It’s 3:00 am, March 23, I’m actually turning 65 today. There ought to be something profound to say so what is it? (first sign of Alzheimer’s)
I am by myself. My wife is with our daughter whose husband is gone by way of divorce. He was invited out because he loved his drugs and himself more than his wife and 4 boys. They are recovering and will be OK. Our son is in Oregon with the USCG. He has some family troubles, but it is well within reason. Life is never as perfect as we wished!
It is a good time for reflection. The computer makes typing go at the speed of light. Soft music is playing on the TV which is receiving a signal from a satellite flying in space high overhead. The moon is at it’s closest point to earth since 1993. It is full and bright. Spring officially came 2 days ago. My hemisphere is warming. Flowers are blooming. Breezes are blowing. Beautiful women are putting on their sunny clothes and removing the total cover of winter. March is a good month--at least the end days!
I am beside the Pamlico River in Eastern NC. I started my journey at a hospital in Greenville, SC. My father was Pastor of First Baptist Church of Liberty, SC. My mother and he had married in April of 1945. All the ladies of the church were counting the months to see if she was pregnant when they married. The townspeople were disappointed they didn’t have one on the Preacher. My parents were rejoicing at their first child being a boy. My mother was livid that church people are so judgmental.
Over the space of 12 years they would have another son born the following March 3, a daughter born 6 years later and another born 12 years later. So I grew up with a brother chasing my tail. For 20 days he rejoiced in being the same age as me. We have fun with that every year. I am the eldest and most of the time it was fun. All of us are well. My brother lost his wife to a rare cancer. My oldest sister got lung cancer, but has a good prognosis. My youngest sister has gotten super religion in recent years. I’m not sure which is worse: severe religion or severe cancer. My wife and I have added to the Scarborough / Williams clan a total of 9 grandchildren. Those children are all producing their own families so we are all grandparents now. We are the Baby boomers!
Life has changed over 65 years in the United States of America. Some things never change. 1945 brought the end to WWII with 2 atomic blasts to Japan. In the last few weeks Japan has suffered a terrible earthquake and tsunami. They have 4 nuclear reactors badly damaged with fears of meltdown. Such could send the reactor cores to the core of the earth, but, by the skin on their teeth, it seems to be under control. What would happen if the molten core of the earth suffered such an human assault? Could it explode? That would take care of all the predictors of the end of time for us humans! Our country is now at war in the Middle East. Nuclear weapons are all over the world. Terrorists hijacked 4 commercial aircraft and flew them into the World Trade Center / Pentagon / through passenger bravery the 4th did not hit its intended target, The White House. The Middle East and Japan were troubled areas when I was born and they still are now. Hitler and Germany had been conquered. The Japanese had been nuked. America was at the height of its world power when I was born. Roosevelt had died in office and Truman was my first President. I didn’t know much more than nursing my momma, dirtying my diaper, and developing my ability to make my hands and feet do as my brain told them. They didn’t always do as commanded, but I was trying!
Things have changed, but not really all that much with the basics: new babies born / old people dying / mankind trying to cope with---well, just being human as God created us.
So what can I say about change and life in my 65 years on this “3rd rock from the sun?” I have had 3 careers: Minister / Life Underwriter / owner of a Tree Surgery Company. I am the father of 2 children / husband of one wife / broke in a busted economy / living in the oldest town in NC / sitting beside the river where Blackbeard came to visit---and before him explorers came to the New World. Indians lived on the same dirt I occupy now. They had no clue there was another Old World across the ocean and people from that place would bring them dread diseases and conquest. The Pamlico tribes lived a life of gathering food / making babies / fighting other tribes / having a religion / knowing how to use the things of nature to survive and fight their own diseases. People are people who live, love, hate, eat, make babies, die. Life has not changed at its core from the dawn of mankind. A land bridge brought humans from Asia to America. They spread from the west as the white man had spread from the east upon sailing a dangerous ocean to escape from the bad things going on in England and Europe. The poor were being used. The rich were trying to get richer. Governments wanted all their people to be obedient and submissive. They were not!!!
If the earth were a movie attended for an entire year and watched by us, the presence of man in that movie would take place in the last 10 minutes! My time here would be a nano-second in comparison, but it has been interesting and it’s not over yet!
