By now, some of you know my one and only brother Phil had a terrible accident a year ago. He fell down a flight of stairs, broke bones, went into a coma and was put on life support. In other words, the whole nine yards. But sometimes miracles do happen. Just as the family was contemplating the worst, Phil returned to Planet Earth. He was removed from the ICU at the Albany Medical Center and placed on a regular hospital floor.
Now, please hang in there, be patient. You will ultimately discover what AMZN has to do with this story—I promise.
Phil was heavily medicated and not his loquacious self. (Talking a lot runs in the Ross family.) The doctors were concerned that he had not yet regained all his mental facilities, which are considerable, and so they gathered in the hallway outside his room looking quite concerned in their white coats.
I asked the doctors what they were planning, and they told me they wanted to bring Phil down for some brain scans. Just then I heard a sound emanating from Phil’s bed. I excused myself and returned to Phil’s bedside where my brother opened one eye and softly asked in the weakest of voices, “How is Amazon doing?” I was not sure I had heard correctly. “Come again? What did you say?” I asked incredulously. “How is Amazon doing?” he asked again.
Now, Phil had not said much since his tumble, and quite candidly I expected him to utter something more emotionally charged such as, “Great to see you brother. I really love you.” But that is not remotely what I heard.
I didn’t know how to respond to Phil’s question so I asked, “Phil, what is the symbol for the stock?” “AMZN,” he answered and thus the title of this column. I raced to the hallway and told the doctors assembled to cancel the brain test. “There is nothing wrong with my brother’s brain. He just asked me how Amazon was doing and accurately gave me the stock symbol.” The doctors decided to move on.
I am happy to report that my bride and I just spent three days visiting Phil and his wife Barbara in Tiburon, where they rented a house for the month of March in order to be near Barbara’s grandson Abraham. Phil is walking with the help of a cane. Had you asked me almost a year ago what the chances were that he would ever travel again, I would have said “slim and none,” but really would have meant “none.” But there he was in Northern California. He is doing fine and, by the way, AMZN is doing just fine also.