All this information about Iran would have been interesting but not important to most Americans if it had not been for the events of November 4, 1979. After the USA refused the extradition of the Shaq Pahlavi, Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran, and took 53 Americans hostage. President Jimmy Carter’s administration attempted to negotiate their release, and to rescue them. However, it was not until Carter’s final day in office, that the last hostages were set free under the Algiers Accords. The USA and Iran severed diplomatic relations in April, 1980, and have had no formal diplomatic relationship since then, as this crisis was a pivotal episode in Iran–United States relations. In late October 1979, the exiled and dying Shah was admitted into the United States for cancer treatment. In Iran there was an immediate outcry, and both Khomeini and other groups demanded the Shah’s return to Iran for trial and execution. Thus, on November 4, 1979, youthful Islamists, calling themselves Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, invaded the US embassy compound in Tehran and seized its staff. These revolutionaries were angry because of how the Shah had left Iran, which spawned rumors of another US–backed coup in Iran that would re-install him. The occupation was also intended as leverage to demand the return of the Shah to stand trial in exchange for the hostages, They believed that Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was plotting to normalize relations with the USA. These students held 53 American diplomats hostage for 444 days, which played a role in helping to pass the constitution, suppressing moderates, and otherwise radicalizing the revolution. Holding the hostages was very popular in Iran, and continued even after the death of the Shah. With great publicity, the students released documents from the American embassy, which they labeled a “den of spies,” showing that moderate Iranian leaders had met with USA officials. The prestige of Khomeini and the hostage taking was further enhanced with the failure of a hostage rescue attempt, widely credited to divine intervention. The hostage crisis ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. The hostages were formally released to American custody the following day, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new American president. In the non-Muslim world, this hostage taking changed the image of Islam, generating much interest in Islam, both sympathetic and hostile. The Islamic Republic positioned itself as a revolutionary beacon under the slogan “neither East nor West, only an Islamic Republic.” They called for the overthrow of capitalism, American influence, and social injustice in the Middle East and the rest of the world. Revolutionary leaders in Iran gave and sought support from non-Muslim activists such as the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the IRA in Ireland, and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. The revolution itself was supported by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The conflicts that originated from the Iranian Revolution continued to define geo-politics for the last three decades, even up to the present. Following the death of the IRA Bobby Sands, a street name in Tehran was renamed from “Winston Churchill Street” to “Bobby Sands Street.” The British United Kingdom supported Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. Since the revolution, Iran’s GDP has grown from $114 billion in 1980 to $858 billion in 2010. GDP per capita (PPP) has grown from $4,295 in 1980 to $11,396 in 2010. What do you remember about the Iranian hostage crisis?
The importance of Iran
The importance of Iran cannot be over-estimated. Iran was also known as Persia by the West, due to Greek historians who referred to all of Iran as Persia, meaning “the land of the Persians,” that was just a province in the southwest part of Iran. Iran borders Turkey to the northwest and Iraq to the west. Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan are to the north. Afghanistan is to the east, while Pakistan is to the southeast. The Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf are south. There are 90 million Persian-ethnic people in this country. Iran ranks seventeenth globally in both geographic size and population, the sixth-largest country entirely in Asia and one of the world’s most mountainous countries. Tehran is the nation’s capital, its largest city, and its financial center. Persia or Iran was at the cradle of civilization, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BCE, when Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire, one of the largest in ancient history. However, Alexander the Great conquered this empire in the fourth century BCE. An Iranian rebellion established the Parthian Empire in the third century BCE, while the Sasanian Empire followed that in the third century CE. Ancient Iran saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanization, religion, and central government. Muslims conquered the region in the seventh century CE, leading to Iran’s Islamization. The blossoming literature, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and art became major elements for Iranian civilization during the Islamic Golden Age, the tenth and eleventh centuries, when western Europe was in its so-called dark ages. A series of Iranian Muslim dynasties ended Arab rule, revived the Persian language, and ruled the country until the Seljuk and Mongol conquests of the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century, the native Safavids re-established a unified Iranian state with Twelver Shi’ism as the official religion. During the Afsharid Empire in the eighteenth century, Iran was a leading world power, though by the nineteenth century, it had lost significant territory through conflicts with the Russian Empire. The early twentieth century saw the Persian Constitutional Revolution and the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty. Attempts by Mohammad Mosaddegh to nationalize the oil industry led to an Anglo-American coup in 1953. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran was established by Ruhollah Khomeini, who became the country’s first Supreme Leader. The Iraq forces of Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, initiating the 8-year-long Iran-Iraq War. Today, Iran is officially governed as a unitary Islamic Republic with a Presidential system, with ultimate authority vested in a Supreme Leader. The government is authoritarian and has attracted widespread criticism for its significant violations of human rights and civil liberties. Yet Iran is a major regional power, due to its large reserves of fossil fuels, including the world’s second largest natural gas supply and third largest proven oil reserves. It has a geopolitically significant location, with military capabilities, cultural hegemony, and regional influence, as the world’s focal point of Shia Islam. The Iranian economy is the world’s nineteenth largest. Iran is an active and founding member of the United Nations, and home to 27 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 2019, Iran was the world’s third fastest-growing tourism destination. What do you know about Iran?
