Jun
8
Some Call It Luck, But We Know Otherwise, from Bill Rafter
June 8, 2012 |
When I was a kid, my father got the family out of blue-collar South Philadelphia to blue-collar Wildwood, NJ for the entire summer. The beach towns of New Jersey are either nice or tacky, and Wildwood was extremely tacky, with most tackiness related to its boardwalk. When you are at the seashore for the summer, collecting shells wears a little thin, so a friend Buzzy and I got a discarded window screen and would go under the boardwalk just below several pizza shops and shovel sand into the window screen. Patrons reaching into their pockets for coins would regularly drop some through the slats in the boardwalk. A few hours work would produce about two bucks each for Buzzy and I, and that was in the days when a quarter could buy you a slice of pizza.
It was dirty work, but rewarding. And of course the dirt was easily washed off in the ocean. Invariably when one of the other kids would find out about our wealth their comments were, "You guys are sooo lucky!" Luck had nothing to do with it. There was a distribution of coins that would fall through and a lot of work by the harvesters. The same is true of the markets.
Jeff Watson writes:
Bill, your experience reminds me of that failed, but magnificent musical, "Paint Your Wagon" where Clint Eastwood discovers that the gold dust gets spilled on the floor and falls through the cracks. Eastwood, Lee Marvin et al proceed to dig tunnels under the entire town and they collect all of that spilled gold dust. They do extremely well for awhile, until a black swan moment where everything collapses and the entire town caves in. There are many market lessons in this movie. About 2:50 of this video is where Eastwood has his eureka moment.
Vince Fulco writes:
For those who have never been to Chair's Weston office, right next to the Captain's chair is a painting depicting a similar scenario. Not sure if it is a L'Amour story but the gold miner/spec is on the verge of hitting a nice vein while the precariousness of the surroundings become increasingly more apparent. The moment on the razor's edge is caught perfectly.
Just a beautiful piece.
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