LSJohn
Verified Member
Vapros gently applied a little pressure for someone to liven up the Journal, at least by quantity if not quality. On the former I can promise, on the latter only hope.
Poker being the sole exception I can think of, I have the good fortune of remembering best the situations that I can recall positively. If I can't recall something fondly, I probably won't recall it at all. Selective memory is a nice thing to have, given the right selection criteria.
Here's an example of my selection criteria getting all screwed up. The thing is, I had so many positive and negative experiences with this guy...
"Big John" O'Connor was a hard case. Not in the way you might first think, but in his own construction of ethics, morals and justice. He was absolutely reliable regarding his own set of standards, but it might take years before you figured out what those were.
I knew him for 40 years, first becoming acquainted with him at a poker game, which is where he was likely to be found any time he had cash or credit. I saw him broke so many times over the years that I remember him best as broke. His home and his cars were always at least twice the value of mine, but I was constantly lending him money.
His attitudes about money he borrowed (from individuals, rather than institutions) plays very much into "his own construction of ethics, morals and justice" I mentioned earlier. If he borrowed from you, you could be certain he would repay. You could also be certain it would NOT be on the schedule that he swore would be the case. Of course he had the typical mover-and-shaker attitude toward money he borrowed from institutions. If they lent him money they shouldn't have, it was their problem.
John was white-collar all the way. A very bright guy -- no, I mean very, very bright -- who, I think, graduated from Notre Dame. I'm pretty sure that post-university he must have landed a conventional job of some kind in one of the paper-shuffling industries, probably Wall Street related. He would fit in there very well.
But no job could ever hold John. He was a mover and shaker, if only in his own mind. He aspired to live by his own wits and did a pretty good job of it. Despite dozens of successful "deals" he manufactured and consummated over the years, none was big enough or durable enough to set him up for life. But no deal could be that big.
No matter how vast the resources he might have been able to accumulate, he would spend it, gamble it or re-invest it in his next big deal. If he wasn't living on the edge, he wasn't happy. John was a junkie. High risk was his drug.
Both John's father and paternal grandfather had died in their 40s, and I always figured he expected to die young and would need to crank full speed ahead to get it all done in his limited time.
One of his deals -- details of which I've forgotten -- got him a permanent piece of the action in something BIG. He soon got short of cash and sold his piece for something in the low 5-digits; that turned out to be a tiny percentage of its eventual worth.
My favorite among his unique package of ethics, morals, and principles: He was a mass-attending, "practicing" Roman Catholic atheist. He thought there was something there, he needed that anchor, but he couldn't buy the underlying fact-base. He was a strong advocate of the church's "Social Justice" agenda and activities, but as far as I know his advocacy was limited to good wishes. However, he could have contributed financially in pretty big numbers and I wouldn't know it. He was broke so often... but his thinking on lots of things was strange enough to me that I shouldn't be overly confident of my guesses about the unknown.
One of his shot-in-the-dark forays got me into catastrophe insurance adjusting. When Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992, John smelled money, but didn't know how to corral it. He went from Kansas City to Miami and started nosing around. He soon discovered that insurance companies, especially the smaller ones, were desperate for experienced adjusters. He somehow made arrangements to supply 8 adjusters for a fee to a firm which provided adjusters to 13 small insurance companies whose business model made that arrangement preferable to hiring their own staff adjusters.
He then set out to find the adjusters he'd promised. As was his wont, the "experienced" part of the agreement didn't mean crap to him; he was looking for warm bodies he could school well enough to pass them off. I had been involved in both construction-related and paper-shuffling industries enough to make John assume I could just figure it out, seat-of-the-pants.
He convinced 8 of us from Kansas City to go to Miami and hook up for this gig. Of course he told us the substantial adjusting fees that would allow us to make some very good money, but somehow "forgot" to mention that the adjusting company was expecting experienced adjusters.
Fortunately for all involved (except perhaps the small insurance companies we'd ultimately represent in the field) every insurance company was so overwhelmed with unresolved claims that they were happy to have warm bodies in the field doing something. All the companies were catching heat from the state because the State was catching heat from victims of the hurricane. Even if everyone were doing their sincere, energetic best, there was no way everyone could get the kind of service their premiums had entitled them to.
As it turned out, 4 of us out of the 8 figured out the process, stayed about 4 months, and did well enough to be appreciated by the time we left. Within a few months all four of us were working claims for hail and/or wind damage somewhere, and I continued doing so for 20 years.
Big John worked a deal with two insurance companies to supply leased house trailers that could be put on the home-site for people whose homes were being completely re-built. He then set out to find someone to buy the trailers for him to lease. I don't know the details, but he made it work, and he made a lot of money over the next couple of years.
Unfortunately for both of us, the last couple of years of his life did not go well for him, so our final "business" together did not go well for me.
I think I'll probably be adding entries about John. The way my memory works these days, it is very good.... at the right time! One moment I'll be trying to remember Jordan Speith's name, and 10 minutes later I can tell you the phone number of the HVAC company that I've called twice in 15 years.
John had a score of catch-phrases that would bring a grin. I think his favorite was one he was likely to use to announce to an adversary that their argument had reached the limit of his interest: "Seldom right, never in doubt."
