Dear Matthew:
The actuarial tables on mortality give you the best chance of anyone on Earth today of living long enough to see the Mets win another World Series. That's probably also true for the Rangers winning another Stanley Cup, since they seem to do that in 54 year intervals and they're already 29 years into the next interval. Hang on. I'm trying as well.
Unfortunately no one on Earth today is going to live long enough to see the Jets even get into the Super Bowl, let alone win one.. It's just a fact of life. Do not become a Jets fan unless you want a glimpse of Taylor Swift.
Joe Biden is your first president. For grandpa and grandma, he is the 14th president so far in their lifetimes. We always live in interesting times.
Do not be discouraged by who is president. Basically, half the people in the United States did not vote for any president who gets into office. If you're annoyed at who is in office, hang out with the other half.
Forget who the vice president is. Vice presidents are only important in banking.
Your first car will likely be an electric vehicle handed down from your parents. Your fossil grandparents will still be driving a fossil-fueled vehicle. Whether they will be able to get gas for this vehicle will be in doubt, but your grandfather is a resourceful guy. There may be a dangerous supply of gasoline stored in the backyard shed. He careful.
You will probably live your whole life in the United States. That's the good news. The other news is that if you work on the books you will pay taxes. LOTS of taxes.
Geographically, the United States has good neighbors. To the north is Canada, a quiet country that exports oil and hockey players. Canada is never going to start lobbing missiles at the United States, nor we to them.
To the south is Mexico, a bit of a problem. Their food makes for great take-out places and we seem to love their beer, but their border proximity to the United States to the north and the rest of Central and South American to the south makes the country a great place to enter the country illegally. Mexico exports huge amounts of illegal drugs into this country. When you become my age, all these things will still be going on.
And as for the rest of the world, there will always be worries. Conflict will always be the one word to sum up the affairs of the world. First off, Israel is never happy. Your grandfather looked up the front page of the New York Times for the day he was born in 1949, and there was a story of how unhappy they were with something. This pattern will continue.
Russia, the former Soviet Union will always be a problem. along with China over playing nice in the global sandbox. Do not expect this to change. Read the news, but filter out the noise. The world is always a noisy place.
By the time you graduate college, Elon Musk will be living on Mars, and there will be those who will be happy about this, including Elon, but particularly his ex-wives..
There will not be a single day in your life that someone will not utter the two words "global warming." Since you were born last Saturday we have had lots of rain, a tremendous amount of rain that is being blamed on global warming. There are those who are going to tell you we have to keep this from ever happening again. Pay no attention to anyone who says "we have to keep this from happening again." About anything. Everything happens again.
The New York Times in today's online front page paints the gloomy picture that storms are getting worse because of global warming. We got 8" of rain yesterday, which is a lot of rain. But the power stayed on, and no one died.
The record we nearly broke was set in 1882 when there was a then record of 16.85" of rain in the month of September. This September we've logged 13.95". Things must have been pretty hot in 1882. Once upon a time the Earth was covered in ice. It's melted over the millions of years of its existence.
Be careful of reading the NYT. It always paints a gloomy picture. It's not a bad paper, but you've got to have a filter when you're reading it.
Do not take any preposterous bets in a bar if someone bets you that they can make something seemingly impossible happen. As the advice goes in Guys and Dolls, if someone tells you they can make cider squirt out of a deck of cards, DO NOT take this man's bet, because that man will surely make cider squirt out of a deck of cards.
Your parents are very much into the recreational sports of running, swimming, biking and paddle boarding. A triathlon is in your future. Your mother already did one, along with several marathons and open ocean water swims. Your father has competed in bike races and auto races. Be prepared to sweat. They love you very much. We all do.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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