Afterward

People make interesting choices about how to use their resources when they know they don't have long to live. There's something about feeling you have nothing to lose that evaporates inhibitions and pressurizes the imagination. But when you really, truly have nothing to lose it gets even more interesting.

One of my customers, Maxwell Boggs, PhD, JD, is a doctor of philosophy (as such) who has turned his efforts to the public's last wills and testaments. I took him to lunch last week and we had a long chat about the different surprises that come up when working with those facing their ultimate decisions. They realize they have a bit of steam left to use after no one can hurt them. They can put one over on everybody and have the last laugh. Sometimes they realize they can do some good with their remainder once they won't need it that they couldn't have done when they did. Sometimes they just want to tell people how they really felt, whether or not a penny survives them.

One client Dr. Boggs remembers most vividly was a man who lived his life in middle class humility despite enormous wealth. He had one caprice; he loved traveling, but never lavishly. Perhaps that explains why he kept a home about as splendid as Archie Bunker's. He never was home. The truth is, this client--why not? let's call him Archie--never invited a single person to visit since he became alone in 1968. For 41 years he travelled the world, visiting acquaintances, business partners, and relatives, mostly by boat.

Archie struck it rich in 1981 during the global communications explosion. He had acquired a proprietary electronic information exchange protocol (which Dr. Boggs is still not at liberty to discuss) through what he called "leveraged means." This global communication method enabled Archie to do business from any location, so he spent his time on the ocean on other people's boats. Archie said he enjoyed freedom and never wanted to be tied down, even to a dock. He also enjoyed helicopters and used his free time to get licensed, renting helicopters to fly.

Apparently no helicopter owner is amenable to this idea until he has cash in hand as collateral for the entire vehicle. Apparently such pilots, especially during hard times, are often tempted to ditch the copter and abscond with the money. Archie had acquired four helicopters this way and donated them all to charity. The Shriners LOVED Archie, and so did their emergency flight patients.

Among Archie's world travels was one perilous misadventure that elucidates his helicopter fancy. In December, 1982, he boarded a cargo ship called the Cariari in Florida. He didn't remember where it was headed because it never got there. The Cariari sunk in the Atlantic on January 2nd, 1983, leaving 2,000 tons of its cargo--frozen meat for human consumption--as flotsam in the ocean. The aqueous scent attracted sharks without number, but fortunately the crew were few and the ship sunk slowly. Every member of the crew and the seven passengers were rescued by a Floridian yacht and by a rich Bahamian sugar farmer with a helicopter. Most climbed aboard the yacht and were then air-ferried one by one to Bermuda. Archie was the only one to be rescued by helicopter exclusively, being the first to board. He became great friends with the farmer, who it turns out was an early retiree from his same line of business, and stayed at the farm for weeks taking unlicensed flying lessons. He called it his "Bermuda Triangle story," although the exact location of the wreckage--and whether it was in or out of the Triangle--is still in dispute. (There was no recovery attempt).

Archie donated everything to the Shriners. That was his "last will." His "last testament" is this story, which he asked to be published under a fictitious name on the Internet, which he plausibly claims to have helped create. He left no money for his executor to pass on to the author, but ended his bequest with, "That's the Internet for you."