Financial Problems – Page 4 – Perpetual Adoration

May 25, 2014

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A Corrupt System of Dependency

Last summer while my wife and I were having dinner at a local restaurant, the waitress who was serving our table asked me how everything was going with my law practice. I looked at her, hesitated, and answered, “It’s going pretty well.” Since I didn’t recognize her, I asked, “Do you work for a law firm?” She answered that she had worked at the courthouse for several years before quitting her job.

December 14, 2013

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The Language of Money

During my first year of practicing law (1983), I got a call from a young man who had received a speeding ticket. He was employed by Domino’s Pizza as a deliveryman, and he wanted me to help him keep the ticket off his driving record. For purposes of discussion, I’m going to call him Jim.

December 7, 2013

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Rich Enough To Have An Indoor Bathroom

In March 1990, I interviewed my grandmother, Cecilia LaHood (Grandma Ceil), for an article I was going to write and distribute at an upcoming 80th birthday party her children were planning for her. Grandma Ceil’s date of birth was April 15, 1910. During the interview, Grandma told me that her family lived in three different houses during the first six years of her life. None of those houses had electricity or hot water. I recorded the interview and later transcribed what Grandma said. Here’s what she told me about their fourth home:

December 6, 2013

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Do Catholics Have to Settle for Rags?

A couple of weeks ago in an article titled “The Danger of Riches,” after considering the words of Jesus that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,” I asked the question, How do you define the word “rich”?

November 23, 2013

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The Danger of Riches

At about 1:30 on a Friday afternoon 13 years ago, I took a break from work and sat down to eat a quick lunch. While I was eating, I glanced through a multipage sales letter I had received from a company I had never heard of. The owner of the company claimed that he was a multimillionaire, and he was promoting a three-day conference in Las Vegas, where (he promised) he would teach the “secrets” of how to become wealthy.

November 10, 2013

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The New Notre Dame Sports Complex

September 28, 2013

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Creative Ways to Find a Job

During the fall semester of my senior in high school (1974), my friend Dennis told me about a new grocery store that had opened in the Westlake Shopping Center (across the street from Northwoods Mall). The name of the store was Randall’s, and it was the first store in Peoria that had scanners at checkout lanes instead of cash registers, so items didn’t have to be rung up one at a time by hand. At that time, I was 17 years old. I asked Dennis for the name of the store manager, and he told me that his name was Steve.

September 21, 2013

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Rebellion Among McDonald’s Employees

When my wife and I returned to Peoria after I graduated from law school (1982), a cloud of fear overshadowed Central Illinois. Peoria was still reeling from the thousands of layoffs that had taken place in the late 1970s. Families were fleeing to other states in search of good-paying jobs.

September 14, 2013

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Fearless

During the summer of 1989, most evenings I came home from work, ate supper with my family, and then sat in a lawn chair in the front yard of our home to read the newspaper. We lived in a quiet, residential neighborhood in Peoria where there wasn’t much traffic.