First trips to Manhattan

---My first trip to Manhattan was to attend the Columbia University's high school journalism awards in the spring of 1967.  The group included senior students from the school newspaper, yearbook, and literary magazine.  We stayed at a modest old hotel on West 48th Street near 7th Avenue. Four to a room, my roommates were Vic, Jim, and Clyde.  There were faculty advisors with us but we were given complete autonomy at times, at others the advisors accompanied us.  I have no memory whatsoever of Columbia University.

Did several of us go to a hockey game at the Old Madison Square Garden which would have been a few blocks from the hotel?  We did walk around the Times Square area which was astounding seen from Danville eyes.  Seven or eight of us went to a Chinese restaurant on West 43rd Street, first ever for most of us.  Not the first for classmate Martha who helped us order from the English menu.  Did we go to the Empire State Building, no memory of that.  Did a group of us go to Greenwich Village led Mr. Miller?  I think yes.  In any event, it speaks to the relative prosperity of hometown Danville at that time.

During college, there were several trips to New York.  One was to meet hometown friend John and others to go to the Fillmore East to see B.B. King, the John Mayall Band, and Taj Mahal in 1969.  Before the concert we went to the 2nd Avenue Deli at 13th Street and forgot to leave a tip, and the waiter came out on the street to emphatically remind us. Another was to see Georgetown play in the 1970 NIT basketball tournament, a much more important event than today.  Georgetown played Pete Maravich's LSU in the first round and lost in the final minutes, 83 to 82.  It would have been a major upset, to say the least.

Another visit to the City was after a two and a half month vagabonding trip to Europe with two college friends, Ken and Dickie.  After we returned on our Icelandic Air flight to New York, they went on to their homes in New Jersey while I decided to stay in New York for a few days.  Calling my college friend Scott, he invited me to stay at a small sub-basement apartment that his family owned in addition to their expansive apartment in their high rise near Gracie Mansion.  The main memory on that visit is going to Slug's, a famous jazz bar in a sketchy part of the Lower East Side, East 3rd Street between Avenue B and C.

---To be continued at another time.  All of the above may not be precisely correct!!!

 

Driving trips, stock market tips?

 ---A fascination with driving trips began at an early age, six years old to be specific. It was a family of three trip to Daytona Beach, Florida in a blue 1956 Chevy with no air conditioning, no radio(one of my father's quirks, "unsafe and distracting" he said), 55mph speed limit all the way along state highways, and going through local towns along the way at much slower speeds. We were going to spend the first two weeks of August there as it was Danville mill town vacation time.  August in Florida, perfect time for low rates at Elinor Village, an Ormond Beach town five miles from Daytona of small interconnected apartments for vacationers. 

It was a two day trip, drive to somewhere in Georgia about a 100 miles away from our destination and stay in a motel. Choosing a motel was a big deal, vacancy signs needed.  Reservations were not possible on those types of driving trips.  Everything was magic on that drive, at least when awake. New sights everywhere, from moss hanging from trees in South Carolina, to roadside stands selling peaches in Georgia, and strange tourism stores(Stuckey's?) and gas stations along the way.  We packed a lunch on the that first day and stopped in a roadside area with picnic tables, a small cooler with ice, a canister of water,  my father's beer, and my 6 and one half ounce bottle of Coca Cola.  Dinner at the motel or at a nearby restaurant, locally owned of course, was exciting, something new!   

Arriving near the end of the drive on Route 1A(?) the smell of the ocean began to fill the air.  Almost there. That first drive was the beginning a long series of driving trips, first major one being a two and a half month trip around Europe with two college friends, followed by a succession of trips over the years.  That includes the trips to and from Arizona for graduate school, written about partially in the previous post here.  It ultimately led to driving trips with Kathy in 1982(France), 1983(Crete), and 1984(Paris, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Normandy coast, and back to Paris.  Reservations on each trip were only made for the first hotel upon arriving, after that all impromptu.

More to come at another time...

---There will be no stock market tips here.  With Bitcoin, Non-Fungible Tokens, Ethereum, SPAC's, plus the so-called Reddit revolution(see Gamestop etc.), and the regular equities that have held my interest in the past, there is no limit of choices, some questionable.  Traditional tech and growth, plus various tailored indexes, are the focus here. Whether banks are considered value or not, they are also a focus here based on my experience in that area.  Healthcare is an area where my expertise and stock picking success are limited at best. 

The market keeps me busy on weekdays.  That's a good thing.