Good Ole Days for this Good Ole Boy

Goodnight Jim Bob… goodnight Mary Ellen… goodnight Grandma… goodnight John Boy…..”

… and on and on through the list of names called out in the cricket-clamorous darkness of a Virginia depression-era family.

Almost anyone of my vintage (or any of my children whom I forced to watch reruns!) would recognize the closing dialogue of this show…

Probably next to Hockey Night in Canada (Leafs vs Canadiens! GO Habs!!), my most treasured television program of my younger years was a treacly, heartwarming, and often bittersweet show called The Waltons (1972-1981).

I loved the show so much that we even named our eldest daughter after one of the show’s characters, Erin Walton.

The program for me was a bit like like Billy Joel’s lyrics…“it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete, when I wore a younger man’s clothes.”

WTH? Billy Joel on the road again?

I was perspiring, sweltering, glowing… working like a salt-stained Trojan through a treadmill run this week when I “ran” across a TV station replaying a 1970’s episode of The Waltons.

YES!

And yes again… because like so many things we look back on many years afterwards, it was even more syrupy and corny than I recalled, but still… I felt the heart-pulling pangs of lost innocence, the sweet scenes of family love and respect and order, even good Christian Godliness at its most pious.

The smell of pine trees and fresh-baked apple pies came through my TV screen; I could hear and touch the cool, rippling waters of the nearby fishing river and the hazy cloud of road dust clogging my nostrils as an old Model A Roadster or Ford Pickup rattled by on the 1930’s country roads.

My late father liked to describe his youth as “the good ole days“. As he spoke these words, I could see him playing “episodes” of his life inside his head.

As we age, we find ourselves looking back on the past in various forms of dreamy wonder and filmy carefreeness (I hope this is the case for most). Our minds fill with images and sensory input that meanders in and out while we sleep or as we pass through our daily lives.

Yet as sweet as the idea of “good ole days” is, I’d suggest that everything was rarely as fully idealistic and romantic as we might recall, but… so what… it seems better to try and idealize our past than to suffer through the traumas and dramas that were an inevitable part of those times.

Yesterday, just like today, was a mixture of breathtaking beauty and agonizingly beastly events. It comes to us all in varying degrees.

The Waltons helps me turn to this wondrous, dreamland state where it was always warm and sunny, everyone laughed and got along famously, Mom’s food (Mom’s were always the cooks in those days) was simple but delicious, and a summer day lasted a week.

Like the Waltons, my parents, siblings and I would come together and share Sunday dinners (always Roast Beef… in those times, the only vegetarian at our table was the cow we were consuming) each week as a group around the table.

We would chat and babble and portion out our stories of the day and the week just passed…

… my Mom would tell her tomboy tales of playing baseball on the farm with no gloves and smile as she reminisced of how her hands would ache from catching hard balls with no padding or protection; Dad would shell out his stories of his parents’ floral shop and his sisters playing piano in the parlour….

It was comforting to listen to sentimental remembrances of times I would never experience…

… and as I think back about all of this … I can hear those “Waltons” nostalgic sounds of harmonica and autoharp, the plaintive trumpet and accordion… as I enjoy the romantic memories of my own “good ole days”.

SLOW SPEED CHASE – The Song

Have you ever witnessed something happening on the street or in your life that you think would make a great story idea, perhaps a novel… even a song?

It’s likely crossed your mind at least once or twice.

This happens to me quite regularly and occasionally, just occasionally, I actually spring into action and move on the thought.

A few years back (pre-COVID era!), during a bike spin class, I was panting and dripping a salty-sweat river like a torrent over Niagara Falls.

Our energetic instructor Therese would sometimes keep our minds off the “pain” of a hard spin by telling little stories from her daily life.

It’s a little like – using an example from my former lab life – distracting children while putting a needle in their arm. There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? *where’s my sucker that you promised me?*

Anyway, her personal anecdote this time began simply while driving down a street in the small town of Penticton next door to our tinier town of Summerland.

