Joseph: The Prudent Five-Year-Old

Baby, with ghosts.

While unpacking Halloween decorations, Herman was surprised to learn that his favorite ornaments -- two ceramic ghosts -- were originally purchased by a five-year-old Joseph.

At an age when many children were thinking about candy and playtime, young Joseph was earning an inflation-adjusted $5/month  in allowance. This news was surprising enough, as Herman is not aware of many toddlers with bank accounts.

Even more surprising, young Joseph saved two months' allowance to buy these two Halloween decorations for his bedroom. Doing the math, this means he identified the purchase in August in order to have the darlings by October. One imagines the midget Joseph flipping through a catalog at the kitchen table while his pre-school peers played outside, earning no money whatsoever.

The ghosts are cute, for sure, but more appropriate for a suburban housewife to perch on the window ledge above the kitchen sink. In classic Joseph style, the small phantoms were nurtured, cleaned, carefully stored and proudly displayed for 33 years -- long after the clumsy housewife would have broken them in the sink.

This Halloween, our Joseph deserves praise for his youthful prudence.