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Bullish on Memories

by Ellen Glazer

I was out running recently and passed one of my acquaintances of the road. ”Can I join you?” he asked.

 “Sure. I haven’t seen you out much.”

”That’s because I’ve been away. I took my son to Spring training.” He sounded very excited and clearly wanted to tell me more.

Now I should stop for a moment and mention that this is a man who has other reasons to be away and other reasons to be excited. He’s a major player in the investment world and someone who is admired and respected in our community. But 5:30 a.m. runners rarely talk about day jobs.

”Your son will always remember the trip. When I was about his age my dad took me to the World Series. That was well over 40 years ago and I still remember it well.”

My acquaintance turned to me and said, “Your father got a great return on his investment.”

And indeed he did. It was an investment that appreciated over the years and then multiplied exponentially when I phoned him that morning to tell him of my running conversation. When we’d finished reminiscing about watching the Dodgers play the Yankees, I told him that I felt he’d had an even better return on a larger investment he made a few years later: a summer cruise to Scandinavia and Russia.

 ”Dad, I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but I remember details of that North Cape cruise in 1960.”
 
My father taught me at a very early age to be bullish on memories. When I found myself of an age to make comparable investments, I was quick to enter ”buy” orders. They began when my younger daughter, Mollie, was 12 and preparing for her bat mitzvah. She read Anne Frank’s diary.

”Would you like to visit Anne Frank’s house?”  I asked her.

”Sure.”

And so we planned a long weekend in Amsterdam. In three days we saw the Anne Frank house, the Ryksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, Rembrandt's house, the Portuguese synagogue and we visited some friends who were living in Leyden. We went to the tulip market, ate herring on the street, tried a Rifstaffel. I could go on with the list, but I think it’s already long enough to illustrate one of the reasons why I invest in memories. They are lasting and durable and appreciate over time.

The next year we went to Paris. At the time, some of my friends commented on how extravagant it was to go to Paris for the weekend. However, I saw things through a different lens--between the low winter airfares to Europe, the hotel “deals” and the guaranteed annualized return on my investment, I wasn’t sure I could afford to stay home.

This year Mollie and I went to Venice. Once again, we were treated to three days that made memories that we will draw upon in later years. Even as we sat in an outdoor cafe along the Grand Canal, we re-played memories of the warm, Spring-like days we enjoyed in Paris. And while we were exploring the charming, bright hued island of Burano, I drew upon my long-term holdings and told her about adventures her dad and I had had on the Greek Isles and in Crete 28 years ago.

Now I do not mean to suggest that the only way to invest profitably in memories is to pursue international travel. In fact, there are countless ways to diversify.

I have friends who own a vacation home in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Each summer they spend two weeks there with their children. They’ve been doing this since the children, who are now 17 and 21, were babies. I’ve watched over the years and see that the family has developed a routine. They spend days at the ponds and in the evenings, go square dancing, to the drive-in movies or play Pictionary with their Wellfleet friends, the “New Yorkers.”  I am certain that my friends’ kids have memories that will pay dividends for the rest of their lives.  

I have spent every Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s home for as long as I can remember. However, my portfolio of Thanksgiving memories increased in value when I began taking my daughters on this annual pilgrimage. Each year we battle the traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Garden State Parkway and arrive exhausted by the trip, but exhilarated to be back for yet another commotion-filled family dinner. On the drive home we laugh together about the year that my mother bought goldfish for everyone and the girls dropped one down the disposal or the time that one cousin said he was thankful for MTV.

And then there are times when one memory is spun off from another and becomes far more valuable than the original memory. That occurred for my daughters and me when we decided to meet my father and stepmother for dinner in New Haven, which is halfway between both of our homes. The outing probably would have left each of us with a small memory that had little chance of appreciation had it not been for the fact that we got lost in two cars en route to the restaurant.

The twists and turns of our extraordinary journey and reunion formed the foundation of an ever-appreciating memory. Each time that the girls recall “dinner at Leon’s” the story becomes entertaining.

On the flight home from Venice I finally got up the courage to check a newspaper and see how some of my less profitable investments did in four days that we were away. My spirits took a brief nosedive when I saw that my retirement funds were all the more depleted and for a few moments I looked back with regret on last April, remembering how rich I’d felt when the Nasdaq was soaring. Then I drew upon a memory that I had invested in serendipitously, but which has clearly been paying off: my brief run with the investment guru. I remembered that when I first encountered him, I had hoped he would offer me some wise investment advice. And indeed he did.

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