Friends – I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This is my favorite time of the year.
To celebrate the holiday, we made our annual trek to my 97-year-old grandmother’s house last Thursday. With a few exceptions, this has been our family tradition for over 50 years now – since before I was around.
My grandfather hasn’t been here for the last 21 Thanksgivings… but they’ve all happened at the home he built in 1954.
The man had the vision to buy about 20 acres of land in the countryside outside of Richmond, VA back then. He worked as a police officer in the city… I suspect that experience fueled his desire to live in the country.
Looking back – he always maintained a large garden. I especially loved his okra. Grandma would fry it up perfectly.
And I’ll never forget his big red tractor with oversized tires. That leviathan is what he cut his grass with.
I reflect on these things each year when we venture back for Thanksgiving. It occurs to me that my grandfather is a textbook picture of the American Dream.
He worked a regular job in which he tried to be of service to his community. That was back when being a police officer was more about “protect and serve” than about “law enforcement”.
And this regular job allowed him to build his own house on a 20-acre plot of land in the countryside. He raised his three children in that house… and he fed them with food from his own garden.
Trash service was not available at his address for many years… so he burned all his trash in a barrel behind the house. He also set up his own shooting range in the woods on the other side of the house. He taught me how to fire a pistol back there as a kid.
He never lived to see them, but the man’s oldest grandchildren are now becoming young adults. They never met him personally, but they gather at the house he built every Thanksgiving Day nonetheless. If that’s not a legacy, I don’t know what is.
Here’s a picture I took last week as we approached the home from the long gravel driveway cutting through the woods:
It’s a simple thing… but this is what the American Dream looks like to me.
It’s the idea that a regular guy can work a regular job for a regular salary – and then build a brick house in the country that will host his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren each Thanksgiving for decades.
I can’t help but reflect on this every year at this time. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to those who’ve come before us.
At the same time, it’s very clear that the American Dream has been under attack – especially in recent years.
There’s no way a regular guy working a regular job for a regular salary could afford to buy 20 acres and build the brick house we see above today. The regular salary probably wouldn’t be enough to buy the land… much less build the house.
That’s a problem. The situation is quite nuanced – but fiat money, inflation, and financialization are its key pillars.
Fortunately, the solution isn’t overly complicated. And the groundwork for it has already been laid.
Still, the American Dream requires a lot more strategy today than it did in my grandfather’s time.
There are new rules of money at work today… and we must understand them and then harness them to have a shot. My system for how to do so is right here.
-Joe Withrow