Chapter 13

With the Saturn plants and all the OEM suppliers based in the area closing, there was not much else to buoy the economy in Nashville. Even Heather had to admit defeat on that one. I was almost with her, ‘almost’. My girls, Brenda, Ash and Sheila never looked back and kept my blinders on always looking forward.

Jess was already two steps ahead of all of us. Her favorite phrase now was, ‘If you can’t join em, beat the shit out of them til they die”. She was Tony’s daughter after-all. Can’t say she was wrong though. Not to her face anyhow.

I think I said after that conference call we had sort of started us over at square one. All past sins forgotten. Right, not really but we were at least talking now; except for me and Jamie. Don’t think I ever understood what and why she did to me nor would I forget. I think to this day I resist even traveling to Atlanta. Jess, well I do still think of her with a certain degree of affection and respect.

With her, I think everything she did was always ‘business’. Her reasons, while not mine, were based on her perceptions and Tony’s always driving her to follow in his footsteps. I guess my Dad, Vince was like that in a way.

Brenda was the one who got us on-track a bit. One caller wanted money, a lot of money. A long-term investment he said. “How much can you give me?” If you will sign a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) my lawyers and your lawyers will talk. I know we can double your money in six years plus grow it from there.”

Dear sweet, kind and gentle Brenda, who by herself was not blood-thirsty but when you put Ashley, Sheila not to mention Heather and Jess in the mix, a coral snake was a ‘tame’ pet compared to her.

The call to Jess and Sheila resulted with her reply to him: “If it’s less than $100 Billion we may consider it. I’ll send a plane to get you and your lawyers here today. Fax or email me the NDA, then I’ll email it back after I sign it, I’ll have ours back to you or on the plane for you to review. Tomorrow is presentation day but I’ll give you 11 am to 12 noon, so make it count. Oh! The plane will be a 777 or the G650ER, Black, LA pick up right?”

I said she becomes a different person when you wind her up. Jess helped that too, Boeing sent the new Black 777 to LA for the pickup. It made a statement better than anything that could have been said when 30 minutes later Jeff(For Amazon) was called that a plane was in the air and to meet at XXXXX by 4 pm PDT. The remark, “We need to not keep ‘her’ waiting” was heard as the call was terminated.

The meeting led to other meetings but Brenda was on Cloud 9 and 3/4. She found someplace ‘we’ could dump that money and enter a new phase for our future. To Hell with the poor economy, that was what we would play to. Even Jess and Heather were impressed and to move them away from sports was saying something.

What was it? Well, if, I say ‘IF’ it worked we would own the retail marketplace. Within a year 75 warehouses and a distribution channel were underway. We had 49% of a business that could last 20 years or more. There were some funny things Jeff wanted to do but ... look at the things we did in Vegas to see funny. Oh Well!

We set aside $25 Billion, that left enough to start some other things Jess and Heather wanted to do also. Brenda’s Baby was our future. It was either that or ‘Play Tomato and die on the vine’. Ash bought into some food business in Minneapolis while Sheila played nice with Walmart.

Jess still liked auto but played it safer with just MB US in a new expanded plant.

All in all we now placed nearly all of the $100 Billion for the next 5 years. We, Us, They more aptly had to just make everything work.

Me, well ... I thought I was useless before, now I knew I was.

Heather, looked, thought about it, thought some more then passed on “An Opportunity of a Lifetime’ for a new NFL like Football team. “Nope” she merely said. “It was a hard choice between it and ‘Goober Peas’ (Peanuts)” so she nixed investing in both she said. Jess, Tony rather, came up with an interesting ‘Temp’ business for me. ‘Sell of a lot of ‘shit’ we don’t want!” Okay!

Hotels, real estate buildings, shopping malls, even a Casino in Florida and the Bahamas were new ‘investment’ opportunities for me to ‘Sell’. Yep, from lending to selling, what a kick. I had Ash and Sheila helping me. Two ‘things’ which did not meet ‘SEC’ guidelines were sold off the easiest, one in Florida, the other Atlanta. I think I told you how I felt about Atlanta, didn’t I?