It was after living in Hawaii for nearly 20 years that our fortunes took a turn for the worse, much worse. So worse, in fact, that we ended up declaring bankruptcy. Unfortunately, bankruptcy is not an easy process and definitely not a quick one. We spent many days and many nights wondering and worrying, about when and if, things would get better. We found ourselves filling our time with diversions to escape, if only for a few moments, the stress of the times. I remember hours and hours of Backgammon, Rummy Kub, and classic movies from our collection of over 2000 DVDs (don’t judge, they were collected in better times). I also started writing. I had always been a pretty good English student in school, so I figured I could easily write a book or two to fill the hours and escape, at least some of, that stress. I had experienced much in my life, so I was pretty sure there was a novel in there somewhere.

Characters based on me and my wives, there were three, and friends and associates, there were many. In fact, most of my companies over the years were some variation of “Farnham Associates.” I was so wrong! Never more than a few pages were complete before I lost the thread, or lost the theme, if there ever was a theme, or lost interest. I would start out with conviction, but would soon digress into rambling about this experience or that experience, or this grievance, or that criticism, or this person or that. Ramble, ramble, ramble. Then it hit me: I had no money, lots of time, and loved to ramble on about whatever. Hence, Poor Richard’s Ramblings was born.