Writes of Passage

I’ve become a “druggie” in my retirement years. Before you stage an intervention, I’ll explain that my drug addiction is solely based on buying penny stocks of fledgling drug companies. Right now I have five in my bulging portfolio.

One of these little pharma groups is bound to come up with some magic formula soon. With serious investors like me filling their coffers, how can they lose?

Recently my cousin posted on Facebook that she had gone to pick up two prescriptions that were both over $900 each! I feel certain that one of my investments didn’t come up with that money-maker since the best stock I’ve got is now up to a whopping 13 cents a share. I’m a big stockholder with 1,000 shares. And remember, this is only one of the five I’m betting on.

I got involved in these centful investments quite by accident. I was so bored one day that I read way too much Internet garbage, one article of which was about some penny stock that has made millions for its believers who had the brains to get in on the ground floor. There is no ground lower than 2 or 3 cents a share.

Clearly, everything we’ve ever heard about drugs is true. Once you start it is almost impossible to stop.

Just like actually ingesting drugs, once you begin buying penny stocks you become hooked! The first investment was a gateway to more and more until I suddenly found myself with five stocks that I am addicted to watching on the Dow daily.

Ironically, my only prior experience in playing with drugs was when Dennis and I invested about 20 years ago in a start-up company that had to do with pharmaceuticals as well — only this was a cow pregnancy test. Don’t ask. It was touted as one of those rags to riches ground floor opportunities by people we considered smarter than we were. Not even the cows cared to find out if they were pregnant and we kissed $10K goodbye rather quickly.

Rather than souring me on the drug business, the only lesson I learned was not to buy stocks that had a lot of zeros in the price. This is how penny stock investors get hooked.

Although sadly my stocks don’t have trades every day, causing a lot of stagnant prices where I gnaw the inside of my mouth and wonder if my $50 plus or minus investment is going to go the way of cow urine. Then the happy surprise comes when the next day I have gains of some percentage of a cent — yes, they really do list that way — and I’m all smiles again.

I’ve told Dennis that he may have thought he had married a poor school teacher, but at the rate I’m going the day will surely come when I will be able to cash in some of these investments for some money that comes in bills, not coins.

After all, it’s not every day that you become a Dollarnaire in your 60s!

One of the great annoyances of Facebook life is the “rants” people have about all sorts of things that conclude with the implication that you aren’t a good person if you don’t cut and paste some usually vitriolic message on your own news feed. I have a fairly firm rule that I won’t be a cut & paste person, even if I agree with the sentiments. Nevertheless, it is a rare rant that I agree 100% with and a pretty non-existent one that I feel would make me a bad person for not continuing to broadcast someone else’s agenda.

What started this rant was last night’s post – the gist of which I have seen at least a dozen or more times on Fb – that began with “RIP America.” From there it continued all the reasons our country has gone to hell. Apparently I have really had enough of this same tirade so I replied that I didn’t agree with most of what is being said, and I being much older than the poster person, had a longer perspective on the issues.

So here it is.

Let’s start with the claim everything has gotten so expensive that mothers HAVE to work now. No, folks, mothers work to either provide themselves with the self-fulfillment that they seek or to provide for the incredible number of what was considered “luxuries” that families now consider requirements. Mothers work to put food on the table because they no longer felt like that had to remain in a loveless or abusive marriage like the women of my mother’s generation did. Mothers work because they can.

My mother’s generation really started paving that road during WWII. My generation raised it to a whole new level.

No longer are women who need to work confined to the secretary, teacher or nurse rolls of life. Those careers are choices from a never-ending list. The glass ceiling continues to be shattered and as I write this a woman may well be our next president of the United States!

My mother didn’t work outside the home. My mother also didn’t have a car when I was young and we took the bus everywhere or waited until Daddy got home. How well I remember when my grandparents bought a new car and passed down their used Chevy to us. It was a day of great celebration. My sister and I thought we were rich!

We had one television (and here again we were considered “rich” for having it), and we only used our window unit air conditioning during the hottest part of the day. Nights were spent with fans — in Texas.

I could spend this whole post talking about the difference of material expectations of my generation and that of my grandchildren, but that would dilute my point. Most mothers choose to work now. Most importantly, they have choices of what they do. That’s a pretty darn great America if you ask me.

The second and only other point I will make at this time although I really do have others, several in fact,  is the constant assertion that kids have all become “selfish, disrespectful brats who have no respect for people and property nor authority!”

I couldn’t disagree more! Someone needs to go look at some movies from the 40’s and 50’s and see that there were some really bad kids then and there are some really bad kids now. I point you to remember Charles Manson’s followers in the 60s and this list can go on. But why does it need to?

The majority of youth are wonderful! They are more creative and inquisitive than most of my generation was even allowed to be. We were firmly placed in educational and societal norms and told that they couldn’t be violated. The fact that I was required to take both cooking and sewing in school still astonishes me to this day. Even more, to this day, I can do neither. There is no challenge or vision too large for young people’s aspirations and that thrills me.

My grandchildren and their friends are as much of a delight to the world as my children and all my students were. They are polite, respectful and behave. They are inquisitive and good leaders. These boys will become wonderful citizens of the world as adults and take care of this country just like all the generations in my family have done. America is in good hands.

Rather than viewing the past as some Norman Rockwell painting that has disintegrated never to be seen again, I leave you with this quote:

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” — Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.)

 God bless America.

On this date in 1912, my destiny for a journalism career was set. Although I was two generations from even being born, the Titanic’s tragic sinking started a family path down the road of that proverbial nose for news.

If you remember my “Let’s start at the beginning” page, I mentioned a grandfather who was born in Dallas. His family tree is interesting unto itself, but the only germane fact right now is that when he was 11-years-old, the Titanic sank. So, he skipped school.

It wasn’t an act of empathy. It was purely mercenary.

It was not unusual in those days for kids to leave school — as in dropout – after sixth grade, which is when “grammar” school education ended. My grandfather, one of the most literate and intelligent men I’ve ever known, was from a big family. If the kids wanted something special they had to earn it. He knew his days as a student were coming to an end.

Not many earning opportunities were open to kids, but selling newspapers was a young boys’ job teething ring. The day the Titanic sank, the Morning News put out “extra” editions all day long with each new fact that was being transmitted via telegraph from New York. Remember, these were long before the days of reliable radio news, much less one in homes. Television wasn’t even a recognizable word yet.

In order to keep up with news updates, people bought these extra editions of the paper all day and night. Pappa saw the entrepreneurial opportunity immediately. He ran up and down the streets of downtown Dallas selling out an armload of each edition, then returned to the News for the next issue before heading out again. Over and over.

If this was a novel, the author would give you some sappy ending about how this opportunity led someone to recognize his news talent and he dropped out of school to become an overnight editor. But, I promised to always tell the truth. The reality is that he made so much money that day he was able to buy a used bicycle, which upped his skill set so he could become a Western Union telegram delivery boy.

Okay, I know it isn’t exciting. Therefore, the quick end to this story is that he was very successful at the Western Union, got lots and lots of promotions, traveled with Presidents and retired from there when he was around 60.

However, it was at the Western Union where he met my grandmother. They married, had my Mother, etc., so you can see how this all ties up to be the fact that on this day in 1912, journalism became my amazing fate.

Sadly it wasn’t so good for the poor passengers of the Titanic.