I have recently been spending time riding bicycles with my two kids (I have both a five year old daughter and a seven year old son). We live on a golf course where the majority of the clubs’ member golfers shut things down around 8 o’clock or so.  This gives us at least one good hour of cart path riding.

This being Pittsburgh, you know that we spend about half our time going up the rolling hills; splitting almost equally the amounts of time available for both downhill and level riding. Needless to say, the kids enjoy both of these latter tasks. It doesn’t seem like they’ll ever get used to riding/walking their bikes up the various hillsides, though they are getting better and better at the old “weave” technique.

And of course, it beats the hell out of watching TV and/or video games. By now, our kids know that my wife, Karen, and I would prefer just about anything to Pokemon. (Though I will admit that Pokemon seems to give the old cerebrum at least some type of workout.)

Well, just a few nights ago, as we neared the end of that particular day’s trip, we came upon a man walking his greyhound. This was cool for a couple of reasons: first, the kids had never before seen this type of breed, and, second, this particular animal had LOTS of battle scars covering her body. It was clear to me that she was almost certainly a dog that had been raced a great deal.

I’d say that she had well in excess of a hundred stitches … and they weren’t very pretty.

I didn’t think too much about it until the next day, when I had Erik Oja as a guest on the show. Mr. Oja was an expert on banking, and our discussions related to the ‘decline and fall’ of certain American banking institutions.

At one point, I asked Mr. Oja how it was possible for these banks to make so many mistakes and how they could possibly sign off on what were obviously bad loan strategies and portfolios. He cited a number of reasons for the demise of the banks, but perhaps the most significant one was his belief that the young people in charge of making overall loan policy had either forgotten the lessons of the past or had never been around to learn them in the first place.

“Remember”, my guest said, “It takes but a generation for a problem to re-appear. In this case, decisions were being made by bankers who had never before experienced the pain of shortsighted thinking.”

Suddenly, my mind turned to the current crop of presidential candidates. “How many of these guys”, I wondered aloud, “Have in their past actually dealt with the sets of problems we are now facing?”

Later that evening, I had dinner with my ex-business partner. He is a salty old dog … a guy who taught me a great deal about a great many things during our years together. We talked about the problems of this country for a while when he suddenly asked “Ron, how many guys do you know who could probably do a better job of running this country than the ones presently put before us?”

Dozens of hard-bitten, tough-as-nails candidates began to flash before my eyes. I remembered the lessons they had taught me and, I remembered just how sage they were whenever we had a chance to think through a difficult problem or issue together.

“Lots”, I said to my partner. “Lots.”

Because, just like that greyhound, these guys were all battle-hardened and combat-ready. It made me think of the old Paul Simon song, “The Boxer”:

“And he carries the reminders,

Of every glove that laid him

Down or cut him till he cried out …”