What Wilbur the mailman, and my mother taught me about Investing

In the good old days back in Woodsdale, the mail was delivered in a much better fashion. Wilbur the mailman always came up on the porch and had a few nice words to say. He loved to kid my sisters about letters from their boyfriends. Every so often Wilbur would put a dividend check in the mail box from one of the companies my mother had stock in. Often my mother would open the letter with a check from Wheeling Steel, or Continental Can Company and say. That's nice, they sent three hundred dollars. As a kid it seemed so nice just to have someone send you three hundred dollars once in awhile. As I got older I came to understand there were two kinds of money. One kind which is the worst kind you have to go out and earn. You don't go out, you don't get it. The best money in the world is the kind that comes up on your porch all by itself and jumps in your mailbox. No matter what you do that money comes up and jumps in your mail box. Long ago the rich understood that money which came home by itself was the kind to have. As I grew older I cultivated more and more of the good type of money. Since I have retired, I have come to depend on the good type of money that comes home by itself. Often I think back to Wilbur and my mother showing me the difference between the two kinds of money.