The Oppenheimer Report 7/25/16

As I discussed in an earlier report, I tend to buy my vehicles new and keep them for a long time. We put about 200,000 Km on our 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and then turned it in on a 2006 Acura MDX. Last week, we traded in the Acura for a 2016 Honda Pilot. These are similar cars, and they both feature the very reliable Honda 3.5 litre V6 motor, but the MDX was a “high performance” vehicle. This meant it required high test gas, something I won't miss. The Acura was a great car, especially in the heavy snow, but its time had come. Over the years, I have developed a sixth sense about when my cars are about to become very expensive to operate, and the MDX was approaching that stage. It was a relatively trouble free car for the ten years I owned it, but when the air-conditioning failed, that was a red flag. The car needed brakes, there were developing suspension problems, and the alternator, starter motor, radiator, etc. were likely to fail soon. I had briefly entertained the idea of repairing everything that was wrong or about to go wrong with the car, but then came to my senses. Some people advised me to sell the car on my own, because dealers never give us market value for our trade-ins. Years ago we did that with my mother-in-law’s car, an old Cadillac Seville that we mistakenly assumed was a valuable classic. We did ultimately sell the vehicle, but for only a fraction of what we thought it would fetch. Most of the potential buyers turned out to be flakes, or liars, or both. As well, the car had been sitting unused for a long time, and that is not good for any car. I vowed that I would never go through that experience again, if I could avoid it. The bozo who finally bought the car, for next to nothing, had the audacity to call my elderly mother-in-law up months later to say he felt he’d been ripped off, because the car needed a lot of work. We made no misrepresentations.Caveat emptor. I am reminded of a recent high profile news story about that guy in Hamilton, Ontario who was selling his pickup truck. He took two potential buyers out for a test drive and they murdered him in cold blood. The world is becoming a more dangerous place (just ask Donald Trump) and I don’t need to stack the deck by selling vehicles to strangers.

 

Sixteen years ago today, I penned a song entitled “Jordan” about an experience Shauna and I had, the day her 48 year-old brother Jordan passed away. At the time, Jordan was living in Toronto with his parents while he underwent treatment for a brain tumor. We were rushing back from Banff because we’d received a phone call that he'd taken a turn for the worse, and we wanted to get home to say goodbye. We did our best to make it home in time, and as we approached the outskirts of Winnipeg, in the early morning hours, there was a terrific storm. I’d never seen so much lightning. The sky was lit up almost constantly with strange, horizontal lightning bolts cracking the heavily clouded sky. Shauna was filming the spectacle on a Sony Handycam videotape recorder - the kind with a flip out screen for viewing - and during one flash of lightning she looked at me, as pale as a ghost, and told me she had seen Jordan clearly on the screen of the video camera. He seemed to be dancing in the clouds. Of course there was no evidence of this on the recording, but I know my wife, and I believe she saw what she saw. When we arrived at our hotel in Winnipeg, the clock in our room was flashing 5:16AM. A smoke alarm went off in the room, which was strangely coincidental, and we had the eerie feeling that these were all signs that he was gone. Sure enough, we learned several hours later that Jordan had passed away in the early morning, and although no one was in the room with him at the moment he passed, we could narrow the time down to between 5:15 and 5:30AM. When we finally got back to our apartment in Toronto, all the clocks in the apartment were blinking 5:16AM. How strange is that?

Next Sunday, weather permitting, I will play a set of my songs at the nearby Kearney Regatta. I have some new songs I want to try out on an audience, but as well I will be playing some of my older songs. My songs are like journal entries, and they reflect my state of mind at time they were written. I think I might play “Jordan”. I don’t think I have ever played that song to a live audience.

“… In Regina we bought those tee shirts, and it gave us both a laugh/ As we travel these roads you’re everywhere, your humor will ever last/ Some people say they saw you, you were dancing in the clouds/ Who knows where the illusion ends when the spirit cries out loud …”

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED