Gulag 401(k): Tales of a Modern Prisoner by Richard A. Marin ISBN: 978-1-4834-7876-0

The category listed on the back of Gulag 401(k): Tales of a Modern Prisoner by Richard A. Marin is fiction.  I am not at all sure that is correct.

The back of the book states “In this book, the author recalls his career and explores how to afford retirement…” I am not sure all of that is entirely accurate either.

Readers really aren’t given any significant investing for retirement information.  However, readers are treated to an inside look at the life of the author. This look does not appear to be fiction.  Who could make this stuff up?

We live in a completely different world from the author.  Marin does not see a $35 parking ticket as a significant expense, whereas we will drive out of our way to keep from having to pay a $1 toll on the toll road in Houston.  For us, $35 is 3% of our monthly income.

We really would love to read more of Marin’s writing, especially a little more detailed look inside Bear Stearns and Bankers Trust.

Five Star Review

We give Gulag 401(k): Tales of a Modern Prisoner all five stars.  It is an extremely well-written story that takes us through the author’s very interesting career. We follow Marin from his first day at work on his first job at Bankers Trust to his time as a teacher at a university, all the way through to his planned retirement.  

One can learn a lot about the financial world. Marin does a better job at describing the financial meltdown at Bear Stearns than many of the books we have read that were written to specifically address that particular era in American history.

We would love to read a book that was a compilation of  this author’s in-the-trenches stories of big business and big finance.

Yes, the back of this book is a little misleading. However, readers will not be disappointed.  Readers will be entertained and they just might learn a little bit about preparing for retirement through the eyes of someone who has blazed a trail ahead of us. You should order your copy of Gulag 401(k): Tales of a Modern Prisoner by Richard A. Marin today.  Maybe give one to a friend.

We were sent a complimentary copy of this book.  We are under no obligation to write any review, positive or negative.

We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.

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Two Is Not Always Better Than One

Two is not Always Better Than One
 

Let’s go back to Thanksgiving Day 1979. That day, Thanksgiving dinner was at Granny-for Short’s house.  Boy, could Granny-For-Short, my mama, and Aunt Gloria cook!

The family’s Western Auto Store was open that day since there was no reason to close.  Every Thanksgiving that we tried to close, dozens of customers would show up at the house needing something.

"Aunt so and so’s car broke while she was down and I need a set of spark plug wires to get her going." " I decided to change my oil since I had the day off and I need an oil filter to get it done right."

Well, I waddled up from Granny-For-Short’s house to McClendon Manor.  Then, my friend called and asked if I wanted to go with him so see Animal House at the movies.  Nothing else was on the boards so, I said sure.

I had recently cleaned out my 1974 Monte Carlo and restocked the rescue supplies I had in it. I, then, took the radio out of it. I won’t be on call tonight, so why take the radio?

I picked my friend up at his house and we headed to the Osteen to see the movie Animal House.  While we were there, he ran into an old friend.  He decided to walk his friend out to her car since it was dark outside. 

All of my friends had keys to my car back then in case I had a rescue call while we were out and I had to jump in the back of an ambulance.  That way they could get back home.

I came outside the movie theater and saw my friend sitting on a short pole drinking pineapple juice out of a cup. He said, “Hey, Bird, where’s your car?”

I thought that since he had a key, he had moved it and was joking.  When he flagged down the city police as they were patrolling the area, I knew he was not joking.

Well, my car had been stolen.  All the rescue gear and about five pounds of red, Georgia clay that I could not get out after the races. That is why my mom gave me this car.  She wanted one that did not have all that dust in it.

Years later, I had all my final media arts projects in my 1982 Mercury Marquis. I had the raw footage and the final footage of an interview I had via telephone with the sound effects engineer from Star Wars.  That is a long story, too.

I thought, I better be extra careful with this car right now.  I parked it under a street light.  This particular street light was dead center in front of the University of South Carolina Campus Police Station.  Who is going to break into a car directly in front of a police station, under a street light?

Well, it happened.  The car and all its contents were stolen.  I walked inside the police station to report the theft.  At least I did not have far to go to report the theft, right?

Wrong.  As I was told by the police officer of the campus police, my car was on city property so I could not file the claim in the campus police station. I would have to call the city. 

