Horse Then Cart

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: horse, then the cart. Check.

In several posts on this blog, I’ve mentioned my longing for an Airstream trailer and the adventures I can see with my mind’s-eye. It’s like an itch that needs to be scratched. In one post, a year ago, I likened it, maybe over-dramatically, to a sort of siren’s call.

Also on this blog, I’ve recorded the fact that us Men of a Certain Age need a good hobby, or pastime; something that we can enjoy into our retirement years. At times I’ve felt some desperation in the fact that I don’t really have that; yet. Oh, I love hanging out with the Grand-Girls, in short bursts. Their energy level exceeds mine exponentially.

I like to read and write. I tried golf but it’s too expensive and makes me say really bad words; out loud.

I do love to travel, to see new things, to wander and wonder. It’s like Ellie said, in the wonderful movie, UP: “Adventure is out there!”

So, the dream of an Airstream is still alive and well and closer than ever before. But as my Amazing-Missus has lovingly pointed out to me several times: I tend to get my cart before my horse. The fact is that we’ve had neither horse nor cart. UNTIL NOW.

Yesterday we bought our horse, a new TV! That’s “tow vehicle” in nomad speak. After careful research, wailing and gnashing of teeth, we threw out a fleece, and went for it. Now we have a shiny, black Ford F150 Lariat with Ecoboost. This black beauty is rated at 9,000 GVWR. I’m not sure what that means but the chart says she will easily pull our Airstream (when we ever get one), me, Mimi, three Grand-Girls and all their MUST-haves: dolls, princesses, books, etc.

There she is: Our Black Beauty. We stopped by Elemental for a celebratory cup of coffee

I just finished reading, “The Power and The Glory” by Graham Greene. I highly recommend it. Towards the end of the book, Greene describes a man in the story this way: “He looked old and tired and bored—a man without a hobby.”

To all my friends of a Certain Age out there: let’s not be that guy.

P.S.: I highly recommend, If you’re shopping for a Ford for your adventure, go see Zack Thiel at England Ford in Hinton, Oklahoma. Zack is the antithesis of every stereotypical car salesman you could imagine. He very patiently walked with me through my always diligent and cautious and long process of making a big purchase. Thank you Zack. 

Having A Place

HOME SWEET HOME. You have to love a band that would call themselves Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. No doubt you've heard their music, at least the song called, "Home" with a chorus that says, "Home is wherever I'm with you." That's a sentiment I can appreciate.

I know for a lot of people having a place seems important. Maybe there's something agrarian in their blood, or maybe that's just normal. After all, some of mankind's earliest stories are about a people seeking a Promised Land. And now, a bazillion years later they're still fighting over whose dirt is whose.

On the other end of the spectrum is the "this earth is not my home, I'm only passing through" crowd; also a sentiment I can appreciate. Back in 1972, a guy named Larry Norman made a record called, "Only Visiting This Planet". He was an important person for me back then.

As I mentioned in a post a few days back called, Coming of Age in 1969, I was swept up in the whole "give peace a chance" deal. Larry was one of the catalytic characters for a bunch of us who wanted to shake things up and saw in Jesus a model we could identify with: universal love, pacifism, radical worldview, etc. So the "Jesus Freak" became a part of the counter-culture movement.

One of the prevailing themes of the day (at least in my memory of it) was to be good stewards and caretakers of this big round ball that is our temporary home. Communal living and farming became grand experiments in the new paradigm.

Today, there is something very familiar in the air (and I'm not talking about the air in Colorado and Washington). Every time I go to Whole Foods® for groceries, there's a wash of nostalgia--young guys with full beards and flannel shirts, young moms with a baby swaddled to themselves. There is one big difference though: back in the day, the girls wore long dresses and beads. Today they wear yoga pants (regardless of their size) and a North Face® pullover.

The magazines on the rack by the cashier have to do with organic cooking and raising chickens rather than the public and private lives of pop culture's finest. I'm a sucker for subliminal advertising and I will admit right here that if our fair city of Oklahoma City had passed a recent consideration to allow us gated-community suburbanites to raise a couple of chickens, I would be building my coop as we speak. It didn't pass.

And it's not just places like Whole Foods®. The other day I was in Lowes® home improvement store. On the rack with books about building your own deck or converting your den into a garage was a book on raising goats. This was something I know something about. I had a goat when I was young. His name was Cocoa. I'm not sure what ever happened to him. I don't remember seeing him after my Uncle David, who had lived for years in Corpus Christie introduced us to a delicacy called the fajita.

While I do enjoy having a place to call my own, I believe that Woody Guthrie was right; in a sense. "This Land Is Your Land; This Land Is My land" sort of; at least for a while longer. However, I would be perfectly happy to hook to the Airstream® (once we own one), and with my Amazing Missus head off on some nomadic adventure, swapping stories and good food in the wayfaring commune of other adventurers.

Airstream Funding: Creative Idea #1

If you read my last post, you know I've decided the only way to make the Airstream® dream a reality is to get creative with financing it. So here's the first idea. I should give credit where credit is due. The inspiration for this idea came from Abraham Simpson.

