Father's Little Dividend - part 2

"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact."
Henry James

"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your reactions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was three years old, I had a conversation with my mother about losing baby teeth as I grew older, and how permanent teeth would replace them. My mother began to tell me about how the tooth fairy would visit. I was very interested in learning the details about losing my 'baby teeth', which ones would come out first, and so on. But when my mother tried to explain to me about the tooth fairy, I was mischievous. I had friends with older siblings who had 'visits' from the tooth fairy. A sweet but none the less mercenary child, I paid very close attention to the differing amounts that the older siblings received. I had observed that different kids got different amounts of cash for the same teeth.

I asked my mother to explain why that was. In fact, I did not for one moment believe in the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny, or Santa Clause either. I had worked it out quite logically; it had never seemed to me to be the slightest bit plausible, and as nearly as I can tell, I was born a skeptic. Being a somewhat mercenary child, as I have already mentioned, I also worked out, logically, that so long as the adults were enjoying themselves it was more likely that revealing that I did not believe the fantasies would end them: no more Santa Claus presents under the tree, no more Easter baskets, and clearly no loot for outgrown teeth. Bringing up the different amounts received initially seemed like an interesting negotiating tactic. But as the actual loss of teeth was a few years away, it was premature to haggle as to how much the tooth fairy MIGHT bring then, and leave under my pillow. So, instead, wicked child that I was, I led my poor, dear mother through a series of questions intending to tie her up in logical knots trying to explain the discrepancies. (Cut me some slack here, we were in the car, and I'd been well behaved for hours and hours of shopping; I was BORED out of my mind.) After I had tortured my wonderful mother long enough with my series of leading questions, I finally just folded my arms across my chest, and in dramatic exasperation, I told my mother point blank that I knew full well there was no Santa, no Easter bunny and no Tooth Fairy, along with a few other myths that I felt needed exploding. My mother tried to persuade me, passionately, but all she got from me was the big blue eyed stare that clearly indicated I wasn't buying it, and no amount of persuading was going to sell it to me. I made it clear to her that I had never at any time believed. Her concern was that older children had perhaps spoiled the fun for me. I was quite stern when I told her that I did not think it was a bit funny to exploit the trust of little kids, most of whom believed what adults told them - unlike me. And I expressed my considered opinion that those 'cute little stories' were actually lies, and those kids who did believe would just feel stupid and disappointed later.

So, I proposed a deal to my mother, that I still get all the loot from the various holidays, and the proceeds from losing my teeth, but I didn't have to pretend any more. I felt quite strongly my intelligence had been insulted in being expected to swallow those childish traditions, and I was not shy in expressing it. In exchange, I promised NOT to tell any other children, accepting my mother's premise that it was a matter between parents and their children. The no Santa Clause negotiation, the getting rid of babysitters I didn't like, a certain misadventure going visiting some distance away from home on my tricycle, all suggested to my poor unsuspecting parents that I might differ, significantly, from their expectations of child rearing. Life for my parents was one long roller coaster ride of 'guess what (the hell) she did now'.

Actually, I did once make my own roller coaster, and even persuaded my friends to join me riding on it, until my mother rather hysterically made us stop. My father had bought my mother a beautiful new car, which was parked in the garage. She loved that car. I and my friends each had the usual little red 'coaster' wagons. I had seen roller coasters on television, but my parents were convinced that I was too young to ride them; I was pre-kindergarten age at the time.

So, it was very logical to construct my own instead. I figured out that if you opened the car door, you could climb up on the seat, and from there if you were agile enough you could get on the car roof. Friends working together could lift up the coaster wagon so you could set it on the roof of the car. The roller coaster ride part came from getting into the wagon on the roof of the car, riding it down the windshield, across the hood, and becoming air born. Being a logical child I had carefully, thoughtfully contrived a safe landing by positioning the bags of sand and concrete that my father had bought for the field stone patio and stone terrace walls that were to be installed, where they were stacked against the garage wall. My friends and I had taken turns quite a few times, without any injury, although there were some marks from the wagon tires on the new car, when my mother came out of the house, curious about the loud thudding noises in the garage.

Either she realized very quickly that I and my little friends were none the worse for wear, or this was the one occasion in my entire life when my mother put a greater value on an inanimate object than she did on my well being. Whatever went through her mind, what came out of her mouth was an inarticulate scream at the top of her lungs. I and my friends left in a hurry, and I did not return home until dinner time that evening. Growing up, I had great faith in the existence of my own personal guardian angel; apparently they come in regular, AND industrial strength. Mine must have been the latter, if only to explain how I escaped justifiably being strangled by my loving parents. Fear has never been a big part of my decision making process; the things which frighten other people have never resulted in my receiving so much as a scratch.