I asked to borrow the phone.  I was told by the officer that the campus police phones were for official police business only.  I said, "I am a student here at the university.  My car was stolen directly in front of this police station.  WHAT COULD BE MORE OFFICIAL IN A POLICE STATION THAN REPORTING A CRIME?"  I was told to leave immediately.

I walked up the street to what was called the University Physical Plant.  I made the call and was told a city officer would respond shortly.  I went outside to wait for the officer.  A city meter wagon pulled up a few minutes later.  I thought, “That was quick.”

Yep, that was too quick.  What happened was that I was issued a warning ticket by the city police for loitering and told to wait inside the building for the officer.  About an hour later, the cops showed up.  They took a statement and told me they would be looking for the car.

15 days later I received a phone call from a local towing company.  It seems the police already had recovered my car when I reported it as stolen.  It had been sitting in the tow yard for 15 days.  If the car was still on the lot by the close of business that day, I would have to pay 100 per day for every day it had been on the lot. 

I called a couple of my friends and we went to get the car.  By this time, I had a new to me car.  The problem was one person could not have two cars on campus at the same time.  I had to recruit a friend to drive the car back to Iva from Columbia. 

We stopped to get gas and noticed a strange sound coming from under the hood of the recently stolen car.  Some idiot had taken the Ford battery out of the car and replaced it with a Chevrolet battery.  The reason that makes a difference is that the positive and negative poles are on opposite sides from one another.

They had taken a coat hanger and used it as a jumper wire to make the battery cable long enough to reach the positive terminal.  Why someone did this was anyone’s guess.  While my friends and I were standing there looking at this, the wire caught fire.  There was too much electricity trying to pass thought the coat hanger wire at one time.  They had shorted out the voltage regulator and it did not shut down the system like it should have.

I put the fire out with sand.  We loaded in the Grand Prix I was driving and headed to the parts store.  I bought two new battery cables and a voltage regulator.  We got the car going again and made it back to Iva.

Soon, the Grand Prix would die.  But, that is another story.
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The Sisterhood

 

The Sisterhood

There is an episode of the Andy Griffith Show about a church bazaar that is being held by the Ladies’ Auxiliary of their local church.

Andy says to his deputy, Warren, that there are three rules to a long, happy life in Mayberry.  The first is don’t play leapfrog with elephants. The second is never pet a tiger unless his tail is a waggin’. The third is never, ever mess with the Ladies’ Auxiliary.

This last one could be said of the ultra-secret organization known as The Sisterhood.  The Illuminati have nothing on the Sisterhood. 

This Sisterhood dates back to whenever it was that the second female human was placed on this earth.

We men are simple, either we like another man or we don’t.  Usually we can tell in the first minute if we and another guy will get along or not.

Not so with women.  It seems that women can be best friends one minute and worst

enemies the next.  But, when the Sisterhood puts out an ultimatum, all bets are off.

Women who could not stand to be in the same air space together will work with one another to accomplish a Sisterhood goal.  Usually, that goal is keeping we men in our place.

Many years ago, my now child-bride Suzanne, who was my girlfriend at the time, and I broke up.  Well, I broke up; she did not. It was a stupid miscommunication and I read the signals wrong.

All of us men have learned that when a woman says something is fine, that it isn’t fine.  If she says, “Go ahead”, you better not go ahead.  But there are other things we don’t yet understand.

As I said, I had broken up with Suzanne. She had not broken up with me.  I figured since she and I were not still together, or so I thought, that even though I had promised her I would take her to get her driver’s license at the Highway Department, all promises were null and void.

I further believed that, since we were no longer a couple, we were free to date other people.  I made a date with another girl and all was set for me and her to go out.

Suzanne wrote me a letter and told me that if I did not keep my promise to take her to the Highway Department to get her license, that would make me a liar since I had promised to take her.

I was not going to be called a liar and I was not going to be a liar, so I took her.

While I was waiting on Suzanne to get signed up for her driving test and to take her test, I used the pay phone to call the girl. I guess I dated myself with that one.  Good thing, too, because I was not going to date anyone else.

Well, when I got her on the phone, she used every cliché excuse as to why she could not go out with me even though she had seemed happy before when I asked her. She had to wash her hair, her parents had other plans, the dog needed a bath, she had homework, etc.

