Late
morning. Carol has been talking about the nation debt crisis looming white
whale-like in the short distance and you had the thought, ‘What if there is a
run on the banks? And, if there is a run on the banks what does the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation have to back up the private investors’ savings
already in the banks?’ These lead to lots of questions that have not
consciously bothered your mind until now. Carol doesn’t know the answers and
neither do you; this in itself does not bother you nearly as much as wondering
if anyone can answer these questions satisfactorily. – Amorella
1122 hours. It is an economic plague
of thought that hits home. One could write a novel, but then a novel was done
with The Crash of ’79 by Paul Emil Erdman.
** **
The Crash of '79
The Crash
of '79 is a book so real that its plot reads like today's headlines. The
central figure is that world traveler, playboy, despot, and winter-sports
enthusiast His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Iran, whose grandiose and
megalomaniacal dreams, nurtured in secret and financed by oil money, engulf the
lives of Erdman's characters, each of whom, unknowingly, is contributing to the
event that will bring about the Crash of '79 and the demise of the industrial
West.
Bill
Hitchcock, the hero, is a successful banker, divorced skirt-chaser, confirmed
cynic and financial genius. It is Hitchcock whom the Saudi Arabians pick to
manage their vast hoard of accumulated oil profits and to fire a warning shot
across the bows of the Western financial community. And no sooner has Hitchcock
sat down at his desk in Riyadh than he learns just how precariously balanced
the Western world's financial system really is.
Before
long Hitchcock is wheeling and dealing at the highest levels of government,
while pursuing Ursula Hartmann, beautiful Swiss daughter of one of the world's
most distinguished nuclear scientists. Through her he becomes aware that the
Saudi's, for all their oil and money, have a problem of their own - the Shah or
Iran's ambition to control the entire Middle East and its precious oil...(less)
Hardcover,
350 pages
Published October 1st 1976 by Simon
& Schuster
From goodreadsdotcom
** **
Paul Emil Erdman
(May 19, 1932 - April 23, 2007 in Sonoma County, California. was one of the
leading business and financial writers in the United States who became known
for writing novels based on monetary trends and historical facts concerning
complex matters of international finance.
Early
life
Erdman was born in Stratford, Ontario,
Canada, on 19 May 1932 to American parents. He graduated from Georgetown
University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He received his PhD
from the University of Basel. In 1958 he worked as a financial analyst for the
European Coal and Steel Community. Between 1959 and 1961, he worked as an
economist at the Stanford Research Institute at Menlo Park.
Banking
career
Erdman returned to Switzerland where in 1965,
he founded and was the president of a Swiss bank - the Salik Bank. In 1969, the
United California Bank in California bought a majority stake and renamed it the
United California Bank in Basel. The bank collapsed after taking large losses
speculating in the cocoa market. Erdman and other board members were accused of
fraud and Erdman spent time in jail awaiting trial. Several officers of his
bank were convicted and served prison terms, much to the surprise of American
readers, who were unaccustomed to seeing corporate executives jailed for the
activities of their companies. In television interviews, Erdman has observed
that Swiss prisons had better food (he could have meals sent in by hotels and
restaurants of his choice) but Swiss laws did apply to the "privileged
classes" as well as to ordinary mortals. The whole episode has been well
documented in Chapter 4: How My Swiss Bank Blew $40 Million and Went Broke
of the book Supermoney by George Goodman written under his pseudonym
Adam Smith.
From: Wikipedia
** **
1139
hours. Obviously, today’s situation is not similar other than circumstances get
in the way of normal human behavior when it comes to money. Something we have
witnessed in New York as well as in politics in the last two decades. I’m done.
I have nothing else to say on the subject. I wish it had not been brought up in
the first place, but it was.
You are pleased you signaling car
stopper actually works as the directions said it would, and you still have
about a foot and a half leeway before tapping the wall. Errands are to be run
and then lunch. after which you may have some work and reading time in the park
or cemetery. Meanwhile, you are working on Dead 4. - Amorella
1324
hours. Dead 4 is complete.
***
The Dead
4 ©2013, rho, final draft of GMG.One
Sophia
stepped off the stage and floated feather-lite onto Merlyn's private sanctuary
wearing a linen Doric chiton, a violet linen cloth draped over her left
shoulder dropping in folds around the blouse and over the hips to the ankles.
Merlyn smiled, thinking how the style in the twenty-first century might be
considered a beautiful woman in a delightfully intimately woven dress with a
long shawl, suggestively set to crawl into bed with her best friend.
Merlyn
reached out younger handed than the moment before, clasped her right hand with
both of his and said, “I am honored my friend, you are always a welcome sight
my Sophia.”
“I
understand our Mother was recently here,” commented Sophia in a voice
melodically soft and honest. “What a beautiful meadow you commend yourself to
be, Merlyn.”
“This
place is where I may touch the living,” responded Merlyn. “I think the Dead who
are fit, find this an irresistible challenge.” He paused, “Mother Glevema
stopped by asking for you.” Merlyn continued with a confident smile and pointed
to the northeast. “On the other side of the cemetery mountain one can touch the
present Living.”
“Can
you show me beyond that granite rock one day, Merlyn?” To be alive again, the
wonderment raced from Sophia's heartansoul into her mind alone.
Calmly,
Merlyn suggested, “We have forgotten much of what Life is in the moment. I see
and feel through Richard Greystone, a spirit already partially ensnared with
his identical twin Robert's spirit. One day you may walk with me among the
living.” Merlyn watched Sophia's features dissolve.
Heart's
memory cocked the trigger, the soul rose as the sun itself, the mind formed the
billiard table and Merlyn saw the solids and stripes scattered about slate's
green field beyond the cue mark. Refocusing, Merlyn noted a purple stripe, the
12 ball rested on the cue mark. Sophia clothing was violet dyed linen he
thought then surmised, she is the uncued 12 ball.
The
12 ball disappeared from the mark, from three dimensions in his mind to a
shade. I have only seen this once before, thought Merlyn the Bard, in ancient
Elysium. Panagiotakis, the shaman who had said, “We are from there, to here,”
was below me.
We
were on this side of the Styx where no earthly tremors exist. The Prophet,
Ezekiel, was alongside Takis and two others. I was sitting cross-legged high in
the tree behind the shamans lying on the shoreline. Their souls, each alone,
danced in the center of a shaded circle on the riverbank. The shades
disappeared to a place below the bank of the Styx.
Takis,
Ezekiel and the two others formed four billiard balls in the mind, but I saw
them William Blake-like as fiery souls dancing not as full rounded balls on the
table. The Rebellion of the First Ten Thousand Greek Dead had begun not soon
before. This action of human will beyond the Grave rose among the twelve major
cultures of the World of the Dead in those early days.
No
human spirit was full-minded, nor could sheorhe be a common letter in any
alphabet spoken or signed. Each spirit scooted about no better than the common
letter 'i' until it eventually rose to a capital height.
Then
a question rose to the left side of the capital 'I' and a period rose on its
right. Length and width had risen straight up adding an undiscovered dimension
to the Dead, a third dimension, height, which had only been experienced while
living and framed by time and distance from There to Here.
Merlyn
returned to his rock, his thinking throne to a cocoon of wonder. No chance to
be a butterfly. In Earth’s today though, since the Second Rebellion of the Dead,
we still have perspective, a sun in the sky and earth below. Collectively within
the spirit, the heartansoulanmind, we continue to have a place of solitude, a
suit to wear to disguise our nakedness, a clothing, opened to visitors of our
free choice. Many of the Dead huddle together in a patchwork quilt, afraid of
strangers, or worse, afraid of themselves. No one with any sense of deadanliving
can return to the living experience in any manner but memory. Presently no one
but me can learn what it is to be a deadanliving bridge between the
spirit-an-physics in higher consciousness.
725
words
***
Later in the afternoon. You are facing
west in the center of Rose Hill Cemetery after running errands and taking your
walks at Pine Hill Lakes Park. Let’s go to Brothers 4 as Carol continues with
her short nap. – Amorella
1643 hours. I forgot to put Pouch 3 in
appropriate documents. I also realize I have not come up with a Chapter 4
‘word’.
How about crème de
la crème’? – Amorella
I know the word generally but I will
have to review it for chapter context: “best of the best”. I assume Merlyn is
considered the best of the best as far as context is concerned among the Dead.
However, as these are his dreams, it sounds rather conceited does it not?
I chose the words orndorff not Merlyn, and
not you either. – Amorella
1655 hours. You have a point. Carol is
on page 8 of Stuart Woods’ Bel-Air Dead, a Stone Barrington novel
according to Wikipedia Offline. – I’ll set up the chapter as you wish (since I
would and do not know any better anyway).
You are home and stopped working on Brothers
4 with two more paragraphs to clean up. – Amorella
1814 hours. Time for a break. We had
lunch at Panera/Chipotle’s so tonight, who knows, we might have scrambled eggs
or cereal for supper. Maybe we’ll watch one of last night’s shows before the
news.
