It is tough to accumulate cash. A savings habit is a good thing, but for those of you who are weak, there is the phenomenon of "compounding" that can rescue you.
Just for fun, lets say that your parents gave each of you Grasshoppers $10,000 when you were 18 years old. The money got placed in a deferred account that grows at a compounded tax free rate of 10% each year. The compounded annual rate of growth of the stock market over the last 75 years has been slightly over 10%. Now you don't have to add another penny. The only requirement is to keep your hands off the account.
So how does this work. You start with $10,000 and it grows 10% the first year. 10% amounts to an additional $1,000 bringing your new total wealth to $11,000. You didn't have to add a single dollar. In year two, you start with your $11,000 and it grows 10% or another $1,100 to bring your total of $12,100. You get the idea! The original $10,000 is left to keep growing along with the compounded annual gains. You can do you own math.
After 10 years, your original $10,000 account compounded at 10% will be worth $25,937.42.
After 25 years, your balance would be $108,347.03. Remember, you haven't added one new cent of savings.
After 40 years (or when you reached age 58), you have $452,592.23.
And then, if you can keep your hands off the deferred account for 49 years until you reach the age of 67, you will have $1,067,188.90. That is right! You would be a millionaire. You never saved another dime after the original $10,000. You just watched it grow. Of course there is the small matter of getting the first $10,000 set aside at age 18. If it didn't happen for you, maybe you can figure out a way to make it happen for your kids..
So I was thinking with my imaginary example (I emphasize imaginary), if your mom and I had set aside $10,000 for each of you Grasshoppers at age 18, what would you have in those original accounts.
Grasshopper No. 1, Account Balance on 46th birthday, $144,209.89.
Grasshopper No. 2, at age 45, $131,099.90.
Grasshopper No. 3, at age 43, $108,347.03.
Grasshopper No. 4, at age 34, $ 45,949.72.
Grasshopper No. 5, at age 29, $ 28,531.17.
Remember, this was achieved with a simple deposit of $10,000 for you at age 18 and achieving gains that match the growth of the stock market over time. It takes advantage of "compounding". Use the concept in your life. It requires no additioal savings after the original investment.
Imagine if you saved additional amounts each year. Imagine the growth! Imagine! Holy sh--!
Love,
Dad
Before I start, basketball affectionatos might have noticed that the Wisconsin Badgers are rated number three in the nation. They've won 16 in a row and their record is 20 wins and 1 loss. My trivia question for the day (and a place in the Trivial Blog Hall of Fame) is "who is the only basketball team to beat Wisconsin this year"?
Okay, on to football. The Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts are going to the Super Bowl in Miami. We have to endure 2 full weeks of media hype before they play the game. The ticket prices are prohibitive. There is one sweet young pregnant house wife in Chicago who knows she doesn't have the "contacts" or the money to travel to Miami (she seems like a really nice young lady). Her proposal using the internet is to offer her expanding belly as a "billboard" to the highest offer for a Super Bowl package. She indicates she will wear a Paris Hilton type outfit with a bare midriff with her pertruding belly displaying any message you want. I bet that someone will take her up on it. To increase the excitement, her baby is due on the date of the Super Bowl. Talk about potentially "dropping the ball".
Now to my football happening. Each Sunday morning I make a trip to my local news (and tobacco) store located across the street from The Paper Valley Radisson Hotel. Being a creature of habit, I get there about 8:30 AM. On the Sundays that the Packers play a noon home game in Green Bay, the visiting team lodges at the Paper Valley Hotel. Usually the visiting team arrives on Saturday, stays over night in Appleton and then is taken by bus to Lambeau. With close to 50 football players, coaches, team assistants, special friends and media, this event turns into about a 5-6 luxury bus caravan. Then you ad in local police department cars, sheriff department cars from Winnebago, Outagamie, and Brown (whatever county that Green Bay is in) Counties along with vans for special guests followed by fans that know about the routine and you have a football extravaganza. All police lights are blazing and the visiting team gets a special escourt all the way to Lambeau. On Sunday morning, local folks come down to the Paper Valley hoping to catch a glimpse of that special player. You know, Drew Brees, Brian Urlacher or Reggie Bush. Sometimes when it is cold, kids come down still in their "jammies" wrapped in quilted blankets to stand in the cold until their player exits the hotel and enters the bus. This extravaganza makes parking the car a bitch. Sometimes inside the news and tobacco stand, an occasional player or coach will come in to buy a magazine or newspaper.
