Ace Wisdom

It was Sept. 12, 1981. Kelly was a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Michigan, the elite of the Big Ten had won 12 straight conference openers. It would be 11 years before Barry Alvarez would arrive on the scene. Somehow, someway the UW-Badgers beat Michigan 21-14. I’m sure Kelly remembers the nutsy atmosphere as everybody celebrated beating the arrogant Wolverines.
Since 1981, Michigan has won 23 straight Big Ten opening games. On Saturday night, Sept. 24, 2005, Michigan again came to town to open it’s conference season. Michigan was favored by 3 points.
The Badgers trailed by 10 points at half-time but they played “Barry-ball”. That means run, run, and maybe run some more. That spells control and it keeps the game close. Well, lo and behold, the Badgers trailed by 4 points with 37 seconds to go when John Stocco, the inept Badger quarterback stepped backed 3 steps and then ran the ball 4 yards with a “quarter back draw”. He scored. Badgers up by 3. Badgers win, Badgers win, Badgers win. Final score? 23-20.
Paul (and Jenny) and your mom got to see history being made. Somehow Paul has been suspiciously present at big events. He and Jenny got to see Badger fans go nuts as history repeated itself for the first time since 1981. A little rain could not dampen spirits.
But even more significant, Kelly (and Carlos) were at the game with tickets provided by Group Health. So Kelly got to see the repeat of a special moment. I’m sure her thoughts go back to the days when she was in the Marching Band and they beat the “bad guys from Ann Arbor” in 1981. They say you can’t go back, but this had to be awful close.
Suddenly Wisconsin is now rated No. 17 in the nation in several polls and Michigan has fallen on bad times with the pollsters. Aaawwwww! Poor Michgigan!
The Badgers do not have a great team but they won a great game. There is no question that the highlight of the season will be the victory over Michigan. A special historical moment was created; again!
A fun time was had by all.
Love,
Dad

When I was a kid in the early 1950’s, Friday night was “cowboy movie” night. One of the two movie theaters in town always showcased Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Rockie Lane and Hopalong Cassidy in a double feature presentation. I think it cost $.25 cents for 3 hours of rock ’em, sock ’em, shoot ’em up entertainment.
My mom would always give us about $.50 total so that we had $.25 for candy and “crap”. I would buy a pack of Juicy Fruit gum and slowly keep adding more sticks to my mouth until I had all the flavor sucked out of all five sticks and was chewing on the whole pack. I wonder why I have so many cavities.
And then there were the lemon drops. They lasted longer because you could suck and crunch a whole bag. More fodder for the teeth.
Occasionally we would go through a bag of popcorn. I think that was around $.10 per bag. Would you believe that I paid $5.00 for a bag at a local theater last week.
My favorite cowboy was Roy Rogers. Mostly because he wore two guns versus one. He could sing “Don’t Fence Me In” and he always got Dale Evans in the end. He had a golden palamino named Trigger and a dog named Bullit. They were like friends. Roy never got shot. The bad guys actually wore black hats. Yup, and Dale Evans horse was “Buttercup”. How sweet. Roy always had buddies that sang with him and they were called Sons of the Pioneers, a musical group that also sold records. I think all the buddies were perverts. They never had girlfriends and they sung in higher toned voices. The theater would come alive with cheering for the good guys and everybody went home happy.
After the movies, next door to to the movie theater was a bar and grill called the Sunnyside. They made scrumptious french fries. Remember this was 1951-1952, 4 years before McDonald’s was even a chain restaurant featuring fench fries. Yup, we had french fries and malted milks. I think I exceeded the money my mom had allowed me but somehow I always had enough.
And then, I would walk two blocks to the City Club at about 10:30 PM. My mother would say “Are the movies over already?”. You’d think she was trying to get rid of us.
In the early 50’s we had no TV. No VCR’s to run “Find Nemo”. No “X-boxes” to play mind numbing games for hours on end.
So here it is. Friday night. We have cable television with over 100 different stations to view and my comment is “isn’t there something good on for a change”?
Oh, I miss the good old Friday nights. Bring back Roy, Gene, Rocky and “Hoppy”.
Love,
Dad

