OFF-TOPIC SENTIMENTALITY
Or maybe it's not so off-topic after all.
Just seconds ago I had an exchange of instant messages on AOL with a guy I've been out of touch with in recent months. He's a senior in high school who is splitting his time between half days at high school and half days doing research at Yale. I spent a lot of time telling him about all you folks in the folder which means a lot to me, not just because of the special relationship I have with all of you but also because of an extraordinary relationship I have with him.
It's especially coincidental that I had this "conversation" with him because prior to the last six months a week never went by that we didn't discuss investments at leat twice a week. And folks, you could'n't begin to understand how much I've learned from him in the last few years. That's right. We met when he was 14.
At the age of 14, he was an expert in banking stocks. He introduced me to a small bank that was more like a finance company and at the time was the largest, banking SBA lender in the country (before The Money Store was bought by a bank.) I made a killing in the bank thanks to him. My only regret is that the CEO wants to be the mayor of San Diego so he sold to a large bank. Otherwise I'd still be a shareholder.
We met through the Motley Fool. At my encouragement, he became an official volunteer representative of the Fool at 15, writing stuff just like all of us with the same amount of authority and responsibility. Readers thought he was a mid-forties kind of guy making a career in the banking industry. Some people who knew his age actually thought he was pretending to be a teenager, that his youthful age was a hoax. I can't tell you how relieved some people were when I came back one weekend from having met him in person and verified that, indeed, he was a teenager. His writing and knowledge of investing, especially banking, was that good.
There's another reason I'm waxing with sentimentality. He is the person who introduced me to Gemstar. When he was 14. Together, we wrote an article for the Fool about Gemstar that is still available in their archives. It was so long ago that the interactive program guides weren't part of the picture. Check out the price of Gemstar in December , 1996, remembering that is when the two of us co-authored that Fool piece.
Okay. I'm done now. Just wanted to share that with you.
--Mike Buckley |