This football "event" in local downtown Appleton costs nothing to witness. It costs a bundle of money to provide the security escourt to Green Bay. Nobody worries security costs because that is buried in tax revenues.
The City of Green Bay feels that visiting teams should stay in Green Bay not Appleton. They offer up the danger of a bus accident or the high cost of security. Doesn't Green Bay get enough revenue off the Packers? I hope the teams continue to stay in Appleton. I always get this feeling I am witnessing something really special.
Football generates lots of interesting situations from "belly button billboards" to secured transfer of visting players from one location to another. It provides a place for people to place a passion.
So Grasshoppers, what is my advice? Get a life! It is football for "crying out loud". Football is extorting your money in ways you do even know. They have a pregnant housewife traveling to Miami to witness the Super Bowl with a "Big Bud Life" scrawled across her pertuding belly as she is ready to deliver. We stand in the cold to get a glimpse of some overpaid Terrell Owens type step onto a bus! Folks, there is more to life than football. Isn't there?
Love,
Dad
First things first. January 22 is reported to be the "blueist" mood day of the year. I don't know why! Maybe it is dark short days. Maybe it is lousy weather and being cooped up inside! Maybe it is the emotional low that follows the busy Christmas holidays. You've got to have faith that this too shall pass.
My world keeps getting turned upside down. The Wall Street Journal is now narrower in size and supposedly better. Bullshit. They have cut out sections that I have been following for years and they are trying to save on paper. The Milwaukee Journal effective today is putting out a smaller size paper. It is improved and better. Bullshit. The change that got me this morning is that WTMJ dropped it's Paul Harvey segments in favor of new and improved local news reporting. Bullshit. They are trying to save money on purchased programs. And so the world turns. I shall adapt.
Here is where I need help. Last summer, your Mom and I went to see the movie Prairie Home Companion and I was "awe struck" with the star, Garrison Keillor. As the 2006 golf season was ending, one of my Monday Morning League buddies mentioned that Garrison Keillor was coming to Appleton. I checked it out and sure enough, the Fox Valley Symphony was sponsoring a night with Garrison Keillor in February of 2007. I made some calls and found tickets were available for the one night performance at the PAC. So for the princely sum of $65 per ticket, I bought two tickets. Pretty expensive, but what the hell.
Here is the dilemma. eBay has bids for the Garrison Keillor performance ranging from $184 at the lowest and as high as $492 per ticket at the high end. If we sold both tickets at the high end we would profit $427 per ticket or about $850 total. Would you surrender your tickets to Garrison to make a profit of $850? Simply put, if you had a job paying $20/hour, it would take you over a week to earn that kind of money. In those terms, Garrison's two hour performance is very expensive.
Actually the decision is made. We go to see Garrison Keillor. Some things in life are just worth doing. We were smart enough to procure tickets early and got them at a fair price. Issue over. Quality time spent with the special person in your life - priceless!
Grasshoppers, you will be faced many times in life with choices. There are no right or wrong decisions. Sometimes there is money involved and sometimes it is just plain emotional. If it "works for you", it is right!
Love,
Dad
The State of Wisconsin had a small company in Ripon, Wisconsin mail 150,000 tax forms to Wisconsin residents. It was a business contract that netted Ripon Printers $22,000. Everybody was happy, right? Not exactly. The information that the State provided for the "mailing labels" contained the social security number of the recipient.
Check the tax form you received in the mail. My return contained your Mom's social security number on it. That means anyone wanting to steal a number just had to check our mailbox (or intercept our mail somehow).
I would normally ignor such a dumb mistake but apparently the social security number allows crooks to tap into your credit cards and suddenly you will be getting bills for things that you didn't charge.
