Grandfather says someone close to the past disastrous wildfires in California got him to thinking. “Older people know that everything heals,” the man said. “Everything gets better if you just keep plugging away. But there are young people who are mentally destroyed — those are the people to feel sorry for.”
Grandfather says he has been lucky and can think of only one set of notable adverse circumstances in his own life, young or old.
One day, in 1949, he parked his then-beloved 1936 Chevrolet on a busy thoroughfare overnight, but it had to be moved before rush hour the next morning. Well, one cold winter morning it wouldn’t start so he left it and walked to work.
A police wrecker picked it up by the bumper to remove it and the bumper brackets failed. The car rolled loose in front of a brand new Buick (new cars were still scarce so soon after WWII), bounced off the Buick and plowed through a plate-glass storefront window. Nobody was hurt, but 18-year-old future Grandfather was devastated by the loss, for days.
A few months ago, Grandfather’s 1999 Suburban quit cold as he stared up the East slope of the Blue Ridge mountains. It has been said that one makes his own luck, good or bad. Grandfather says he wouldn’t know about that, but he was lucky; he always carries a tow chain in his old vehicles and a kind young man in a pickup truck towed his car out of danger.
The car eventually made its way to a repair business a couple of hundred miles from Grandfather’s home, where the repair bill was going to be upwards of $500. The car wasn’t worth much more than that, so Grandfather asked the repairman if he would send Grandfather a hundred dollars, Grandfather would send him the title. So he did, and Grandfather did, and Grandfather felt nothing like as bad as he did in 1949.
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee is a nonagenarian in West Virginia who built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here. This article was originally published on 14 September 2017.
Original oil painting by: Grandfather’s wife
Loved this. You are truly blessed to go through life with only one unfortunate event like that. There are people who experience them one or two times a year.
I agree, Sandy – I am blessed.
But some folks do, I believe, bring unnecessary bad luck upon themselves by the unwise choices they make.
Any idea how much was a new Buick in 1949?
About $1,500.
The price of the 1936 Chevrolet was $720, in 1936.
When gold was $35/oz.
$720/ 35= 20.6oz gold.
Gold today is $1330/oz, so the car today in terms of gold would be 20.6 x 1330 = roughly $28,000…bit overpriced for a car with , no radio, no AC, power nothing, zero ‘safety’ features….(not that you could buy a car like that new)….proving gold holds it’s value.
… and showing that it’s difficult to compare prices over the years because the purchased goods change.
Roosevelt issued executive order 6102 seizing the citizens gold, and paying them less than the market rate. All bullion and coins were to be taken.
The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 then set a higher rate for the value of gold.
The claim of the government for the 1934 Act was that Americans were hoarding gold, and it was slowing down the economic recovery. The truth is the treasury was printing fiat money just like now. It needed gold for the government to engage in trade, and shore up the currency.
It’s not an accident that the government sharply devalued the dollar by increasing the price of gold almost 75% AFTER the deadline to turn in the gold passed. As if any more evidence is needed to know that the government NEVER has its citizens’ best interests in mind when it comes to monetary policy.
The good news is that approximately 2 out of every 3 Americans ignored FDR’s illegal order and didn’t turn in their specie and bullion.
I meant to say the gold was used to shore up the Federal Reserve. The government banned even banks from redeeming gold certificates for gold.
The treasury has pretty much been printing fiat currency ever since.
The bad thing is that the creation of computers has made it possible for the government to track almost all gold purchases. If you pay cash for coins at a coin show, they might not know.
I would not put it past the government to once again nationalize all gold. This time, they’ll include collector coins, jewelry, silver, silver candlesticks, flatware, and serve ware. Only the rich will be openly holding it. Just like they do booze in dry counties.
I don’t think the government will confiscate this time around because gold holders remember what happened in the 1930s.
Also, it makes far less sense to do a confiscation this time around because back then, gold coins were part of the currency supply (i.e., specie); that is not the case today.
Finally, the government MAY know when you bought gold (and how much) – although in most cases, reporting requirements make that unlikely.
The easiest way for the government to pull gold out into the open and get it back into their vault is simple: Offer to buy it at the correct price (relative to quantity of currency in circulation). When they do that, they’ll find they can acquire as much as they need!
Ah, yes. Adversity. Reminds me of the old saying, “the only man who sticks closer to you in adversity than a friend is a creditor.”
Right on, Dog.
Fortunately (again, that word – is it really a matter of fortune?), nothing was ever owed on the 1936 Chevrolet or the 1999 Suburban.
On 9/11 of 2017, I lost my home in Hurricane Irma. Here’s my account of it. http://www.thefrugalwinesnob.com/2017/10/11/god-with-skin-on/
Thanks for sharing that, Carolyn.
To quote Winston Churchill : When you’re going through Hell, keep going!
My life has had some really hard things. I refuse to give up or lay down and die. I have too many fruitcake jokes left to post.
Well Bill, I know most young folks (I was one about 3/4 of a century ago, and speak from experience) don’t even think about getting old. Not that they should> But in middle age the thought starts to creep in and as we age, our reactions start to diverge. Some “.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas
Others start to fear their demise.”
The “lucky” ones (remember: I believe we mostly make our own luck) enjoy genuine “golden” years, when we relive the past in our minds and delight presently in our offspring.
As long as the little sicilians and the apostolic waves keep pushing stuff through our tubes, we persist.
Life is a banquet with delicious morsels all around every day. Sadly, most people live life starving to death.
The next time a doctor says to me, “How are you even alive?”, I’m going to say, “It’s fruitcake. Fruitcake is the fountain of life. Eat some every day.”.