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Showing posts from June, 2018

The Stock Market, Failure, and Forgiveness

The Stock Market, Failure, and Forgiveness New York Stock Exchange Building close to where I ran into Donna's father I t was 1969 and I was back in New York after dropping out of school in Valparaiso and spending some time in Toronto looking into emigrating to Canada to avoid the draft. I had a job lined up there but I needed money to get across the border and attain legal status. I decided to get a job in New York. I found one with a company on the New York Stock Exchange. I was going to have to raise a minimum of five hundred dollars. I was hired by Asiel and Co, a stock and bond house with a seat on the NY Stock Market floor. They did more bonds than stocks. After a couple of weeks being a kind of gofer, I was promoted to a position titled “Buy-in Man” when the previous “Buy-in-Man” left for a job with another company. This position required me to match any bonds our clients or other companies called for (buy/sell) with bonds other NYC Stock Market compa

Meet the Parents, Canada, and the Draft

Meet the Parents, Canada, and the Draft T his post jumps back to an earlier time period. This takes place after I met Donna but before my entering the Air Force. In relation to my other blog posts this kinda follows, with some overlap, “Standing In-Line” and is before the “Can't Hear You When You Scream” post. My next post will be a follow up to this one and at that point I plan to jump back to 1973. I t was the fall of 1968 and I decided to drop out of college (Valparaiso University). With my girlfriend Donna, who would become my wife the next year, I took a train to Toronto, Canada. The plan was to look into emigrating to Canada with the purpose of avoiding the draft. Originally I was planning to head out to California but Donna reminded me that I would likely have to deal with the draft sooner or later so it would be a good idea to check out Canada. I had previously looked into joining the Peace Corps. At that time there were many young draft age guys doing