When I was 12 years old I asked my father for an allowance. Without hesitating he said “sure”. The next thing I knew I had a part-time job at a body shop a few blocks from our house, across the Des Plaines River in suburban Chicago....

Last Saturday I had the good fortune of playing golf with this gentlemen who will be 97 in a few days. To put this into some perspective, for a person born in 1918, the odds according to some sources I saw were on the order of 0.50% of living...