Therese’s miniature dog Sugar sat next to her in the passenger seat as she drove along early one summer’s evening.

In passing, her eye (and Sugar’s too) was drawn to a young, shoeless man walking… bedraggled, head hung low, dragging himself along the sidewalk. A lonely island.

A true Samaritan-type, she checked in her rearview mirror, pulled to a rapid stop and backed up her car – Sugar barking excitedly – to ask if he needed some help.

Poking his head inside her window with a relieved smile, he gently stroked Sugar on the head, and almost knocked them both over with a wallop of 80-proof alcohol-breath.

And then next… well… for the rest of this story, you’ll need to pull up yourself, and listen to the country-twang song of this story that I hijacked from Therese as my own, then wrote and recorded.

I call it SLOW SPEED CHASE… I’ve always had a blast playing this song and enjoy the response I get from audiences when I get to the words… right down there by the old stripper’s bar…. (lyrics follow below)

(As a postscript, little Sugar passed on to puppy heaven a year and a half back at the age of 17 years, may his memory live on in this song)

SLOW SPEED CHASE

Words & Music – Larry Green

Verse 1
It was just before dark and I was driving back home
Barely noticed your outstretched thumb
So I glanced in my rear view mirror
I could see your tears beginning to come
When I caught that you had no shoes to wear
It pushed the brake that was my heart
Sugar barked at me c’mon let’s pull on over
Here’s a guy that we can’t discard.

Verse 2
You wobbled to my door with your bloodshot eyes
Through my window breathed a liquor shot
I said get in we’ll take you somewhere safe and warm
Someplace nearby that’s got a coffeepot
Y’ said, could ya help me find my buddy he’s around here somewhere
You should meet him He’s a real cool dude
He can suck back a beer while standing on his head
He can do it, even do it in the nude

CHORUS
It’s a Slow Speed Chase
Where the rubber hits the road
And if I just unload
I can catch him at this frantic pace
So I creeped on over to the other lane
The meter hit 15 I felt just fine
So I juiced it up to 20 my heart started to race
There’s no escapin’ from this Slow Speed Chase

Verse 3
Tears of joy started pouring down your cheeks
Can you take me down to Oliver you slurred
No I can’t but the bus depot will do you just fine
I can send you on your way on bus 39

Bridge – Slow and sweet
You and Sugar are the sweetest things I’ve seen,
He said since my last hot tender cruller
And a double double right now would sip so good
Even Better … better…
Even better than the last beer in my cooler

Verse 4
Just then your furry hairballed eyes did spy
That good ole boy that you were searchin’ for
You yelled, follow him, c’mon let’s catch that guy
Sugar barked out “yep” like Toto on the handlebar

CHORUS
It’s a Slow Speed Chase
Where the rubber hits the road
And if I just unload
I can catch him at this frantic pace
So I creeped on over to the other lane
The meter hit 15 I felt just fine
So I juiced it up to 20 my heart started to race
There’s no escapin’ from this Slow Speed Chase

Verse 5
We pulled up along beside his swerving wreck
You rolled your window down and hollered out some words
I couldn’t hear but they must have had the right effect
Cause he inched his beat up Chevy right over to the curb
I kinda slowed and came to a rollin’ stop
Right down there by the old stripper’s bar
You jumped out and poor Sugar looked so sad
He was teary when you slid drunk into his car.

CHORUS
It was a Slow Speed Chase
Where the rubber hits the road
And if I just unload
I can catch him at this frantic pace
So I creeped on over to the other lane
The meter hit 15 I felt just fine
So I juiced it up to 20 my heart started to race
There’s no escapin’ from this Slow Speed Chase    

My Life As A Bigoted, Elitist, Racist, Misogynist, Atheist

Y

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ou could hate me. Maybe you should hate me.

.

.

