Recent Entries

Jinotega Day

When I got outside after futzing around on line, water from an overflowing sewer line was running in the gutter nearest my house. One of the neighbors said something in Spanish that sounded like a warning and pointed to the water. I took a breath...

Since I'd had to have wiring work done of my house to get two grounded outlets for the computer stuff and wanted to be able to test the wiring in future rentals I might consider, I walked up to the hardware store which didn't have the right sort of AC circuit tester, but which did have modern versions of the double knife switch with two flat wire fuses that had been my original and ungrounded junction box. The hardware store didn't have a circuit tester with a second probe, so I couldn't test grounding with the one they did have for AC.

A box of books I'd mailed out of Virginia on January 5 had arrived with a charge of C$5 for customs. Someone from Direccion General de Servicios Aduaneros, Administracion de Aduana Postal had been through the box, put a list inside describing the contents inside, and then taped it up. Aduana/Customs in Nicaragua wants us to know it cared, just like Homeland Security went through my check on bags and left a note, I suppose. Duty on the box was five cordobas, with cordobas now running 22 or so to the dollar. The box was in transit or Managua for one day less than a month. It still weighed 27 or so pounds, so I got a taxi home.

Got the box up packed and called the guy making my bookcase, asked how that was coming and said the books were now all over the sewing machine but not to rush since I didn't have any cloth. I then asked if his friend the Nicaraguan electrician would want to see what the gringo electrician did to put in proper wiring for computers. He thought that he would (and we're talking about it as wiring for computers, not as any criticism of how the guy wires houses for lights and refrigerators).

One of the books was a book on growing tropical fruit in Florida that I'd saved since finding it about fifteen years ago in a used book store. It also tells what the nutritional components of each fruit is and whether it's for jams and jellies or for eating out of hand. I also had more Spanish books, and a bilingual reader I need to start working through.

After that, I bought honey at the Coffee Growers Coop and crema from my landlord's renting agent who also runs a pulperia.

Then I hooked up the OWC Neptune firewire case and found out that the hard drive inside had died. I think the Seagate drive is under warranty still, but would have some difficulty proving it hadn't been dropped in shipping it here. I took the case apart to get the drive out and will see what the boys at the shop have in the way of replacement drives. If they don't have something I can use or if the problem is in the case (which is older than the current drive), I'll see what the USB external drives look like. I could possible partition one and make a Windows XP partition for the Acer and a Mac partition for the Mini. The Neptune case only works with FireWire, advantages and disadvantages with that.

Note to self -- consider preventive maintenance replacement of the cased external drives every two years, especially if they've been stored without running them for a while.

I shudder at getting inside a Mac Mini, but people have added more memory and larger notebook drives to those.

In a Rented House that's for Sale

I want to get certain work done on the house to use the computer more safely (there's no breaker box, no grounding) and wanted to get a circuit for hot water. But today two guys came by to look at the house (with the landlord's agent's mother). It's on the market for US$50K which is more than I would want to pay for it and we'd technically have a month to find new accommodations if it did sell.

I've got a Medrano Express box on its way by sea and have no idea whether anything will happen before that comes, but today was a reminder that I can't count on this place being mine forever unless I had US$40K or so to offer and wasn't facing better offers.

In other news, I am waiting to see if the guy coming in from Managua will have the USB headsets with microphones so I can do Skype phone calls on the Mac. My young friend at the computer store and I attempted to discuss the virtues of Windows over Mac and Linux. I told him I'd run a Solaris machine once but that was mas deficile. Linux no es deficile. I don't think he believed me. The kids in the store looked like high school students and apparently are -- this kid was out in the morning until 3 p.m. There's a whole swarm of them, then two older guys who I think own the store. It's a small but deep storefront, fairly typical of things around here. They do computer repairs, sometimes out in the street. The kids are very different in some ways than US computer kids (more polite and very much still Nicaraguan kids) but the same in other ways (OS arguments).

I'd love to stay here, but that might not be possible. I've had leads on other places, but will wait and see. One person had her office in the building and wanted someone to be around at night in a separate apartment. Haven't checked further to see if that was still available, but selling a house here would probably take at least as long as selling one in the US. Should have reasonable notice, I hope.