The last I heard, the State of Wisconsin was going to mail an "insurance form" to all people that had their social security numbers compromised allowing the option of having your credit cards monitored and protecting you from fraud. If you are given the option, take the free insurance. Why not? You didn't commit the error.
Now my rant! How could the State of Wisconsin even include the social security information in their instructions to the label printers? It is not needed to complete a mailing. Estimates are that the State will pay $4,000,000 to monitor credit records if every person involved selects the insurance option. That is our money. $4,000,000 being spent by the State for a screw up. I bet somebody's head rolled over that mistake. Yeah, right.
To compound the folly, the printing company that received $22,000 for printing the forms will pay the first $110,000 of the insurance cost. I guess you could argue that the printer was at fault for not catching the error but that is a stretch. Blaim the little guy trying to eek out a living!
So here is how our great system works. The State employees get to keep their jobs and get generous salary increases for a job well done. The private little printing company has to incur an expense of over $100,000 (because the State screwed up) and all company bonus payouts will be suspended. In fact a few people may have to be laid off to reduce costs. Is this a great system or what?
The one Grasshopper not affected lives in Minneapolis. For this particular screwup, Minnesotans are not affected.
Love,
Dad
We are finally sorting through Christmas gifts and will make use of almost everything. My dear partner bought me clothes with the understanding that if they didn't fit right (or I didn't like them), she'd return them. That process is almost complete. The sweatshirts I can always use but the "bedroom" slippers are just "not me".
Kelly and Carlos gave us the first 4 seasons of "24". I had seen a few episodes in the past but you need continuity of the 24 one hour episodes to follow the story. When you own the dvd's, you can watch the series without missing an episode. We have watched the first season series and are half way through the second season.
Go Jack Bauer! He of course is the hero and undeterred in his quest to serve his country and fight terrorists. He is like the energizer bunny! He just seems to keep going. Gunshot wounds, severe beatings and mental anguish are normal for Jack. Jack understands the "end game". He knows how to focus on the goal. He knows how to win.
Jack doesn't clutter the landscape with little shit. Blast through rumors. Beat up thugs. Don't trust anyone. Sacrafice your own life if you have too. Golly, what a guy! In the second season of 24, a nuclear bomb might go off in Los Angeles. Help Jack, please help. Jack's first action is to get an informer out of jail for questioning. The informer refuses to cooperate so Jack shoots him (dead), cuts off his head and delivers it in a canvas bag to people alleged to be terrorists. It proved that Jack wanted to be a friend of the terrorist because he delivered proof he had killed an informer. Pretty gross stuff. But hey, what is one life of a "sleaze bag" to save a million lives if the bomb goes off in L.A.? Jack's staff is mortified that he chops off the head of a terrorist informer. To Jack it is something you do to save a million people.
Grasshoppers listen. Here is my lesson. In life we get so involved with the "clutter" and little things in life that we forget about life's goals. I'm not suggesting that you resort to the crass techniques used by Jack but I do suggest you keep the big picture in mind. If you want financial security, direct your efforts to achieve that. Don't be deterred. If you goal is to get in good physical shape, throw the bon-bons away and be consistent in your effort to reach the end game. You get the idea. Be like Jack. Focus, execute and celebrate.
Love,
Dad
Bucky graduated from high school in the Spring of 1938. He liked football, baskeball and track. He pole vaulted between 10-11 feet with the old stiff cane pole. He also played baseball and that seemed to be his passion.
I've always tried to "piece together" Bucky's baseball exploits after high school and it has been difficult. Some of his mother's (my Grandma Myrna) scrapbooks establish some time lines for the baseball career.
Bucky joined the Greenbush baseball team of the Kettle-Morine League in the summer of 1938. They won the league championship that year. He did everything left-handed. He pitched a little but his permanent position was right field.
My Grandpa Chalk was an ardent supporter of Bucky's baseball career. Chalk was a Director of the Plymouth Athletic Association. There was a deeply shared interest.
