When the 21 Club announced that it was yet another casualty of Covid-19, I thought about that special lunch in August of 2018 when Flo and I - with several other Gotham members - enjoyed the rare experience of eating in the restaurant’s once secret underground dining room.During the years of Prohibition, the “privileged” of New York could still partake with their meals in the safety of the 21 Club’s special dining room.

How are you defining success in 2021? My story begins in December of 2020. Picture a make-shift she-shed with all the beautiful trimmings. Mirrored desk, with large double monitors, complete with a fancy media light to give proper, Hollywood lighting to those Zoom and WebEx calls.This money manager has been holding many family fortunes in place, like a ballast in the throws of a horrific storm, tossed in the economic cesspool of a pandemic and political quagmire.

  My blog today is short. Mostly because I am trying to keep it within the rules and to keep my sentiment from sounding political. But I just can’t write about anything else.

I wrote this blog before the events of last week with the intention of posting it today. After the events of last week, I seriously considered holding this blog back. But my intended message is important and not intended, at all, to address current events.  

I often look back at what I drafted the previous year before I compose the instant blog.  Peaking at that 2020 commentary really focused on the contrast in how we live today, still under a Pandemic but hopefully vaccinated, or on the verge of receiving this protective measure.

A fortune cookie provided by my local Chinese take out with my dinner the other night read:     "If you don't enjoy what you have, how could you be happier with more?"   That is so true. I was enjoying reflecting on this statement when I turned it over and it said "Please disregard all previous fortunes."

Did you ever notice a circular scar on someone’s arm or leg?  When I was young such scars were visible and common due to the mid 20th century need for smallpox vaccinations. To my knowledge such scars are not caused by a coronavirus vaccination. 

When my children were born, I saved a copy of the New York Times from their birthday. I’m not sure what eventually happened to those copies over the many years but I remember showing it to them as they grew up. On Tuesday, my daughter gave birth to her second child - our newest grand-daughter.