I wanted to split the electric service and get my service in my name, but I might better wait until I'm in more permanent quarters. The woman next door probably doesn't pay any more than I do, possibly less, and I figured that the owner in Miami would be better off selling the place for $40K (don't know how the figures work for $30K) than renting to us for 10 years at circa US $180 a month (US $90 each). Break point seems to be $21.6K for ten years -- worth the same to rent (minus repair expenses). If I had the money, I'd consider making her an offer at US$30K, but I don't. There are other places to rent in Jinotega, but I've gotten to know this neighborhood.

That age, wisdom, perspective thing

One of the things I've come away from the recent robbery and various discussions on line about Nicaraguan crime is that any of us is as safe as our neighbors want us to be and as safe as we're able to read the cultures we're in. I knew that I should have gotten the keys back from my friend, that her boy friend had robbed in the past and was under stress now. Didn't, got robbed of what I hadn't thought to move to friends. He robbed me rather selectively: one pair of commodity boots, but not the handmade boots; the flashlights, but not the kitchen pan worth far more than the flashlights; the parka but no other clothes, and the propane tank (for quick money) but none of the other furniture. I could imagine his excuses for what he was doing.

The other thing I realized is that all my life I'd traded time for the usual middle class comforts, and that most people could barely read one culture, much less several. The easy way is to blackbox all other cultures and classes as dangerous, thus the gated communities, the people who make blanket statements about "the element," who think the Sierra Foothills were ruined by the Hispanics, and all that.

Theft cross cultural or class lines isn't as common as stealing within a culture or class, but it's perhaps easier if the person being robbed sees all of "them" as looking alike.

I've lived most of my life in dodgy neighborhoods and that decision has cost me less than the alternative of living in places that cost ten times what my rent here is, or my rent on Mott Street was. And I'm finding that I don't regret that decision.

And I sympathize with the cultures who have no completely evil humans in their myths rather than the ones who demonize other humans. The Stone Man in the Cherokee myth had to be killed, but in his dying, he gave humans corn.

My thief has given me the makings of a character.

I now Have A Cedula and

...a stamp in my passport which says I have to pay the Nicaraguan government 70 cordobas (less than $5) for permission to exit the country. I am a permanent resident of Nicaragua for the next five years.

I like it here. Stay out. More gringos would ruin the place. Drunk Bob was mugged in his walker while drunk in the bad neighborhood, so it's really not safe, if you're stupid.

What I thought would be fan fic

...marrying the Torchwood University to my Centuries Ago and Very Fast Universe shed Torchwood and picked up the daughter of Diana of the Ephesians, and will be joining other stories with no media tie ins in a collection that will be coming out from Aqueduct Press sometime in the next year or two. Mine editor has re-write suggestions, so the next three weeks will be work on that.

In other news, I've made Nicaragua geek boys very happy by passing around a Doctor Who DVD.

I'm still in Nicaragua

It's been hot today with intermittent soldiers, young vulnerable looking kids with either pistols on their hips or riding in the back of a truck with something larger. Friends tell me there's a base nearby.

We also have cattle being driven through town occasionally, and once touring my neighborhood without a guide. I had one checking out my house. Photos on Facebook.

Two Months and My Residency Request is Approved

I will have at least one additional phone call to make and a trip or two to Managua (to Intur to pick up the certificate of approval and to Immigration to get photographed for the cedula and then back to Immigration to get the cedula and the permission to go back to the US to sell my car).

Current Location: Sollentuna Hem, Jinotega, using the WIFi

A month and a half and more in Nicaragua

Jinotega is the best mix of Lower East Side and the mountains.

Ex-patriation makes me realize that who I am is contingent on things that I didn't have any control over, and some of the great SF, like Disch's "The Alien Shore," is about the more threatening side of this recognition -- if I'd been born here, my life would have been, or could have been, radically different.

I've been sick and think some of the problem is the pigeons living in the space between the drop ceiling and the roof, so with the advice of my landlord's agent, I'm going to see about evicting las palomas. I'd really like to use a German ex-pat I've had do things before, but the landlord's agent wants to use someone cheaper. We shall see how this works out.

On Thursday, I have to call Managua and find out how my application for residency is coming. If approved, I will have to make the trip to Managua and to Immigration and have my photo made for the cedula. The actual card apparently takes a month to make.

Started a new novel with an old character after throwing out attempts to set something with Vel in the Torchwood Universe. So far, it's notes and stretches of various first person dialogue. Vel joins the modern world and gets special dispensation to have a government fake his passports for him rather than having his family do it.

