"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery,
author, "The Little Prince", 1943
(1900 - 1944),
"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."
(and)
"My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one."
Groucho Marx
(1890 - 1977)
My godmother who is also my aunt, has told me over the years that I was a fearless child, and that I was even fearless as an infant. By fearless, she said that I was not afraid of things that adults expected to frighten me. I did not flinch or cry at sudden loud noises, for example at a few months old; instead I would look for the source, out of curiosity; sometimes I would even laugh.
So perhaps there is some genetic component, rather than purely a choice of character, that underlies my difference of opinion, and my approach to fear. I DO recall on more than one occasion expressing a certain exasperation to my parents when something I had done upset them, asserting, "Daaaaaaaaad, I'm brave. I'm NOT stupid." I did many things, especially with animals (my parents had no rapport whatsoever with animals) that gave them rip roaring fits of fear, sometimes full-blown panic for my safety. The other areas besides my interactions with animals which gave my parents pause (read near heart attack) were my curiosity about other people, especially people different than those I was accustomed to being around, and challenges to my physical skills and endurance. Wherever we were, but especially when traveling, my parents never knew when they would turn around to find me having wandered off to speak with someone who intrigued me. Sometimes the people who intrigued me upset my parents. By 'sometimes' I mean often.
Showing posts with label Father's Little Dividend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Father's Little Dividend. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Father's Maturing Dividend - Part 4
“The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.”
Andre Gide
French writer, humanist and moralist,
1947 nobel prize for literature,
1869-1951
We know that every strong sensation, emotion, or excitement-- extreme pain, rage, terror, joy, or the passion of love-- all have a special tendency to cause the muscles to tremble;
Charles Darwin
A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
Kahlil Gibran
Our absent friend KR is fond of yanking my chain with comments about me trembling in fear. I have never as a girl or woman, been fond of terrified damsel in distress scenarios. That is not to say that there have never been situations that were distressing to me, or frightening. The difference is not the risk, but the response.
When I was fifteen, my parents allowed me to begin dating, and the first person I dated was someone very nice from my debate team; he was a senior in high school. We continued dating, although it was at best a tepid relationship on my side, after he graduated and went on to college. That became tedious - the excitement of college parties didn't offset the deficiencies of the relationship. I dated other people, some in high school, some in college.
I finally dated someone that really interested me. He was in college. We had known each other since I was 4 and he was 6; my parents knew his parents socially. The difference was that this time, my feelings were more engaged. He invited me to a party at his dorm, and asked if I would give him a ride over to the West Bank of the U of MN Minneapolis campus where the dorm was. I arranged to take the car that was nominally my mothers for the day.
I was not sure if my interest was returned. At 16 I was usually more interested in dressing in a way that gained the approval of my girlfriends, or was competitive with them, rather than dressing for male attention. (It's a 'girl' thing.) But for that afternoon, I dressed to be, well, serious "arm-candy". I was able to be 'age ambiguous'; it helped, being tall. I knew quite well how to select clothes to achieve an effect.
My parents weren't worried, I had always been very responsible concerning alcohol, driving, and dating. When I wasn't a royal pain, I was a very easy child. They never had to tell me to study, I held a part time job at the library, I maintained honor roll grades, I was active in our church and community organizations, they liked who I dated, they even approved of my taste in clothes and makeup.
My father was fond of a kid's poem, from my earliest childhood, and said it to me often:
"there was a little girl,
who had a little curl,
right in the middle of her forehead;
and when she was good,
she was very very good,
and when she was bad, she was horrid".
That was prophetic.
I picked up my date at his front door, and we headed to the dorm party. We locked my purse in his dorm room, and moved on to the room where the party was, full of loud music, lots of people sprawled around the room on beds and the floor, in couples, with cigarette smoke, and bottles of alcohol everywhere, interspersed with a few half-empty bags of chips and pretzels. The music was so loud, conversation was impossible unless you yelled a few inches from the other person's ear.
We ended up sitting on the end of a bed that was up against a back wall, my date with his legs hanging over the foot of the bed and his back against the wall, and I with my legs draped over the side of the bed, resting with my back against his chest, his arm around my waist. He talked to the guy next to him, and except for his arm around my waist, ignored me. I was apparently there just to boost his image; that's what arm candy does, you sit there. Unfortunately for me, the inebriated jock who was sitting on the floor near where my feet hung over the edge of the bed didn't ignore me. He kept asking me if I was 'a real redhead', over and over. I had a bad feeling about where the conversation was going. As the music was so loud, I just nodded, tried to avoid eye contact, and hoped he would either pass out or go away.
