Gift-Giving. 06/20/24

Remember when our kids were little and they’d bring us gifts from school? The Mother’s Day hearts, outlines of their hands to look like turkeys for Thanksgiving and the Father’s Day ash trays? Ash trays? Yeah ash trays. That’s what dads did back then, they smoked cigars. Handed ‘em out when the kids were first born. We come from a time when a bubble gum manufacturer thought it was a good idea to shred the gum, put it in a resealable pouch, and sell it like the bubble gum version of chewing tobacco. Big League Chew. I confess to stuffing a “chaw” between my cheek and gums on the softball field (to look like a big leaguer) until I realized that you can’t chew the damn stuff until you put it between your teeth. But that was then. As for now, I still have a laminated bookmark from my daughter and a NY Giants coaster from my son. Still use them.

Speaking of gifts, how about the gifts given in wills? There’s an Advertising Hall of Fame ad for Volkswagen back in 1969 (the days after Mad Men) featuring a long line of limos and, in the back, one young man driving a VW Beetle. The announcer reads the last will and testament of the deceased. I’ll spare you the full script but as you see the limos go by and the fat cats in the limos, the announcer says, “To my business partner Jules, whose motto was spend, spend, spend, I leave nothing, nothing, nothing. Finally, to my nephew Harold (the young man bringing up the rear of the procession in his VW), who said a penny saved is a penny earned, I leave my entire fortune of $100 billion dollars.” Now Sam wasn’t going to inherit anything like Harold’s $100 billion. John and I don’t even know how to write that amount down. Suffice it to say it’s a lot of zeros. So we (in the guise of Uncle Eddie) decided to give him a house in the country. Shellie doesn’t know from country. Green Acres here we come.

That’s it for this week. Have a terrific weekend in the country, unless you’re like Eva Gabor, in which case you want to tell us “Dahling I love you but give me Park Avenue,

Andy and John