Looking Out For Number One

The headlines of the paper this morning stated that AT&T is buying Bell South for $67 billion. Whoa! I am a stock holder of Bell South and don’t remember anybody coming to me checking to see if I concur with the proposal. Although, it could have been embedded one of those long-worded letters I get from Bell South.

I don’t own that much, so I doubt if they held off the their decision until they hear from me or anything. I guess they know what they doing, and do us shareholders I wonder if we get cash or AT&T shares (I ask as I greedily rub my hands)?

About ten years ago my sons and I got on a kick of buying locally owned stock. We bought Bell South, Home Depot, Southern Company (Power Utilities) Coca-Cola , and maybe a couple more I can’t think of on the tip of my mind.

That reminds me one time shortly after I bought the Bell South stock on my off day I made several trips to the public dump… we had cleaned out the basement, donated some stuff to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, and the junk we would feel guilty handing off for them to have to get rid of, I hauled to the junk to the dump, which took two trips in my truck.

Before I go on with this story of this day, I need to insert what happened a year or so before this current story I'm telling. Again, I was taking a load of stuff to the county dump. this before I was a Bell South stockholder. The Cobb County Dump is on the property of the Cobb County Farm, which is probably about the size of Disneyland (not Disney World), several hundred acres. On the county farm property is the county's work prison... where the county's convicts are housed. Then, the building the prisoners lived in was a big two story building, about the size of a schoolhouse, with a big yard, an iron railed fence with barbwire at the top, and a tower with a platform near the gate, which I have never seen occupied. There by the gate is a stop sign, which coming back from getting rid of my junk, I stopped. I noticed over to the right a Bell South truck, parked on the side. Then, I saw three Bell South workers - they all had helmets on, two was sitting facing one who was standing up. Wait! The one standing was smaller, she was a woman. Then, she quickly she unbutton her shirt and opened her shirt in a butterfly style, like she was exposing herself, which she was. The two men on the sitting on the ground in front of her rolled over laughing... what she was doing was exposing herself to all the horny inmates locked up and maybe looking out the barred windows. The car behind me blew his horn for me to move on. I got quiet a kick out of that and told Anna and my friends and co-workers about that for quiet sometime.

Now, I take you back to my trip, after I bought the Bell South stock:
The first trip I stopped in a little mom-pop restaurant to get a cup of coffee to go. I noticed several Bell South workmen sitting around a table drinking coffee and eating breakfast.

I unloaded my junk and made a second trip. Again, I stopped by the same little restaurant to get a another coffee to go. Outside the same Bell South work trucks were parked in the parking lot and inside were the same Bell South utility workers sitting around talking and drinking their coffee. I suppose they were letting their food digest.

I felt like telling them they were breaking on my dollar, go do their jobs! Its amazing how your perspective changes when you have a vested interest.