mr. f2fb #100 tells me how to protect my assets!

today’s economic news is pretty disheartening.  all this year, i have been talking to people who have lost their jobs, who are having their hours cut back, who are worried that they’re drowning in debt.  bill seymour is seventy five years old and he’s weathered a few economic reversals.  he got an mba from harvard a few months before i was born, so he’s had some time to assess the market and he has some interesting advice–

first and foremost, if you’re going to buy a piece of real estate, do your best to pay it off in its entirety.

and second, consider this–

we went to grandpa’s for lunch.  the first time i met bill there, i was told by his son charlie (f2fb #20) that we were going to grandpa’s.  i arrived with a bromeliad.  i knew that bill’s grandfather was the famous harry horder who owned a stationer’s shop in chicago.  i was quite abashed when i discovered that grandpa’s was not a person but, rather, a restaurant on prairie street in glenview.  it is not a point of etiquette to bring a hostess gift in the circumstances.

bill seymour is married to paddy seymour and has two ex-wives, one of whom is deceased.  he has four children an outsider might regard as “his own”, two stepchildren from the second wife, two stepchildren who came with paddy, as well as a daughter of paddy’s first husband (or maybe second, i’m quite confused by this stuff).  bill takes the position that all these children:  deb, tom, charlie, prescott, cory, christie, jay, chris, and robin are all to be regarded as his children.  he is friends with his first ex-wife and with the first husband of his second wife.  he is somebody who doesn’t really need facebook because he creates he is friends and family to everyone!