When we left the Highway Department, Suzanne asked me if I was ready for my big date.  To my knowledge, Suzanne did not know I had a date.

I told her it had been cancelled and left it at that.

Later, I found out what had happened.  It seems that some of Suzanne’s friends had found out about the date.  They had decided that Suzanne and I belonged together and that was that.  They convinced the girl not to go out with me and, furthermore, to never talk to me again.

So now, not only did I not have a date, no girl in the free world would even look at me. If I needed to know the time of day, I would have to call the time and temperature number, and the voice on it was male.

Suzanne and I were still not together again.  But I was not going to date anyone else.

One night, I had come back to McClendon Manor for the Christmas break.  I was sitting in the upstairs den watching television when the phone rang.  I answered the phone and the voice on the other end was female.  I did not recognize the voice at all.

I asked who it was on the phone and found out that it was one of Suzanne’s many first cousins.  She and I talked for a few minutes and then she put Suzanne on the phone.

Suzanne and I started playing records over the phone to one another and then Suzanne played Are You Lonesome Tonight by Elvis Presley. He was also her cousin.

During that song, I asked Suzanne if she would go back with me and she said she would think about it.  The next day, she had a friend tell me she would go with me again and to call her after four that day.  I called her and she was not home.

It was years before I found out that Suzanne’s friends had conspired to keep me in line. They called themselves "The Sisterhood".

See also our posts on Master Control, Papa's Proposal, and Our Wedding. 

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Throwback Thursday 14 July 2016 Absorbine Junior

 

This post is part of the meme, Throwback Thursday.  For this meme bloggers are asked to share a photograph, letter, poem, newspaper article, story, or whatever that inspires memories of the past.  Please join with us.

Absorbine Junior

When I was a very young boy of about four or five years old, I was playing in a wading pool at my Grandmother McClendon’s house in Johnston, South Carolina.

While in the pool, somehow I got attacked by several red bugs. Red bugs are larva that bury themselves in the body and live off of skin cells.

My father decided that the cure for red bugs, also known as chiggers, was to apply Absorbine Junior to the red bug.

Now, Absorbine is a horse liniment. It is a substance that creates chemical heat to warm the muscles of horses so they can work better. Absorbine Junior was developed to be a little weaker so that humans could use it.

As I said, my father decided that a good cure for the red bug was to apply Absorbine Junior to the red bug. He decided to start by applying the Absorbine Junior to a red bug that had buried itself in my scrotum.

As soon as he made contact with the applicator, it burned with an intensity I cannot begin to describe.  I cried and screamed.  My father put me back in the water of the pool to cool me off.  It did not help.

After about an hour of intense pain, the Absorbine Junior wore off and I began to return to normal.

My father apologized for this and I forgave him UNTIL he told the following story.

My father attended Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina on a football scholarship.  He was very good at football.

One day, one of his teammates confessed that he had jock itch very bad and that he needed some relief.  My father told him that Absorbine Junior would cure the jock itch.  After all, one of its uses is to kill athlete’s foot fungus.  This sounded reasonable.

The trusting football player stripped and laid down on the bed, exposing himself.  My father took the cap off the bottle so that the Absorbine Junior could be poured out of the bottle.  He then poured the Absorbine Junior all over the football player’s jock area.

Absorbine Junior goes on feeling cool but soon begins to warm up.  As soon as my father had poured the liquid on the player, he headed for the door.  

Once in the hallway, he could hear that the liquid had now warmed up and the football player was in pain. The player got up and proceeded to chase my father down the hallway.

My father ran out of an open window - they were on the second floor - and onto the roof of the porch.  He climbed down off the porch roof and ran across campus.  Meanwhile, the football player was standing on the porch roof, naked as could be, yelling obscenities at my father.

When I heard that my father had to have known that the Absorbine Junior would burn me, I got very mad at him.  That was years ago and I can still remember the pain.

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Comrade

As I stated in a recent comment, I am not much for abstract or creative thinking. However, I come from a long line of story tellers.  The following story is one I made up for our youngest son.  His name is Davey and he is now a corporal in the United States Marine Corps. 

