The only time a family member really helped me, my aunt helped me get a used outboard. I’d been treated pretty much like a red headed step child in my upbringing. Always feeling like an outsider. I was a step child after all, but not red headed. I’m sure someone can relate.
I had worked on a couple of boats in my early diving days. A local guy had a boat rigged for two divers. He was a neighbor, he dropped by one day, wanted to know if I’d be interested in diving? I was like hell yeah! He supplied all the gear, all I had to do was go down and dig shells. 50/50 split. I worked for him for a year and a half, one day he was being a jackass and I quit. (“Get down there and dig some shells!” I just came up from down there, there aren’t any shells down there in that mudhole you dropped us in. “Get back down there and get some shells, the other guys are still down there!” Those guys are idiots. There aren’t enough shells down there to fill my shoe. He kept insisting I go back down. Being an obnoxious jerk about it. I quit right there. If you can’t trust me to tell you the truth, and that we need to move, fuck it!)
But I knew another guy who had just rigged up another boat, hoping to do the same 50/50 split. So I was working again the next day.
I worked for this other guy for about a year. In that time, I was accumulating gear. I managed to put a boat together, with all the necessary diving gear, and strike out on my own. I made sure to train a new guy for the guy I was working for. My brother. Who also managed to work his way to his own rig.
Well, the boat I had, had an old 33 hp Evinrude outboard. It was a good engine, it served me well. One day I was heading in and that engine perked up and started running real strong. Then it croaked, never to start again. I discovered the water pump gave out, and one of the symptoms of that, is an older motor perking up and running great, for a few minutes. The pistons and rings start overheating, expand, which makes more compression, which makes the old motor perk up, in its last few minutes of life.
Some things you have to learn the hard way.
Well, I’m looking for an outboard, found one 20 miles away for $800. I didn’t have that much cash. So I took my boat to the river, launched at the boat ramp, jumped in and started harvesting shell. Not an ideal location, but I made $200 that day.
My aunt heard about that, she thought, if he can make $200 without a boat motor, he should be able to pay me back the $800 with a boat motor!
I paid her back. I paid her $799.99. I figured if I ever paid that motor off completely, knowing my luck, it would die the day I paid it off. She never bothered me about about that one cent I still owe her. I guess I should pay her. That motor has long since been in in the dustbin of old dead outboards at this point.
Try as I might, I can’t think of another moment in my life where I was helped in such a manner by a family member. Which makes me damn grateful for the one time it did happen.
Wait! That same aunt got me my first guitar too. So twice.
Evidence Based Reality 
Well, this may sound a bit strange, but the positive thing my family did for me is to raise me right. Now everyone’s interpretation of that word may be different, but for me it meant looking at life with a more positive bent. Not always trying to prove I’m right/you’re wrong. Learning to take the ups an downs as just part of life. This doesn’t mean I don’t get angry/frustrated/disgusted with things, but I do try to see both sides.
I also had an aunt (by marriage) that played an important role in helping me deal with life.
LikeLike
Those things you mention, I learned along the way. I’m not sure if that means I was raised right, or if I just had the insights to pick up on those things, or if I was raised right, so subtlely, that it worked without me knowing.
I raise my glass to the good aunts 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Perhaps insights, but I tend to think it came from family values. The kids that are left to make it on their own very rarely have a good attitude towards much of anything. There are exceptions, of course, but IMO, family life plays a really big role in how we turn out.
LikeLike
I certainly cannot complain about the upbringing I had. My parents were both great people and did everything they could to support me and my sister. The rest of the family, though… Sigh…
My sister and I were both adopted and most of the rest of the family on both sides never accepted us as being “real” family members. After my parents passed away I lost touch with all of them except for one of my mother’s sisters and a couple of cousins.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I was also adopted! Fortunately for me, however, I was a very welcome addition to the extended family and was never treated any differently.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s great Nan. Again, how it should be.
With my experience growing up, I made a pact with myself to treat my kids better. And I’ve raised a few who weren’t mine. I treated them no different than those who were. Did the best I could.
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is how it should be. Except for the “rest of the family” part.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Shelldigger. I love that you were able to make it all work. You ask.
I’d been treated pretty much like a red headed step child in my upbringing. Always feeling like an outsider. I was a step child after all, but not red headed. I’m sure someone can relate.
Oh do I understand. I was the adopted child who had it made clear I was not equal to and would always be inferior to the real family kids. Everyone’s needs and wants would come before my needs. It was stressed on me constantly that I was inferior and should be grateful for their giving me a home and some food. As I slept in a hallway … well you know the rest. And yes I had red hair that as I grew went from bright red to brown.
I love how industrious you were / are. You must have really loved the diving and collecting to make that kind of money in those days. $200 was a lot of money then, if my memory is true. It shows that anyone with sense would have backed you, you were a worker who did not let setbacks stop you. Hugs. Best wishes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My situation was quite a bit more subtle than that. I could sure feel the way I was treated, was way different than my half brother. Of course mom was mom to both of us, but the other side of the family was as cold as a wedge towards me. It doesn’t have to be said, to be be experienced.
That said, I’ll take what I had every time, compared to what you had to suffer Scottie. That shit ain’t right.
My gracious aunt is my moms sister. So, direct bloodine there. And it showed.
I swear I’m not industrious, I’m just hard headed and don’t give up easily 😉 Even when I probably should have lol.
There was a time I was knocking down $600-$1000 a day diving. But my wife at the time spent it faster than I could get it home… Lot of good it did me lol. But yeah, back then $200 a day wasn’t bad at all.
LikeLiked by 2 people