Money Musings #1: Lessons of 'The Quaker Economist' Founder
GOOD-BYE, JACK POWELSON
2009 begins badly for financial editor, but what's our excuse?
By Byron Belzak
I started out 2009 badly with a personal health scare. As it turned out, nothing was seriously wrong. All the lab tests were negative, which means it was all one big positive outcome for me, except for the bill paying part.
So other than the money thang, life is good in 2009, as I see it.
Yup, I'm back in the saddle, behind the wheel, sitting in high cotton, and thinking about all those other corny, hackneyed adages, including it's good to be alive, I'm fit as a fiddle, and it's ALL good.
Okay, well maybe not the last phrase; even though I was given a good little scare on January 1st, I'm not crazy. It's NOT all good, ever, and especially now. You have to be living under a rock with ear plugs and blinders to ignore what's going on with the economy and in other people's lives. I still have a roof over my head, food in the pantry, kids who listen to me (sometimes), and a wife of 30 years who (still) believes life is better with me than without.
Yes, my initial bad luck earlier this year turned out better than good; it turned out just fine. I had no complications and have no complaints now. My doctor gave me a clean bill of health and figured out it was just a little too much of burning the candle at both ends. "Get more sleep and drink more water." Things could have been much worse.
My temporary infirmity was nothing compared to Jack Powelson's. His New Year's Day began on a most sour note, a sad song indeed. Jack cashed in his chips, bought the farm, and heard the fat lady sing for the very last time. Yup, J.P.'s year could have begun and ended a whole lot better.
Jack, a.k.a. John P. Powelson, the founder of "The Quaker Economist," died on the first day of 2009 after a brief illness -- not a good way to start out this year, or any year for that matter.
But Jack Powelson was prepared. He was ready for the very worst. And when the worst came, he had his house in order, better than most. Several years prior he had written his own obituary. That's proof enough for me.
And after reading his obituary, I have no complaints or excuses about why I can't get something that needs to get done ... done. Jack's life was chockful of everything good. He did enough living, learning, loving, traveling and teaching for two lives, three even, maybe four.
Jack's friend, co-worker and now new editor of "The Quaker Economist," Loren Cobb, recently wrote on tqe.quaker.org: "We regret to announce that Jack Powelson, the founder of 'The Quaker Economist,' died on the first day of 2009 after a brief illness. Several years ago Jack wrote his own obituary, which is now TQE #162. His wisdom, experience, and loyal friendship will be deeply missed by all of us on the Editorial Board."
Here's what Jack had to say about himself in his self-penned obit: "It seems strange to be writing one's own obituary, but that's the way life and death go. When I was in college I chauffeured an elderly retired judge who wrote his own obituary for the newspaper. The least I can do is write mine for 'The Quaker Economist,' the journal I founded eight years ago. Yes, this is an obituary. I died on January 1, 2009, after a brief illness. I had a good life, and it had to end sometime."
For the rest of Jack's personal obituary,
Click Here>
For what friends had to say about Jack Powelson in the New York Times, Click Here>
And as for me, I'm not ready to have my house so tidy as Jack Powelson's. I plan on living to be 123.
Why one hundred twenty-three? There are a number of reasons.
Because it's as easy as one-two-three.
Because I used to say that I was going to live to be 103, but now -- given my mid-life years -- 103 seems too near to call it a day; an extra 20 years on top of that seems about right.
Because I had read somewhere that a person's body cannot withstand living on this green earth more than 126 years, that the body literally falls apart, so I wanted to exit just prior to such cascading events.
Because I remember the day that it first occurred to me that I was going to die. I was sitting in first grade watching a Walt Disney cartoon that promoted safety and longevity. The star character, Jiminy Cricket, sang, "I'm no fool. No siree. I'm gonna live to be ah-HUN-dred-and-THREE." At the very end, just to emphasize the number 103, Jiminy shoved forward the point of his umbrella, as he sang and danced so merrily.
But I was not merry that day. I could think of nothing else save one salient fact: "I'm going to die someday."
It wasn't a good day that day. The rest of the day I spent in a fog. But I remember that day as clear as a bell, me sitting at my little desk in a big school room in the basement of Calvary Presbyterian Church. The sun was shining brightly outside but it was all clouds inside for me, so I thought.
