The Writer's Life 6/6 - Contrast

On this day in 1944, young men, many in their teens, thousands of miles from home, sacrificed their lives in the cause of freedom in the bloodbath that was the D-Day landing. That is one of the reasons those guys have been dubbed The Greatest Generation.

I once had the mistaken notion that athletes were heroic. While their feats are impressive and they face injury constantly, death in the sports arena, unlike in combat, is rare. These days many have become political even while on the job. There's an old football cliche: "There's no "I" in team. With so many of the Philadelphia Eagles bailing on a White House appearance in order to diss President Trump, I guess the adage no longer applies. It seems there are now a lot of "I's" in team. I always thought bringing championship teams to DC for a photo-op was silly, transparent and useless. I hope this is the end of that practice. It is interesting that so many black athletes are staunchly anti-Trump when black unemployment is the lowest its ever been. Is that irony?

Think parking is tough in NYC? According to the Weird But True column in today's NY Post, a guy in Hong Kong paid $760,000 for a single space at his apartment complex.

Here's a buy signal for stocks. I just received trade confirmation from Fidelity that Twitter hit my target of $40. I was surprised, since it had tanked from above $35 to below $25 shortly after I'd put in the order. I'd stopped tracking it, thinking it futile. I'm glad I didn't cancel the order. Given my history, I expect it to keep rising. I'd bought it at $30, so I made more than 30% profit on it stretching out over three years or so, just short of a grand in terms of dollars, peanuts really. A nice win, but I'd had visions of it soaring immediately, given its billions of users and the way certain stocks, like Tesla, breakout despite a lack of profits. That was the second bit of unexpected good news I'd received from Fidelity this week. I always respond to its requests to fill out surveys. I was rewarded a $20 Amazon GC, which I will store with those I earn doing other surveys, and use the sum to buy copies of my tenth book, which I plan to self-publish in January.

My thanks to the gentleman who parked his bicycle and purchased a bio of Jack Johnson, recently pardoned by President Trump (Why hadn't Obama done it?); and to the Frenchman, who bought Deposition 1940-1944: A Secret Diary of Life in Vichy France by Léon Werth and David Ball; and to the elderly woman who chose Ann Rule's true crime Every Breath You Take; and to the gentleman who selected a book on personal finances; and to the woman who capped off the session by buying two Mary Higgins Clark thrillers as I was packing up.

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