The overthrow of the Shaq of Iran, 1979
In 1979 there was an Iranian Islamic Revolution that led to the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty, as the Imperial State of Iran became the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran. Some might say what is the big deal? Revolutions are taking place all over the world. However, this was the end of the monarchical government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980) who was superseded by the theocratic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989), a religious cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. Despite Iran’s neutrality during World War I, the Ottoman, Russian, and British Empires occupied west Iran and fought the Persian campaign before withdrawing in 1921. There was a British-directed 1921 Persian coup d’état, so that the military officer Reza Pahlavi took power in 1925, becoming Prime Minister, monarch, and establishing the Pahlavi dynasty. During World War II, Pahlavi went into exile replaced by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran became a major conduit for British and American aid to the Soviet Union and through which over 120,000 Polish refugees and Polish Armed Forces fled. At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allies issued the Tehran Declaration to guarantee the independence and boundaries of Iran. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh was democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. Mosaddegh became popular after he nationalized the oil industry, which had been controlled by foreign interests. He worked to weaken the monarchy until he was removed in the 1953 Iran coup, an Anglo-American covert operation. President Truman had refused to help in 1952, but the new President Eisenhower helped the British. After the coup, Pahlavi aligned Iran with the Western Bloc and cultivated a close relationship with the United States to consolidate his power as an authoritarian ruler, relying heavily on American support in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA. The Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini first came to political prominence in 1963, when he led opposition to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with his White Revolution. In November 1964, Khomeini was arrested and sent into exile, where he remained for 15 years. Due to the 1973 oil crisis, the Iran economy was flooded with foreign currency, causing inflation. By 1976, a recession increased unemployment, especially among youths who had migrated to the cities for construction jobs during the boom years of the early 1970s. By the late 1970s, many protested the Pahlavi regime. The Shah was taken completely by surprise by these protests. After a year of strikes and demonstrations, in January 1979, Pahlavi fled to the USA. Khomeini returned in February, forming a new government. Millions of people gathered to greet him as he landed in the capital city Tehran. Following the March 1979 referendum, in which 98% of voters approved the shift to an Islamic republic, the government began to draft a new constitution. Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as the Supreme Leader of Iran in December 1979. He became Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1979 for his international influence. He became the virtual face of Shia Islam in Western popular culture, as Khomeini became a semi-divine figure. After the revolution, Khomeini credited much of the success of the movement to women, even commending the women for mobilizing men. Do you remember the Shaq and the Ayatollah?