I could think of little else but my impending doom -- as distant as it may have been back then; it seemed too literal, too personal, too soon, given that I thought that people lived forever, or more accurately, I had never even thought about it before.
Oh, yes, I had seen little pet guppies float belly up in a bowl before and seen dogs lying by the side of the road, but this was different. This was about ME and my end.
Not only troubling to me was the uncertainty -- not knowing how long I was going to be around -- but more troubling was now knowing that I was actually going to die, whenever that day was.
That thought had never occurred to me before Jiminy Cricket sang at the head of the classroom about how to live to get to be 23, 33, 53, 93 or, as if it was crossing the goal line, 103. When the short movie strip clicked to an end, I looked around at all my classmates. They seemed just perfectly fine, unfettered, and unmoved with this knowledge, this revelation, which was so terrible to me.
I remember breaking out in a cold sweat as the teacher turned on the lights and shut off the movie projector. The more I thought about it, the more I tried not to think about it. Yet, the grim truth remained with me: life had an end and who knew when that end would be. I realized for the first time that it was the beginning of the end for me, for all of us. And it was the first time I ever remember having a cold sweat due to something I thought as opposed to something I had caught, such as a cold or fever.
"One hundred and three," I kept repeating to myself, inside myself, back then when I was six years old. It hit me like a ton of bricks, knowing that I had less than a hundred years to live. I did the math in my head and on a paper and in my head over and over again. One hundred three minus six is 97; not much time in the scheme of things. I had a lot of living to do back then, and still do.
But that fact of having less than 100 years to live kept me totally distracted the rest of that day, so many years ago. I was in a daze. The teacher had to ask me more than once to respond to some question or other. She probably sensed something was wrong. Maybe she knew why. Maybe she played that film for the benefit of us who had never considered what it meant to meet our maker. (But probably not. This was just an old-fashioned safety film that gave teachers a break from having to talk.)
Typically I was one of those kids who waved his arm high, half moaning "Oo, oo, me," wanting to be the one to give the right answer first, and sometimes being mildly chastised by the teacher, "Now give someone else a turn." But not on that day. No arm waving from me, no quick answers; just silence, wrapped in my thoughts, my hands folded on my desk in front of me.
That day, that life-changing day back in the mid-1950s, carried with it a weight of knowledge that has stayed with me ever since. Not as a pessimist or as a fatalist have I lived, but rather as an optimist. It's not uncommon for me to provide a bit of encouragement to a down-in-the-mouth friend or even a stranger. It's what I do, instinctively. Not to simply offer a passing, "Oh, don't worry," but providing true empathy to convey that things may be tough now, but it's all going to work out. "Give it time. Give it a shoulder to the wheel." Time and work heals all; of course, there's no recovering from the final bell.
So in the face of today's unprecedented money crisis, at least the worst in my lifetime, and facing a diminishing economy that gives no sign of improvement or hope, I dust myself off today, just as I did after swallowing and, ultimately, accepting Jiminy Cricket's miserable message more than a half century ago.
I'm still here, and so are you. This year is not so bad. We're still around. We're still kicking. The hour glass still has sand. There's still time to smell the roses and make lemons into lemonade and mend fences and keep promises and take the road less traveled. Things could be worse for you and me. We could be in the shoes of dear old Jack Powelson, but we're not.
So in his place and to honor his memory, we'll keep truckin'. For his sake, we'll keep at it. To pay homage, we'll keep giving it the old college try, even if we didn't go to the same college (Harvard) as he did -- or go to any college, for that matter. For Jack's sake, for the sake of all good guides and all good leaders, for the sake of our children and the child inside each of us, we'll do it for the gipper.
What is the alternative? What more can we do? What more can we say other than this? R.I.P., J.P.P. -- with a final note:
Dear Jack, after reading your personal obituary, it's clear that you lived life full and well, and that you deeply touched many. And although I never met you, it's clear that your life and work is an example, a model, a case study and reason enough for me, for all of us, to live, work and play to reach 103 -- or even 123 -- even when it's not that easy.
Jiminy Cricket's "I'm No Fool (Having Fun)" short film and song about how to live a long and happy life used to be available on YouTube, but has since been removed. The next best thing is Wikipedia or Click Here>
To subscribe to "The Quaker Economist," visit tqe.quaker.org or Click Here>
Copyright 2009 Byron Belzak, Mediabear
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