Way to go Leonard

Those were the words of encouragement that Hank Stram bestowed upon his Super Bowl MVP Quarterback Lenny Dawson and now 50 years later the Chiefs Kingdom once again reigns.....as happy as I am for the Chiefs (my childhood heroes ) it does make me feel old.......it didn’t help that super bowl week saw the passing of two men I have great admiration and respect for.

Larry M Waterhouse Jr; the founder of Waterhouse Securities, passed away in Florida on January 24th.  Larry treated EVERYONE with dignity and respect and insisted that anyone who worked for Waterhouse did the same. He taught us that we had the ability to work harder than our competitors, all we needed was the desire.....he said on one of our earliest management trips in Las Vegas “ trust me and stay with this firm and we will All be rich” and I did and we were. He asked us to “ do the right thing “ before it was a cliche and insisted that we always put ourselves in the customers shoes. He was a Marine and I was proud to work with him...I wrote him letter of thanks when I resigned after 10 years and although he was retired, he wrote me back a 3 page handwritten letter Thanking me. ( enough said)

And on the eve of the Super Bowl Mr John “Jake” Woods ( Coach) passed away in Bayridge. Mr. Woods was my guidance counselor at Xaverian High School and it was a unique situation because I was also friends with his children ( especially Danny) Thankfully he never held that against me.....he worked hard my senior year to get me accepted into the Accounting program at Baruch and I know he was disappointed when I decided to instead go to St Franks.....”good luck with that “ he said ....and he was of course right.....but for the years later when I would see him , he never stopped being my counselor....always asking genuine questions about my job, my house, my wife and he was always encouraging and would say “good for you and I am glad you are doing well...and I could tell he meant it....... he would always tell me and Charlie Higgins to “ keep an eye on my son Danny “ and he meant that too.....rest in peace Mister Woods, thanks for everything, say hi to Dano.