Thrift is the process and evolving condition of thriving. It doesn’t occur without striving, whose process and evolving condition is called strife. On its own, strife is often associated with a negative connotation so we become conditioned to try to avoid it. But in avoiding a necessary — but not sufficient — element in thrift we sacrifice our potential to thrive. I am deeply sorry to deliver this potentially disheartening message as an apology for gratitude at Thanksgiving. Nonetheless, if my appeal turns the corner for any young people out there, whose conditions to me are unknown and might be truly and immeasurably insurmountable, my words will not be wasted.
I experienced difficult conditions in my time. It was the early 1980s. My car had gotten me through most of my college career and with the light at the end of the tunnel in sight, it began to enter its “wear out” phase, requiring more maintenance. So much so that it became unaffordable to me. So, instead of purchasing yet another replacement part, I bought a bicycle. I still have it. The bicycle got me through the historic winter of 1982. It was SO wet those couple years that in the spring of 1983 I would travel to Nevada and watch Hoover Dam spillways in action, an indescribable and transcendental experience, seeing that much water accelerating into the spillway tunnel.
The economy was severely stressed as Ronald Reagan borrowed against our future and pulled out all the stops to end the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Now, diminished, this place is currently called “Russia” and its leader, an ex-KGB agent, is having his revenge. Inflation during most of this time (1978-82) was the highest on record, hovering above 10% and peaking at 14.8% just after my 22nd birthday.
I had been independent from my parents for about three years, and I asked nothing of them except occasional sympathy. Inflation was inflating, the national debt was ballooning, yet I still maintained my pursuit pedaling that bike. In fall/winter/spring I’d trek between my part-time paid engineering internship and my senior-year classes. My apartment was 5 miles (around 20 minutes’ bike ride) from school and 7 miles from work. I earned barely enough to feed myself meals of 5 cent Top Ramen mixed with 10 cent bags of frozen mixed vegetables. In summer I worked a 40-hour week at the internship and had a second job after 5 at a Lamppost Pizza around the corner from my apartment, so I ate a little better than during the school year and actually had some pocket change.
I graduated in 1983, into inflationary conditions where home loan rates were 12-14% and inflation was around 3 or 4%. My student loans totaled about 70% of what I took home as a newly hired electrical engineering grad. Recall that tax rates then were much higher than now. I was in the 42% marginal bracket back then.
I soon found Cyndee, twice: once in 1984 and then again in 1987. That in itself is a great story. The second time it took. In 1987 I moved to Saugus with her, into Lily of the Valley Mobile Home Village.
About three years later I convinced her we could swing the home ownership proposition. During the 1985-90 housing boom here in the Santa Clarita Valley it was typical for developers to take your name among many others and perform a “lottery” and, if your name came up, to offer you whatever home they had on hand for a price that was non-negotiable. You had 24 hours to decide and to put up a $5,000 deposit. Pass up the opportunity and it was back into the lottery. Needless to say, I did not find this satisfactory, and we shopped and waited for conditions that were more like free market capitalism than a random Soviet allocation. The opportunity came up in our chosen development (Ridgeview Saugus by Warmington) in late 1990 when the market had cooled. I watched our neighborhood go from scraped hilltop, to molded fireplaces lying next to poured foundations, to completed homes ready to occupy. I still have a photo of our two kids (6 and 12 at the time) standing in front of the house with a “SOLD” sign (I still have that, too) in the front window of the freshly built home.
We were striving, hard, and hitting stride. Cyndee and I had been independent of our parents for more than a decade each, Cyndee longer than I. We both had two jobs to pay the mortgage and put furniture into the home. Many of our neighbors held multiple jobs as well. There were a few exceptions where family wealth had eased the leverage in their home mortgage, reducing the interest rate charged. In our condition (Jumbo, first-time buyers) we paid private mortgage insurance and signed an adjustable rate mortgage at 10.649%. I still have those loan papers. The downturn when we moved in was bad. Many who had moved in under the lottery conditions were seriously underwater by about 30%; many gave their keys to the bank and walked away. In our first five years we were throwing our money down a black hole in financial terms. But ours was not a “house,” it was truly our home, a place we had dreamed of … and it still is.
In 1993, Cyndee asked me and some neighbors to string some icicles across the street. By 1994 we had about half the street strung with homemade icicles. And now, 30 years after that “halfway” moment — and thanks to some good-natured competitive prodding from “The Signal Lights and Decoration Contest” — there have been upwards of 5 million people who have visited our neighborhood on Wakefield Court. I am grateful for the results now in my old age. Our strife has paid off in ways that have brought joy to many people I don’t know and probably never will. You’ll probably see “Our 30th Year” banners on the street this year, recalling that initiating moment when our volunteerism was kicked off with those first 12 homes (signalscv.com/2023/12/christopher-lucero-realizing-the-unexpected).
The point is this: It’s Thanksgiving and I give thanks to God and to the USA and to the varying fortunes and misfortunes we’ve been through. All of it has been both hard and yet somehow natural and easy, often simple/modest, and both difficult and satisfying, fun and, overall, an enormous blessing.
I share this (long) story because I hope it inspires young people to search and strive. Though conditions seem insurmountable, knowing what you want, waiting for opportunity and boldly seizing the day pays off. Doing good along the way is kind of infectious and attractive, as the Wakefield Christmas icicles demonstrate.
So young people, it’s hard right now. I hope you will absorb the difficult conditions with determination and positive strife. In my time I was there. The most effective way to achieve something is to try to achieve it. (I know … Thank you, Captain Obvious.)
You have to get out there and go for what you want. Believe me. Strife applied over time and patience with yourself and your dreams will lead to your thrift and to gratitude.
Christopher Lucero
Saugus
