Becoming a Millionaire

The American Dream…but it’s not that easy.

I once had that dream, maybe you did, too. The cost, who cared? Dreams don’t count cost. But I was dumb then, unschooled in the perils of such ideas. Nobody warned me that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” I just knew that hoeing garden roots wouldn’t get me there.

After high school next comes leaving home. There were three choices. U.S. Hwy. 27 ran north and south by our house. It was paved. The farm road lay straight ahead. It was dirt and a dead-end. I may not have been a genius, but I knew there was no rainbow there. So I headed north, dreaming about a million dollars.

Small town kids are clueless of what a million dollars is. It’s like a billion today…a long, long way from our fingers. But I was determined. I told my dad when he and mom dropped me off at college, “Pop, I’m going to be a millionaire by the time I’m thirty.” He looked disgusted, probably wondering where he went wrong, but wished me well.

Real estate…millions there, I decided. I’d made that choice standing in line to declare my college major. It couldn’t be any harder than farming, which was also dirt, details and dinero. So I signed up. I could see the millions clearly!

The road to becoming a millionaire was arduous, full of pot holes. Dreams don’t offer many details, you know. First I had to get out of college, and with the discovery of the toxic mix of girls and beer, it didn’t look like I’d make it. Somehow I did…now on my way to make a million.

My dad called later that summer, “Son, what are you going to do with your life?” I said, “Maybe Europe.” He offered up that perhaps I should consider getting a job. So I did. After all, one can’t make a million without a job, right?

In those days Atlanta was a city fit to live in…no hip hop yet. The gold dome of the state capitol glistened in my eye. Ah, I thought, the pot of gold. But politics is a nasty business, so after a stint as a “runner” for the Lt. Governor, I got down to the business of more roots…a job, a wife and a family. And real estate.

At 30, I had accumulated a sizeable portfolio of cheap, urban land, useful for little more than bragging about. With the help of a creative accountant, we put together a respectable financial statement that added up to a little more than a million dollars in “equity.” You know what equity is? The difference in one’s assessment of the asset’s value and its debt. Never mind that no bank would loan a 30-year old any money on such assessments, so the financial statement was mostly useless. But it did have “boasting rights” at cocktail parties. Dumb is no respecter of persons!

I sent the financial statement to my dad with a short I-told-you-so note, saying, “Hey, Pop, take a look…I told you I would be a millionaire at thirty.” My jubilation was met by weeks of his silence. He was probably wondering how somebody so dumb had come from his loins. Finally I called him.

“Hey, what do you think of my achievement? I told you I’d be a millionaire by age thirty.” His response shocked me, even as it still does today.

“Well, son, I don’t understand how ‘phantom equities’ are worth a million dollars. What about the debt on the opposite page? But I did see that you had $10,308 in cash in the bank, and son, that’s a good start!”

Dejected, I hung up, and hung my head. He was right, of course, and the equities were just that…phantoms. They disappeared into thin air in time. But the cash did get us a house, a car and about a year of running room to continue the quest for the grail. Depression era folks just didn’t see things like we did. So, I followed their lead… I went back to work.

The whole thing taught me some lessons. The road to becoming a millionaire is tough. It’s littered with broken dreams, broken men and broken families…and today, broken banks. I wonder what my dad would say about things now.

I think I know!

Bud Hearn
February 11, 2010