He did neither. Sure enough, predictably, the next question was the perennial did the collar match the cuffs, the drapes match the rug. With the addition that he slid his hand up my leg. Which was bad enough, except that not only could I not dissuade him from continuing with his hand, he thought it would be very clever to find out the answer to his question for himself, and tried to slide his hand inside the pants leg of my shorts. I tried patiently for a few minutes to get the attention of my date, who was looking less appealing by the minute, while trying to struggle with the guy mauling me. As I looked around the room, every other woman there was in a similar position to mine, more or less, looking both bored and ignored, and very submissive.
We were not dates, we were accessories for the party, like the booze and the chips and the music. The lout on the floor would not stop trying to grope under my clothes , no matter how I struggled. My date was oblivious. The drunk was bigger, and older, and stronger than I was. I think he was used to that working for him with women. Although to be fair, I don't think he had any idea of my age.
I had enough. Near the end of the bed, at the corner, was a kitchen sized wastebasket doing double duty as an ice bucket, it had melted down to half ice cubes, half water, about 2/3 full. I slid forward to the edge of the bed, and leaned forward as if to speak to the clod on the floor. Correctly guessing he would be watching my chest rather than my face - or hands, I picked up the waste basket without him noticing. It was heavy, but I suppose by that point I'd had a rush of adrenaline. I rapidly poured the contents over his head, turned the wastebasket upside down, and thumped the upturned bottom of the wastebasket solidly with my fist, sort of wedging it over his head and around his shoulders at least on one side.
I stood up, amidst cheers from the other women in the room, and loud grumbling from the men. Someone turned off the noisy music. I told off my 'date'. I told off the guy on the floor who was still sitting there in quite a lot of water and ice cubes, with the waste basket still on his head. I think he was afraid to take it off. I was blazing angry. He was stunned. My date was stunned.
I stepped over the lout's legs, taking care not to step on the ice cubes, and headed for the door. My date looked at me, blankly, because he had no idea what had happened. He hadn't been paying attention; too bad for him.
I wanted my purse, I was leaving, and if he didn't want to open the door to his room, I would find a resident advisor, a janitor, someone to do it for me. All during the party, I had expected that my escort would intervene with the drunk. I was angry that he had not - angry being an understatement. It was in retrospect probably as much anger and disappointment in my escort as it was fury with the groping drunk that was at the root of my emotions. But I was also disgusted by the passivity of the other women in the room that contributed to the situation, and on some level I decided to change that by my example, even if I was the youngest person in the room at the time.
"Poor" date, his friends were angry with him, I was angry with him; it was a no-win situation. He chose me, and followed me out of the party. He was eventually able to persuade me to go for a long walk around campus before leaving, where he tried to be belatedly romantic. Then he decided to ride back home with me, even if it meant getting a second ride back to campus afterwards. It was a turning point in my expectations, a lesson that while it may be nice for a man to be protective and attentive, it is not wise to rely on it....and it is not necessary to wait for it. Behavior afterwards doesn't change anything.
Fast forward a number of years later. I held the power of attorney for a cousin who was getting a divorce, who had gone to China for a year to provide a specialized kind of engineering during their massive dam building project. My cousin's spouse was nuts; part of the strategy in the China trip was to put my cousin out of reach of the other person's obsessive behavior. The spouse didn't like me, because my volunteering for the power of attorney had made it possible for the trip to China. It became necessary first for me to get an ordinary civil restraining order, and when that was repeatedly violated, a criminal restraining order. As with the college party date, I was disenchanted with the protection provided by law enforcement in following through on the restraining orders, as in none. On top of which, the erratic behavior, including some truly odd religious notions on the part of my cousin's spouse had convinced me this person was just romp stomping nuts, dangerously so. I adamantly refused to be manipulated, bullied, threatened or otherwise coerced into doing what this person wanted. I actually enjoyed that doing the things I needed to do with the power of attorney, for the divorce, thwarted this wacko spouse more effectively than anyone else had ever been able to do. This was a person who got their way, regularly, through the most despicable means possible. I took a lot of satisfaction in that not working with me.