I am a citizen of the Southeast: born in SC / lived in NC / settled in Atlanta, GA, in 1953. It grew into the largest metropolis east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The little caution-light crossroad of Clarkston is now engulfed with people. The same school which graduated 63 in 1963 now graduates some 400 each year. We were all “lily white” in my day. There was a beautiful Japanese girl, Patty Kato, in my class. In the 7th Grade someone called her a Jap and the teacher ate us up for using a term of prejudice. The black kids of that community attended their own school and churches. No one there was a foreigner. Now Clarkston is populated with people from India / Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and a large black contingent. Simple white folks from the mill village and working classes are now a conglomeration from around the world. Life goes on with people seeking a better opportunity.
After Clarkston I finished Emory University with a degree in Psychology. I was going to be a PhD Psychologist. I had preached to my teddy bears just like my daddy, but I had seen him brutally treated and fired. I watched him initiate a ministry to the Fulton County Juvenile Court as well as a new mission church. He refused to become bitter nor stop being a minister. He calling was real and lasted to his final day on this earth. He was my idol and hero. He lived what he preached and insisted I do the same along with my brother and sisters. He has such high ideals. He was the son of a dirt poor Tenant Farmer. He hitch hiked to Mercer in Macon, GA, from the farm near Athens, GA. His great grandfather was reputed to the be wealthiest man in Madison County as the official “brewer of spirits” for Federal troops stationed there before the Civil War. He lost everything and my grandfather, Charles Newton Scarborough, played with chests full of worthless Confederate money. He died a premature death and daddy had to drop out of school and run the farm. His ideals were un-stoppable. They were deep in debt, but in 3 years they became solvent with his spendthrift and hard management. He literally went from rags to riches in his lifetime. He left mother comfortable with an investment portfolio and her own retirement. That money has been split between us 4 children now. Some of us are secure. Others are still struggling. I am a struggler, but I am happy.
Daddy was obsessed with getting far away from poverty. I have done OK, but I have tended to be more generous and have very little in riches. I am rich with friends and people I have helped along the way. I am the example of the American Golden Dream becoming a nightmare. I was told if you got a good education (graduated a year early from High School), worked hard (I cut grass from age 10 to save for college and worked as a trim carpenter, Nurses Aide, Director of Juvenile Rehabilitation with the Wake County, NC, Juvenile Court), and be honest = success.
Well, honesty in Baptist church ministry got me fired twice. Honesty in Insurance kept me from being the “best salesman in the company,” but I did OK. Hurricane Floyd ruined my insurance business so I started a company to cut and heal trees. It did great for 7 years until the “Recession” hit in 2007. For me it was a “Depression” since my earning suddenly became 30% of what they had been previously. I lost my house, but was fortunate to have the Bayview Cottage as a result of early distribution of my inheritance. We went from a 3 story brick home on 4 acres of land with a beautiful artesian-fed pond in the woods. It was our dream home. It is “Gone with the Wind” along with my private retirement savings. I have had it proved to me that dishonesty wins / telling people what they want to hear from the Pulpit is safe / chucking and jiving in money management makes you a member of the Million Dollar Roundtable (for some).
In every field of work there are some who are crooked and “succeed” while there are others who are the “real deal” and may or may not succeed. I have known both honest and dishonest people throughout my life. I will still stick with doing your best to be honest. At the least, you sleep good at night and die with a clear conscience!
It is almost 5:00 a.m. and time to draw this treatise to a close. Reading about other people is most interesting to the one writing it, but gets tedious for those having to read it. Camus in “The Plague” had Jean Paul Clemence utter a famous sentence: “I have had one great love in my life---of which I was always the object!” Rudyard Kipling wrote “IF” which has been a source of inspiration and guidance. Tielhard de Chedan wrote: “Life is either a daring adventure---or it is nothing!” Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind---and your neighbor as yourself.” Those tidbits come to mind.
Man, age 65 sounded so old back as I grew up!
