It's All About Me...: With Opinions, History and Amusing Stories from a "Wall Street" Career

Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

Several people have asked me why I was writing a book and I’m not sure if I have a good answer. I’ve never published an article or a blog, much less a book, but I have always felt I was a decent storyteller, a decent joke teller and a decent writer. I thought the combination of these three might add up to an entertaining book.

I also feel blessed with a life that, although not particularly unusual or distinguished, has been quite interesting and filled with many funny incidents. At first, I was hesitant to write about them because I knew these incidents were interesting and funny to me, but as a writer, one wonders if they will be interesting and funny to the reader. I ran a couple of chapters by several people from various different fields of endeavor and the chapters seemed to resonate with them so I pushed on.

I have also read many biographies, many of which were just not that interesting. I figured that instead of reading about the boring life of a celebrity, I would write a book and attempt to become a celebrity myself (just kidding). As you will see, the book is autobiographical in nature, a collection of stories and antidotes. I can verify that all of the episodes are true, particularly since most of them involved me directly.

I’ve met some famous people along the way and some infamous people along the way, particularly in the Wall Street arena. I use mostly fictitious names in this book which should keep me out of legal trouble, but people in the public domain are obviously fair game.

After a bit of my background and a couple of high school and college stories I get into the main focus of the book – my time spent in the Financial Industry. After one purely informational chapter (8), I move on to the gist of the book, some tales from my career. I hope you will appreciate my insights into the workings of Wall Street, but mostly I hope you enjoy a laugh or two from the stories.

CHAPTER 2

Growing Up in Glenview

I have lived in the Chicago area my entire life except for four years at the University of Illinois in Champaign. My Dad’s side of the family is mostly German, despite the English last name of Hill. Family lore has it that an English shipbuilder moved to Germany hundreds of years ago. There is also some Irish thrown in the mix from his mother’s side whose family had also emigrated to Germany. My Mom is also part German but also part Polish and Russian.

I recently found out that when my great-grandfather, Peter Hill arrived in the States he was listed as Swedish but this was due to the anti-German sentiment which existed in the late 1800s. He was German, but he had to swear allegiance to the King of Sweden in order to enter the country. My Grandfather, Matthew (nee Mathias) Hill, was a religious brother for several years at St. Mary’s in Dayton Ohio, the predecessor of the current Dayton University.

The religious brotherhood at that time offered a scholarship to college in return for a four-year commitment to the brotherhood after college. (Religious brothers are a notch below priests in the Catholic hierarchical pecking order). Both my grandfather and his brother accepted the deal and Matthew eventually became as a math professor. He also coached the undefeated St. Mary’s football team which was mentioned as National Champs in the years just after the turn of the last century. Eventually he quit the brotherhood and married.

My parents, Helen and Jerry, were practicing Catholics which resulted in eight children. I have six sisters and a brother who passed from cancer in 2005. There are 42 first cousins in my generation just on my Dad’s side and I have another 25 or so cousins out East from my Mom’s side most of whom I have never met. They live in the New Jersey/New York/ Connecticut area.

My parents met at a USO dance near my Mother’s house in New Jersey when my Father was stationed nearby during World War II before heading overseas. They married after the war in 1946 in New Jersey and proceeded to Chicago. After owning a house on the Northwest side, they moved to Glenview in 1951, the year I was born. We soon outgrew the three-bedroom ranch home and moved to a larger home that they had built directly behind us on the next street.

Glenview had a population of just over six thousand in the 1950 census. Much of it was still farmland and open prairies. We lived near a small creek and had a lot of fun just exploring nature. One of our greatest pleasures as lids was eating the freshly picked corn that we bought from Mr. Melzer, the delightful old farmer who lived on the corner of Shermer Road and Central Road.

To this day I am baffled as to how my parents managed to raise eight kids! They had their first six children in seven years with a total of eight kids in twelve years. We all got along for the most part. Not surprisingly, before my oldest sister got married, my Father pulled her aside and told her if she was considering the rhythm method of birth control, he had found that it did not work for him and Mom.

I remember a couple of funny incidents from my childhood, three of which involved one of my younger sisters. My parents turned down their bed one night and discovered that the bottom corner of their blanket was missing a piece. The missing part was about 8 by 10 inches and had been cut out with a scissors. Since they were certainly puzzled, they started asking us kids questions and eventually they solved the mystery. My three-year-old sister had decided that her doll was too cold at night because she didn’t have a blanket. She thought that since Mom and Dad were so nice they would be happy to share part of theirs.

