Merry Christmas
To All
At this time of the year all Christians look forward to Christmas, the birthday of our Savior, Jesus Christ and Son to The Almighty God, who died upon a cross to ameliorate the punishment for the sins of men. Often it is seen as a gift-giving deluge, trampling each other to buy expensive gifts for family and friends. In fact, when I was Senior-Vice-President of IPC, I bought $100 bottles of liquor and $100 Champagne for all of my account clients and that was nearly every firm in Wall Street. It seems, looking back that it was not in the essence of Christ’s Birthday, but instead to maintain our friendship with our clients. I happily presented those gifts to my clients, for they were also very close friends. I never corrupted the manner in which I sold our product and was forthright with everything that I expressed to the IPC family of clients. I would not take advantage of them in any manner and certainly would not prevaricate our presence or product, since our product was far beyond AT&T’s capabilities to battle with IPC, since the phone company presently manufactured electro-mechanical on the trading floor, called turrets. I have no knowledge of how the position was called a turret.
IPC was a perfect company to work for and our employees were happy to be part of our defeat of AT&T. Steve Nichols and myself worked hard to ensure that every stock company was held within IPC’s listed clients. We started with three people. Steve Nichols, CEO, Tom File, Technological expert and myself as the salesman. Ten years later we had put AT&T out of the trading rooms of Wall Street and around the country wherever stock-trading firms existed such as Chicago, as well as, London and Tokyo and we had a large manufacturing center and one hundred employees. IPC was a perfect example of American’s capitalism for entrepreneurs. We were all getting salaries beyond our expectations and I got a present from Steve, buying a Porsche convertible, as a toy for me. Everything was going to the sky, until two new employees were brought into the firm. As it turned out these hires were an extraordinary mistake that wrecked the company.
But that was a good wake-up call, since everything that came to me during thirteen years, came too easily and I took it for granted. I left IPC, rather than take commands from two people who would pull the company down. However, Steve Nichols gave these people enough of our stock to leave them rich people, while I left and had to go to another firm. During all of this time, I don’t remember thanking God for my position, believing that I had accomplished everything with my ability. Hindsight is always sure to make you understand that the Lord God had given and took away. Within a year, another company that was unable to decide what to do with the firm, bought out IPC. All that we built over thirteen years faded away and became just a company that hired and fired its people.
This made me look back to see where I went wrong and the answer was that I felt I did everything on my own capability, never understanding that I did not thank or praise God for my luck. The result was that everything I had done and had was taken from me. It took me years to understand that I was only given what God thought I could handle, but I was not strong enough in my faith to make that work. Now I am retired, living happily with my wife of over fifty years and have fallen back to my sideline, which brings little remuneration to me, in teaching Isshin-ryu karate and have become the Grand Master of this style of karate, by the suggestion of my Master and Sensei of forty-three years, on his death bed, since I had given him my whole-hearted loyalty and advice, after becoming best friends. From that gesture of my teacher, everything is open to me and now I do seminars for groups of Isshin-ryu karate. I used that ability to teach Active-Duty Marines for nine years, using Isshin-ryu as Hand-to-Hand Combat, which is what they require and, resulting in a friendship with the Marine Corps Martial Arts Center in Virginia, under Colonel Joe Shusko, a tough and intelligent man who has a total grasp of what is required for the Marines to understand what they are shown. I have been one of his boosters and friend for over a decade. This opening for me is a year round Christmas and so I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Edward F. McGrath, Ju-Dan
Grand Master, Isshin-ryu