A Gold Bug

Once I reached my late sixties, I realized that flying to the moon in Apollo-13 must be easier than making new, true friends. The Covid-19 pandemic isolation gave me a deeper craving to welcome new friends into my heart. But first I had to make room, so I went over my contact list. I eliminated names who are dead, who I have lost contact with, or those who have fallen off my memory. This created boundless space for my yet-to-be-discovered friends.

During this process, I stumbled on Bill Beatty’s card. After a short search, I found out that Bill Beatty is no longer here. He died on August 11, 2010. Bill and I had one common thread: We were both gold bugs.

I did not become a gold bug out of the blue. I learned it from my father. He kept a tiny jar on a shelf in the kitchen. It gradually filled up with little gold coins. I thought that my father was saving this to buy me a bicycle or to take us to the opera. Months later, my hopes were dashed when I saw the empty jar.

Then it would start filling again, giving me fresh hope for a bicycle. Months later, the jar was empty and my hopes dashed again. This made no sense at all.

Finally, when I was about eight, I figured it out. The gold jar was half-full the previous night. In the morning, it was empty. My dad hugged us good-bye, leaving us at home in Istanbul and while he went on one of his trips for a few days.

Upon his return, I confronted him. In a scared voice, I mumbled something about my imagined bicycle. He pulled me aside and whispered, “Another Crimean Tatar family coming to this side.” In his lingo, “this side” meant our home country. The “other side” meant the Soviet side of the border. He pointed his finger at me. “Don’t you dare tell anyone, we give these coins to Russian soldiers at the border to look the other way when a family is jumping the border. If you open your mouth and tell anyone, the other side might find me and kill me.”

I felt special that my dad had trusted me with his secret. A week later, he brought home a used bicycle for me. I replaced its worn-out brake pads and installed a new bell. My bicycle looked as good as new. I was the happiest kid on our block.

My dad died sixteen years ago at age 94. During his burial, hundreds of people stood silently for forty-five minutes in a torrential rain. Many were beneficiaries of my father’s little gold jar.

He liked saving gold. It helped many people. Because of that, I became a life-long gold bug.

After finishing university, I did not have much money. I started trading in the futures market, where you could buy a one-hundred-ounce gold contract for a few hundred dollars. After a while, it became too exhilarating for my even-tempered nature. My next step was buying shares of gold mining companies.  

I was one of the early buyers of the Goldcorp stock. Probably the only reason I kept these shares for as long as I did was the company’s spectacular annual shareholder meetings. These meetings included a rich buffet dinner, the best open bar, and loot bags full of gifts on your way out. No other annual shareholder meeting came close to such an extravaganza. I still cherish my picture taken there, holding a 400-ounce gold bar with all the strength I could muster. I felt like I was Mr. Goldfinger in that James Bond movie. For all this entertainment, I paid a small price: exercise my arm up or down a few times as we voted for corporate resolutions.

Holding the 400-oz gold bar at the Goldcorp annual meeting, feeling like Mr. Goldfinger 
(worth currently about $750,000, give or take)