Create a tontine.

A tontine is an investment plan for raising capital, devised in the 17th century and relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th. It combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each subscriber pays an agreed sum into the fund, and thereafter receives an annuity. As members die, their shares devolve to the other participants, and so the value of each annuity increases. On the death of the last member, the scheme is wound up. In a variant, which has provided the plot device for most fictional versions, on the death of the penultimate member the capital passes to the last survivor. --from Wikipedia.

Here's how my tontine idea might work: I find 50 or so people looking for an investment opportunity. Each "investor" puts in $1,000 and they own one of fifty shares. I "lease" the Airstream from the tontine for $200 a month. 

          $200 / 50(investors)=$4 x 12(months)=$48. A 4.80% annual yield.

But who wants to make an investment that takes 20 plus years to break even? That's where the lottery fun comes in. Upon the death of each member of the tontine, their share divides among the remaining members.

So following the death of the first ten members:

          $200 / 40(investors)=$5 x 12(months)=$60. A 6.00% APY.

When half the members are gone the annual yield becomes 8.00%. And so on. Basically we go to a funeral then recalculate our earnings.

Upon my death, assuming I'm not the last to die, the Airstream is sold. The proceeds are invested in an interest-bearing account agreed upon by the remaining members. Members continue to take their annual piece of the earnings pie at the end of each year. Obviously the pieces of the earnings pie get bigger with each and every death.

Upon the death of the last remaining member, the balance in the account will be given to a previously-agreed-upon charity like Compassion International. Why would the proceeds not go to the last remaining member or his designee? Well, historically, tontines are known to result in a few coincidental, untimely deaths--perhaps people vying for that coveted last-to-die position?

One of the huge upsides of the plan is all the old pharts in the group will want to take better care of themselves since their return improves as they survive the deaths of other members. 

Obvious question: Isn't a travel trailer a lousy investment.

Not so obvious answer: If we're talking SOBs (Some Other Brand); yes, that would be true. But we're talking Airstream. They hold their value extremely well and in fact, once they reach "vintage" status at 20 years old, they actually begin to increase in value. Of course all that only matters if I'm not the last to die.

Let me know if you're interested. You have to be my age or older to play. ;-)

Creativity As Capital

What does it always come down to? Money! Or does it? Mostly yes, but it doesn't have to. If only I could get that message to the elected who are constipating our nation. (Oops, I almost slipped into political commentary there.) And here at About POPS we leave that exercise in futility to other forums.

Yesterday, we (I) returned from our favorite Ford dealership forlorn. It's not the fault of our favorite father/son sales team or Alan Mullally. They did all they could. But the reality is that the "TV" we need exceeds our budget. (I didn't know until recently that "TV" in RV parlance means "Tow Vehicle".

You see in my dream-scheme to have an Airstream® I was thinking only about which Airstream would be best for the vision I had. A few times during the search, I've said out loud, "This is the one; and look, it's a great deal!" Several times we've actually gone to walk through, kick the tires, and picture ourselves sitting next to a cold, clear stream, with rainbow trout jumping and the grandgirls frolicking nearby.

My Amazing-Missus reins me back to reality. "Aren't you getting the cart before the horse?" she says. "More accurately, why are you shopping for a cart when you don't even have a horse to pull it?"

That reality is why we were at the Ford dealership. Now, to my friends who sell and/or are loyal to other brands, let me explain that the decision to look at Fords was based on extensive Googling about the best TV to have. Consensus is that the Ford F-150 with an Eco-Boost V6, trailer-towing package and a 3.55:1 axle is the way to go. Turns out that even though we're in the "final days" of something called "The Ford Built Tough Sales Event," I would still have to finance the thing beyond my life-expectancy to be able to afford the payments.

If I knew for sure that those radio evangelists you pick up in the small numbers of your AM dial were right about their take on the "Final Days", I would tell our sales-guys, "We'll take a His and Hers pair." I'll pull, she can push.

To be honest, I found the budget hill so formidable that I actually told my Amazing-Missus I was dropping this dream along with the one about seeing the Beatles play live, and the one about hanging out in a English pub with The Inklings, and the one about living in a Chicago loft overlooking Lake Michigan...

Our Amazing Daughter-in-Law called while we were Ford F-150 shopping, so she knew what we were up to. Later she texted to see how the search went. I explained to her that it looked like the dream was being dashed against the rocks of that beautiful shoreline, I had dreamt of camping beside some day.

Apparently she shared with our oldest grandgirl, Karlee, that our budget was short. Karlee told her, "I will give Pops all the money in my piggy-bank if he will only take me to Walt Disney World in the Airstream."

Exchanging my dream for one less-expensive is one thing. But when my grandgirl has the vision too, how can I give up now?!

So to my premise that money is not always the problem; lack of creativity is, I'm going to have to get creative big time. It's going to take all my creativity and the contents of Karlee's piggy bank to make this dream reality.

Walt Disney World: here we come!

Stay tuned to hear the results of the creative brainstorming. And by all means, if you have any ideas, bring them on.