Pope John Paul II came to Chicago in 1979
When Pope John Paul II visited Chicago in October 4-6, 1979, he did not come as a stranger. He had come to this most Polish of American cities twice as Archbishop of Krakow, once on his own, as part of a tour of the United States in 1969, and once three years earlier as part of a delegation of Polish bishops. But this fall whirlwind visit of 37 hours was the only time John Paul II visited Chicago as pope. More than a million people turned out to watch his motorcade make its way from O’Hare Airport to Holy Name Cathedral on the evening of October 4. There he was greeted by Luciano Pavarotti singing “Ave Maria,” and reflected briefly on the name of the cathedral. John Paul II had left Rome five days earlier, traveling first to Ireland for two days. From there, he flew to Boston and celebrated Mass on October 1 in Boston Commons. The next day, he went to New York, where he addressed the United Nations and celebrated an evening Mass at Yankee Stadium. On October 3, he left for Philadelphia, where he again celebrated Mass. Before arriving in Chicago, he traveled from Philadelphia to Des Moines, Iowa, and then from Des Moines to O’Hare. Even after that grueling schedule and the opportunity to pray at Holy Name Cathedral, the pope did not stop. Instead, after dinner with Cardinal John Cody at his residence, which is right across the street from where I now live, he made his way to St. Peter’s in the Chicago Loop to address more than a thousand religious brothers. The next morning, he was up and away from the cardinal’s residence, traveling to Providence of God Church in Pilsen, a primarily Mexican neighborhood where about 75,000 people stood in the early-morning chill to greet the pope. From there, the motorcade continued through the South Side to Five Holy Martyrs Parish, where the pope celebrated an 8 AM outdoor Mass in his native language for Polish Catholics. The pope continued his journey through the neighborhoods of Chicago, arriving at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, now the site of St. Rita High School. There, he met with 350 American bishops and prayed with them. He also stepped out to the parking lot to meet with the 1,192 young men who were in the archdiocesan seminary system at that time. He greeted thousands more Catholics who congregated on the school’s front lawn before taking off by helicopter to go back to the cardinal’s residence. The centerpiece of his visit to Chicago was the afternoon 3 PM Mass in Grant Park, where an estimated 1.2 million gathered to worship with him. Margaret had some of her students there from St. Lawrence O’Toole. There, Pope John Paul II emphasized the themes of evangelization and unity. He spoke about the different waves of immigration that formed American society, especially in Chicago. Thus, the church also must grow in unity. The best way to evangelize was with love. He capped off that day by attending a concert at Holy Name Cathedral, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Georg Solti, before leaving Chicago for the last leg of his trip, a two-day stop in Washington, D.C., where he met President Jimmy Carter, before returning to Rome. Do you remember the pope in Chicago?
Joy goes to St. Lawrence O’Toole School
Back in 1979, Margaret and I thought that our fast-growing daughter Joy should go to regular school, since she would turn six in December. The problem was whether she should go to kindergarten or start first grade. I had assumed that she had already done two years of pre-school at Raygor Day School, so that kindergarten would be redundant. However, it really was not our decision. Schools had dates and ages laid out. Back then, the Catholic archdiocese had a rule that a child had to be six years of age by December of the year that they started first grade. Joy missed the cut-off by eight days, since she was born December 8, 1973. Margaret wanted to know what could be done about it, so that she asked the principal at St. Lawrence O’Toole. Margaret was told that Joy would have to take a test to gauge her readiness for first grade. Margaret was teaching there, so that it only seemed appropriate that she be sent there. There was a Woodgate public grade school that was about five blocks from our house, but Margaret and I agreed that it would be more practical to have her and Joy at the same school. We still had to pay the regular tuition. If we had any financial problems, they would make arrangements for us. However, we were already paying for Joy at the Raygor Day School, and both of us had gone to Catholic grade schools, so that there was little dispute about what was going to happen to Joy. She obviously passed the test for first grade. We were both happy for her. However, they did suggest that we talk to the public school about her pronunciation. Somehow, she was not clear with her consonants. She had a slight New Jersey accent that slurred some endings. I wonder where she got that from? A couple of sessions cleared that up. The other thing was that she would be in with all older children, since she would be the youngest in her class. There was a boy in her class, Brian Ward, who had a birthday in December, but he was born in 1972, not 1973. Thus, the biggest drawback was when it came to athletics. She was not as coordinated as her older classmates. She had a hard time learning to skip. I never saw it as a problem, but Margaret worried about it. Do you remember your child going to first grade?