When I was eleven, I had begun to make money babysitting my younger sibling. (I believe we have already established that I had a certain mercenary streak in the composition of my character.) My parents would allow me to baby sit for other people, if they were at home so they would be available if something happened. I was allowed to baby sit my younger sibling, if they were going to be going somewhere near by, and it was not going to be very late. I liked the money; there was a serious shortage of willing sitters, so I had augmented my chore-based allowance considerably. On a Friday night, my parents had considered going out to dinner, but kept changing their minds to stay in, which struck me as a bit unusual. I actively lobbied them to go out for the evening, and reluctantly they finally decided to go, but not very far, and not for very long. When I had begun babysitting, I had been very emphatic that I could handle anything that would come up; I was eager to prove my maturity and self-reliance to adults. My father was concerned that I was still rather young to be baby sitting, however smart, or mature I was for my age. He was at great pains to impress on me that home security did not include whatever notions I might have to improvise keeping out bad people. This insistence on his part significantly ruined my subsequent enjoyment of the McCauley Culkin "Home Alone" series of movies. My father assured me that if anyone was hurt because of oh, say an improvised man trap, that we could lose everything we owned. Likewise, he was at great pains to impress on us that we had to at all times keep the fence to our swimming pool locked, because of the laws regarding attractive nuisances, regardless of whether or not that seemed fair to us.

So, that evening, determined to show how well I could handle any eventuality, I found myself dealing with two men outside the house that didn't belong there. I directed my younger sibling to a place of hiding, for safety, and with the advantage of lights out, I enlisted the assistance of our vicious miniature schnauzer bitch. Under current laws, she easily would be considered a dangerous dog; but she was a useful deterrent to trespassers jumping the fence and using the pool. The two men had spent a considerable period of time outside the windows to my father's den. Armed with the Schnauzer, and a baseball bat, I calculated that they would be stuck in a sort of tactical bottle neck as they came through the window, leaving them distinctly vulnerable, especially in the dark. As they were struggling with removing the screen, I let go of the family dog, who as expected went thoroughly 'Cujo' on the window, snarling and growling and flinging herself around trying to get a solid bite of the first guy between her teeth. I had intended to back up her efforts with a few good swings of the bat, but never got the chance. The two intruders fled. In retrospect, I was probably a little too quick letting go of the dog.

I then got my sibling from hiding, called my parents, and then proceeded after that to call the police. My worst fear was that I was going to be in BIG trouble for the damage to the screen and the surrounding woodwork. The screen was in shreds, not even the frame surviving the dog's efforts to reach the intruders.

So when not only my parents arrived minutes later, but also the local police car, a police car from the adjoining municipality (they had a reciprocal arrangement), a county sheriff's car, a highway patrol vehicle, and an unmarked vehicle with two men in it, I happily concluded that there was more going on than a simple burglary attempt, and was relieved to be off the hook for the window damage. (I said I was mercenary, or at least, profit oriented.) I walked out the front door, with the Schnauzer firmly under one arm growling away at the officers in the front yard, and the baseball bat under my other arm, and sat down in my long ruffled flannel nightgown on the front step, waiting for an explanation.

I carefully told everyone all of the details about the men I had observed - and I HAD taken care to observe them before deciding to set the dog on them. And then I extracted from my father the information that in his capacity as an investment banker, he was cooperating with the federal authorities (apparently the FBI) in prosecuting some bad men for money laundering and stock fraud. I have a strong dislike for crime in general, and for white collar crime in particular dating back to that moment.

A few weeks later, my father came to the dinner table after coming home from the office, with a badly bruised right hand. Being very serious, he explained to my mother, my younger sibling, and I that the men who we believed had tried to break into his den had been at some kind of legal meeting that afternoon. One of them had made the threat to my father that it would be a shame if something bad happened to those two cute red headed kids of his; and that there were even worse things that could happen than dying. My father's quiet explanation for his injured hand was that he had lost his temper and hit the man. What he didn't tell me that I learned many years later was that before anyone could stop my father, he had laid the bigger of the two men out flat on the floor, and that it had taken three federal officers considerable effort to peel my father off of him.

My father asked each of us how we wanted to proceed. I recall it being unanimous that we didn't want him to give in to the pressure of threats. The down side was that after that we had to endure certain protective measures for a period of months that were ... well, lets just say they look like a lot more fun on television and in the movies. There were no further incidents, the bad guys were put behind bars. I'm sure it came as no surprise to my parents when I expressed the opinion that if the bad guys got past the protective people, given they were larger than I was, logically it made more sense to kill them, than to try to subdue them and subsequently to try to restrain them. Father still wouldn't let me take fire arms training however. He did venture the advice that if it ever came down to it, if I got someone down, to make sure they didn't get up again. I have no idea to this day if that was a euphemism or a generalization.

The same colleagues of my father who told me about the feds pulling my father off the crook did share with me that my father was quite amused at, and encouraged, by my intention to stop the bad guys if necessary, and that if the occasion arose, he believed I might actually succeed. I'm also very sure that the last thing my father ever wanted was for his darling 'precious princess' daughter to kill someone, even in self defense. I hope it helped him that fear was never part of my decision making, given the grief that gave him on other occasions.

All of which is the long way round leading up to my more recent adventures in uncovering an affinity crime. To be addressed in the next installment.