Good Morning All & Happy Tuesday! Only three shopping days left until Valentine’s Day!
I had the pleasure of teaching the Junior Achievement class on Personal Finance to Chantal Czarapata’s 8:00 a.m. class at Lewis & Clark High School here in Spokane. It’s truly one of the best parts of my retirement…being around the students is invigorating, to say the least. You really have to “think on your feet” when teaching them about Personal Finance…lots of good questions come at you! I asked my friend and one of my investment advisors, John Schram, to come and share some thoughts about investing yesterday, as we wrapped up the Personal Finance class yesterday. He provided a great overview to investing and there was a lively exchange with the students about the ins and outs of investing. Thanks, John, for sharing your expertise! As we departed the class, I was presented with a card with notes from many of the students and I’d to share a couple of their comments with you:
“I have so much more knowledge about finance—like credit scores and reports. Thank you for being patient and to teach us!”
“Thanks for teaching me that savings can be important latter in life.”
Thank you for coming to our class! I learned so much on how to be responsible with my money!”
You, too, can be part of this Junior Achievement experience! They are always looking for business people to spend an hour a week teaching a Junior Achievement class. The materials are all prepared for you and the content of each class session is first-class. If you are interested in volunteering in Junior Achievement in the greater Spokane, please contact JJ Hotchkiss at (509) 624-7114 or go to www.jawashington.org and click on the Spokane office. For those of you outside the greater Spokane area, you can contact www.ja.org and click on the Junior Achievement office located closest to you. You’ll be glad you did! For those of you who can’t volunteer at this point, but would like to financially support Junior Achievement (i.e. to help pay for classroom materials and curriculum development), please consider attending the Business Hall of Fame Banquet in May at The Historic Davenport Hotel. Tickets are available through the Spokane office or you can make a contribution to Junior Achievement by going to www.jawashington.org or www.ja.org. Thanks for giving this consideration! It’s really rewarding to support Junior Achievement!
Speaking of great organizations seeking to make a difference, please come to tonight’s People For Effective Government (PEG) Public Forum at the Moran Prairie County Library on South Regal Street (just south of the intersection of South Regal Street & East 57th Ave. on Spokane’s South Hill at 7:00 p.m.. Judge Harold Clarke will speak about the Therapeutic Drug Court and answer questions from the audience about this innovative approach to substance abuse through the legal system. Parking is free and please come and bring family and friends. You’ll be glad you did!
Happy Birthday wishes go to friends Rubie; Allen, who turns 63 today; Olympia High School classmate Rick! Here’s to all of you! Happy Birthday on your special day of celebration! Also, Happy Birthday to Sergio Mendes of “Brasil ’66” fame, who turns 79 today; to singer Sheryl Crow, who is 58 today; and to rock singer/vocalist Mike Shinoda of “Linkin Park” fame, who turns 43 today! Here’s to all of you, too!
Speaking of musicians/rock singers…I read in our local paper where the band “Metallica” gave $50,000 to our community college system here in Spokane for scholarships for students pursuing technical skills. Here’s to “Metallica” for their generosity! As I understand it, this is one of many awards made by their foundation to community colleges across the nation. It’s great to see people who have had great success in life give back to help make our world a better place to live.
I came across the 1969 Topps Football Card for Craig Morton of Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos fame. He was born in 1943 in Flint, Michigan and was a 1961 graduate of Campbell High School in Campbell, California, where he received All-State honors in football, baseball and basketball (talk about a well-rounded athlete!). Morton played college football at the University of California in Berkeley under head coach Marv Levy, latter of Buffalo Bills fame, and assistant coach Bill Walsh both future NFL head coaches and members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Back then his nickname was “Big Hummer” and his production as a quarterback dominated the Golden Bears offensive output. As a junior in 1963, he already owned most of Cal’s All-Time quarterback records. In his senior year, he finished ahead of Joe Namath & Gale Sayers in the Heisman Trophy balloting, which was one that year by John Huarte of Notre Dame. Morton was picked fifth overall in the 1965 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys. He spent his first four seasons as the backup for Don Meredith, but still had opportunities to play due to periodic injuries suffered by Meredith. In 1971, Dallas head coach Tom Landry created one of the most famous quarterback controversies in NFL history, when he began alternating Morton and Roger Staubach as the starting quarterback. Eventually, Staubach won the starting job and Morton looked to play elsewhere. He played with the New York Giants for a time and then, at age 34, Morton revived his career with the Denver Broncos. He overcame injury to become the first NFL quarterback to start the Super Bowl for two different teams (Dallas in Super Bowl V and Denver in XII). This was later equaled by Kurt Warner and Peyton Manning. Morton was inducted into the Denver Broncos’ Ring of Fame in 1988. John Elway succeeded him as the Broncos’ starting quarterback when Morton retired. In my humble opinion, Craig Morton was one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history and would have had an even more impressive career if he had been injury-free over the course of his career. Following his playing career, Morton served as head coach for the Denver Gold of the United States Football League (USFL). In 2008, he co-authored a book with Denver Post writer Adrian Dater entitled “Then Morton Said To Elway…The Best Denver Broncos Stories Ever Told.” Here’s to Craig Morton and all the great Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos quarterbacks (Meredith, Staubach, Morton, Elway, and Manning).
Here’s the word definition for the day:
Fatuous: “Silly and pointless”…”Lacking intelligence.” There seems to be a lot of “fatuous” behavior going on these days, particularly in the world of politics!
Here are some thoughts for the day:
“I believe in reincarnation. In my last life I was a peasant. Next time around, I’d like to be an eagle. Who hasn’t dreamed they could fly? They’re a protected species, too.”
—Lee Trevino, PGA golfing great
“The choice of ways is before you. Neither is closed. Any man may choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it. But if you are trying to leap on into Eternity, if you are trying to see the final state of all things as it will be (for so you must speak) when there are no more possibilities left but only the Real, then you ask what cannot be answered to mortal ears. Time is the very lens through which you see—small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope—something that would otherwise be too big for you to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby you most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But you can only see it through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise. Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what you might have chosen and didn’t is itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a symbol: but it’s truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than any mystic’s vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom.”
—C.S. Lewis, “The Great Divorce”
Here’s to a great Tuesday and lots of love and good wishes always!
Press on,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Mark, etc.)