The stash
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Did I ever tell you about my Grandma Ehrhardt's stash? She'd had one somewhere all of her life — a tiny coin purse in her underwear drawer, an old jam jar behind the rows of fruit in the pantry, the sugar dish in her china cupboard. The cash was in case of emergencies, salvaged from egg money, left over coins once she'd given her offering at church, or some unexpected windfall.
Gram worked hard all of her life but she didn't have a regular job that paid cash until she and Grandpa moved to Lincoln, Neb. A neighbor lady asked for her help with spring cleaning one day. Then when she had a baby, Gram did her laundry. By word of mouth, she soon had a clientele of paying customers.
I never knew that Gram had a stash of cash until I was in college — also in Lincoln, Neb. On Sundays, I usually would bring my laundry from the dormitory over to Gram's house and wash clothes with her. These are rich times in my memory because even though Gram had an automatic washing machine by this time, she didn't use it except in an emergency. She preferred to wash her clothes the old fashioned way with the Maytag chugging away beside two tubs of rinse water. Over the wringing and the rinsing Gram and I talked as we worked. She told me stories, I plied her with questions. We had a good time down there in the basement on wash day. One day Gram had extra laundry from one of her customers.
"If you want to help me with Mrs. Hendricks' laundry," Gram said, "I'll give you part of the earnings — it will give you a little extra cash." Gram knew that college girls always needed extra cash. So, I ironed sheets and pillowcases — even dishtowels. We washed and rinsed and folded until all of it was done.
"Check the sugar bowl," Gram said to me the next week when I was there for dinner. "I've started a little stash for you from the money we earned." I opened the cupboard and lifted the lid and there were some rolled up bills with a rubber band around them. "It's for minor emergencies." And that's the way I found out about having a little stash of cash around and what a lifesaver it could be. That stash bought nylons when all of mine had runs in them. It bought school books, paid fees, and even the material for a party dress. I never took it all out, just what I needed desperately, and Gram always made sure it was replenished.
A friend of mine just moved to a smaller home and she's been giving away paintings, furniture, and little treasures to her family. "I have one of those antique coat chests with all the little drawers that they used to use for sewing notions," Mary Alice explained. "I decided to give it to my daughter so I was going through the old junk jewelry that I kept in there and guess what I found?" We all held our breath. "I found $350." She went on, "A long time ago, when I was a single mom, I used to stash a little cash in one of those drawers in case of an emergency." She laughed. "I called it my rat hole. My grandmother always had a rat hole for emergencies, so that's what I called my money in the drawer — my rat hole."
Evidently, Mary Alice's life was emergency-free for quite a few years and that wad of bills got shoved further back in the drawer and forgotten. "Mom," remonstrated her son when she told him about her find, "if you would have had that in the bank all these years you'd have $500 now!" But, you know, there's a difference between having money in the bank behind closed doors and office hours and having money in the sugar bowl where it's handy and you can look at it.
When I left my home in California, with my bedroom still intact, I told my daughter who was living there still, "There's a little stash in my closet — just in case. Don't go organizing stuff or throwing things out without looking carefully," I warned with a grin.
It's instinctual with all of us country survivors to have a little something stashed away for a rainy day. We'll enjoy all the good days that come our way and if something unforeseen happens and we need a little extra cash, we're ready for that too, with our stash — on another day in the country.