Shep was my oldest daughter's dog.  She has since moved to Rainbow Bridge.  Comrade was Davey's squirrel who lived in a tree in our backyard. 

Word Count: 512

David E. McClendon, Sr.

© 18 October 2005

Comrade

Comrade was a little gray squirrel with a big fluffy tail.  He was really proud of his name because his mommy told him it meant “friend.”

Comrade lived in a big oak tree on Circle Drive. In his backyard was a doghouse for his friend Shep.

Shep was a black dog who loved to play with Comrade. She even let Comrade keep some of his acorns hidden under her doghouse.

One day Comrade decided to go on an adventure.  He decided to go over to the yard next door and gather pecans. There wasn’t a pecan tree in his yard so if he wanted pecans he had to go next door to get them.

He could taste the pecan pie his mommy would make out of the pecans. The problem was there was a big yellow cat that lived next door.  The cat did not want anyone coming into his yard and he had told Comrade before that if he caught him in his yard he would make him into a stew.

Comrade looked down from his tree and did not see the cat anywhere so he started out towards the pecan tree.

He carried a little blue bucket with him to put the pecans in as he collected them.   He scampered quickly along the ground and made it safely to the grass up under the pecan tree.

He began putting the pecans in his bucket and from time to time looked around to see if the cat was anywhere nearby.  He had his bucket almost full when he heard something.

It was very quiet but he was sure he heard something. He was putting the last pecan in the bucket when all of a sudden he saw the shadow of the cat moving quickly behind him.

He grabbed his bucket and started to run.  He was almost to his yard when the all of a sudden a net plopped down on top of him. He fought and he fought but he couldn’t get free.

The cat was laughing at him and teasing him.  The cat said. “You will make a tasty stew Comrade.” 

Comrade was starting to cry when he noticed the net was being lifted off of him.  He turned around and to his surprise there was Shep. She had lifted the net off of him and was there to save him.  She told him to run for her doghouse.

As Comrade started to run, the cat noticed that he had escaped and so he began to chase Comrade.

Just as the cat was about to catch Comrade, Shep dropped the net over the cat and Comrade darted to safety.

Comrade took the pecans to his mommy and there was enough to make five pecan pies. That night Comrade took a piece of pie to Shep to say thank you.

Shep and Comrade both enjoyed a piece of pie as they watched the moon come up. “”Thank you for helping me out”, said Comrade. “That’s what friends are for,” Shep said and they both fell asleep.

You may also like to see some of Suzanne's creative writing.

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Throwback Thursday 07 July 2016 The Day Patrick Came To Town

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The Day That Patrick Came to Town

This post is a re-post of one I made years ago.  I am reposting it with a video as part of the new Throwback Thursday meme.   Come and join us.

My father, Robert Bruce McClendon, Jr., was a proud grandfather.  When my sister, Sandra, announced that she was expecting, he beamed with pride.  

In 1985, his first grandchild, Patrick, was born.  For some reason my father could not get it into his head that Patrick’s last name was not McClendon.

My sister and brother-in-law, along with Patrick, lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.  From time to time they would come to Iva, South Carolina, for a visit. The time came for their first visit after Patrick was born.

My family owned the Western Auto Store in Iva, South Carolina, and we had one of those changeable letter signs that were popular in the 1980s.  We changed the message about once a week.  It was my job to change the message each week. We never had the same message on both sides of the sign.  Well, almost never.

I usually ate breakfast at Waffle King No. 3.  That morning my father came to the restaurant early and told me he wanted me to go to the store right away and get the changeable letter sign changed to say Welcome Patrick on both sides.  The store was not due to open for over an hour but he wanted that sign out before daylight. 

I drove to the store and located the correct letters.  I had to change the sign in the cold December wind as the sun came up.  Shortly after that, Papa Bruce arrived and worked on getting the store open while I went back to the restaurant to get another breakfast since I did not get to finish mine earlier.  Papa Bruce paid for the new breakfast.

All morning long, Papa Bruce paced the sales floor.  Whenever he spoke with an employee, he would say, “When Patrick gets here, he will straighten you out”.  When my sister arrived, my father made sure that she and Al, her husband, had seen the sign.

