Phi Sig Ep In the fall of 1971, those of us on the second floor, north wing of University Halls #4 had an unusually strong degree of camaraderie. We were not close at all to those people on the south wing and only connected to those on the west wing via the Resident Advisor Greg and his perfect blonde girlfriend, Louise. The RA on our wing was Wiley and while we didn’t know his…
Perpetual Notion The Bodies Exhibit was working out just right for Krista. She was taking home almost $400 every shift she worked, between the salary and the cash tips. Everything was handled in cash, which was just fine with her. If she could get just three shifts per week she could cover all her ordinary living expenses and then some. It left her lots of time and flexibility to go on auditions and go-sees,…
Wake Up, Maggie, I Think I Got Something to Say to You It was late September, 1978 and Steve really thought he should be back at school. He could collect his books and get on back to school. Or steal his daddy’s cue and make a living out of playing pool. Or find himself a rock ‘n’ roll band that needed a helping hand. If that reminds you of Rod Stewart, it’s not coincidental. …
Victimized Resentment Why does a person choose a path in life that places themselves as a pitiful victim? We humans are always prone to a bit of self-pity. We never completely feel we get our due and the strange thing is that when we do get good things, we ignore the balancing aspect of all that and reinforce our view that we deserve to get more than we do, when, in fact, we may…
An Extraordinary Life I see that Gloria Vanderbilt died at the ripe old age of 95. It was said on Morning Joe that she had led an extraordinary life. I’m sure that is true in that she is a bit of a household name, mostly because of her designer jeans made popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It isn’t lost on many that her son, white-haired Anderson Cooper, can be seen every night on…
The Etagere Back in 1990 I was sent to Gulag Toronto. That’s what I called my two-year tour of duty as CEO of BT Bank of Canada. I was in exile by my firm for having presided over a sin of omission (as opposed to a sin of commission) wherein a secondary decision that fell under my command was faced with a large credit loss. It was a collateralized cotton loan to a renowned…
Power Sleeping The world talks about sleeping as much as any bodily function. It is clearly one of the basic necessities of life and yet few other functions enjoy such a broad range of discretion, habit and variability. The swaddling of babies is a subject that has been much studied by child development specialists. It turns out that people from northern climes swaddle their babies very tightly and those from southern climes swaddle them very…
Father’s Day Blues I have three children who are all grown and out of the house at this point. This is the last Father’s Day when they know for sure I am in the neighborhood, as we have been planning to move to Sam Diego in about eight months. I’m sure we will be back regularly and I will probably even try to be back for Father’s Day. For one reason or another I have…
Catch Me If You Can In 1970 I was Treasurer of the senior class at Norte Dame International Preparatory School in Rome, Italy. This had been my school for three years and despite being a reasonably big fish in a very small pond (our class was a whopping 54-strong), I was what was called a “Day-dog” rather than a boarder. In those days of the late 60’s most of the multinational American, Canadian and British…
Running Out of Money Bloomberg News today posted an article titled, Retirees Might Run Out of Money 10 Years Before They Die. It’s a title intended to shock people into action or at least awareness. I have a strong interest in this topic. In 2013 I published the book Global Pension Crisis: Unfunded Liabilities and How We Can Fill the Gap, published by Wiley & Sons. The book was based on ten years of…