I have no idea whether I can sell the thing or not, but it's fun to be working on something, and be 3,000 feet up and several thousand miles from the nearest dedicated s.f. fan who thinks Science Fiction World has some coherent and perhaps intelligent meaning, and that writing is a job, not who you are.

Who you are is a job -- work is part of it.

The Time in Nicaragua, Two Weeks Now

I've been here two weeks and don't have any desire at the present to go back to the US. The city I'm living in, Jinotega, is somewhat like the Lower East Side in the 1960s, early 1960s before that many artists, poets, and writers discovered the place. The locals hustle, doing different things, some illegal (my driver who took a detour by a mariachi cantina in the opposite direction from Jinotega was recently arrested in a drug sting). It has stone laundry sinks in the kitchen rather than tubs and is surrounded by mountains, so there are some differences, but the strong feel of scrambling to do better, to make money, to survive in a strange world (internet and PlayStations are here)is the same. The people here didn't move from the Old Country -- the different arrived here, starting with the Spanish.

Jinotega has the spread between rich and poor that places with raw material export economies and seasonal work have. Coffee and cattle are the money crops here. Picking is seasonal and there's some attempt to find other crops, mainly cocoa, that are harvested in different seasons than coffee. Jinotega is the service town for the district, the equivalent of the county seat, and has the doctors, dentists, furniture and clothing stores, and such that provide the things that people can't grow for themselves.

Food is cheap; thumb drives are insanely expensive ($30 US for a 1 GB thumbdrive). Couple of restaurants and hotels have wifi. And some people ride into town on horses and burros, while behind the front walls, one catches glimpses of some very beautiful modern versions of the local architecture.

I've left my documents with Suzanne's lawyer for the approval and such of the translations of the originals. Then we have to make three copies of everything, and take them to Managua, next week. If this goes smoothly, it will be much cheaper than hiring a Managua immigration lawyer. If not, I'm out a couple hundred dollars. I don't think all the documents are time-sensitive, but if I have to have things redone, I'll be back in DC in December when I go back to sell my car and arrange shipping of my electronics gear and kitchenware, and shoes, and some clothes.

It's 73 degrees F in Jinotega at 5:25 PM.

Humanotourism

One of my ex-pat friends coined a term for something we've been observing for a while -- humanotourism. She's been working on translating interviews with people from all points on the Nicaraguan political spectrum, including people who've been Sandinistas, Contras, and back to Sandinista (the photo looked like a guy who liked to have fun), as well as a man whose nom-de-guerre was Suicide (because he dragged his gun behind him in adolescent fool-hardiness). Across the political, Nicaraguans tend not to want all that help.

What we see is a group of people, generally larger than the numbers needed to do the task they came to do, taking over a hotel and talking mostly to each other and not to people who aren't in their group, who don't hire Nicaraguans to work with them, or even have Nicaraguans working with them as volunteers, coming in to do something, but not really anything that requires importing Americans and putting them up at the most expensive hotel in town (Hotel Cafe, with rate up to US standards). They make comments about Jinotega (a city of shop and hotel keepers, many female) not being as bad as they expected (it's actually cleaner than most Central American cities) and not having the expected chickens in the street (too many street dogs and cars, much safe to put the chickens in the back yard as my neighbor has done). They have, by God, come to do good to the Nicaraguans, including painting a house, playing music, and building a community center.

Houses here are generally good to go whether they're painted or not -- it's the land of cinder block and brick houses for the most part and the stucco and paint is more decorative than structurally imperative. Feeding people doesn't really deal with the structural problems that causes people to leave their farms and try to make a go of life in Managua, or with good agricultural land being used for export crops. And it doesn't require 18 people to stay in the Hotel Cafe.

Humanotourists feel good and go home to tell wonderful stories about the dirt roads in town, the cobblestone streets, and the gratitude of the Nicaraguan people (who are very polite and patient with gringos).

Housing issues are more complex, too. Food is an inelastic cost (either in the labor of growing it or in having the money to buy it) if a person is to have reasonably good health. Housing can go down to zero (sharing a house) or pretty damn cheap (many farm worker and even farmer houses here are dirt floored, with no running water, latrine toilets. Seeing the poor housing as the thing that needs to be fixed tends to mean that people become house poor in ways that are far more threatening to people's well being than being house poor in most of the US.

It's the tropics. People need shelter from the rain more than from heat or cold.