If Papa Bruce could have arranged it, there would have been a ticker tape parade through the town.  Papa took Patrick around the store showing him off to all the customers.  Patrick helped Papa wait on customers, even though he was less than a month old. Papa Bruce took Patrick and showed him all the Christmas decorations.  He was one proud Papa. 

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The Parable of the Hot Dog Vendor

The Parable of the Hot Dog Vendor

Author Unknown to Me

There was this hot dog vendor who sold hot dogs by the roadside.  He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.  He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.

But, enthusiastically, he sold lots of hot dogs. His sales and profit went up. He used only the finest wieners and the freshest buns.  People came from miles around to eat his hot dogs.  All day long, the hot dog vendor would sing beautiful songs and sell his hot dogs.

He ordered more meat and got himself a bigger and better stove.  As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.  The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?”  The hot dog vendor replied, "No, but tell me about it.”  The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic condition is even worse.  We should be prepared for the coming bad time."

The hot dog vendor thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, and listened to radio, he ought to know and that his advice was not to be taken lightly.  So, the next day, the hot dog vendor cut down his order for the meat and buns, took down the sign, and was no longer enthusiastic.

Business got worse and the hot dog vendor stopped singing.

Very often, he ran out of wieners and buns so his customers had nothing to buy when they stopped by his stand and had to take their business elsewhere.

Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand and his sales started coming down rapidly.  He again cut his orders, switched to lower quality wieners, and used cheaper buns.

Business dropped even still and he stopped being friendly with his customers and talked only about how bad business was with the few remaining customers he had, which reminded them of how bad things were and made them begin to think that they, too, should cut back on their spending.

Soon the hot dog vendor was ordering so few wieners and so few buns that he did not have anything to sell to the very few remaining customers he had, so he closed the hot dog stand.

The hot dog vendor said to his son, "Son, you were right.  We are in the middle of a recession.  I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

The Moral of The Story

Never engage in self-defeating patterns of behavior. If you think that you will fail, or always only expect the negative or worst, nothing in this world can save you.

The preceding story was posted on the wall at my family’s Western Auto Store in Iva, South Carolina. 

Visit My Child-Bride, Suzanne’s blog.

Watch this on YouTube

The Parable of the Hot Dog Vendor

The Parable of the Hot Dog Vendor

Author Unknown to Me

There was this hot dog vendor who sold hot dogs by the roadside.  He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.  He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.

But, enthusiastically, he sold lots of hot dogs. His sales and profit went up. He used only the finest wieners and the freshest buns.  People came from miles around to eat his hot dogs.  All day long, the hot dog vendor would sing beautiful songs and sell his hot dogs.

He ordered more meat and got himself a bigger and better stove.  As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.  The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?”  The hot dog vendor replied, "No, but tell me about it.”  The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic condition is even worse.  We should be prepared for the coming bad time."

The hot dog vendor thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, and listened to radio, he ought to know and that his advice was not to be taken lightly.  So, the next day, the hot dog vendor cut down his order for the meat and buns, took down the sign, and was no longer enthusiastic.

Business got worse and the hot dog vendor stopped singing.

Very often, he ran out of wieners and buns so his customers had nothing to buy when they stopped by his stand and had to take their business elsewhere.

Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand and his sales started coming down rapidly.  He again cut his orders, switched to lower quality wieners, and used cheaper buns.

Business dropped even still and he stopped being friendly with his customers and talked only about how bad business was with the few remaining customers he had, which reminded them of how bad things were and made them begin to think that they, too, should cut back on their spending.

Soon the hot dog vendor was ordering so few wieners and so few buns that he did not have anything to sell to the very few remaining customers he had, so he closed the hot dog stand.

The hot dog vendor said to his son, "Son, you were right.  We are in the middle of a recession.  I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

The Moral of The Story

Never engage in self-defeating patterns of behavior. If you think that you will fail, or always only expect the negative or worst, nothing in this world can save you.

The preceding story was posted on the wall at my family’s Western Auto Store in Iva, South Carolina. 

Visit My Child-Bride, Suzanne’s blog.

Watch this on YouTube

Disclaimer
The opinions or advice listed in this blog or website should be used as a place to start only. It is not a substitute for the use of a professional.
Please be sure to consult your attorney and/or accountant with any specific questions.
There is no one right answer to any business question that will cover all circumstances.