Nobody Knows Nothing
Fatherhood in a New Season
John C. Bogle, the founder and former CEO of the enormous Vanguard Mutual Fund Group, and the popularizer of the Index Fund approach to investing, was once asked to describe the best financial lesson he ever learned. His answer is amusing:
“I guess the best financial lesson I’ve ever learned was about investing as distinct from finance. I was a runner in a brokerage firm in 1947 and an old runner with me said, ‘Bogle, the only thing you need to know is that nobody knows nothing.’”
Bogle’s acquaintance was, of course, referring to the stock market. But sometimes one could almost conclude that the unknown sage’s advice could apply much more broadly to life in general.
Consider Left Lane Drivers, for instance. In a class of cluelessness that defies comprehension, these anonymous drivers participate in a club that requires no initiation, charges no fees, and only requires one behavior: the clogging of the left lane on a highway through the inattentive cruising along at a slow speed (usually nowadays made worse by the horrible habit of texting while driving). This is usually exacerbated by going even more slowly than those in the right lane, thereby creating an opposite effect to already complicated traffic dynamics that always succeeds in producing two very predictable results:
1. The nearly uncontrollable frustration (nay, rage) that mounts in the emotions of the victims of such carelessness (namely, those like me who, usually in a hurry, are stuck behind them), and
2. The Left Lane Drivers never seeming to wake up to the fact of the chaos they cause.

(Those of you in Europe likely do not know what I’m talking about. You, my dear friends, suffer from the extreme opposite; namely, the left-lane-light-flashing-speed-demon. Oh, how I envy you . . . .)
There is also the surprising behavior of those who insist on attempting to enter an elevator before the crowd of passengers are allowed to exit.

Or the cell phone talker who thinks you can’t hear him, even though he’s screaming into his device about the crotch fungus the doctor just diagnosed and how it should be treatable with an application of the correct creams. All this in the middle of a restaurant or on an airplane before takeoff. This odd behavior is always followed by the moment when the phone call is ended and the perpetrator returns to the surrounding community with the same look of total lack of awareness found on the face of the aforementioned Left Lane Driver.

Alas, in these and many other little things, it seems Bogle’s advisor is correct: “Nobody Knows Nothing!”
My oldest son is getting married tomorrow. And while I’m quite certain he’s heard me harping sufficiently about Left Lane Drivers, Elevator Invaders, and Cell Phone Screamers to avoid these particular behaviors himself, I do have to wonder if I’ve taught him all I should.

Have I given him enough of the important stuff, the deep stuff, the meaningful stuff? I find myself wondering if I’ve told him this or that, and what about the other?
After five decades of foibles and failures, victories and advances, I feel quite able to relate to Jimmy Buffett who sang, “Good Times and Riches, and Son-of-a-$%IfR#@s, I’ve seen more than I can recall!”
Have I warned my son about enough of the pitfalls, and the shortfalls, and the cash calls? Have I given him sufficient disclosure about liars and schemers, wolf’s in sheep’s clothing, and even women in scant clothing?
Or about his own doubts, at times, and those who would steal his joy?
About institutions and bureaucracies and the injustice of inertia against the individual rascal?
I think of another song by the Crash Test Dummies (and here I shamelessly display my wide (or strange) range of musical taste) in which the lyrics say:
“I’m still young,
but I know my days are numbered,
one-two-three-four-five-six-seven and so on.
But a time will come,
when these numbers have all ended,
and all I’ve ever seen will be forgotten.”
I’ve got so much in my head. So much that the good Lord has allowed me to experience, both good and bad. I’ve figured out so many things, and found the limits of my own understanding (a bar much lower than I’d like to admit). But this stuff in my head, one day, will all have ended. And I’m responsible as a father to pass along a big batch of it, aren’t I?
At a threshold (pun intended) such as the wedding of a son, does every father feel like me? Wondering about his own parenting and if he’s done his proper duty?
It feels as if I’ve only had five minutes, but the moment of handoff is already here.
Well, I can take at least some solace from knowing that there is much more caught than taught, and I understand that God gave him to his mother and me on loan, not to own. So I’m trusting in the grace of the Lord that He will continue to guide and bless him (and his bride), and further will gently nudge his mother and me in how to be of best help in this new exciting season.
After all, I’ve thought hard about this, and . . .
I’m pretty sure of it now . . .
yes . . .
I really am . . .
When it comes to this next chapter in our lives . . .
I don’t know nothing.
(You can follow Chris on his Facebook fan page at Rascal Nation, and on Instagram as cbrascal).