Current Location: Jinotega, Nicaragua

I'm now in Jinotega, Nicaragua

My current computer is an Acer Aspire One and I'm logging on via a hot spot at a small hotel near my new apartment.

Photos up on Flickr (rbb_56) of the new neighborhood. I've been wandering around with very little Spanish and sometimes without a phrase book. I'm at an advantage in the supermarket because most of the packaging is in English.

Paperwork that needs to be done in Washington, DC, is done.

I agreed to pay extra to get the Nicaraguan consulate to do their part while I went to Dupont Circle to get money. The woman who brought out my paperwork about ten minutes after I got back asked where I was going and I said one of the three northern cities: Jinotega, Matagalpa, or Esteli. She said Matagalpa would be best and corrected my pronunciation of it, a couple of times.

Knife roll, computer stuff, and paperwork

I now have all the paperwork that I need to apply for residency in Nicaragua that needs two more sets of seals of authentication and all that, which I'm planning to do as early as possible tomorrow (State Department office for authenticating state authentications of notaries opens at 7 a.m. in Foggy Bottom).

Sur la Table had the knife roll, which now has my sharpening steel (restaurant supply store grade) and seven of my best knives, plus my chicken shears in a pocket with my wine steward's tool. This and the Leatherman Wave and some other things will go in the check in baggage.

I have a Nicaraguan routable map on my GPS, which has detailed maps of Esteli and Leon, but not of Jinotega or Matagalpa.

Salvation Army got the rice cooker and the tea water boiler and the copper pot, plus some miscellaneous sweaters that were in the car and not necessary.

I have to take the rest to the stuff in the living room out to the curb or to Huey's, probably out to the curb.

My subscription to the New York Times Book Review is cancelled, along with my renter's insurance, Cox Cable internet, and the electric service. Two places left for address changes, and I need to pack sometime before Thursday morning, and sleep in dispensable pajamas.

(Reminds self to send landlord a check for damages and possible further clearances of small stuff -- the big stuff is gone).

Huey will be getting the complete to 2010 collection of whatever I've been watching on the multiple connections hard drive, and I'll turn off Time Machine and further backups.

I'm taking some pots, and probably will pack the Canadian whiskey for Suzanne in one of them, wrapped carefully in lens wraps.

Tired, but have to get the stuff out of the downstairs carpeted room so it's cleared for intensive cleaning.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

...on Thursday. I've got all the running around town stuff to deal with today -- stuff to the curb, stuff to the Salvation Army, stuff out of the eaves to decide what to do with, stuff to put in boxes, stuff to put in the backpack that goes in the duffle that goes in the belly of two different planes and hopefully makes it to Nicaragua when I do.

Huey Callison has been a prince -- loaning me a wet dry vac and carrying big heavy furniture away (some he and Sue are keeping, some Sue's got on CraigsList as free pickups), and will be hosting my car in his driveway for five months. And lots of my stuff, either in his guest room or sitting in the car. Winter clothes, except for a fleece jacket, are staying to see what the Jinotega Decembers are really like. I've got some minor sewing work to be done on three summer things. I'll be taking two pots, two sets of sheets, one cutting board, and a knife roll in the checked luggage, along with whatever else fits that seems essential.

I hadn't realized I acquired so much until I started to get rid of it. Some of it was identity stuff -- the camping equipment, the bicycle, and some of it wasn't. I think I may re-kidnap my brother's F3 if I do stay.

Until I know for sure that I'll be staying for longer than five months, I'm trying to keep my possessions down to what I can lug out of town in a hurry.

As I told the woman where I'll be staying initially, I'm both exhilarated and terrified. Can I actually live on $600 a month plus the cost of Spanish lessons? How fast can I learn Spanish? Will Kentucky get the certified birth certificate back to me in time? Is Nicaragua going to fuss because my health letter doesn't have my address on it? What happens if.....

Binoculars, digital pocket camera, and a netbook with a separate mouse. I should be fine.

A boxer/taxi driver will be picking me up at Sandino airport on the north side of Managua and driving me to Jinotega. My hostess will be riding along, I think. This saves a night at Best Western Las Mercedes. Reports as they happen.

I'm paying my landlord $300 for any residual mess.