The very old and dear friend who introduce me to my friends who now blog, both Pen and Mitch, was always very protective of me, but in a reserved, very courtly sort of way. I think he was perhaps rather shy, but in his own special way he always gave me the most wonderful feeling of being safe that I think I have ever enjoyed as an adult.
He was what some people might consider a 'gun nut'; he knew and loved guns the way I know and love dogs. It was his 'thing', and he was singularly skilled. Why he undertook to be concerned about my safety and to extend himself to such a great extent, I don't fully understand, but I appreciated it. His response to my situation was to enroll me in a more advanced combat pistol class - I already had a minimal fire arms proficiency - and to join me for a lot of range time, practicing.
I can appreciate that he had my best interest at heart when he was demanding about routine handgun maintenance, after our visits to the range. I'm still not entirely convinced it was necessary for me to be able to field strip my personal weapon blindfolded, but I suppose it did add to my confidence. I have always wondered if he just thought that was simply funny to watch. But he was correct that both the target shooting and the blindfold drill, along with simply the assurance that I found in his company encouraged both my confidence and my competence. Fortunately, it was a skill I never needed to use, but I am glad he taught me.
He died a few years ago, from cancer.
He told me a story a long time before that took place, back when he was still very healthy. When he was seven years old, his parents took him to their usual church service where a guest pastor was preaching the Sunday sermon. His subject for the sermon had been heaven and hell, and which one people might be going to in the afterlife. As the congregation filed out of church, the guest pastor was at the door shaking hands, and he asked my friend's family what they thought of the service. My friend, contrary and clever child that he was, indicated when asked in turn, that he had decided he wasn't going to either one; not to heaven, and not to hell.
This rather disconcerted the reverend, prompting him to ask how he intended to manage that? My friend, with his seven year old's reasoning, told him he had decided to be a ghost when the time came, and to stay here on earth.
There are times when, in adverse moments, I feel my friend very comfortingly at my shoulder, reminding me that I am capable and resourceful no matter what life might throw at me. Not really because of those skills that he was at such great pains to instill, but because of who I am inside. Who is to say what is merely memory or something more?
So, what no one else who reads this blog has known, until now, is that references to me being afraid make me think fondly but sadly of my dear friend, who I miss very much. I am grateful that he was so generous in sharing with me his special gifts with the intention to empower me, one of the very special people I cherish for having done so in my life. His second gift to me was to remind me that there are men like him, who make others feel safe instead of afraid.
Andre Gide
French writer, humanist and moralist,
1947 nobel prize for literature,
1869-1951
We know that every strong sensation, emotion, or excitement-- extreme pain, rage, terror, joy, or the passion of love-- all have a special tendency to cause the muscles to tremble;
Charles Darwin
A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
Kahlil Gibran
Our absent friend KR is fond of yanking my chain with comments about me trembling in fear. I have never as a girl or woman, been fond of terrified damsel in distress scenarios. That is not to say that there have never been situations that were distressing to me, or frightening. The difference is not the risk, but the response.
When I was fifteen, my parents allowed me to begin dating, and the first person I dated was someone very nice from my debate team; he was a senior in high school. We continued dating, although it was at best a tepid relationship on my side, after he graduated and went on to college. That became tedious - the excitement of college parties didn't offset the deficiencies of the relationship. I dated other people, some in high school, some in college.
I finally dated someone that really interested me. He was in college. We had known each other since I was 4 and he was 6; my parents knew his parents socially. The difference was that this time, my feelings were more engaged. He invited me to a party at his dorm, and asked if I would give him a ride over to the West Bank of the U of MN Minneapolis campus where the dorm was. I arranged to take the car that was nominally my mothers for the day.
I was not sure if my interest was returned. At 16 I was usually more interested in dressing in a way that gained the approval of my girlfriends, or was competitive with them, rather than dressing for male attention. (It's a 'girl' thing.) But for that afternoon, I dressed to be, well, serious "arm-candy". I was able to be 'age ambiguous'; it helped, being tall. I knew quite well how to select clothes to achieve an effect.