Crackers are oil refineries that take various grades of crude oil and “crack” the oil into to grades of finished products. Gasoline products, resin bases for plastics and diesel oils come from the cracking process. Right now we don’t have enough refineries to handle surges in demand for finished products.
As you invest your money, consider that oil companies such as Exxon, British Petroleum and Chevron will continue to makes lots of money. Over the next 5-10 years, the world will continue to use more oil products. Imagine over 1 billion Chinese and Indians (India) driving cars and SUVs. Also world population continues to increase. You can depend on the need for oil increasing. The oil companies I’ve mentioned are integrated. They explore for new oil, they drill, extract, transport, refine and deliver products to your local gas stations. They do it all. The oil companies have said that right now there is plenty of oil. The problem is a shortage in refineries to convert oil to gas.
Remember this fact. The world consumes 82 million barrels of oil daily. The world can produce 84 million barrels of oil daily. We produce slightly more oil than we use. Not for long! If we get any disruption in supply like from hurricane Katrina, shortages can occur.
The U.S. uses 21 million barrels of oil daily. That is approximately 25% of total world production for our population that is only 5% of the world total. We suck up lots of oil daily.
Which brings me to the “crackers”. Since there is limited refining capability in the U.S. and the world, investing in companies that do nothing but cracking or have cracking as a major business segment makes sense. I belong to an investment club that owns Sunoco Oil, sponsor of NASCAR and a major “cracker”. It has tripled in the last 2 years. I am not recommending Sunoco right now because I think it might be a little inflated but over the next 5-10 years companies that own crackers will do well.
Oil is expected to last the next 40-50 years. After that there won’t be any more oil. We had better have alternate energy sources. For the next 5-10 years oil companies and crackers will do very well.
Eventually oil companies will have to re-invent themselves with alternate sources of energy because they will run out of the oil that sustains them. You can bet that prices will remain high so that they have the money to find new sources of energy.
Close your eyes, invest in oil and “crackers” and open your eyes in 20 years. You will have some extra money.
So there you have it grasshoppers. My view of “crude oil” business and how it might benefit you. Send all gratuities to my home address.
Love,
Dad

When I was growing up, my Dad died when I was seventeen and a senior in high school. My brother Jack was 15 years old and a sophomore. Jack was rather strong minded but he listened to his father. When Bucky died, Jack launched a steady stream of defiant actions against the “establishment”. He skipped school. He even landed in jail a couple times. But you see, deep down Jack knew what was right and wrong and when he turned 17 he begged his mother to sign a document that allowed him to enter the Navy. He was a model Navy enlistee. He made a special honor guard awarded only to the best cadets and he took courses to finish his high school course requirements. When he left the service, he approached the Plymouth High School administration to get his high school diploma. As I recall (because I went with him), they refused to grant the diploma and they insisted he get it by taking the GED tests. Of course Jack’s response was “go chase yourself”. So Jack never got his GED and I know deep down there were times he wished he had.
What has this got to do with anything? Well there is a rumor that a young lady in Sheboygan named Dano has desired to take the GED so that she can get certification of high school equivalency achievement. Sometimes you need a gentle push. Someone other than mom. That is because mom’s always push. That encouragement came from a very special Uncle (and Aunt).
A little bird told me that Dano studied very hard preparing for the GED battery of tests. I believe there were four “units” she had to take covering everything from math (yuk) to general science.
Believe it or not, I know what scary is! Scary is having to go into a room, be given four separate units of tests and be judged on how well you answer the questions. What if you fail? What if? What if?
I think Dano knows the significance of get the GED. Jobs open for high school graduates that don’t open for “non-graduates”. She also knows that she can pursue more courses and more college type cirriculums. Dreams can be pursued.
Dano passed! She passed all the GED tests. She has satisfied all high school requirements. Let the dreams begin. There are no limits and as Dano will find, she can achieve anything she wants.
Her mom cried. Honey cried. Paul cried. Dano cried. I admit to a “glassy eye”.
Dano, a door has opened. Step boldly through it and show the world what you can do!
Love,
Chas.

No Grasshoppers, “Bubbles” is not an old flame from college or a stripper from a racey night-club. It refers to the mega-economic bubbles that rule our lives. Don’t get caught when the economic bubble pops.
I know. I know. What the hell is he talking about? My best example is the “technology” bubble that existing in the 1990’s. Any company was involved in computers, software, telephones or digital products was part of the “tech” bubble. The rationale was that tech-stock was visionary and could only go up. An example would be Cisco Systems which makes expensive switching and storage products for computers. I bought one share of Cisco in 1998 for the equivalent of $12/share. There was some logic in buying the stock. Quality. Strategic Products. But the financial guidelines stunk. The price/earnings ratio was awful. Growth of 50-60% per year could not be sustained. The key indicator that a financial bubble existed was that financial logic was ignored and there was a buying frenzy among the yuppie crowd. I sold my one share of Cisco for $125/share in January, 2000. One year later, Cisco was at $10/share. I was fortunate to sell before the bubble burst. Today, 5 years later, Cisco is selling at $13/share. Imagine the number for years it is going to take for Cisco to get back to $125/share! Decades I’m sure.
You could argue that the technology bubble of the 1990’s was an aberration, not to be repeated. I’d argue that there are lots of bubbles out there and you should beware of getting caught in the “pop”.
This blog entry is meant to be short and crisp. I don’t have enough space to talk about all the bubbles but let me mention a few.
The real-estate bubble. Low interest rates have encouraged people to finance bigger houses carrying debt up to their eyeballs. As interest rates rise (and they are rising), lots of people are going to experience problems with their debt repayment and lose their homes. The real-estate bubble will pop.
The energy bubble. Gas prices are over $3.00 per gallon. Home heating bills are expected to soar 40-50% this winter. Any investment in energy seems like a winner. As China slows its growth. As people buy smaller cars. As people stop spending as much money at the pumps, gas prices will drop. There will be a pop.
The social security program is a bubble. It can’t possible handle all future retirees.
Pensions unfunded by big corporations is a bubble. Wait until General Motors and Ford have their pension liability pop.
Healthcare costs are a bubble. I don’t know if they will pop, but something has to change.
Consumer debt is bubble. Totally consumer debt I believe is $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America.
Federal debt is unbelieveably high and we are borrowing from the rest of the world. I don’t know if you’d call that a bubble, just insanity.
And the list goes on. It means you have to live smartly. When an economic bubble bursts, you want to get out of the way. Bubbles are part of the world we live in.
Love,
Dad