The Malaise speech of Jimmy Carter
President Jimmy Carter delivered a TV speech on July 15, 1979, exactly three years after accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for president, and three days after Disco Demolition night. At the time of this speech, the United States was struggling economically as a result of stagflation, which was having a huge impact on energy and fuel prices. The United States was in the midst of a resurgence of the Cold War as well as navigating rising tensions in the Middle East. Even though Carter never used that word, the speech was later dubbed the “malaise speech.” Carter explained that the true problems of America were much deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, even deeper than inflation or recession. He believed in the decency, strength, and the wisdom of the American people. However, there were some national underlying problems that legislation could not fix, more serious than energy or inflation. He wanted to talk about a fundamental threat to American democracy that was nearly invisible, a crisis of confidence, a lack of a national will. There were growing doubts about the meaning of our own lives and the loss of a unity of purpose for our country. The erosion of our confidence in the future was threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. We now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. Owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. Most people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. There was a growing disrespect for government, churches, schools, the news media, and other institutions. We remember when the phrase “sound as a dollar” was an expression of absolute dependability, until ten years of inflation began to shrink our dollars and our savings. We believed that our nation’s resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil. These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. We were too dependent on OPEC. He blamed oil demand for the increased inflation and unemployment that we faced. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The worldwide energy crisis was real, as a clear and present danger to our nation. He then proposed an Energy program with six principles: 1) this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977; 2) set import quotas; 3) develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel; 4) have nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50% within the next decade; 5) create an energy mobilization board; and 6) build conservation in each home. Strengthen our public transportation systems! Take no unnecessary trips! Use carpools! Use public transportation whenever you can! Park your car one extra day per week! Obey the speed limit! Set your thermostats to save fuel! If we solve our energy crisis, then that can also help to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity, our confidence in the future, and give our nation and all of us individually a new sense of purpose. Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources, America’s people, America’s values, and America’s confidence. He thought that a secure energy strategy would lead to a stronger more confident country? What do you think about these ideas?
Steve Dahl (1954-)
After that incident at Comiskey Park, I would occasionally listen to the Steve Dahl show on radio. I learned that he grew up in California and that Gary Meier (1949- ) was from Tinley Park, near Matteson. Steve Dahl somehow broadcast on radio stations originally in Detroit. He was later on Chicago radio stations WCKG, WDAI, WLUP, WMVP and WLS. In 1983, Steve and Gary had a short-lived one month live local TV program called “Way to Early” at 5:00 AM that I watched a few times. Dahl was also known in Chicago for his longstanding role as one half of the Steve & Garry team, with Garry Meier. The two of them are members of the National Radio Hall of Fame, as Dahl is considered an influential shock jock in talk radio. He married his wife Janet Joliat in 1978 and they have three grown sons. Somehow, he got a job in Detroit in 1976, at the age of twenty-two on WABX. His popularity increased to the point that he achieved a 7.2 market share. WDAI executives in Chicago, attracted by his ratings offered to double his salary to $50,000 a year, but they fired him within a year. After he was fired on Christmas Eve 1978 as part of the station’s switch from rock to disco, he was hired by rival album-rock station WLUP. He then teamed up with Gary Meier on WLUP. Together Steve and Gary began to mock disco music. Dahl then recorded and started playing a parody of Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” which he called “Do You Think I’m Disco?” The song managed to crack the national charts to peak at No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and received airplay across the country. “Do ya think I’m disco, Cuz I spend so much time Blow drying out my hair? Do ya think I’m disco, Cuz I know the dance steps, Learned them all at Fred Astaire?” Meanwhile, the popularity of disco declined significantly in late 1979 and 1980. Dahl stated in a 2004 interview that by 1979 disco was “probably on its way out. But I think Disco Demolition Night hastened its demise.” Perhaps the Disco Demolition triggered a nationwide expression of anger against disco that caused disco to recede quickly from the American cultural landscape. As a result of Disco Demolition Night, Dahl attained national recognition and his popularity increased significantly. He established a syndicate and the Steve & Garry show began airing in Detroit and Milwaukee, where it performed well. However, in February 1981, WLUP fired Dahl, citing continued assaults on community standards. During the Iranian Hostage Crisis, Dahl, along with his backing band Teenage Radiation, recorded and released a parody of The Knack’s song “My Sharona”, called “Ayatollah.” Dahl also parodied the John Wayne Gacy murders with his song “Another Kid in the Crawl” to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.” The playing of that song was stopped after parents of the murdered children called to complain. Dahl and Meier won a local Emmy award for a television special they did in 1981 called, “Greetings from Graceland,” which was a comedy spoof on the tourist shrine and featured Elvis Presley’s “Uncle Vester” selling Elvis cookbooks from the guardhouse. Supposedly, Howard Stern listened to tapes of “Steve and Garry” so that he eventually developed his own on-air style because of these tapes. Steve & Garry moved to WLS, but ultimately returned to WLUP where they stayed until their split in 1993. Meier also blamed Dahl’s alcoholism and unpredictable behavior for their split. In 2007, Dahl was named one of the “100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts” by Talkers Magazine. Dahl has appeared on several Chicago radio stations and now does a podcast. He claims he has been alcohol free since 1995. Have you ever heard of Steve Dahl?
