My father, as anyone who reads my blog is well aware, worked for the Internal Revenue Service and hated his job. Hated it, hated it, hated it. The only good thing about it, he said, was that it gave him a stable, dependable paycheck. It was not a large one but it was large enough to pay the mortgage on the house, buy us insurance, groceries, clothes and other necessities of life and allow him to take occasional vacations and every once in a great while, splurge for a modest luxury.
We didn't want for anything but that was largely because we didn't want anything that expensive. And he used to play the stock market, ostensibly to try and up his income but for him, I think it was more like a sport.
We had a family friend who took an imaginary ten thousand dollars and made imaginary investments in about twenty stocks. He would dutifully track how they went up or down…but there was no actual money gambled or won. He seemed very pleased when he could report that his "investment portfolio" had made a thousand imaginary dollars in one year. My father was skeptical of these claims because his friend never tried it with actual money…only the pretend kind.
I thought my father's investments, even though they did involve real money, weren't all that different from his friend's. It was a sport more than an actual attempt to up his income. The amounts weren't huge. Sometimes, he was up a hundred and he was happy. Sometimes, he was down a hundred and he wasn't that unhappy. After all, it was just a hundred and he still had those dependable I.R.S. paychecks followed later by a pretty nice pension.
If I read the paperwork I have of his correctly, he basically broke even over his lifetime. At no point did I see any evidence that anything changed in our lives because of his investments. There were dividend checks once or twice a year but they were all for ten or fifteen dollars..or less.
But he sure enjoyed watching the stock market. His broker worked in a big office in Westwood Village and my father liked to go there on those rare mornings when he had a day off from his job. They'd treat him like an important investor, greeting him by name. Someone would offer him a free cup of coffee and a sweet roll. Someone would give him bits of "insider" financial news. His broker would make time to tell him how well his stocks were doing, how he'd been so wise with his selections.
The broker used the word "solid" a lot. The stocks my father had chosen (with this broker's advice) were solid. The companies were solid. The companies' plans for growth were solid. My father liked hearing that and he also liked sitting in what they called "the gallery" there. It was a cluster of about twelve chairs that faced the east wall of the office. That wall was covered, floor to ceiling, with little stock ticker widgets that would display the names of stocks and their current selling price. You could watch hundreds of transactions on it with both the stocks and the amounts changing every few seconds.
He liked to sit there with his coffee and his sweet roll and watch for the latest numbers on his stocks. He might be there for a half-hour before he spotted one on that big wall for a brief moment but it excited him when he did. And he was positively ecstatic if that stock had gone up two cents a share.
The morning of Thursday, July 26, 1962 — or maybe a day later — he took me with him to the brokers' office. I know that date because after he parked the car, we stopped in at a drug store that was then on the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Weyburn so I could buy some comic books. I am absolutely positive that my purchases that morning included Action Comics #292 and Adventure Comics #300 and those comics went on sale on 7/26/62. It is inconceivable that I would not have acquired them with 24 hours of them going on sale. Adventure #300 was the first issue to contain an ongoing strip about The Legion of Super-Heroes.
On that day, I was just shy of ten years and five months of age. I cannot remember one blessed thing I learned in school at the age of ten but I can remember where I bought certain comic books back then. The mind retains essential information.
I got my comics, then we walked down about five doors to the brokerage. My father was greeted by name. Someone offered him coffee and two sweet rolls, one for me. Someone came by to give him bits of "insider" financial news. His broker came over to tell him his stocks were solid and to flatter him for having such a fine-looking son.
The man went on for about five minutes on both topics: Your stocks are solid. My, you have a fine-looking son. Your stocks are solid. My, you have a fine-looking son. Your stocks are solid. My, you have a fine-looking son…and oh, did I mention that your stocks are solid?
Before long, my father and I were sitting in the gallery area. His eyes were on the big board where any minute, he might learn that he was a whopping six cents wealthier. I was reading my comic books and chewing on my sweet roll when suddenly, there was a loud tire screech outside, followed by the sound of metal hitting metal, followed by the sound of glass shattering…
…followed by a bright red 1960 Buick LeSabre crashing through the front floor-to-ceiling window of the brokerage office.
Instantly, there was no front floor-to-ceiling window of the brokerage office. There were pieces of glass everywhere and a lot of panic and the Buick destroyed a couple of desks before it came to a halt.
It came nowhere near us but we still reacted as if it might. My father threw his arms over me and we kind of tumbled off our chairs onto the floor. I remember thinking that if the car did get as far as us, we were no safer on the floor than we would have been on those chairs. But it was a nice bit of heroism, nonetheless. I also remember a lot of panic and everyone in the brokers' office asking everyone else, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" Everyone seemed to be okay…shaken-up but okay.
The LeSabre just sat there, about two-thirds of the way into the office with its rear third on the sidewalk outside and pedestrians looking amazed as they cautiously detoured around it. The driver of the Buick did not get out and no one approached the car until two police cars arrived, sirens blaring. Seconds later, a third siren announced the arrival of an ambulance which someone said was from U.C.L.A. Medical Center, about two whole blocks away.
The police hauled the driver, apparently unhurt, out of the Buick. They put handcuffs on him and stuffed him in the back seat of one of their black-and-white units. Officials of the brokers' office talked with two of the officers for about ten minutes — or as long as it took the other two to walk around the office asking everyone if they were okay. Everyone still seemed to be okay. The ambulance was sent away as unnecessary.
One of the brokers who spoke to the officers was my father's broker. As the police departed, the broker came over to us to ask if we were okay and he told my father, "Former client. Very unhappy his investments didn't go well. They weren't solid like yours"…
…whereupon he launched into a replay, darn near verbatim, of what he'd said fifteen minutes earlier: Your stocks are solid. My, you have a fine-looking son. Your stocks are solid. My, you have a fine-looking son. Your stocks are solid. My, you have a fine-looking son…and oh, did I mention that your stocks are solid?
He concluded his summation by saying, of the angry former customer, "His stocks weren't solid like yours."
My father said, "Apparently, they were solid enough that he was able to afford a Buick LeSabre."
The broker laughed. In fact, he laughed at everything my father said and again told him his stocks were solid and he had a fine-looking son. Then he left us and my father turned to me and said, "What you just heard from that man…that's called 'Stroking the client.' Never confuse it with people actually talking to you."
It was some of the best advice my father ever gave me. What a lot of people say to you in this world is no more or no less than what they believe you want to hear. I remember this every time I see the cover of Action Comics #292 or Adventure Comics #300…and hopefully also when I don't.