A Note To The Grandchildren Regarding Covid-19 -- July 25, 2020

This, too, shall pass.

I don't recall my father ever being particularly anxious and/or nervous about anything. And he had plenty to be concerned about. He had very, very little money until after his six children had all completed college and left home. He bought into a business when he had very little money. He and  his business went through several downturns, some due to national economic downturns, some due to regional downturns, some due to local issues. But even when things must have been most bleak, I don't recall him ever being particularly concerned.

I would assume his strong Lutheran faith and the "happy genes" he inherited from his mother were responsible for his good disposition.  

I vividly remember Black Monday, October 19, 1987, when the Dow plunged 23%. I was stationed overseas at the time, and knew that Dad was heavily invested in the market at the time. That was about the only time in my life when I was that worried about Dad. When I finally reached him by phone the next day, he was in a great mood. Not only was he not worried about the market, he was hardly aware that the market had crashed. He wouldn't get the daily newspaper until later that evening, and he didn't listen to news on the radio or television at that period in his life.

However, I noted a real change about the time he turned 85 years old (in 2007) or thereabouts and certainly after he entered "his" nursing home. I never saw him so happy as he seemed when he was in his late 80's and particularly when he entered the nursing home which decades earlier he had said he would never, never, never go into a nursing home.

I recognize a lot of that in myself. More and more, "global nonsense" bothers me less and less. I find myself chuckling out loud when I think about some of this nonsense. I'm not quite where my dad was when he turned 85 years of age (I still have 15 years to go), but I feel myself coming close. I still worry about a few things, particularly when it comes to our grandchildren, but with regard to almost everything else, not much else bothers me. (That's not entirely true; there are some things that still bother me, but each day these things seem to bother me less.)

I think "we" all saw that with Ronald Reagan when he was president. I'm pretty sure Warren Buffett has been in that bubble for the past four years. He's 89 years old so that about fits what I saw in my dad when he turned 85 years old. Dad had another eleven years of bliss, dying at the age of 96. Had he had Ruth Bader Ginsburg's physician he would have lived to 100 years of age.

Bill Gates, at 64 years of age, is still too serious.

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Two Americas (At Least)

From Levi's:

I assume a lot of folks picked up one of these during the #BLM / Summer Riot Sale in June.

On the other hand, this was probably not a big item of interest:

I did find this one at the local Lego store.

Again, two Americas.