Vast Running Around

So, I took things in to the State Department authentication office in DC and found that they could only process one document as it was, the verification of benefits from Social Security. Four documents need to go to Richmond to have the notaries verified, and my birth certificate has to go to Kentucky.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to give away two book cases and a filing cabinet, which has been a matter of people not showing up (furniture dealer who was just sure he wanted all the stuff I was giving away and who would call me when he was in the area and who I called twice to find out what his plans were), not having a truck or van lined up before asking if they could have the filing cabinet, and two people who want the filing cabinet and who have or don't have the required two people and the van or truck necessary to get a free filing cabinet. If I ever do this again in the US, I'm doing to wait until several people email and then say first one over here with means to get the thing out of my house gets it and I'll email the others that they've missed the freebie. I understand Free Cycles have a number of no-shows, too. I'll ask if the person has a truck already lined up before committing to giving that one the freebie, though the guy who had a truck was supposed to be coming by at such and such a time and didn't.

The other stuff -- I've had inquiries but no takers. I'm planning a yard sale for the weekend, and need to pack some more of the stuff I'm keeping tonight or tomorrow night after I get back from Richmond. I don't expect the Kentucky paperwork back until Monday or Tuesday, which will mean Wednesday running around in DC, which means I need to have everything out or packed by Tuesday. Thursday a week from this Thursday, I'm flying to Nicaragua.

Back from seeing the family and my Masters thesis director

Boyd Davis is awesome. Told her she was the best thing ever about the English Department where I got my MA.

Saw my niece after lunch with Boyd, and then my dad, who's now 88 with an 89th birthday coming up in October, and then spent more time with my brother. Today I went up to Stuart, VA, to see my Uncle Clyde who was in the hospital. I told him that if he was still alive when I got back in December from Nicaragua, I'd see him again, and if not, I'd have someone light a candle for him. I don't know what to expect for him. Thanked him for his stories.

Very fond of my niece and hope she will be able to get down to Nicaragua sometime while I'm down there.

Now in the process of getting rid of furniture. I need to toss some stuff that I've lugged through a couple of moves. Looks like someone will pick up the freebies tomorrow, and possibly will sell a few other pieces tomorrow night.

Nicaragua and stuff

I'm amazed at the people who moved down to Nicaragua to live American lives in the defense of capitalism, car ownership, and so forth, not that a considerable chunk of Nicaraguans probably don't want SUVs, too.

The woman we spent time with in Jinotega forwarded an email from someone looking for housemates in Matagalpa (where the the humble campesinos/Matagalpa Indians tried to drive out the Danes in 1937 or so). Rent is $155 a month with wifi and all other utilities included, including weekly laundry, weekly house cleaning, and a night time security guard for the block. I don't know if this was already snapped up or what.

I went in to my doctor's office for the TB test and then hit MicroCenter for a USB DVR/CD read/write drive and headphones with a mike that will work with Skype. I'm rebeccca_brown1 there, in case anyone is interested. Also picked up a 4 Gig SD card for the Coolpix and stuff. Finished all the other stuff I need for the netbook, and think I may also buy a really big thumb drive for music, though I probably have room for music on the current internal drive.

More books need to be packed up and taken to the Salvation Army, but I've kinda run out of steam at the moment. Need to visit my family once before I go, probably this weekend. One of the tires may be losing air -- the indicator came on. I'll put the pump in the car just in case.

When I get back from that, the next order of business is emptying out the house the rest of the way.

The Weird Guy Who Bought WALDEN for Ten Cents on Saturday

He looked at the books and asked if they were all mine. I said yes, and he picked up various more scholarly looking books and asked me what was in them. I answered, but there was definitely the tone that he didn't believe I'd read these books. He came across as geekish, computer guy, and I suggested the various O'Reilly books, but he had most of them. I finally, rather nervously, let him see the books in the living room that I hadn't brought outside to sell yet. He didn't pick up anything more and wasn't interested in a cheap grab bag of books, saying that he never bought books he wasn't going to read.

Weird feel to the whole thing -- not that I felt like I was being cased for a burglary, but the questions and attitude were definitely intrusive, looking for ways to be dismissive.

I hear American men talking about the machismo in Nicaragua, and then about the greater numbers of Nicaraguan women taking computer programming classes than they'd seen in the US (I understand that this varies over the US and will have to see how Nicaraguan women programmer fare after graduation).

I've never felt that the sample Nicaraguan men I've met were threatened because I might be bright. Brightness in women doesn't phase them the way it appears very much to phase some American men.

The people in Immigration might not be amused if I say I'm going down there for the history and the feminism, but if Nicaragua has women programmers, women working with solar panel electrification projects, and women leading battalions and national police forces, it's got some things that are missing in the US at this point. And it's already had a woman head of state.