Another night we were all sitting on the front steps checking out the heavens. Back then, pre-smog, you could see a lot more stars. I remember seeing the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) as a child. On this particular night the Moon was full and glowing just above the horizon. Several of us commented on how cool it looked, appearing larger and brighter than usual. My little sister, stared up in awe and trying to be one of the gang she announced, Yeah, the Moon’s really cool. But she went on to ask Where is it? One other time we were talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. This sister declared that she wanted to be the Easter Bunny. Pretty smart choice if you like candy!

But the best three-year-old kid story happened to my neighbors. They had a 3-year-old girl, Alexandra, who was quite verbally advanced for her age. They were from Minnesota and had driven back to visit Grandpa and Grandma. The grandparents had a birthday party the night before with some balloons as decorations. As my neighbors pulled into the garage, they ran over a balloon, which produced the obvious loud pop. Little Alexandra said, What the fuck was that? Of course, both parents blamed the other for using the word in her presence.

We all went to Catholic school in Glenview at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The parish is a very impressive physical plant which was built under the leadership of Rev. John Dussman, pastor from 1934 to 1971. He raised money by raffling off homes in Glenview. The church, a New England colonial-style red brick was built in 1953 for one million dollars. The altar and communion rail are made of imported marble from Italy. There is a large convent and a rectory modeled after Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate in Virginia. The parish also has a building known as the Playdium which has an indoor swimming pool, a roller rink, a stage and classrooms. JFK spoke there during his 1960 Presidential campaign.

Fortunately for us, in those days they had a family tuition rate since six of us were going there at one time. The parish school had close to 2,000 kids in it. My first grade class numbered 60 kids. It’s no wonder that the nun from my first grade class flipped out several years later.

My brother and I both won scholarships to Notre Dame High School. A fairly good student, I joined in various activities, including some athletics. I also played French horn which I didn’t particularly like. My father and I made a deal that I could quit band if I didn’t like it after one year.

If you know a typical orchestra set-up, the French horns are toward the front. In the far back are drums and other brass instruments like tubas and trombones. During one of my first sessions with the band, there was a trombone solo during a particular piece. The tone quality of the player was so spectacular that I literally turned around to see who could play that well. It was Jim Pankow who later went on to fame in the band Chicago. Incidentally, he is the older brother of the actor John Pankow whose most famous role was Cousin Ira on Mad About You (with Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt). Nine kids in their family from Park Ridge.

The band at Notre Dame High School was nationally acclaimed, particularly the jazz band called the Melodons. The director was Fr. George Wiskirchen who later directed the jazz band at Notre Dame University and wrote several books on how to teach jazz. The Melodons were so good that they actually performed with both Count Basie’s and Stan Kenton’s orchestras. Despite the band’s excellence, I quit after freshman year.

Sophomore year I decided to go out for football. I’m not sure why since I was rather small at the time and did not possess a killer attitude (I was a bit of a weenie). To put my talent in perspective, I had played a couple years in grade school, but I had never gotten into an actual game after sixth grade. But football was a huge sport at Notre Dame and I found myself as the sixth string quarterback on the sophomore team. Literally.

I managed to creep up the depth chart, but it was through no effort of mine own. The coaches switched the second string Quarterback to wide receiver, the third string quarterback to halfback and after a couple of injuries, presto, I was second string. I actually got in a couple of blowout games.

Making the second string was important because one day a week, the first and second-string sophomores scrimmaged the varsity. We ran the plays for the next week’s opponent from the scouting reports, which the coaches had drawn up.

At the time, Notre Dame High School was a football powerhouse. The class ahead of ours never lost a football game. They won every freshman game, every sophomore game and finished with two ties during their junior and senior seasons.

It was around the sixth game of my sophomore year and the varsity was in the second year of a streak of 22 straight games without a loss. Not only that, the first string defense was pitching a shutout for the year – no one had scored a point on them, not even a field goal.

Imagine the varsity’s surprise when the second string sophomores ran for a touchdown on the first play from scrimmage. I think the varsity, who must have outweighed us by 40 pounds a man, felt sorry for us (I weighed in at 130 lbs. at the time). But the head varsity coach didn’t feel sorry for us. He lit into the defense with all guns blazing. I’m sure that speech set a record for F-bombs which wasn’t broken for years.

The middle linebacker at that time was a junior named Greg Luzinski who went on to an All-Star baseball career with the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago White Sox. He was considered the best high school baseball prospect since Mickey Mantle according to the Sporting News which is revered as the Bible of baseball opinion.

He routinely hit home runs so far that people just gawked. (In four years with the White Sox he hit the roof at the old Comisky Park three times). But as good as he was in baseball, many people think he was an even better football player who could have made the Football Hall-of-Fame.

He started at fullback and middle linebacker for the varsity when he was only a sophomore. He was also the punter. Every major college in the country wanted him. He was the most powerfully built athlete you could imagine. And now he was angry.

Our sophomore center at the