feeling funny things
A cee-ment pond.
And a fancy eatin’ table with sharpened pool cues to snag that last piece of possum.
For us, a Schwinn Stingray was a sign of wealth for a while. Then the rich kids didn’t even bother with a Schwinn Varsity ten speed but went straight to a Gitane, Peugeot, or Mercier. In retrospect it was a good lesson in physics: A scrawny guy on a lightweight french ten speed could always outrun the big guy on the Schwinn Varsity or Continental.
Diamonds, champagne and Cadillacs. And Ginger from Gilligans Island.
Here you go Atticus! Check out Tina’s most recent photo ( she isn’t keeping the Kleenex Company sales skyrocketing like she did in the 60’s tho).
https://tinyurl.com/2up2ns64
Great link!! Thanks for sharing that one, DOC
Having a Mercedes-Benz. Having one now it is not a big deal, as they have lower cost models, but back in the day, that was a big deal.
indoor plumbing
I grew up in a neighborhood near Holbrook Elementary. I thought anyone who lived in The Crossings was “rich”.
I rented a room from a lady who lived in The Crossings in 1988……$300 a month. I was making her house payment for her.
We bought a 2-year-old “Crossings” house–only 1850 sq ft originally–for only $92,500. You didn’t have to be rich when the development was young.
Not living in an apartment and owning a house, which nowadays is a sign of wealth.
I find this topic fascinating. How many of those “wealthy people” were up to their eyeballs in debt? Sometimes owning less is better than having the newest fad. Life is short, nobody cares about your branded lifestyle. You take nothing when it ends. The crayon box with the sharpener was a top level set up tho
Ok I guess people do care about your brands..lol
If someone looks and act wealthy, but have a lot of debt they are not truly wealthy. Wealth is your assets minus your liability. They might look wealthy, but in the end they are only fooling themselves.
Exactly
And they may look poor and be sitting on a stack.
@Maga Sam
I grew up in a little town where the richest man (multi-millionaire) drove a rusted, dented pick-up and clothes that were practically rags, while owning a couple of businesses and a lot of land.
Where I grew up (30 miles south of Copenhagen) it was unusual at the time (late forties and fifties) to have a car. The area had small farms, middle size farm, big farms, and castles. A big farm close to us had several maid. The wife of the owner would come down and buy vegetables from my dad, and at one time my mother and I were invited to tea. There were several rooms living room and what we called the “garden room”, it was like a living room, but less formal. A maid served the food and there were also a dumbwaiter, I was so impressed, I decided when I grew up I would either marry a big farmer or someone from Copenhagen. If it was a small farm the wife worked along with the husband in the fields and milking the cows. I knew I NEVER wanted to milk a cow, (they can me temperamental and kick you). Eventually I decide to come to the US to get away from the cows (tonque in cheek). When I visited friends and family in Copenhagen the big villa’s by the water was the epitome of rich to me. They were beautiful, and you could see Sweden across the water, and the women were all dressed very fashionable. Light years away from the country.
When I was younger it was a nice house, swimming pool, hot wife and a fast car….. but now that I’m older & wiser I’d say best indicators of a person’ status & wealth would be a nice house, swimming pool, hot wife, and a fast classic car (when I was young those cars weren’t classics yet).
A good meal that included meat. We grew up eating some sort of meat once a week, due to being very low income. But I had a school friend on 7th grade who will cook all sort of good meaty meals during the week for her siblings. Mom was always at work. I found later Mom owned a very popular brothel in town.
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