Disco Demolition Night, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park
Disco Demolition Night remains well known as one of the most extreme promotions in MLB history. This Disco Demolition Night took place on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago. There was a riot that forfeited the second game of a Twi-night double header of the Chicago White Sox against the Detroit Tigers. In the late 1970s, dance-oriented disco was the most popular music genre in the United States, particularly after being featured in the hit film Saturday Night Fever in 1977. The White Sox even had a “Disco Night” at Comiskey Park earlier in 1977. However, disco sparked a major backlash from some rock and roll music fans. The Chicago White Sox, owned by Bill Veeck, seeking to fill seats at Comiskey Park during a lackluster 1979 season, engaged Chicago shock jock and anti-disco campaigner Steve Dahl for this promotion at the July 12 Twi-night doubleheader. Dahl’s sponsoring radio station was WLUP (now WCKL), so admission was discounted to 98 cents for anyone who turned in a disco record. Dahl with his broadcast partner Garry Meier had created a mock organization around a simple and surprisingly powerful idea, “Disco Sucks.” Between games, Dahl was to destroy the collected vinyl records in an explosion. White Sox officials had hoped for a crowd of 20,000, about 5,000 more than usual. Instead, at least 50,000, including thousands of Dahl’s listeners, packed the stadium, and thousands more continued to sneak in after capacity was reached and the gates were closed. Many of the records were not collected by the staff and were simply thrown like flying discs from the stands. Dahl set off the explosives, destroying the records and tearing a large hole in the outfield grass. The batting cage was destroyed, and the bases were pulled up and stolen. After Dahl blew up the collected records, thousands of fans stormed the field and remained there until dispersed by the Chicago riot police. The playing field was so damaged by the explosion and by the rioters that the White Sox were required to forfeit the second game to the Tigers. Detroit won the first game, 4–1, but there was no second game. Mike Veeck, the son of the owner, recalled an odor of marijuana in the grandstand and said, “This is the Woodstock they never had.” The crowds outside the stadium also threw records, or gathered them and burned them in bonfires. No one was able to control the crowd until 9 PM, when the Chicago police in riot gear arrived, to the applause of the baseball fans remaining in the stands. Those on the field hastily dispersed upon seeing the police. Thirty-nine people were arrested for disorderly conduct. Estimates of injuries to those at the event range from none to over thirty. This Disco Demolition Night preceded, and may have helped precipitate, the decline of disco in late 1979. Some scholars and disco artists have debated whether the event was also an expressive of racism and homophobia. Dahl began his regular morning broadcast the next day by saying, “I think for the most part everything was wonderful, but some maniacs got down on the field.” Have you ever heard about Disco Demolition Night?
