You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

INVESTMENT IN LIFE

My dad died in the Winter of 1965. It was the same year that I completed my Architecture degree at the University of Oregon. Before leaving Eugene, I told my friend, Brad, that I was going to hitchhike across the country and settle in one of its largest cities. He suggested that if I had a chance, I should look up his friend, a stockbroker in New York. “Why would I want to meet a stockbroker?” I thought. Still, out of respect for Brad, I took out a memo pad and made a note of his broker friends name and phone number.

I spent the summer hitchhiking across the country, with stays in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Denver, Chicago, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. I decided to settle in NYC. It was, after all, the center of the American urban culture.

I stayed with a friend while looking for an apartment in Manhattan. I found that the only apartments I could afford were in the Lower East Side. However, I was advised that the Lower East Side was too dangerous and that I should not go there. To test this warning, I spent one night walking around the Lower East Side between 3rd and Canal streets. It was an uneventful night. I rented an apartment in Greenwich Village.

That November, an invoice came in my mail. It was for the annual premium on a life insurance policy that my father had on my life. I didn’t like the idea of spending my hard-earned money on life insurance so that someone could have it when I died. I paid it the first year out of a sense of obligation to dad. Then I liquidated the policy. I received a refund check for thirty-five hundred dollars. This was the most money I had ever had at one time. I took the check to my bank to deposit it. At the end of the transaction, the teller, a young woman, gave me my receipt for the deposit. And then she became flustered. She had failed to record my identification, something the bank required for a large deposit. She asked for my driver’s license. There was no need to carry a driver’s license while living in New York City. I didn’t own a car and had no intention of driving a rental in town. I told her that I had to go to my apartment to get it. She returned my check, and I left to go for my driver’s license.

As I walked home, I realized that the teller had given me the receipt for a deposit of $3,500, and I still had my check. I returned to the bank with my check and ID and waited for the same teller to be free. When I reached her window, I told her of her mistake. She was greatly relieved that I had returned. “That error could have cost me my job”. She said.

So I had $3,500 sitting in the bank and earning 3% interest. I decided to invest it in the stock market. Remembering that Brad had given me the name of his friend, I combed through my scraps of paper and found his name and phone number. I called him. He agreed to help me find a stock in which to invest. He suggested that I come to his house for dinner so we could talk about it.

A few nights later, I went to his Gramercy Park townhouse. We made small talk over wine, followed by a nice meal that he had prepared. After dinner, he said he had decided on a stock for me. It was Texas Gulf Sulfur. He proceeded to tell me how well it had performed over the past year, that he held it and liked the company very much. He then asked, “What do you think?” I hesitated before asking “Isn’t sulfur used in napalm and other munitions in Vietnam? He looked surprised at my question and didn’t answer. I told him that I did not want to invest in a stock that benefited from the war. He fell silent. He was dealing with an attitude that was antithetical to his own. He probably saw me as an anti-war hippy. Which was not far from the truth.

We spoke of other things: life in the city, and my work on the Lower Manhattan Plan. He told me what it was like being a broker on the floor of the American Stock Exchange. Nothing more was said of a stock suggestion for me. When the meal was over, the atmosphere was still a little strained. It was clear that the time had come for me to leave. I thanked him for the delicious meal and for a pleasant evening and moved toward his door. Before opening the door for me, he said, “I have been thinking about a stock which would be good for you. There is a little company called Sternco. They make pet products, such as goldfish food. It is well-run and certainly has nothing to do with the war.” He described the company and its performance. I agreed that it was a good choice and thanked him for the suggestion. The following day, I invested my entire $3,500 in Sternco.

A couple of weeks later, President Johnson announced the unilateral cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam. This was an indication that the US was ready to pull out of the war, an eventuality that the nation had anticipated. The stock market reacted with similar drama. Immediately, war stocks plummeted and peacetime stocks rose. Over the following months, I watched the value of my pet food stock rise. There were many days when I would see that I had made more money that day with my Sternco stock than I had earned working. By the end of that Winter, Texas Gulf Sulfur had lost half its value, and Sternco had doubled. I sold half of the Sternco stock and ordered a VW bug to be picked up in Wolfsburg, Germany.