This story relates my first learning experience with money.

One day, the ice cream man came, and my parents were out.  I went inside to find money to buy ice cream, and the first thing I found was a $50 bill.  I grabbed it and ran up the street to buy an ice cream cone.  By the time I caught up, there was a crowd gathered around the truck.  I went up to the window, ordered a cone, and handed the guy the $50 bill.  He laughed and said he didn’t have change for that.  He said I would have to buy more ice cream.  Of course, the crowd was thrilled, because I ended up buying ice cream for about 12 kids!  The ice cream man was able to make change after that, but it was mostly change, so he gave it to me in a full-sized grocery bag.  Not knowing any better, I took the bag back to my house and put it on the dresser in my parents’ room where I had found the $50 bill.  I’m sure they laughed out loud when they came home, found the bag, and asked me what happened.

That was my first lesson about money.  As a six-year-old kid who just wanted ice cream, it didn’t matter how much it cost or how much we had.  All I knew was that if I had money, I could trade it for ice cream.  I can’t really tell you what I learned from that experience, other than that I realized that the money situation was more complicated than I originally thought.

For another story about the ice cream man, check out CottonwoodFarmLonghorns.