Golf with "The Preppies"

I made my annual pilgrimage to the Land of Good and Plenty over Labor Day weekend.  Every year I go to stay with my former tennis student Jon and his family in Chappaqua, New York.  Yeah, that one.  These days it’s famous as the alleged legal residence of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Yeah, them. 

Each year I get to catch up with Jon and another friend Jim, who played tennis for me when I was the coach at Yale.  They were assistant pros for me at a country club in Connecticut more than 30 years ago and back then  I affectionately referred to them as “my preppies.”  Jim was a solid college tennis player but Jonny was a stud.  He was a former #1 for Princeton and the only player ever to beat John McEnroe in high school.  I was his coach back then and I thought he could be a world champ in tennis someday.  But Jon was also highly intelligent, and while he was a college sports star, he went into the business world where he’s a highly-paid Certified Financial Analyst.  Jim works in finance for a major American company.

I have not a shred of doubt that both of “my preppies” are far more intelligent than I am.  They had better fundamental educations, went to better schools, achieved more and by any metric they have been more successful financially.  Hell, I think one of them clears twice as much in a month as I make in a year!

But I’m not stupid, and when, during the back nine of our annual golf outing the topic turned to Obama, I was ready.  Perhaps too ready.  Jim started.  “Should we talk about Obama now, or wait until dinner?”  “What about him,” I asked.  Jim said, “is he not more liberal than anyone thought?”  I asked, “what’s he done, exactly?  He said he wants universal health care.  It’s the same thing he said during the campaign.  So far as I can tell, he hasn’t done anything.”  Perhaps I was a tad defensive.  Jon chimed in.  “All I can say is if my taxes go up anymore I don’t care.  If people can’t afford health insurance, that’s too bad.”

That’s when I got pissed.  “Really?  And when George Bush was spending $2.5 billion a week to blow up Iraq and charging it to your grandkids, what did you say?  I don't remember hearing anything for all those years.  You’re a smart guy.  What do you say to the jerks who gambled away our pension funds and 401k’s because they wanted to be billionaires?  What have you said to them?”  Jon sort of chuckled and said, “some of them are in jail.” 

Now I was yelling.  “Some?!  Some?  No, in fact nearly all of the greedy bastards who put this country in a hole and ruined the retirements of millions of little people who played by the rules, nearly all those bastards are playing golf right now on courses like this one!!” 

That’s when Jim asked me to keep it down.  He was right, of course, but so was I and he knows it.  These guys know the players far better than I do, and what little I know I don’t like very much.  I know Bernie Madoff's kids are still at large.  I know that a former Treasury Secretary has a son who is also in the financial community.  Now, is this kid smart in his own right, as he should be to play with billions of dollars?  Or is he just the beneficiary of a famous name?  I know a former tennis pro who now manages a hedge fund and probably makes $10 million a year.  I know this guy well and he doesn’t have a brain in his head.  But he married the daughter of a billionaire and, voila!  Expertise!  Really? 

They both made very solid points about their opposition to various spending plans, and they do know more about money than I do.  But when I was there last year, neither one of them warned me about the coming stock market crash or Bernie Madoff.

Still, I’m not in the least worried about the country in the hands of people like my friends.  They are extremely smart, and while we disagree on the health care thing they're essentially one-issue conservatives.  Around here, that one issue is usually abortion.  With them, it’s taxes.  Frankly, I appreciate their position.  They are in that upper whatever percent of the people who make more than $350,000 a year.  Their taxes will go up.  I get why they’re pissed.

But as for the rest of it, they’re much like me.  They want more gun control, and they want freedom of choice.  Oh, and one more thing we have in common.  Neither of them ever listens to Rush, either….