SPIN

Last night I had dinner with Bird, Ginger and Evits and Anin Snyder. We laughed and looked at pictures of Jay Bird and talked about old times. Ginger made pizza and pies for desert. Then, we got down to the business of the economy. I'm sure almost every dinner party, fancy or hillbilly, gets down to the economy at some point these days. You just can't help yourself. It's as thick as the smoke billowing from a trailer park wood furnace. And in order to get some perspective on the matter we went back to those good old days of the early 70's. Opening day of trout season 1973. Remember? Fucking cold and ice still on the river. Evits and Wally and I went out in the Esophus, half drunk from the night before. The rod eyes iced up. No fish. We were all broke. But goddamned, did we had a good time.
The early 70's is our bench mark for good times and bad economy. Gas lines. Double digit interest rates. But what the hell. We were young, not bad looking and had pick up trucks. In the coming decades we would all make money, go broke, start businesses, get drunk, go sober, have kids (some of us), lose businesses, fall on and off the wagon, and now? Well, now we are all in pretty good shape. Some are retiring (mostly the wives) and the rest are throttling back. Nobody bought the McMansion or invested with Bernie Madoff. Yeah, some (myself included) are a little over extended in real estate, but not to the extent it's gonna gut us. On the whole everyone is in relatively good shape. Like Savage Lynch says- "There's a good buck down at the Rowe farm and one up by you. Times are pretty good." I concur.
So this is the thing. In the midst of two wars and a global financial meltdown, should we be worried? I don't think so. Why? Because we have each other's backs. My neice Katie D. will always remember she had a child in the first two months of the Obama administration. In those horrible times. In that bleak first decade of the 21st Century, after the 9/11 attacks, she started her family. And 30 years from now she'll be sitting at a dinner table with her sister Awesome Aunt Betheroo and some good friends, looking back, and laughing. That will be their benchmark of good AND dire times. It's all about friends and family. Not government. Not bank accounts. Not even jobs and health insurance. I am one lucky man. Recession, depression, war or peace. Good times or bad times. The consistency of friends and family is what makes one's life worth living. How's that for spin?