There is no doubt in my mind that I’ve done or said something in my lifetime that should enrage you… it’s inevitable that I’ve uttered undiplomatic comments about your gender, or sexuality, or ancestry, or intelligence, or religion.

I haven’t always been sensitive or “woke”. I can understand that you might hate me. I’ve had to erase many many words from my vocabulary that are laced with hidden, and often unintended, hatred.

I’ve lived the most privileged of privileged lives ever in history. I don’t have to buy a lottery ticket, because I won the biggest prize by merely being born a white-skinned male in North America in the 20th century. BINGO!

I’m a billionaire by universal standards of fortune. It’s both wonderful and challenging at the same time.

I’m living in a different world today than the one I was born into… and I’m adjusting and learning and trying… but I also know I’m living my days reading a road-map (without my reading glasses on) that doesn’t have clear cut directions.

In my early years, I said and did things that were hurtful and hateful and just plain stupid when I look back. Many people my age and in my circumstances did the same.

We echoed stuff our parents and grandparents said without understanding who we were mocking and knocking. I won’t give examples, but you probably know the kinds of things to which I’m referring.

It seems pretty clear to me now that making jokes about someone’s gender or sexuality or skin colour or religious beliefs – even hair colour – is crazy dumb and not helpful in any way.

Fortunately, my awareness factor has risen thanks to the resistance movements of Women’s Liberation, LGBTQ+, #MeToo, BLM, and a host of other trod-upon groups.

And yet… today I still get confused and make unintentional gaffes.

I know that no matter how much I try, I still stumble and hurt or offend. I take this for granted and carry the awareness or non-awareness around my neck like a scarf… one that tightens and restricts my breathing when I stray, and warms me when I’m on the right track.

The planet is growing smaller and smaller (metaphorically) and the privilege I was given as a birthright is one that everyone deserves no matter where they are born, no matter their skin colour or language, no matter their gender identification, no matter their choice of partner, no matter their belief or non-belief in a god.

I can’t change what I was or believed in my younger years, but today, we all can make a choice to accept and rejoice in the variety of humanity in much the same way I rejoice in eating delicious foods from India or China or Peru or France or even McDonald’s.

We ALL deserve a rightful and generous place in the world. At the very least, it’s a right we deserve to start out with and maintain if we live in a way that continues to earn this right. Does that make sense?

So, you can choose to hate me and I’ll get it.

But I’ll be a lot happier (and so will you I think) if you try… just try… to understand that I’m crawling, grasping my way out of this cocoon of ignorance, and will make slips and blunders as we wander this complex, cosmic road together.

I’m trying to leave my life as a bigoted, elitist, racist, misogynist, atheist behind… OK, perhaps not the atheist part!…

…and I will always wish for you and everyone the “billionaire” status I was given with my first crying breath, as a part of our birthright.

To Be A Millionaire by 35… NOT!

Ay Ay Ay… I rocked my head in my hands.

It was a main course of gut punch accompanied with a side serving of humiliation and wounded pride. Nausea was my dessert.

I had just – overnight – lost about $25,000 on a publicly-traded company called YBM Magnex.

Not paper money, not Monopoly money… real money (or as real as the Canadian dollar gets).

I like money.

We should all like money to some degree… I know, I know, we could debate that degree until the cows come home… but I won’t judge you if you don’t judge me.

YBM was a not-inconsequential part of my family’s net worth when this happened about 30 years ago. It was a great company with wonderful financials…

WAS! More on this later.

I “dig” financial numbers and have a pretty decent understanding of what makes a company worthwhile when I’m looking to buy a chunk. YBM was definitely worthwhile.

This investing stuff might not mean a whole lot in your world, but whether you’re young or not-so-young (like me), let’s try to get you engaged for your future.

……….

Ah the hubris of my youth.

I told everyone far and wide in my 20’s and early 30’s that I’d retire by 35 and live comfortably on the millions I had invested and flourished upon.