My granddaddy Williams was in his fifties when I found him to be the “best old man I knew.” He loved his farm, mules, cows, children and grandchildren. I remember the smile on his face as he drove into the yard at noon for lunch riding his mule-drawn cultivator. He could do wonders with that implement and 2 mules. He was a master farmer and the first County Agent for Pickens County, SC. He turned gullied red clay hills into productive farm land. He came within a hair of going under during the Depression, but his wife’s family, the Kays, loaned him enough to survive.
My daddy became 65 some years after I got married at age 23 in 1968. He was always the apple of my eye and my greatest source of man inspiration. He failed as a big church preacher, but he ministered with integrity throughout his life. He was gossiped about in his second church because he went to a Roadhouse and ministered to a prostitute who had a botched abortion and almost died, had he not taken her to the hospital. They called him to comfort her in death, but he did things to assure her a future life.
I have worked hard with the same integrity of my forefathers. I have succeeded in some things and failed in others. I had a stroke at age 50 from burning the candle at both ends and in the middle to be successful. After that experience working hard as both a Life Underwriter and Minister, I decided it was time to take better care of myself. If I’m tired, I take a nap. If people aggravate me, I will tell them where to stick “it” in more certain terms. I have learned you don’t have to be nice to everybody nor take it from anybody.
Just do your best and trust God for the rest. Be glad when you have a good wife and children who bring you joy and pride. Especially be glad and grateful when your grandchildren are born healthy and are getting big enough to push in the swing and ride a go-cart and bike. If they love to hunt and fish, be even more grateful. I am blessed with 5 boys and 1 beautiful girl as another generation grows toward adulthood.
Be glad we live in a free country where eventually right prevails over wrong. Our country has failed in Viet Nam and with the assassination of men like JFK / MLK / RFK. War and killing is a bad way to “win the peace” Money is far better spent on medical research and job training than trying to control other countries and nations. We now must find alternative resources for power as oil runs out. Maybe we don’t have to travel so fast and do such much to be happy. I can walk into Bath and have my basic needs met right here beside the River. My grandkids love it and that is what is most important!
Let’s see----when will I be 100!!!! It will be fun as long a I am loved and respected by people I love in return. I am a millionaire more times over than I thought: Health / no wealth / plenty of stories to tell / a God who loves and forgives me / people I can love!
Showing posts with label integrity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label integrity. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Monday, June 21, 2010
Father's Day Tribute to My Father
Those of us who are Preacher's Kids are most blessed when daddy lives the other 6 days of the week the things he preached on Sunday.
My father, now gone to Higher Ground, stood a step above many of his contemporaries. He saw fraud and pretense and told me about it. Therefore, I am sensitive to it.
My dad grew up on a tenant farm outside Athens, GA. He got his call to preach plowing behind a mule during the Depression. Despite the church ladies at the Moon's Grove Baptist Church telling him an education would ruin him, he hitch-hiked to Mercer--arriving with .10 in his pocket.
He was told by the President that a man with no funds other than .10 could not metriculate. He broke down and cried.
The President had mercy on him and gave him the name of a family who loaned money to worthy students. In addition, he got a job peeling potatoes in the Cafeteria plus cutting hair for students. He made it!
Then he went to Andover-Newton, which had a reputation for being one of the finest Seminaries in the country. Again, he made it through hard work paying his own way.
Now, comes the wrinkle: He felt called to return South where he met all kinds of subjective criticism. He had the education and preaching skills for a First Baptist Church, but he was still single and did not have the Southern Seminary Professors pulling for him.
They would simply say, "Can you trust a man who is from Andover-Newton rather than Southern?"
He had to take a job teaching school and a part time church in Pendleton, SC. Finally he married a Carver School of Missions graduate and that opened some doors. He was "safely" married. He went to the Liberty, SC, FBC where I was born. From there he went to Tryon, NC, FBC, but got pressure to leave because he ministered to everyone--even a woman dying from a botched abortion at a "Road House" outside town.
After a short time as Associate Pastor in Spartanburg, SC, he was called to the Clarkston, GA, FBC at a time of potential growth. They had built a new sanctuary and the population was exploding. He worked hard and stimulated a doubling of the congregation---BUT he was in conflict with the Town Mayor (a lawyer) / Deacon Chairman / Church Treasurer who was playing games with the Building Fund by not paying the steel bill! He had a lawsuit against the company.
