Small-time banking; big-time losses

As noted a few days' back, the history column in the local paper is making me feel old. Today's entry for 50 years ago in 1958 talks about the new bank in town. Seems an appropriate topic since some of the old banks in the country are going down the tubes.

The new bank in Sandpoint in October, 1958, brought us a time and temperature sign on Second Avenue not far from the Post Office, the mortuary and the Sandpoint News Bulletin. It was called First Federal Savings and Loan, and it was a different kind of competitor for the Idaho First National Bank which sat on the corner of Second and Cedar.

Of course, we got involved.

I can't remember if we, of Batch One in our family, already had our three copper, log piggy banks from Idaho First National. If so, I also don't know if the bottom of mine had already been pried open by a brother with a handy screwdriver when the First Federal Savings bank came to town.

Our piggy banks were locked on the bottom, only to be opened when full. We were supposed to drop our loose change in the top slot. My parents had the keys, so if our money landed in there, it was a sure bet to stay there.

My folks, however, hadn't considered the skillful hands of sneaky brothers who had already figured out how to pilfer from the locked freezer and the padlocked fruit room where Mother hid all the good stuff that would otherwise get eaten the day she bought it or baked it.

Occasionally, whatever loose change (which came only through the sale of beer bottles and pop bottles collected from roadside ditches) I had dumped into my bank, disappeared overnight, much like what we're seeing happen with our stock market investments this week.

In my case, I usually had a pretty good idea of who dunnit and, unlike what we're seeing as our current investments go south, I knew my screwdriver thief on a first-name basis.

But "he" was bigger and meaner than I, so all I could do was pout.

Anyway, in 1958, First Federal Savings and Loan offered a safer bet for my money. I remember our parents opening up accounts for each of us, probably starting us out with ten dollars apiece. We received our own little baby-blue bank books, looking a lot like passports, which we could present every time we made a deposit.

Just like my passport, I don't recall my bankbook ever getting covered with too much ink. The pages remained essentially blank, but I do know that a few deposits were made during my early adolescent years.

Those usually came each year after I received my 4-H premium checks. Readers may recall that I received a lot of white "thanks for showing up" ribbons, so those checks were fairly modest.

My savings account probably never surpassed $40, but it remained safe from screwdrivers.

I also remember when our folks decided we needed to join the community effort to purchase stock in a new ski resort planned up the watershed road where my dad drove nearly every day as Sandpoint's city water filter operator.

We each took ten dollars from our First Federal Savings accounts and invested it toward a share of stock apiece in Schweitzer Ski Basin, now known as Schweitzer Mountain Resort. That stock sat for 20-plus years, and, later, during one of the resort ownership changes, we could cash in on our invesment by selling our stock and collecting a $5 dividend.

Just $15, but still a 150-percent return, which seems astronomical to what folks are receiving for their investments in this week's financial markets.

Greed and mismanagement of giant financial institutions is taking its toll. And the little guys, like the employees and the small-time investors like us country hicks are paying the price while those responsible for the daily debacle revelations walk off with multimillion-dollar severance packages.

The screwdrivers are once again at work, only this time at the hands of nameless, greedy souls. Sadly, during this current national and world financial crisis, those of us peons are powerless to do much about watching our investments disappear during the night.

In fact, it all seems highly reminiscent of the past with the screwdriver assaults on my little log bank.

When our hard-earned money disappears, all we can do is pout---just like I had to do a few minutes ago when my entire blog posting for this morning disappeared into cyberspace, and I had to start all over again.

Where are those screwdrivers! Dammit!