Today’s track: Send Me On My Way — Rusted Root
Before I was born, my Dad lived a life I can barely believe.
A scuba attack. A plane crash. Held hostage in Japan. Quietly couriering bonds for a bank up to Boston, Providence, and New York. Getting shot. Working on secret bases. The kind of stuff you’d assume someone made up — except it was my Dad, and it actually happened.
Then he landed in Ohio, and things moved slower.
By the time I came along, the James Bond chapter was closed. My Dad called himself a slight workaholic while at Lexis Nexis. When he was home, he was in his den or out on thedeck. Reading. NPR on the radio. Some documentary about flying. By himself, or with my step mom Linda. We boated, he grew up sailing — but hobbies beyond that were thin. That was the Dad I knew.
Then he retired. And my Dad got cool again.
He’s more social than I am now. He has friends he sees on a regular basis. He goes to the gym and lifts. He watches hours of long-form content about weirdly specific things he’s into. And he started taking classes through this program called OLLI — the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, through the University of Cincinnati. It’s cheap, it’s for adults 50 and up, and the wild part is the classes are taught by other members. Adults teaching adults from a lifetime of doing the thing. My Dad takes them. My Dad teaches them. Some might say he is an adjunct professor.
Think about that arc. Secret bases to a quiet den to standing in front of a room because he wants to.
And I just think it’s really cool that later in life, he found the stuff that lights him up again. He found what mattered a little more clearly.
That stuff was always out there. He didn’t have to wait for retirement to find it. None of us do.
There is so much going on in our communities that we’d actually love, if we went looking. Classes. Niche groups. The Moth Story Slam, Jazz clubs and blues clubs. Dungeons and Dragons night. There’s a needleworking group around here — Bitch and Stitch — where people show up, talk, and do their thing. We had a Bean Club in Louisville. An actual club. About beans.
If you want the Cincinnati version of what my Dad does, we’ve got it right here: Bellarmine’s Veritas Society has been doing the same thing since 1995. Over 50, no tests, no grades. Just learning the good stuff from people who’ve lived it.
And here’s where it gets easy. Have Claude build you an aggregator — one place that pulls together everything happening in your city. You check it daily. What’s on today, what’s coming this week, what’s good this weekend. You just tell it what you care about: I want to know what’s going on at the library. The botanical garden. Walking tours. Private music sessions. Comedy shows. Chautauquas.
Suddenly you’re plugged in. Fewer excuses, more invitations — more reasons to text a friend, a family member, a lover, and say come do this with me.
Interested people are interesting!
You don’t find the special ones living under a rock. You don’t make memorable moments doing the same thing over and over.
Be brave. Go pick up one new thing or start a club in your niche!
Warmly,
Rob Bergeron
Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
The Morning Bergeron daily track playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-morning-bergeron/pl.u-pMyl2GlSW1N3qv
PS: Why invest in Louisville and the surrounding area, specifically? Because the math works here in a way it doesn't on the coasts. Cap rates ran ~8.2% blended in Q1 — versus 5.6% nationally — so the same dollar buys you 250–300 basis points more yield. New multifamily supply is projected to fall under 10% of last year's volume while the metro adds ~8,000 jobs, which means rents have room to run and competition doesn't. The economy is boring on purpose — UPS Worldport, Humana, GE Appliance Park, Ford, bourbon — unemployment at 4%, doesn't spike, doesn't crater. Add landlord-friendly law (7-day pay-or-quit, no rent control) and a tax code that finally rewards buyers again (permanent 100% bonus depreciation, OZ deadline Dec 31), and you've got a market built to hold and harvest. Let’s talk more!