Poker being the sole exception I can think of, I have the good fortune of remembering best the situations that I can recall positively. If I can't recall something fondly, I probably won't recall it at all. Selective memory is a nice thing to have, given the right selection criteria.
Here's an example of my selection criteria getting all screwed up. The thing is, I had so many positive and negative experiences with this guy...
"Big John" O'Connor was a hard case. Not in the way you might first think, but in his own construction of ethics, morals and justice. He was absolutely reliable regarding his own set of standards, but it might take years before you figured out what those were.
I knew him for 40 years, first becoming acquainted with him at a poker game, which is where he was likely to be found any time he had cash or credit. I saw him broke so many times over the years that I remember him best as broke. His home and his cars were always at least twice the value of mine, but I was constantly lending him money.
His attitudes about money he borrowed (from individuals, rather than institutions) plays very much into "his own construction of ethics, morals and justice" I mentioned earlier. If he borrowed from you, you could be certain he would repay. You could also be certain it would NOT be on the schedule that he swore would be the case. Of course he had the typical mover-and-shaker attitude toward money he borrowed from institutions. If they lent him money they shouldn't have, it was their problem.
John was white-collar all the way. A very bright guy -- no, I mean very, very bright -- who, I think, graduated from Notre Dame. I'm pretty sure that post-university he must have landed a conventional job of some kind in one of the paper-shuffling industries, probably Wall Street related. He would fit in there very well.
But no job could ever hold John. He was a mover and shaker, if only in his own mind. He aspired to live by his own wits and did a pretty good job of it. Despite dozens of successful "deals" he manufactured and consummated over the years, none was big enough or durable enough to set him up for life. But no deal could be that big.
No matter how vast the resources he might have been able to accumulate, he would spend it, gamble it or re-invest it in his next big deal. If he wasn't living on the edge, he wasn't happy. John was a junkie. High risk was his drug.
Both John's father and paternal grandfather had died in their 40s, and I always figured he expected to die young and would need to crank full speed ahead to get it all done in his limited time.
One of his deals -- details of which I've forgotten -- got him a permanent piece of the action in something BIG. He soon got short of cash and sold his piece for something in the low 5-digits; that turned out to be a tiny percentage of its eventual worth.
My favorite among his unique package of ethics, morals, and principles: He was a mass-attending, "practicing" Roman Catholic atheist. He thought there was something there, he needed that anchor, but he couldn't buy the underlying fact-base. He was a strong advocate of the church's "Social Justice" agenda and activities, but as far as I know his advocacy was limited to good wishes. However, he could have contributed financially in pretty big numbers and I wouldn't know it. He was broke so often... but his thinking on lots of things was strange enough to me that I shouldn't be overly confident of my guesses about the unknown.
One of his shot-in-the-dark forays got me into catastrophe insurance adjusting. When Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992, John smelled money, but didn't know how to corral it. He went from Kansas City to Miami and started nosing around. He soon discovered that insurance companies, especially the smaller ones, were desperate for experienced adjusters. He somehow made arrangements to supply 8 adjusters for a fee to a firm which provided adjusters to 13 small insurance companies whose business model made that arrangement preferable to hiring their own staff adjusters.
He then set out to find the adjusters he'd promised. As was his wont, the "experienced" part of the agreement didn't mean crap to him; he was looking for warm bodies he could school well enough to pass them off. I had been involved in both construction-related and paper-shuffling industries enough to make John assume I could just figure it out, seat-of-the-pants.
He convinced 8 of us from Kansas City to go to Miami and hook up for this gig. Of course he told us the substantial adjusting fees that would allow us to make some very good money, but somehow "forgot" to mention that the adjusting company was expecting experienced adjusters.
Fortunately for all involved (except perhaps the small insurance companies we'd ultimately represent in the field) every insurance company was so overwhelmed with unresolved claims that they were happy to have warm bodies in the field doing something. All the companies were catching heat from the state because the State was catching heat from victims of the hurricane. Even if everyone were doing their sincere, energetic best, there was no way everyone could get the kind of service their premiums had entitled them to.
As it turned out, 4 of us out of the 8 figured out the process, stayed about 4 months, and did well enough to be appreciated by the time we left. Within a few months all four of us were working claims for hail and/or wind damage somewhere, and I continued doing so for 20 years.
Big John worked a deal with two insurance companies to supply leased house trailers that could be put on the home-site for people whose homes were being completely re-built. He then set out to find someone to buy the trailers for him to lease. I don't know the details, but he made it work, and he made a lot of money over the next couple of years.
Unfortunately for both of us, the last couple of years of his life did not go well for him, so our final "business" together did not go well for me.
I think I'll probably be adding entries about John. The way my memory works these days, it is very good.... at the right time! One moment I'll be trying to remember Jordan Speith's name, and 10 minutes later I can tell you the phone number of the HVAC company that I've called twice in 15 years.
John had a score of catch-phrases that would bring a grin. I think his favorite was one he was likely to use to announce to an adversary that their argument had reached the limit of his interest: "Seldom right, never in doubt."
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