Ken Von Kohorn's memoir consists not just of a single narrative, but of sixteen distinct stories that weave their way through his life, from the 1950s through the first two decades of the 21st century. His essays contain insightful and thought-provoking observations that entertain while shedding light on his era.
Ken grew up in the U.S., in Scarsdale, NY and Greenwich, CT; yet he began traveling abroad at an early age. In 1954, while he was just a child of seven, his family moved temporarily to the Philippine Islands. In 1961, as a fourteen-year-old, Ken spent a summer in Chile, and the following summer he lived in Spain, a country then still under the decades-long stewardship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
While attending Yale during the mid-1960s, Ken continued to travel. In the summer of 1965, he lived in Germany, at one point exiting the West through Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie and witnessing first-hand the other side of the Iron Curtain. In the summer of 1967, Ken taught English to Taiwanese junior executives, experiencing a vibrant country that now finds itself in Mainland China's crosshairs. Just after his Yale graduation in 1968, Ken spent a summer writing computer code at IBM-Sweden in Stockholm and navigating the Swedish social scene.
At Yale, Ken joined an a capella singing group, the Alley Cats. In addition to performing concert tours with the 'Cats, he served a one-year stint as their business manager, a leadership experience that helped prepare him to form and manage his own investment advisory firm.
In 1973, while at Stanford Business School pursuing an MBA, Ken helped his student team win an investment competition. As a side venture, having learned a Blackjack card-counting tactic developed by an MIT professor, Ken matched wits with the Harrah's Lake Tahoe casino.
The memoir includes a nostalgic week at the Mantle-Ford Baseball Fantasy Camp in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where in 1992, Ken and two of his brothers donned Yankee uniforms, spent time with Mickey Mantle, Whitely Ford, Yogi Berra and other Hall of Famers, and played baseball against more recent vintage Yankee veterans.
There's much more here as well. You will enjoy sharing the journey!