Daddy told this man, "You must pay the bill by Friday or I will resign Sunday and explain in clear terms why I am doing it." It took 4 years, but they finally got him in one of the most ugly and lying scenes ever imaginable.
That was OK. He refused to hate! He started a new mission church in an unchurched area--and also became the first HMB Chaplain to the Fulton County Juvenile Court. That church started in our living room, moved to a rental house, and finally built a building after about 2 years. In addition, he was the Associate DOM for the Atlanta Baptist Association.
When he should have become the next Director of Missions, a powerful Editor of the Christian Index opposed him because he was not a "yes man" to him. To move up required a "political correctness." Still he ministered as best he could and had the undying respect of many of the Atlanta Pastors. Again, he refused to hate and did not give up when the new DOM put terrible pressure to get rid of him.
Here is what I learned:
(1) Those who have integrity sometimes are doomed to public failure.
(2) Those who maintain their integrity are provided by God with a place of service where it counts.
(3) Refusing to hate and leaving vengence to God, saves one from bitterness or ultimate defeat.
(4) Most of the early Saints, as well as Jesus, paid an ultimate price for telling the truth.
(5) Few preachers are willing to stand with integrity when their political future and retirement plans could be part of the sacrifice.
(6) Robert Frost was right when he advocated "The Road Less Taken."
I rejoice in the man of integrity who was my father. He stood in front of a hostile crowd many times at the GBC and in his church to advocate for honesty and a Christlike approach to those the majority wanted to crucify.
He is the most like Christ of any man I have ever known. Even in failure, he maintained his integrity. He refused to participate in ugly politics just to be "successful."
It's too bad men like him are few and far between, but I shall meet him one day in the Land Above for I know he walks with God!!!
My father, now gone to Higher Ground, stood a step above many of his contemporaries. He saw fraud and pretense and told me about it. Therefore, I am sensitive to it.
My dad grew up on a tenant farm outside Athens, GA. He got his call to preach plowing behind a mule during the Depression. Despite the church ladies at the Moon's Grove Baptist Church telling him an education would ruin him, he hitch-hiked to Mercer--arriving with .10 in his pocket.
He was told by the President that a man with no funds other than .10 could not metriculate. He broke down and cried.
The President had mercy on him and gave him the name of a family who loaned money to worthy students. In addition, he got a job peeling potatoes in the Cafeteria plus cutting hair for students. He made it!
Then he went to Andover-Newton, which had a reputation for being one of the finest Seminaries in the country. Again, he made it through hard work paying his own way.
Now, comes the wrinkle: He felt called to return South where he met all kinds of subjective criticism. He had the education and preaching skills for a First Baptist Church, but he was still single and did not have the Southern Seminary Professors pulling for him.
They would simply say, "Can you trust a man who is from Andover-Newton rather than Southern?"
He had to take a job teaching school and a part time church in Pendleton, SC. Finally he married a Carver School of Missions graduate and that opened some doors. He was "safely" married. He went to the Liberty, SC, FBC where I was born. From there he went to Tryon, NC, FBC, but got pressure to leave because he ministered to everyone--even a woman dying from a botched abortion at a "Road House" outside town.
After a short time as Associate Pastor in Spartanburg, SC, he was called to the Clarkston, GA, FBC at a time of potential growth. They had built a new sanctuary and the population was exploding. He worked hard and stimulated a doubling of the congregation---BUT he was in conflict with the Town Mayor (a lawyer) / Deacon Chairman / Church Treasurer who was playing games with the Building Fund by not paying the steel bill! He had a lawsuit against the company.
Daddy told this man, "You must pay the bill by Friday or I will resign Sunday and explain in clear terms why I am doing it." It took 4 years, but they finally got him in one of the most ugly and lying scenes ever imaginable.
That was OK. He refused to hate! He started a new mission church in an unchurched area--and also became the first HMB Chaplain to the Fulton County Juvenile Court. That church started in our living room, moved to a rental house, and finally built a building after about 2 years. In addition, he was the Associate DOM for the Atlanta Baptist Association.