After I learn Spanish and if Cuba hasn't been subjugated to US plans, I want to see Cuba. It sounds like a giant American-style commune, with people all working together for food, housing, clothes, and a monthly allowance, with some private enterprise allowed on the side. I think, now that we should have lost our terror of Monolithic Communism, such places should be allowed to exist (Cuba lets anyone who really doesn't want to stay on the commune the opportunity to leave, which is far cooler than the Soviet Union's refusal to let anyone leave unless they were a famous writer who didn't want to leave but who was forced out).

What the communes say is that there are different ways of doing things. I don't know if they're workable for the entire planet, but it's rather cool that a whole rather large island is basically running Twin Oak's script with additional charges to the people who just want to visit and get laid. I suspect that communes would be a rather pleasanter way of running the tourist industry than capitalism. Everyone needs to do dishes at least once a week; everyone needs an opportunity to try running the place; and nobody has to specialize in being a maid.

Twin Oaks and Acorn both work as organizations if not as cradle to grave communities. They're useful in showing us that there are different ways to organize a company, happiness to be had in what people do rather than what people consume.

I know that life in them isn't perfect, too. I lived at Acorn for three weeks.

The Myth of Retiring into Some Art

I think one of the reasons I gave up the camera was that I was seeing and remembering far too many people who were going to write or who were writing after the kids left home, after they retired, or any number of combinations of things. Most of them don't succeed at even greater percentages than those who don't succeed who started at earlier ages. The premise makes an assumption that their life experiences will translate into something useful for the art, but most people like my father who try writing after retirement don't have the reading or understanding gained in other ways that would give their experiences a context.

Also, the arts seem to be different from other sorts of learning -- they're more like a series of habits, a growth that's informed by thinking analytically about the art, but which isn't really completely under analytical control. The progress is more developing practices than thinking about something and setting out to do it the way one would put together a bicycle. I can put together a bicycle from a book, but I can't simply read a lot and put together a novel.

The people who are the most successful at any of the arts started young, worked in cities with other people doing the arts, and generally didn't have spectacular difficulties getting some recognition, often no difficulty getting recognition (W.H. Auden's comments that few people get less recognition than they deserve; many get more recognition than they deserve come to mind here. Reasonable people tend to know where they rank and people who find their artistic abilities aren't up to their ambitions often move on to other things.

For an academic to encourage an older beginner as if there was significant chance of that person being able to catch up to artists who've been at it since childhood feels like to me more a matter of manipulation, of getting attention by praising others, than making a useful statement.

I think the academics excuse themselves by believing that art at any age is enlightening to the artist, but often these older students have different ambitions than simple enlightenment. They want to make money at it or get recognition. The famous examples of people who started late tend to be somewhat mythical -- Grandma Moses had been an embroiderer before turning to art because working with needles hurt her hands. Her father had encouraged her art when she was a child. While she didn't have formal training, she had worked on art as a child and painted as a young adult.

But most of the time, people starting serious work in retirement not only have lost time in developing their art, but have less agile minds than they had in their 30s and 40s.

I didn't digest the amounts of things I'd need to do photography even as well as my writing, and while I'm not sure about my writing being what I'd like it to be, I do have what I have.

The dream of taking up something new in retirement seems to be what keeps people working at jobs they may not care for which allow them to save for the day when they can finally do what they want to do. And there are an enormous number of adult education classes that will take their money while encouraging them.

Try hard while young and let the chips fall where they may. If the arts aren't the answer, then move on, without the fantasy that one can come back in retirement and write the Great American Novel.

The fantasies are how camera stores sell people like me $10,000 worth of camera gear and how many programs that admit older adults fill their classes.

I needed the cash more than the fantasy.

Inflation Calculations for the price of a show quality Border Terrier

Yesterday, when I was talking to the woman taking Kit for Border Terrier Rescue, she mentioned what BT prices were like now. I remembered paying $170 for Ginger, my first Border Terrier, and thought that would be close to what BT prices are now. Probably for a pet quality pup, though, $1143.90 to $1178.47 in 2009 dollars. 1963 or 1964 was when I got her.

I never thought of my parents as being particularly rich, but for then and there, I can see why the college professors found the mill management irritating. Great time to be an intelligent white man, I suppose. And the WPA and GI Bill made it possible for him to go to college and graduate school.