Growing up as a kid, there was an alternative to “weeding beets for the Stokely Canning Company”. The Krier Canning company from Kewaskum, Wisconsin would offer to pick up kids in Plymouth with old school buses (I mean old) and transport the kids to fields of beans. You would pick long string beans off the plants of each row, place them in a large “gunny sack” and when full, they would weigh the beans and give you credit for each pound.
There were usually two or three young “hunks” with each bus to drive and supervise the effort. Interestingly enough, most of the bean pickers were female. How about that! Hunks supervising females.
I decided to give bean picking a try because maybe I could earn more money than weeding beets. Besides, being with a bus load full of girls couldn’t be all bad. So I tried.
I learned the nature of discrimination early. Any row of beans that were being picked by guys were examined closely by the hunks to see if any beans were missed. If they found any, a verbal reprimand took place. If the hunks examined the rows picked by girls and found missed beans, they would pick the beans and then place them in the girl’s bag and say nothing. Talk about unfair.
And then, there were a few young ladies who were rather “loose”. They would disappear from the field with one of the hunks and not be seen for hours. Somehow the young ladies got credited for as much or more beans as everyone else. I could never figure out where the hunk and young lady went but I knew it wasn’t fair (actually I knew exactly where they were). I guess you could call the loose ladies “super-puckered super pickers”.
I know there is a theory that women have more dexterity with their hands and fingers meaning they would make better bean pickers. Perhaps that is true buy the dynamics were bigger than dexterity.
So I went back to my male dominated job of weeding beets where I could earn some big money and things were fair.
I guess my lesson grasshoppers is that things are not always fair. So you have to adjust. The bean pickers earned money their way. I earned my money my way.
Love,
Dad

Believe it or not, the Sheboygan County Fair was held at the Plymouth Fair Grounds when I was growing up. It was always over Labor Day. It signaled the end of summer and beginning of fall and school(yuk).
I remember most the early 1950’s. I would have been between 10-16 years of age. The fair always started on Friday and ran through Monday but unofficially the “rides” were open on Thursday. My mom would always encourage me to get my butt up to the fairgrounds and earn some money helping to set up rides and concessions. I did that. It gave me spending money for the fair.
From the City Club I would walk to the east end of Mill Street, over the bridge on the dam over the Mullet River and then along the river on a path in the backyards of homeowners on Fairview Drive. Yes, the path cut across property now owned by Bob and Mary. It took minutes.
The “carny guys” were always heavily muscled, lots of tatoos and chain-smokers. Amazingly, they treated kids who helped out very well and they were the source of free rides during the fair. The carny guys always operated the rides and were constantly flirting with the pretty young girls. Late at night after the rides were ready to close, you could always find some young gal who had fallen for the false sales pitch of the carny smooching at the beer tent.
I remember the barns with livestock, the endless line of buildings with displays of everything from handmade quilts to woodcarvings. I know the Steger’s had a ritual of going to the fair to get a 15% discount on an annual subscription to the Plymouth Review. The also got a free gift! Wow. And then there was cotton candy, brats, corn-on-cob, and endless selections of beverages.
The one game that captured my imagination was at the Penny Arcade. You would put 5 cents into a machine and then turn a crank that released a long file of sequencial pictures of a burlesque dancer. She was topless but you had to flip well into the pack of pictures to get to the good part. Then it went past fast. So you put in another nickel and tried again intent on stopping at the part a young guy would be interested in. Somehow the machine would never stop where you wanted and, yup, another nickel. It was a rip-off but lots of nickels went into that machine. Saturday night was Stock Car races.
My mom and dad would come “up” to the fair one day. We kids loved that because the money flowed. Lots of rides. Essentially they would try to get rid of us by giving us cash. It worked.
I remember walking home from the fair one afternoon. Someone told me the Milwaukee Braves were winning their game in Milwaukee and that Joe Adcock had hit 4 homeruns. The game wasn’t over and when I got home I learned he had hit a fifth ball off the top of the center field wall. He got a total of 18 bases off his hits which set a record that stood for years.
Rides were 25 cents, occassionaly 35 cents. Now they are $2-3 per ride. I guess inflation hit the fair also.
It was a fun time. Good memories.
Love,
Dad