When he should have become the next Director of Missions, a powerful Editor of the Christian Index opposed him because he was not a "yes man" to him. To move up required a "political correctness." Still he ministered as best he could and had the undying respect of many of the Atlanta Pastors. Again, he refused to hate and did not give up when the new DOM put terrible pressure to get rid of him.
Here is what I learned:
(1) Those who have integrity sometimes are doomed to public failure.
(2) Those who maintain their integrity are provided by God with a place of service where it counts.
(3) Refusing to hate and leaving vengence to God, saves one from bitterness or ultimate defeat.
(4) Most of the early Saints, as well as Jesus, paid an ultimate price for telling the truth.
(5) Few preachers are willing to stand with integrity when their political future and retirement plans could be part of the sacrifice.
(6) Robert Frost was right when he advocated "The Road Less Taken."
I rejoice in the man of integrity who was my father. He stood in front of a hostile crowd many times at the GBC and in his church to advocate for honesty and a Christlike approach to those the majority wanted to crucify.
He is the most like Christ of any man I have ever known. Even in failure, he maintained his integrity. He refused to participate in ugly politics just to be "successful."
It's too bad men like him are few and far between, but I shall meet him one day in the Land Above for I know he walks with God!!!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Riding Herd on Buffalos
I loved cowboy movies growing up. They were the highlight of TV as we got our first black-and-white set from Sears in the mid-50's. In fact, a kid who didn't like westerns was pretty much out of luck on any given Saturday. I remember Howdy Doody--it had a western theme? My Friend Flicka was on later with the beautiful black stallion. Finally, was my favorite: The Roy Rogers Show.
I dreamed of owning a beautiful Palomino like Trigger. I asked Santa for Roy Rogers guns one Christmas, and got, instead, a Lone Ranger set of 6-guns while my younger brother got the Roy Rogers set. The difference was brown leather for Roy Rogers and black for Lone Ranger. His guns were light and could shoot caps. Mine were silver and 3 times as heavy. Later on, as a father it came to me that children with identical toys would be fighting all the time so our parents wisely got Santa to bring different kinds or there might be a real killing between the Scarborough boys. They were quite competitive!
I was born on March 23 and my brother came along on March 3 the following year! We were almost like twins without having popped into the world at the same time. Momma later confessed to my wife in her first pregnancy: "Don't you dare believe that old wives tale that you can't get pregnant while nursing a baby. Gene's younger brother Charles is living proof that it is a total LIE!"
My brother and I grew up when life was good. There was no A-C nor power steering. Few people had a TV--much less color. Media was more radio than TV and we spent many a night or sick time from school listening to WSB Radio in Atlanta--"The voice of the South." It's funny how things stick to a child's mind! We even survived riding in a car without seat belts or cell phone distraction! Our parents actually had enough sense to drive carefully and slow enough to be safe for their sake and us children.
Like WSM in Nashville, WSB can still be heard in a scratchy way almost anywhere in the SE United States. I still sometimes tune to 750 AM just to feel like home again. Atlanta was not yet to her first million residents. You could play all over the neighborhood safely. DeBell street in Clarkston was nothing but wall-to-wall children laughing and make believing! Anything you did wrong would get back to momma before we got home, and God help us if we did anything immoral or illegal. There was no "wait til your daddy gets home from that SC farm girl."
She would almost always make us pick our own switches! This was my first adventure in executive decision making: what is "just the right size?" If it is too little and flimsy it could cut you / if it is too stiff and big so it won't cut, it might bruise! Dear God, help me pick the right one 'cause I'm gonna get a whipping soon!
One thing I remember about the westerns were cattle stampedes. Even worse was the dreaded buffalo stampede. Where cows could bash the poor cowboy whose horse slipped, the buffalo would mash them all flat as a flitter. Cows would go around the buildings and boulders, buffalo would go through and leave nothing standing! A buffalo stampede was the most dreaded result of nature's wrath. They would spook at thunder and lightening and come over the hill after my cowboys felt the earth shake as a warning. God help the cowboy sleeping peacefully at night with his innocent herd of cows nearby when the buffalo got loose!
