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Omaha is a great place to be in the first week in May. As well as the Berkshire Hathaway annual general meeting in which 40,000 people listen intently to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, it is a great town to be in. The people are very friendly. They seem to be brought up in culture of civility and caring. They go out of their way to help you. For example, on Friday evening I had done a book signing for Hudson’s Book Store at Creighton University.
Afterwards I needed to get a taxi back to University of Nebraska Omaha for a posh dinner. Of course with 40,000 wealthy people in town there is quite a high demand for taxis. And besides, it seems that I’m way out of date: at various point during my 4-day stay I was asked with incredulity in the voice “don’t you have Uber?”, or “don’t you have Lyft?”
This is how behind I am: I had to take my phone out of my pocket to go past security at the venue for the AGM, and a nice young man exclaimed “Oh! A SIMPLE phone!” He’d heard of such things, but seemed to have never seen one. Perhaps I need to upgrade.
Anyway, back to Friday evening. There were no taxis to be had. Jim Ross, who runs the world famous book store at the airport in Omaha with its unrivalled collection of investing books, insisted on taking me in his car up to UNO.
Now, Jim has a very busy time of it during the Berkshire weekend so this was an act of great generosity – I knew it was out of his way, and I said he shouldn’t, but he kept insisting.
I’ve known Jim many years, but did not realise how close he was to the Buffett family. As we drove, we went past his old school. He went there with Warren’s children (just an ordinary school – not fee-paying) – as a lad he used go round to their house.
Then we went past Berkshire HQ with its total of 30 staff at Kiewit Plaza (I’ve never bothered to go and have a look before – it’s just a 1960s tower block) and past Buffett’s house – just an ordinary 4-bed place with front lawn, etc.
Sadly, these days they have had to fence off half way up the lawn for security reasons. Also, sadly, there were dozens of gawkers taking photos. The security guard stood impassively and patiently. It’s in a nice part of Omaha with big mature trees shading the gardens. Jim lives a few doors up. I must say the people of Omaha must be very forgiving of all these outsiders invading their quiet town year after year.
Jim had told me that a few days before CNBC people had interviewed him in the bookstore about the Berkshire weekend. I knew it was to be broadcast that night at 9pm but I was tired and so missed it (that was 3am UK time!).
I couldn’t believe my luck when on the plane from Chicago to London I turned on the live broadcast sent to the plane from CNBC – and there was, at that moment, the one hour programme about Buffett being broadcast.
Jim was on screen for at least ten minutes. He took the camera…………………………
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