Later, old man. Post. - Amorella
You had a makeshift supper of a cup of
turkey soup and half a peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread while watching the
news on NBC and ABC after watching the DVRed version of the first season show
of “Blue Bloods”. Carol is watching “Dancing with the Stars” and you want to
complete Brothers 4 then call it a night. – Amorella
2053 hours. The Brothers 4 draft is
completed.
You are not fully confident of this or any
other draft for that matter, but this is acceptable at the moment. Drop in and
post. - Amorella
***
The
Brothers 4 ©2013 rho, (final) draft of GMG One
Richard
awoke to hear their daughter Julie chattering from downstairs in the kitchen.
Julie and Jenni are here with their kids, Ronda Ann and David. No doubt Rob
will be popping in wondering why I am not up.
In
a tone of melodiously forced politeness, Cyndi shouted, “Are you up, Richard? Ronda
wants to bring David to get you up.”
Richard
rolled over feigning sleep, something easily done. Noisy feet on the steps gave
way to the door slightly creaked from the bottom hinge he had promised to
lubricate a month ago. What a day and I’m not even up yet, he surmised with a
smile. I hear my favorite four and two year olds on the steps. Do I feign a
deep sleep or rise up from the sheet with a lion's 'I-m-going-to-get-you' roar?
***
Later,
after a family meal of a two steaks and potatoes, four chicken salads and two
kids' macaroni and cheese lunches, at a nearby restaurant of choice, Robert and
Richard returned to sit in the living room, each in a high back chair, with
Julie on the left side of the living room couch followed by four year old Ronda
Ann and two year old David and his mother Jennifer, Robert and Connie’s
daughter. Robert mentioned on how good the kids were at lunch when David
scooted off and under the gray marble topped coffee table looking for his blue
Thomas the train engine. Ronda remarked, “I'm going to the kitchen to see
Grandma,” and left a little annoyed she had been forced to sit properly in the
first place. Julie being older spoke first, “Thank you for lunch, Uncle
Richard. We always have a good time coming over.”
“We
have a good time,” mimicked Jennifer. “Dad, you and Uncle Rob going to babysit while
we girls go shopping?”
In
a quiet demeanor like her mother’s Julie quickly added, “We are so glad you are
retired and can take care of the kids once in a while. We appreciate it.”
Looking
directly at Richard, Cyndi commented, “We could not imagine living so far away,
like your parents Jennifer.”
In
the bond of family togetherness, Jennifer remarked, “It is good what with my
Calvin out of town at a conference, and Julie’s Allen working six days a week.”
She then smiled graciously while commenting, “I am not complaining at least the
kids' fathers both have jobs.”
“We've
been there,” said Rob and Rich almost simultaneously. The four grandparents laughed
light heartedly and began chatting about how each set of grandparents was in
the process of redecorating one room or another.
Rob
and Rich could both hear the strain of
'we-wish-we-had-the-time-and-energy-to-think-on-such-things' in their voices.
The twin grandfathers thought back on how it was with each of their children, who
were affectionately called ‘rug rats’ in the late seventies. Life and the
business that ensues in one's thirties, forties, and into the fifties -- work,
home, errands, chores and parenting; more parenting, errands, chores, home and
work, all crammed in and on life's familiar rotating stages of such
philosophical and practical goals of ‘We do whatever works best for the family
first. Everything else is second’.
Both
brothers concluded their silent high back chair conversation in the general
theme of 'the fifties were a much better time for growing up than today'.
Fortunately, all sets of grandparents had some money saved and invested. The
grandparents all, owned their homes and cars and had no debts. Every generation,
from time to time, helped their children and grandchildren survive better.
The
great-grandparents grew up in the thirties. Hard economic times and then there
was a great world war to resolve. The parents of the grandparents Rob and
Connie and Richard and Cyndi grew older through the administrations of FDR,
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton
none had lived passed the tenure of George W. Not a one, as young children,
would have dreamed a Negro would have become President of the United States
shortly after their demise.
The
events in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have subtly and not so
subtly changed the social and cultural dynamics of people in every country of
the world. Families of sorts resided in the thousands upon thousands of the
ancestors and will reside in descendants of the brothers Robert Greystone, his
spouse, Connie Bleacher and Richard Greystone and his spouse Cyndi Bleacher.
Who, like the rest of humanity he feels, share a common genetic link. We are
all fifty-second cousins, or so thinks Richard as he reflects on his personal
and universal family in the species, Homo sapiens as he falls asleep that
evening after an exhausting and fun day with family.
785 words
***
