Summer days bring back childhood memories, and 1969 was one of my more memorable ones.
My father changed careers from running his own accounting practice to becoming a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc. The change was exciting but a hardship for the family as he was committed to a three-month training program in New York City, 3,800 km away.
To soften the loss of having my father away, our family decided to join him for one of the three months. This resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Dad rented an apartment in Hoboken for the month we visited. We gave up the grassy backyard and running through the sprinkler for a two-bedroom high-rise apartment with a swimming pool.
Reflecting on my mother’s resilience, she temporarily became a single parent with four children ranging from ages five to 10. She single-handedly took us by train from Calgary to New York over a six-day journey. We were blessed to have a porter that took a shine to our family and would shepherd us off the train every chance he got to let us run off our energy. We successfully arrived in New York with one very exhausted mother.
This was a summer of change. Some notable events included Neil Armstrong walking on the moon and Woodstock (I was too young to attend). Calgary’s population was 374,000 in 1969 and New York city was over 16 million! We were definitely country bumpkins. We spent the summer sightseeing and being in awe of the skyscrapers and the kaleidoscope of humanity.
Little did I know that I was catching the stock market bug. At the ripe age of 10, I understood the Dow Jones index was an average of a basket of stocks. Several years later, I took a summer job in Toronto working in the back office of an international stock brokerage firm. The job was tedious. But in hindsight was my entry to this industry. I sorted and filed paper stock certificates from all over the world. I physically settled trades with the Toronto Stock Exchange. These are all transactions that take place electronically now. The memory of once a month counting the stock certificates to “balance the box” and working to midnight is a thing of the past.
Did I decide to enter the investment industry at the age of 10 … probably not. Looking back on this memorable summer, I realize it was part of my heritage, my father’s legacy, shaping who I would become.