IBM
I got to really know about IBM, International Business Machines Corporation, Big Blue. IBM was and still is an American multinational technology company present in over 175 countries, the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries. IBM is a publicly traded company and one of 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. That is why back in 1979, it was so heavily traded. IBM holds the record for the most annual U.S. patents generated by a business for nearly 30 years, from 1993 to 2021. IBM was founded in 1911 but became International Business Machines in 1924. In the good old days, they were the leading manufacturer of punch-card tabulating systems. During the 1960s and 1970s, the IBM mainframe was the world’s dominant computing platform, with the company producing 80% of computers in the USA, and 70% worldwide. IBM entered the microcomputer market in the 1980s with the IBM Personal Computer, which soon became known as the PC, one of IBM’s best-selling products. However, they did not protect it with intellectual property laws. Thus, IBM quickly began losing its market dominance to emerging competitors in the PC market, while at the same time the openness of the PC platform has ensured PC’s longevity as the most popular microcomputer standard. Since the 1990s, IBM has concentrated on computer services, software, supercomputers, and scientific research. Since 2000, its supercomputers have consistently ranked among the most powerful in the world, and in 2001 it became the first company to generate more than 3,000 patents in one year, beating this record in 2008 with over 4,000 patents, so that it has over 150,000 patents. As one of the world’s oldest and largest technology companies, IBM has been responsible for several technological innovations, in advanced computer chips, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and data infrastructure. IBM has consistently ranked among the world’s most recognizable and valuable brands. Originally, they patented the computing scale, the dial recorder, an electric tabulating machine, and a worker’s time clock. The computer punch card was their calling card. IBM introduced the hard disk drive in 1956. That same year, they demonstrated the first practical example of artificial intelligence. In 1957, the FORTRAN scientific programming language was developed. In 1961, IBM developed the SABRE reservation system for American Airlines. In 1963, IBM employees and computers helped NASA track the orbital flights of the Mercury astronauts. In 1964, IBM launched the first computer system family, the IBM System/360. Also in 1969, IBM invented the magnetic stripe card that would become ubiquitous for credit/debit/ATM cards, driver’s licenses, rapid transit cards and a multitude of other identity and access control applications. IBM has a valuable brand because of their over 100 years of operations and marketing campaigns. The brand alone is worth over $75 billion and ranked as the third-best brand worldwide. Have you ever used an IBM computer?
My new independent work as a Market Maker
My first few days were strange. I had taken my vacation from Montgomery Ward before I started working at the CBOE as a market maker. I went to see Katz and Scher about how and what I was going to do. First, I had to get a brown jacket like all the other Katz and Scher brokers on the floor. Then I got my distinct name tag, FIN, that I wore on my coat. All my trades would be done with that name. I realized that the CBOE floor was only open from 8:30 AM-3:00 PM, six and half hours a day, the same as the New York Stock Exchange. Trading would start and stop at those precise times, since NYSE was an hour difference from Chicago. No trading could take place outside of that time frame. I needed a pen and a handful of orders to fill out as I made every trade. We all gathered around a pit as they called it. One or two people were in the pit recording every trade as it took place. After every trade, we had to fill out the order with the initials of the person we just traded with, what was traded, with the price and date. The next day, we had to reconcile all our trades before the next day started. Thus, we had to be there around 7:30 AM every morning to make sure that there were no discrepancies from the previous day. The trading was simple. There was between 10-15 people in the IBM pit. Most of the people were day traders like myself, but others had positions for a longer time frame. Brokers, especially from Merrill Lynch would come to the pit to trade and we would all rush over there. He would announce his side of the trade and the broker would accept responses and decide which one he wanted to take. His response was “done.” Then the paperwork would take place. At first, I was reluctant to trade anything, so I watched the first day or so. One guy came up to me and said that I should get more involved. He kind of helped me. There was another guy who kept shouting all day a number and price in case any one was interested. There were TV screens showing the trades in New York, plus a news ticker with all the latest news. Some guys made trades based on NYSE and others watched the news for some strange activity. All in all, it did not seem that scientific. A couple of times, my friend told me that IBM was going up that day. I did not know whether to believe him or not. I was perhaps too cautious to be a day trader. When IBM took off one day, I cautiously bought some calls, but decided to buy a few puts to offset it. Instead of making $5,000 to $10,000 that day, I had to settle for about $1,000, which I considered a great day. However, there were not many days like that. Mostly, I was lucky to make or lose around $200 a day or so. I began to realize that it was not as easy as it looks. Have you ever traded stock options?
Gene Finnegan Remembers Living Eighty Wonderful Years 