I don’t know soooo much about businesses other than my own… and I keep proving this to myself… I’m continually amazed to be in this part of life, and in this branch of show-business, I feel LUCKY and I even wake up and still feel like Jed Clampet, in the Beverly Hillbilly’s song, where I once “barely kept his family fed…” and then found “black gold” in comedy… maybe not as lucrative (I can only visit Beverly Hills…) But I’ve been doin’ it a while; more than 25 years and haven’t starved YET…
But I still surprise myself, when it comes to silliness… Case in point, a few years ago, I bought a Walt Disney autograph at an estate sale… it was in a book of photos, and it wasn’t expensive… and I thought I’d take a chance… there was a story with it, and I thought OK “roll the dice.”
It’s taken me several years (later) to finally have the time and the autograph in my hand and the foresight to get this appraised, especially as Walt Disney autographs (if you’re into such things) have appreciated and are at the height of their value… (Well, it turns out they’re valuable ONLY if they’re real…) and mine wasn’t… According to the expert it was a “bad fake” as if “fake” wasn’t enough, I had to be duped by a “bad” one… And I mean, it wasn’t in crayon, it was spelled correctly, it’s not THAT bad, just, I guess one that looked unlike any other time Walt Disney had ever signed his name. Maybe he was observing “left handed” day, NO??? RATS, was all I could think of to say, (well I thought of other words but my Blog is PG…) Darn, after such high hopes and careful safe-keeping for ALL these years…
I guess even in the little things, when something seems “too good to be true” it most often is. You don’t buy something for $20 dollars, that’s worth $2,000 USUALLY. (But later that same day I read about a guy who bought a Picasso print for $14 at a thrift store that no one knew was a Picasso until he re-framed it and Picasso’s name was at the bottom of the picture…) It’s stories like that that keep the garage sale “illicit autograph” trade in business, oh wait, maybe it’s gullible, sentimental, feeling lucky peeps like me that keep ‘em in business.
Anyhow, there are bright spots, I didn’t spend $1,000 to try to make $2,000… that would’ve sent me to a bitter lesson spot, rather than a “life’s sometimes funny” — ‘slightly less bitter’ spot. And after this life lesson, I get on a plane to fly to my usual work these days… a cruise. And the boat leaves from a town where some old friends live. In keepin’ in touch with them I mention that I’m getting in late and it turns out they’re comin’ back into town from their trip at the same time, and we go out to a nice and VERY late dinner and catch up…
We laugh at old stories that haven’t been told in a while, and just sit in that comfortable time that is what long time friendship should be made of. Something you read about in books, something that takes all the disappointment and bitterness out of a day, even a whole weekend. And it happens often when I get together with old (and getting older… sigh) pals… Sometimes, I guess, “too good to be true,” doesn’t apply when you’re talking about friends…