What Kind of Future

It was years ago. So many years that library books copyrighted in 1967 seemed brand spankin' new. So many years, that I was younger than my kid is now.

It was fifth grade. And Mr. Thurston had us choose stocks and plot their value day by day.

We picked up newspapers and found our choices. Tim picked Barber-Greene on the Over-The-Counter exchange. (Tim had a talent for the making unique choices. Anyway, I always liked the sound of over the counter.) Bill picked AT&T. I picked Disney and Xerox.

Frankly, I don't remember how they did, but I do remember thinking many years later what a killing I could have made if I'd actually bought some shares.

But wait.

Wasn't Disney up for sale recently. Wasn't some company like Diamond Shamrock trying to buy them? (Perhaps I got the details wrong.) But wasn't Eisner lampooned in Schreck? And didn't his shareholders give him a bit of a jolt just a few weeks ago. That can't be good.

And wasn't AT&T just removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average today? We're talking Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph. The Long Lines people. And look at Lucent, spun off not so long ago -- not exactly Wall Street darlings right now. This can't be good.

And what about Xerox? The document company. Right. How many waves of innovation have they spawned and then missed? I guess down in my heart I do have a tender place for Xerox. I mean if I were in the market for a Xerox machine, I'd think of Xerox first. But that's not saying much.

These were giants of the mid twentieth century. They were rock solid. They say when you invest, you should invest for the long haul, and these companies were our future.

Well look what kind of future the future dragged in.

[Of course, the joke is probably on me. The return from shares bought way back then might well be high. But that wouldn't make such a good rant, would it?]

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