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A Columnist's Life is Never Dull
By Stephen J. Butler Archives

I have just enjoyed my third anniversary of writing this column. I'm surprised at how enjoyable the experience has been. A cynical view of financial journalism holds that there are only about eight basic subjects to write about. Interest rates, the folly of market timing, and keeping costs low are examples of the fundamentals that most stories lead to in one form or another. When asked to write initially, I jotted down a list of a dozen column ideas and assumed that my well would run dry after a few months. Well, that was 156 columns ago.

Fortunately, truth is stranger than fiction. We can't possibly dream up the events that happen in the financial world. My approach, for those who wonder if I have one, is to take these events and relate them in some way back to an investment fundamental. Some events happen in my own life, so I don't have to wait until they happen to someone else. My efforts as an owner and operator of a business in the financial services industry offers an insider's perspective that is useful to me as a financial writer.

My own entertainment is also a factor when deciding what to write about or what to say. A column really succeeds, in my mind, when I can think of something humorous as a lead-in or as a way to make a point. Any treatment of otherwise dry financial material needs to be entertaining to prompt most people to stay with the article long enough to get the point. A reader once offered what for me was the ultimate compliment when he said, "Steve, considering your subject matter, I find your columns to be surprisingly pleasant to read." If I could choose an epitaph someday, it would say, "He was a financial humorist."

I'm billed as a "Retirement Planner," so all columns have to relate in some way to information that is useful to those of us planning for, or enjoying, retirement. In many cases, that connection between the subject matter and retirement planning may be connected by a very thin thread?or, as a friend once put it, "a toehold of rationale." I certainly don't need much. My motorcycle trip to Mexico became a lesson on why so many Americans would do well to retire there. My story about the life of my late father-in-law was an object lesson in how to live an exemplary life.

And finally, I'm proud to say that some of my best friends are members of "The Establishment," and they offer plenty of grist for the mill. Some of them I would even describe as being "way up there," and they know who they are. So, I sometimes feel a little guilty, frankly, when I embrace a subject that could rub anyone the wrong way. In the end, however, a column that might be controversial has to satisfy the dictates of my conscience by conveying information that, in my mind, generates the greatest good for the greatest number.

My efforts amount to a teaching exercise, and anything we do in the way of teaching others can be immensely satisfying. In Villain's book, "Adaptation to Life" he wrote about the W.T. Grant study which has followed 400 healthy college students through life for over sixty years. What the study has found is that people in their fifties and older have worked out their personal relationships and have achieved most of their professional goals. The greatest sense of accomplishment for this older group comes from sharing what they know by mentoring or teaching others. Those preparing for retirement should keep this in mind. Teaching is an extremely valuable contribution, and it is a great way to spend a portion of retirement years.

Teaching, as such, does not necessarily mean a formal classroom setting. In many ways, older people can strengthen the fabric of society by teaching us all about our "roots." My mother-in-law often bemoaned the fact that we lived in California and far from the East Coast. She felt that her grandchildren would never fully appreciate the strong points of their heritage. She made enough of the point over the years so that we were probably more conscious of our ancestry than would have been the case if our "roots" had lived next door.

In a similar vein, at an aunt's funeral recently, I learned a lot more about my maternal grandfather than I had ever known in the past. His name was Anton Kaukonen. As an immigrant from Finland, he earned his American citizenship by fighting in the Spanish American War. He was a great equestrian and fought in the battle of San Juan Hill alongside Teddy Roosevelt. I learned that Anton never drank, but he spent a lot of time playing poker in a South Dakota gold mining town where he worked --- and especially on ocean voyages back and forth to Finland. This, we surmise, was how he managed to accumulate enough money to buy a farm in Vermont for his young family. There, he taught men in the Finnish community how to speak English and how to gain citizenship. While active in politics, he became a good friend of fellow Vermonter and future president, Calvin Coolidge.

Hearing stories like this prompts me to try a little harder. We all have people back on our family trees that we can be proud of and can emulate to some extent. We just need someone unencumbered by short-term memory to fill in the details that they recall hearing about in the distant past.

This column, then, is about sharing what we know. Older people have progressively more to offer. Younger generations need to hear these stories about the Great Generation of World War II vintage and the other generations of the turn of the Century. "Speak softly and carry a big stick" was the Teddy Roosevelt maxim that probably applies today. The more our older generations share, the less we will need to reinvent the wheel.