Recently by Richard Russell: The Last American Pioneer
"If you’re going to panic, do it fast and beat the crowd." ~ Jesse Livermore
At last, Saturday I left the rehab center and returned home. It was quite a shock to return to the new homestead (I had only been living there 18 months). Being at rehab was quite an experience. I thought I had troubles. But after seeing the people at the rehab facilities, I learned better. Broken arms, broken legs, cracked skulls, people frozen with fear screaming jumbled words in the night, ancient women falling asleep over their dinners.
But the worst cases were damages connected with autos. Some people had been caught in crashes, others had been hit by cars. All suffered the awful results of shock. It was sad and even shocking to see these wrecked and broken bodies on muscle-building machines, as they tried to build up strength and repair their broken bodies. It seemed the average age of participants was about 70. At 87 I felt like a veteran.
I did have a lot of time to think while recuperating. In the last three and a half years I’ve had my share of troubles, including a stroke, an appendectomy and most recently the broken hip. They say that "what ever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger." Well, I’m still alive – so call me Hercules.
Here are a few of the things I’ve realized.
For 50 years all I had to write about was what was happening in the "dear old USA." What was happening overseas was inconsequential or somebody else’s worry. Today I receive a dozen newspapers, and the headlines in each one is different. Most of the headlines are about Europe, Asia, China or Greece. This for me, amounts to too much information. I can’t absorb it all, and I doubt if anybody else can. Britain turns down the Euro monetary union, or China’s inflation rate is discussed, or the rate of exports in Germany is highlighted. Worse, I learn that most US mortgage owners are "under-water." Meaning that their mortgage is greater than their equity in their home.