We had a small herd of buffalo residing near us at my last house. It was always neat to take our grandchildren by to see these massive animals. Normally children get to see them only at a zoo, but the Red Oak / Castalia area had our own herd. They were beautiful. On of the things which fascinated our small ones was the time a baby buffalo got somehow under the fence. It's momma was close to pushing down that barbed wire before the farmer discovered the little lost baby. Instead of just the momma cow pushing until the barbs hurt and stopped, a buffalo has such thick hide and companionship no fence stands a chance when the herd wants to get to the other side.
I know now why "You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd" was a popular teen song. It stimulated a funny image, but it told a serious truth: try to skate among the hairy beasts and you will get smashed!!!
Now for the application as to why I feel like I am skating in a buffalo herd these days!
Our ECONOMY is a buffalo herd to me. After some 2 years of Depression (notice I didn't say Recession) the buffalo herd of corporate America is getting all the favors, while the small businessman is seeing virtually NOTHING. At last they are talking about "tax credits" and "easier loans," but why has the buffalo herd crushed for so long.
The first response this time in Depression was massive bailouts to financial and investment firms along wit the auto industry. Instead of setting investors back on their feet and customers right, the feet of the buffalo herd crushed them more! The buffaloes running each part of those 3 herds gave themselves bonuses for running their business into the ground.
Did the customer or investor get one red cent???? Not just "NO" but "HELL NO!"
Us American taxpayers now own 61% of GM, but are their products 61% cheaper to the poor fools whose money bailed them out??? Same answer as above!!!
Has the unenforced rules and regulations of the Stock Exchange brought lyers and thieves to justice or removed their securities license from them? Again, same answer as above!!!
How many have gone to Federal Prison for depriving the typical investor of about 45% on average of the value of their investments??? Has my retired school teacher / preacher's wife mother had her portfolio restored. It was wisely managed, but where she had little or non worries, she is in a tight spot now.
I don't like that!!!
I earned a Series 6 Securities license and it wasn't easy. The test is hard and few pass it the first time. I took a course to help me after getting completely buffaloed by the books. The most helpful thing the teacher told us was that most of the multiple choice answers would be similar and more than enough were tricky with very similar answers.
HOWEVER, the way to get passed was to ALWAYS ask a simple queston: Which answer is closest to "Always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to the client."
I did not know all there was to know about equity management, but that 1 major concept above got me passed with a right good score the first time through---truth, whole truth, nothing but truth! I like that.
Our buffalo herd feeding grounds seem to lack too much of the above for some reason. The honest brokers and managers as well as corporate executives tossed that motto out the window and traded it for another:
Always tell the investor what he wants to hear--profits / more profits / and nothing but profits!
This is a dangerous motto.
Did you know EVERY Corporation in America has the legal right to keep 2 sets of books: 1 for the Tax Man and another for the Investor!! Guess which one shows roses and rainbows while the other shows gloom and doom. What happened to truth / whole truth / nothing but the truth? Why are not the same figures shown to both parties--pay your fair taxes and if it is bad, just tell the investor why you have learned and how you hope to improve the future!
I had my Insurance License first and then added the Securities License so I was pretty schooled in 2 professions which call for utmost honesty. That was not a hard push for me because in my childhood westerns--the good guys wore white hats and always told the truth. Even my other hero, The Lone Ranger, who wore a dark outfit had a white horse and white hat both. Roy Rogers nor the Lone Ranger would ever tell a lie to anyone. As soon as they heard about corrupt land barons or dirty business people in a town, they got seriously on their trusty steeds and ran them out.
Now, if Saturday morning cowboys reflected society 50 years later, Roy's immediate response to hearing of corruption today would be: "Let's take a survey to see what the public thinks! I'm not risking getting shot if it's not popular with the people!"
What a wuss! All of us "made in America" kids would immediately switch to the Lone Ranger and never trust Roy again! Forget his beautiful palomino and dog "Bullet" with lovely Dale Evans and Pat Brady by his side. If he tells lies and won't do anything about crime, I will never send in my cereal boxtops again for a decoder ring!!!.
Things in buffalo herd land are so bad today, we haven't even noticed our .50 box of Kellogg's cereal now costs $5 and has air blown into the mash which makes the cornflakes so we get less grain and more air in that "family size box at Wal-Mart."
