Column: Tales from Exit 22

I was deep in the heart of taxes.

My wife was herding receipts when the phone rang.

I was expecting a call from the fellow who sold me a retirement policy that allowed him to retire early, but the caller was a friend of a friend of a barber who drinks coffee each morning with the neighbor of my second cousin. He talked as if we’d known each other forever. He had an investment opportunity that he wanted to share. He wanted me to invest in memorabilia from the old TV show “Happy Days.” It was a Fonzie scheme. He hit me with some financial waterboarding, hoping to hook me with his amazing get-rich-quick proposition.

I refused to be hornswoggled. I said, “If it’s so good, why share it? Keep it all to yourself.”

There is always a fly in the ointment. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Such plots cause your money to bid you adieu (As Mrs. Chips said to Mr. Chips, “Goodbye.”) or lead to you having lunch with Bernie Madoff. If you want to double your money, fold it. That works best with paper money.

The caller decided that he wasn’t going to be my best friend. Before he hung up, he asked if I wanted to be rich. I didn’t have an answer. It’d be nice to be able to buy things without worrying about how I was going to pay for them, but then I’d have to worry about more possessions.

Worry is a terrible thing. Worrying is like rocking in a chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere. A neighbor buys stale bread so he doesn’t have to worry about it going stale. Another neighbor didn’t believe in spending money. He had no electricity. He advised that if I wanted to be rich like him, I needed to eliminate all my monthly bills. That made sense, but I like flipping a switch that illuminates my world.

A fellow who shared my zip code went to the butcher shop each week to get bones for his dogs. He didn’t have any dogs. He wanted free soup bones. His was a meager existence. By appearance, he had nothing. No one thought he had two nickels to rub together. When he died, his church got a surprise. I’ll bet you’ve guessed what happened. He left the church all those bones.

Riches defy definition. To some, having a large supply of black jellybeans is being rich. Mr. Spock from “Star Trek” advised us to live long and prosper. We learn that time is the true wealth, but money is important. We’ve been using a medium of exchange since that day Og hit Grak on the head with a rock. That was payment for the furry animal that tasted like trout that Og intended on swiping from Grak after he conked Grak’s melon with the rock. That was when Og discovered that Grak had a pile of rocks. Once Og’s head wounds healed, he wished that he, too, were rich in rocks.

We begin early in our search for wealth. We dig in our mothers’ purses and behind sofa cushions in the pursuit of loose change. We dream of striking it rich in goldfields or lotteries. Some people become wealthy — by hard work, skill, good luck, inheritance or frugality.

The Bible says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Have you tried stuffing a camel through the eye of a needle? It’s almost as difficult as stuffing a rich man through the eye of a camel. My neighbor Nora Lenderbee is wealthy. She has the Midas touch. Everything she touches turns to mufflers. She turned her muffler shop into piles of money. Back when the want ads didn’t want her, the census said she didn’t count, and she read recipes for lunch, Nora’s first job was cleaning henhouses. She was paid little for a nasty job. One day, while shoveling fetid chicken droppings, Nora made a promise. She vowed that when she became a wealthy woman, she would pay for the college education of a young woman cleaning chicken houses.

Nora meant to keep that promise. Until she became rich.

Work can be its own reward. Working hard to become rich is like trying to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

If you rub the sticks long enough, you’ll be warm without a fire.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Sunday and Wednesday.