In my heart I knew the map with directions to take me to the Land of Milk and Honey.

Turns out it was a semi-fictional map that led me to the Land O’ Skim Milk and Artificial Sweeteners!

I’m not complaining, just noting the true course of my investing ventures and adventures.

The investments I’ve made over the years have by-and-large been good ones, but honestly, the mega-blockbusters (the pros call them 10-baggers) have passed me by… nope, in re-thinking this, I’ve passed them by.

My biggest problem as I look back now is not the quality of my research and purchases, it was the quality of my “gut-strength”.

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH… you and I have both heard this maxim a hundred, maybe a thousand times. It’s kinda like saying, BE BORN YOUNG, DIE OLD. Easy to say, harder to do, right?…

You only really have a choice on one end of either of these equations with certainty. LOW and YOUNG both begin at 0… HIGH and OLD have no upside limit (OK… maybe OLD does have a finite point, but remember, bibilical Noah lived to 950).

I’ve been quite good at buying LOW… then too often sold high… but not high enough.

When my winners rose 15 or 20%, I started to feel the hair on the back of my neck creeping upwards … way too often I’ve sold for a modest profit rather than holding on to quality companies and letting them do what they do best… keep growing and adding big profits for themselves… and by osmosis… to me!

Well-run companies with great management have a way of thinking through the tough stuff and finding ways to continue to prosper regardless of the toughness of any economy, year after year.

My advice to myself AND to YOU?

If you should find yourself fortunate enough to own a bit of companies like Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Disney, Amazon, or McDonald’s, hold onto them tightly unless something dramatic occurs that will wound them irreparably… otherwise cling to them as they find a way to renew and carry on making you money hand over fist. (Full disclosure: I own Apple, Disney and Amazon, but sold both J&J and McDonald’s much too early)

It’s a test of our self-belief and “gut-strength”.

GUT strength AND balls…

If I could start all over with a small sum of money that I wanted to grow to a large sum of money, I would show more patience and resolve when the tides of a slowing economy or a rising share price have caused me to sell too soon.

Trust my research would become my mantra.

I’m not Bill Gates, I’m not Elon Musk, I’m not Catherine Wood, I’m not Warren Buffett… but as Larry Green I resolve to hold on to the investment rope when it gets a bit slippery – to trust my choices and decisions in the investing world.

Right… Back to YBM Magnex… remember them?… here’s the rest of the story.

YBM was a solid-appearing company with wonderful assets and sales and profits in producing and selling rare earth magnets to the technology industry. But there were worrisome whispers…

After a strong report from an internationally-renowned auditing firm that gave a green light to the quality of the company’s reporting standards, I stayed on board despite the various reports of fraud and money laundering.

WRONG! Early one morning, the FBI burst through the front doors of the company and uncovered proof of Russian Mafia money-laundering. Poof! My investment dollars disappeared like feathers in a hurricane.

My research had been fine, but my trust in “reputable” auditing companies took a big hit… expensive lesson learned.

Markets are close to highs right now. Riding a market tide-swell is a rush.

They might rise more, or… they might tumble mightily. I have no idea which will be the next stage. My crystal ball has always been murky.

But I will do my best to stay strong and ride whatever waves come my way. We survived (sort of) a period of Trump, and I trust that we can get through the next wave of worry, whatever it might be.

I know the map and the directions, now comes the trusting part.

PS. Despite my braggadocio, I did NOT retire at 35. I’ll never truly retire, but I DID leave my long-term medical lab career behind on my 57th Birthday!

PPS. Just one more thing… I’ve been a fan-boy of Australian acoustic guitarist Tommy Emmanuel for a few years (I have tickets to see him in-person once the pandemic undoes the handcuffs!). Stay Close To Me, the instrumental guitar piece I recorded (below) was written by Emmanuel… I use him as a source of incentive and motivation to work away at my guitar skills. If I can capture 25% of his skills, I will possess a million stars in my eyes (and fingertips)!