Meanwhile, that poor farmer raising the grains is getting about the same price per ton as he did 20 years ago! The boys on the Commodities Exchange in Chicago are riding their Bentleys and Rolls-Royces to the airport for their corporate jets to buy oil futures in Saudi Arabia and vacation for $10,000 a day in Dubai at the same time!
My God!!!! The buffalo herd is thundering at us and we have no place to go! As a small businessman I am making 30% of what I did 3 years ago. I finally met another man in worse shape--he makes $300-400,000 luxury cruisers and is making 10% of what he made 3 years ago. His customers seem to be those described above vacationing in Dubai. I guess a large, beautiful, gas guzzling yacht just pales in comparison to a corporate jet and Dubai.
Does it have anything to do with buffaloes thundering down on us?????
I dreamed of owning a beautiful Palomino like Trigger. I asked Santa for Roy Rogers guns one Christmas, and got, instead, a Lone Ranger set of 6-guns while my younger brother got the Roy Rogers set. The difference was brown leather for Roy Rogers and black for Lone Ranger. His guns were light and could shoot caps. Mine were silver and 3 times as heavy. Later on, as a father it came to me that children with identical toys would be fighting all the time so our parents wisely got Santa to bring different kinds or there might be a real killing between the Scarborough boys. They were quite competitive!
I was born on March 23 and my brother came along on March 3 the following year! We were almost like twins without having popped into the world at the same time. Momma later confessed to my wife in her first pregnancy: "Don't you dare believe that old wives tale that you can't get pregnant while nursing a baby. Gene's younger brother Charles is living proof that it is a total LIE!"
My brother and I grew up when life was good. There was no A-C nor power steering. Few people had a TV--much less color. Media was more radio than TV and we spent many a night or sick time from school listening to WSB Radio in Atlanta--"The voice of the South." It's funny how things stick to a child's mind! We even survived riding in a car without seat belts or cell phone distraction! Our parents actually had enough sense to drive carefully and slow enough to be safe for their sake and us children.
Like WSM in Nashville, WSB can still be heard in a scratchy way almost anywhere in the SE United States. I still sometimes tune to 750 AM just to feel like home again. Atlanta was not yet to her first million residents. You could play all over the neighborhood safely. DeBell street in Clarkston was nothing but wall-to-wall children laughing and make believing! Anything you did wrong would get back to momma before we got home, and God help us if we did anything immoral or illegal. There was no "wait til your daddy gets home from that SC farm girl."
She would almost always make us pick our own switches! This was my first adventure in executive decision making: what is "just the right size?" If it is too little and flimsy it could cut you / if it is too stiff and big so it won't cut, it might bruise! Dear God, help me pick the right one 'cause I'm gonna get a whipping soon!
One thing I remember about the westerns were cattle stampedes. Even worse was the dreaded buffalo stampede. Where cows could bash the poor cowboy whose horse slipped, the buffalo would mash them all flat as a flitter. Cows would go around the buildings and boulders, buffalo would go through and leave nothing standing! A buffalo stampede was the most dreaded result of nature's wrath. They would spook at thunder and lightening and come over the hill after my cowboys felt the earth shake as a warning. God help the cowboy sleeping peacefully at night with his innocent herd of cows nearby when the buffalo got loose!
We had a small herd of buffalo residing near us at my last house. It was always neat to take our grandchildren by to see these massive animals. Normally children get to see them only at a zoo, but the Red Oak / Castalia area had our own herd. They were beautiful. On of the things which fascinated our small ones was the time a baby buffalo got somehow under the fence. It's momma was close to pushing down that barbed wire before the farmer discovered the little lost baby. Instead of just the momma cow pushing until the barbs hurt and stopped, a buffalo has such thick hide and companionship no fence stands a chance when the herd wants to get to the other side.
I know now why "You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd" was a popular teen song. It stimulated a funny image, but it told a serious truth: try to skate among the hairy beasts and you will get smashed!!!
Now for the application as to why I feel like I am skating in a buffalo herd these days!
Our ECONOMY is a buffalo herd to me. After some 2 years of Depression (notice I didn't say Recession) the buffalo herd of corporate America is getting all the favors, while the small businessman is seeing virtually NOTHING. At last they are talking about "tax credits" and "easier loans," but why has the buffalo herd crushed for so long.
