My dad grew up in New York, in what I believe was the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn.

When Dad was nearly eighty years old, we were visiting New York City together, and he asked me to rent a car and drive him to see the home he had grown up in.

When we arrived we discovered what appeared to be a large beer brewing facility.  There was no trace of any house in what had clearly become a commercial neighborhood.

“Take me back to the hotel,” he said.  “I never want to see this place again.”

My dad and I never spoke about this day, which means I will never know for sure how he felt.  But I imagine that if I visited my own childhood home near Glendale, California, and found a shopping center looming over what used to be my bedroom, I would be distressed, maybe devastated.  But I know I would hide my dismay, especially from myself.

We each need a place where we feel we belong.  A place that remains the same, steadfast, even as we change.  We need a touchstone where we feel at home in this strange and scary world.

My own touchstone is my real estate company, which I established fifty-four years ago and have nurtured ever since.  I can only imagine my distress if, somehow, I was able to visit our small office building on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, California, ten, twenty, or a hundred years from now, only to find the building gone and a vacant lot the only reminder that it, or I, ever existed.

As I write this, I am sitting in the baggage claim area of SeaTac airport.  I used to own a home, as well as several investment properties in Seattle.  Now I own nothing here.  As other travelers pick up their luggage, a comforting bit of home to accompany their journey from wherever, I have the sense that I no longer belong here.

Dad, I wish you well.  You are no longer in this world, but perhaps you have, indeed, found home again.

Love,

Alan

When my parents were getting older, some of their long-standing friends began to die.

“Mom and I are going to have to make some new friends who are twenty years younger than we are,” my dad said. He was very pragmatic (a characteristic that he passed on to me).

And while he did indeed find younger friends, he also outlasted all of them – because he lived to be 104.

This morning, a close friend of ours for 50 years, shared that she has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Her doctor told her that she between has six months and a year to live.  There is an old joke in which the patient says to his doctor, “I won’t even be able to pay off your bill in six months.”  The doctor replies, “All right.  Then I’ll give you a year.”

But all joking aside, when a friend has limited time – we are reminded that it is more important than ever to appreciate every minute. Our friend has already begun to put her affairs in order and wants to spend more time with Daveen and me over the next months.  I’m glad she is giving us that chance. No doubt, we will all appreciate each other more, now that we have a deadline.  As in the song “Big Yellow Taxi” reminds us, “don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

Of course, during the past 28 months of COVID we haven’t been able to visit with our old friends, let alone new ones. And yet, more than ever I find myself contemplating, how can I squeeze more awareness into each minute of my life?  I’m not sure.  I’m reminded of the 2007 movie The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.  Unlike them, I’ve already completed my bucket list, and more.  As my dad used to say during his last 20 years, “I give thanks for every new day.  It’s a bonus.”

Is your bucket list half full, or half empty?  How are you choosing to live your life? Years ago, Daveen and I were planning to vacation in Hawaii.  A friend suggested we fly first class.  “If you don’t use your money to fly first class today, one day your children will.”  Ouch!  That might be true.  We flew first class.

I’m tired of putting my “regular” life on hold for Covid.  So, Daveen and I are off to San Diego for a weekend getaway.  We plan to see Taming of the Shrew at the Old Globe Theater, and then relax and watch an NBA game in our room the next night.

Hopefully, we’ll all soon be out and about, adding check marks to our bucket list.  None of us has forever.

Alan

According to an article I just read, we “turn off” our emotions when dealing with numbers.  Yet it also concluded that if we are aware of that, we can minimize the “turning off.”  So here we go. I am about to share with you some financial advice backed up by numbers. No one has to become emotional about this.

For many years I have refused to have anything to do with selecting investments in the stock market.  Even though I have always fancied myself as an investment genius, my record in the stock market has been reliably dismal.  Not just mediocre.  I’ll put it in caps.

DISMAL.

And it’s because of the losses.

For example, suppose I invest $20,000 in each of five stocks.  The first four go up 15% and I sell at a profit of $3,000 each – for a total profit of $12,000.

Gosh darn it!  Four successful investments with a 15%, or $12,000 profit.  I would be happy with that every time.

Unfortunately, the final $20,000 investment drops in value by 80% and I finally sell at a $16,000 loss (after watching the inexorable decline in my investment, something I do not enjoy).

That one loss not only wiped out all of my profit from the sale of the other stocks, it also left me a total of $4,000 behind.

The obvious goal for all of us when investing?  Avoid losses. So for me, the lesson learned is simple. Avoid the stock market.

I will continue to follow the advice of the 20^th century actor and humorist Will Rogers.  His simple stock market recipe:

Buy a stock.

When it goes up, sell.

If it doesn’t go up, don’t buy it in the first place.

Thanks, Will.  By paying attention to you I haven’t lost a dime in the stock market for many years.

Alan