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Anatol Berkman Balbach. Welcome to what is naively called the leisure class. And kiss your leisure good-bye: You had that by working for the Fed. Retirement? No, you've shed that and now you're on your own time as you rush from here to there, no longer working under the 5:00 o'clock mentality. You and Rae have shed one taskmaster for another. But there is some good news. You are now old--a senior citizen or "senile" as I like to say. You'll get senior discounts at restaurants and hotels and theaters, but not from doctors or hospitals. You'll get haircuts that are overpriced.
By the way, I'11 offer you some advice. Because the capital value of us old people is very small--we've got a short life expectancy--we lose little by breaking our contracts and commitments. You may therefore wonder why I am here even though I promised to come. Well, I'd really planned to call at the last minute and say, "I'm sorry I have to go to the hospital to have an angiogram and I can't make it." I've done that twice already at other places and it's a good excuse. So who'd I come? Rae--she's the one. She's smarter than you or me. She knew what I was going to do, so she phoned me about a month ago and said, "I got a golf date for you on Friday afternoon at Bellerive." That's why I'm here.
Enough about me and about the wisdom of maturity. You, Ted, were born in Konigsburg, Germany, on October 31, 1927, Halloween's day, a mother's trick-or-treat. We are glad to know now that it was a treat. As a youth I understand you were drafted into the labor camp and you shoveled stuff from here to there learning about comparative advantage. But then something remarkable happened I'm told. You, in another labor camp, met your mother quite by surprise. I think that's right--a story we have to hear sometime. You came with her as displaced per. sons to Los Angeles because of the prevalence in that area of some earlier relatives, immigrant relatives. Los Angeles still is a haven for refugees and in many ways is better for it. Driving from the west side of Los Angeles, where...