More Tails from the Pack Rat Hole

As I think I've mentioned before, my dad acquired some pack rat tendencies from his parents. Combine these tendencies with a concern to be fiscally responsible, and voila! We have boxes of cancelled checks from years ago. So one of the boxes to be sorted included about twenty pounds of cancelled checks to the mortgage company:

These are from 1999--within the IRS limit of seven years to hold financial data--but I found packets of checks rubber-banded together from the early 80s.

I believe in keeping some things for sentimental reasons, but not old checks:

Worthy of note, however, is that my dad's account was with Keystone Savings Bank. Their branch across from Nitschmann Middle School in west Bethlehem is where I got my first savings account. (Maybe I was attending Nitschmann then?) At that time they still issued books that you brought in with every deposit or withdrawal, and the teller would run the book through a mini-printer to record the transaction and running balance.

That's also when savings accounts gave you 4% or more annual yield. More than average inflation! Remember those days?

I had that account until I graduated university. Then I got my first credit card: a Discover card. And the savings account was history . . . .

~ emrys