Just as I have heard people talk about “keep up with the Joneses,” you have probably heard people talk as well.

I was not only a little bit surprised (perhaps I should not have been), but I enjoyed finding “keep up with the Joneses” under “keep up” in The Collins Concise Dictionary. And I did not only find the phrase in the dictionary, but also the meaning of the saying in the same dictionary. The meaning is “to compete with one’s neighbour in material possessions, etc.” (But I did not really need to tell you that!)

To “keep up with the Joneses” is actually really quite easy at the present time.

Reading “GET IT NOW” on a poster stuck to one of the shop windows here in town and telling me that finance is available, reminded me again how easy it is “to compete with one’s neighbours in material possessions.”

But I remember a time, when it was not easy at all, and I am glad that it was not easy.

I was a little kid at that time. We had fled during WW II from the east of Germany to the west and found refuge on a farm not too far from the danish border.

We possessed a very simple radio, but I noticed that my school mate had a better radio. It had some kind of a light in the front, ours did not.

I am not quite sure, but my mother (from what I know my father was fighting in the war at that time), must have given me a good hiding after telling her about my mate’s beautiful radio day after day.

What else could she do?

I remember that incident from my childhood quite well and I think I learned to forget to be greedy and to “keep up with the Joneses”.