In 1939, the Greenbush baseball team played in the State Baseball Tournament and the General Manager of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club had noticed Bucky. "Bucky is a ball hawk and his batting was excellent. His speed had accounted for many stolen bases". I know he was fast. As a result of his performance in that tournament, Bucky was offered a contract to play professionally. Bucky was 19 at the time and legal age was 21. His contract was "approved and signed by his father". Grandpa Chalk continued support. Remember this was 1939. I don't know what the relationship of the Brewers was to major league baseball. I thought at one time they were a major league club but I could be wrong. The Brewers might have been a AAA Club.
Bucky was to report to Hopkinsville (Kentucky), a Class D Club of the Southern League in the Spring of 1940. His opportunity was to advance to the class D team in Bloomington (I think Indiana) and then on to the Brewers.
The story gets a little hazy here because in the spring of 1940, he reported to the Brewers farm club in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Eau Claire was in the Northern League of Class D ball. That is where he met Andy Pafko who went on to have a 15-16 year major league career with the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Braves.
The Spring of 1940 is when I was born. Bucky was off playing baseball for Eau Claire and my mother had to walk from her Mother & Dad's home to the Plymouth Hospital to give birth. It sounds bad, but the walk was one block. My birth certificate identifies my dad as a professional baseball player. I don't want to say I was an unexpected surprise, but my parents were married in February of 1040.
1940 was the transition year. A marriage in Februay followed by a baseball tryout that Spring and my being born in April must have created a "busy" time. I think Bucky was "cut" in late April or early May of 1940. Reality was about to set it in. He got a job at a local cheese business as a clerk-accountant. He managed the Plymouth baseball team of the Kettle-Morine League for several years including playing with the team. Baseball remained in his life as he continured to play for local teams and coached little league teams as his own kids grew up. In 1957 he was feted as one of the "all-time Plymouth baseball greats".
The lesson Grasshoppers is that Bucky had a chance at the "brass ring". How many people in life have an opportunity to pursue their passion and get paid for it? I know that Bucky lamented all his life about the missing the "Big Leagues" but he was one of the very few to even get a chance. He passed on his knowledge of the game to many including his own sons. He continued to be involved in baseball in some way. He may have thought he failed but I think he was fortunate to have had the chance to chase his dream. He followed his passion. He lived! Oh, how he lived!
Love,
Dad
As a kid growing up there was a steady barrage of information regarding taverns and saloons. My impression was that taverns were places of drinking, gambling and promiscuous women. Taverns were not at the high end of the business community. Maybe it was the impression left by comboy movies of the day. Saloons were the place that the bad guys always hung out. So growing up there was this sense of disapproval of taverns by the community.
Then I open up all of the memoriabilia that Myrna kept of the City Club and I get a different impression. The City Club seemed to be a very popular place in the 1930's and 1940's. Maybe it was Myrna and Chalk that worked to keep the tavern image up. The community seemed to embrace the City Club. My Grandpa Chalk was imvolved in the community belonging to civic and sports organizations. There is repeated reference to a deer hunting cabin in Forence County owned jointly by Chalk, Glenn Zimmermann (The Chief of Police), Atty George Mooney, Atty Gilbert Gaynor, Milton Timm (a City Official), and Carl Krohn (a clothing store owner). This is a pretty respectable circle of friends. My impression was that the City Club was a respectable place and was frequented by all social strata.
How could there be such a difference between my perceived "blue collar" hangout and a highly respectable place of business?
I think a lot had to do with the nature of the business in the early days. The City Club wasn't just a tavern. It was a barber shop, a billiards parlor, a hotel, a restaurant and place that sold liquor. Chalk's personality went a long way in creating a classy environment. He conducted business in a very professional way. Every bartender had to wear long sleeved white shirts while on duty. Chalk provided the shirts and paid for dry cleaning. He was the proprietor of a respected business.
As I grew up as a kid, things were changing. Chalk died in the mid 1940's. His health had prevented the "fun" hunting trips and his involvement in sports diminished as sons Bucky and Bob graduated from high school. The barber shop was closed and eventually became an insurance agency. The billiards and pool disappeared. As the facility aged, it attracted a more "blue collar" customer base. I didn't realize it at the time but I was watching a business that had matured and was in decline.