The first response this time in Depression was massive bailouts to financial and investment firms along wit the auto industry. Instead of setting investors back on their feet and customers right, the feet of the buffalo herd crushed them more! The buffaloes running each part of those 3 herds gave themselves bonuses for running their business into the ground.
Did the customer or investor get one red cent???? Not just "NO" but "HELL NO!"
Us American taxpayers now own 61% of GM, but are their products 61% cheaper to the poor fools whose money bailed them out??? Same answer as above!!!
Has the unenforced rules and regulations of the Stock Exchange brought lyers and thieves to justice or removed their securities license from them? Again, same answer as above!!!
How many have gone to Federal Prison for depriving the typical investor of about 45% on average of the value of their investments??? Has my retired school teacher / preacher's wife mother had her portfolio restored. It was wisely managed, but where she had little or non worries, she is in a tight spot now.
I don't like that!!!
I earned a Series 6 Securities license and it wasn't easy. The test is hard and few pass it the first time. I took a course to help me after getting completely buffaloed by the books. The most helpful thing the teacher told us was that most of the multiple choice answers would be similar and more than enough were tricky with very similar answers.
HOWEVER, the way to get passed was to ALWAYS ask a simple queston: Which answer is closest to "Always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to the client."
I did not know all there was to know about equity management, but that 1 major concept above got me passed with a right good score the first time through---truth, whole truth, nothing but truth! I like that.
Our buffalo herd feeding grounds seem to lack too much of the above for some reason. The honest brokers and managers as well as corporate executives tossed that motto out the window and traded it for another:
Always tell the investor what he wants to hear--profits / more profits / and nothing but profits!
This is a dangerous motto.
Did you know EVERY Corporation in America has the legal right to keep 2 sets of books: 1 for the Tax Man and another for the Investor!! Guess which one shows roses and rainbows while the other shows gloom and doom. What happened to truth / whole truth / nothing but the truth? Why are not the same figures shown to both parties--pay your fair taxes and if it is bad, just tell the investor why you have learned and how you hope to improve the future!
I had my Insurance License first and then added the Securities License so I was pretty schooled in 2 professions which call for utmost honesty. That was not a hard push for me because in my childhood westerns--the good guys wore white hats and always told the truth. Even my other hero, The Lone Ranger, who wore a dark outfit had a white horse and white hat both. Roy Rogers nor the Lone Ranger would ever tell a lie to anyone. As soon as they heard about corrupt land barons or dirty business people in a town, they got seriously on their trusty steeds and ran them out.
Now, if Saturday morning cowboys reflected society 50 years later, Roy's immediate response to hearing of corruption today would be: "Let's take a survey to see what the public thinks! I'm not risking getting shot if it's not popular with the people!"
What a wuss! All of us "made in America" kids would immediately switch to the Lone Ranger and never trust Roy again! Forget his beautiful palomino and dog "Bullet" with lovely Dale Evans and Pat Brady by his side. If he tells lies and won't do anything about crime, I will never send in my cereal boxtops again for a decoder ring!!!.
Things in buffalo herd land are so bad today, we haven't even noticed our .50 box of Kellogg's cereal now costs $5 and has air blown into the mash which makes the cornflakes so we get less grain and more air in that "family size box at Wal-Mart."
Meanwhile, that poor farmer raising the grains is getting about the same price per ton as he did 20 years ago! The boys on the Commodities Exchange in Chicago are riding their Bentleys and Rolls-Royces to the airport for their corporate jets to buy oil futures in Saudi Arabia and vacation for $10,000 a day in Dubai at the same time!
My God!!!! The buffalo herd is thundering at us and we have no place to go! As a small businessman I am making 30% of what I did 3 years ago. I finally met another man in worse shape--he makes $300-400,000 luxury cruisers and is making 10% of what he made 3 years ago. His customers seem to be those described above vacationing in Dubai. I guess a large, beautiful, gas guzzling yacht just pales in comparison to a corporate jet and Dubai.
Does it have anything to do with buffaloes thundering down on us?????
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