I missed the glory years of the City Club business. At one time it played a very prominent role in the City of Plymouth and commanded a lot of respect. Like all businesses, it needed to be "re-invented" and given new products and services. Some attempts were made to pump life into the "Club" but nothing seemed to invigorate it substancially.
The memories of the City Club are still good. The environment that I experienced growing up was different than the environment chronicled in the scrapbooks that Myrna put together.
The one thing I've come to understand is that The City Club played a significant place in Plymouth history and I was part of that history. How many people can say that?
Love,
Dad
I recently opened several boxes of memorabilia that my Grandma Myrna had accumulated over many years. There are scrapbooks and pictures that go back 90 years. A lot of the paper pages in the scrapbook and the newsprint are very yellow and very fragile.
I came across the Plymouth Review dated June 12, 1958. There was a picture that Myrna had saved showing 14 students that had received scholarships for college. Yep, I was in the picture. Imagine a kid from the City Club receiving a scholarship to UW-Oshkosh. I couldn't help wondering how this could happen. I finished 78th in a class of 129 scholastically. Nope, it couldn't be that. As I looked at the picture I couldn't help think that this was a mistake. There I was. A thorn among roses. A pauper amongst kings. Little Chuckie.
Let's get real! There were people in the Plymouth Review picture that got full scholarships for 4 years to prestigious Universities. Brilliant minds sharing over $30,000 in scholarship money (that would translate to $400,000 to $500,000 today). I got tuition paid for one year to Oshkosh. It was $90 per semester or $180 for the year. That figures out to .6% of the total. Whooooaaaa!
Truth is I had friends in high places. Vera Carlyle, the school librarian, was my counselor. I think she had some minor scholarships to award and she might have felt sorry for me. Also my dad (who died a year earlier) had been on the School Board for 4 years and everybody in the school system knew him. I remember meeting with Vera (who always seemed very, very old) when she told me about the scholarship. Her advice was to get the hell out of Plymouth. Go someplace where you get the full college experience. It was good advice.
So there I was in the picture of scholarhip recipients. I was the second from the right in the back row.
Vera helped me get into a good situation which I built upon over the years. I'm not sure I would have picked Oshkosh as my college of choice but the scholarship sealed the deal. All I needed for the first year was to pay for books and my living. I earned enough money during the summer to cover the needed expenses. I also had a magic pixie in Plymouth named Shelby that kept sprinkling a few dollars at her future investment.
Each of us is responsible for our own actions. I made the most of the Oshkosh experience. In a very subtle way that tiny scholarship set in motion my scholastic life. Sometimes small things have a big influence on our life. You just never know!
Love,
Dad
Here we go. 2007. Would you believe that this begins my eighth year of retirement. This is also the fifth year at our present address. Time is relentless.
As I write this, the ceremonies for Gerald Ford are dominating the TV airways. He is a "throwback" to World War II having enlisted in the Navy. For some reason the World War II experiences of my childhood remain poignant. I have a deep respect for anybody who served in "the big one"
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. did a testimony recently to Steven Spielberg who filmed "Saving Private Ryan". About 8-10 survivors of Normany Beach in 1944 were brought onto the stage to salute Spielberg's epic. I have to admit I got choked up a little bit. These guys are in their eighties and are a dying breed.
Then I watched the Rose Bowl game on New Years Day. Part of the pre-game ceremony was the Star Spangled Banner followed by exploding rockets. To cap it off, four air force jets came flying in low formation over the stadium that just shook the stands. For some reason low flying military aircraft paying tribute at public events chokes me up a little also. I can't explain it. Maybe I was a pilot in a previous life. Each year there is a game at Camp Randall where low flying aircraft do a salute. I get goose bumps. The aircraft have unbelievable power. Maybe it is a reminder of the role aircraft played during World War II.
The next World War II president to "rest in State" will by George Bush, Sr. I believe he was a pilot during World War II. Then the Presidential ties to World War II will be in the past.
It is a shame that World War II memories are slowly slipping away. The War shaped the very world we lived in.
For 2007, world peace would be nice. It ain't going to happen but it is a good goal.
Love,
Dad