My parents weren't worried, I had always been very responsible concerning alcohol, driving, and dating. When I wasn't a royal pain, I was a very easy child. They never had to tell me to study, I held a part time job at the library, I maintained honor roll grades, I was active in our church and community organizations, they liked who I dated, they even approved of my taste in clothes and makeup.
My father was fond of a kid's poem, from my earliest childhood, and said it to me often:
"there was a little girl,
who had a little curl,
right in the middle of her forehead;
and when she was good,
she was very very good,
and when she was bad, she was horrid".
That was prophetic.
I picked up my date at his front door, and we headed to the dorm party. We locked my purse in his dorm room, and moved on to the room where the party was, full of loud music, lots of people sprawled around the room on beds and the floor, in couples, with cigarette smoke, and bottles of alcohol everywhere, interspersed with a few half-empty bags of chips and pretzels. The music was so loud, conversation was impossible unless you yelled a few inches from the other person's ear.
We ended up sitting on the end of a bed that was up against a back wall, my date with his legs hanging over the foot of the bed and his back against the wall, and I with my legs draped over the side of the bed, resting with my back against his chest, his arm around my waist. He talked to the guy next to him, and except for his arm around my waist, ignored me. I was apparently there just to boost his image; that's what arm candy does, you sit there. Unfortunately for me, the inebriated jock who was sitting on the floor near where my feet hung over the edge of the bed didn't ignore me. He kept asking me if I was 'a real redhead', over and over. I had a bad feeling about where the conversation was going. As the music was so loud, I just nodded, tried to avoid eye contact, and hoped he would either pass out or go away.
He did neither. Sure enough, predictably, the next question was the perennial did the collar match the cuffs, the drapes match the rug. With the addition that he slid his hand up my leg. Which was bad enough, except that not only could I not dissuade him from continuing with his hand, he thought it would be very clever to find out the answer to his question for himself, and tried to slide his hand inside the pants leg of my shorts. I tried patiently for a few minutes to get the attention of my date, who was looking less appealing by the minute, while trying to struggle with the guy mauling me. As I looked around the room, every other woman there was in a similar position to mine, more or less, looking both bored and ignored, and very submissive.
We were not dates, we were accessories for the party, like the booze and the chips and the music. The lout on the floor would not stop trying to grope under my clothes , no matter how I struggled. My date was oblivious. The drunk was bigger, and older, and stronger than I was. I think he was used to that working for him with women. Although to be fair, I don't think he had any idea of my age.
I had enough. Near the end of the bed, at the corner, was a kitchen sized wastebasket doing double duty as an ice bucket, it had melted down to half ice cubes, half water, about 2/3 full. I slid forward to the edge of the bed, and leaned forward as if to speak to the clod on the floor. Correctly guessing he would be watching my chest rather than my face - or hands, I picked up the waste basket without him noticing. It was heavy, but I suppose by that point I'd had a rush of adrenaline. I rapidly poured the contents over his head, turned the wastebasket upside down, and thumped the upturned bottom of the wastebasket solidly with my fist, sort of wedging it over his head and around his shoulders at least on one side.
I stood up, amidst cheers from the other women in the room, and loud grumbling from the men. Someone turned off the noisy music. I told off my 'date'. I told off the guy on the floor who was still sitting there in quite a lot of water and ice cubes, with the waste basket still on his head. I think he was afraid to take it off. I was blazing angry. He was stunned. My date was stunned.
I stepped over the lout's legs, taking care not to step on the ice cubes, and headed for the door. My date looked at me, blankly, because he had no idea what had happened. He hadn't been paying attention; too bad for him.
I wanted my purse, I was leaving, and if he didn't want to open the door to his room, I would find a resident advisor, a janitor, someone to do it for me. All during the party, I had expected that my escort would intervene with the drunk. I was angry that he had not - angry being an understatement. It was in retrospect probably as much anger and disappointment in my escort as it was fury with the groping drunk that was at the root of my emotions. But I was also disgusted by the passivity of the other women in the room that contributed to the situation, and on some level I decided to change that by my example, even if I was the youngest person in the room at the time.
"Poor" date, his friends were angry with him, I was angry with him; it was a no-win situation. He chose me, and followed me out of the party. He was eventually able to persuade me to go for a long walk around campus before leaving, where he tried to be belatedly romantic. Then he decided to ride back home with me, even if it meant getting a second ride back to campus afterwards. It was a turning point in my expectations, a lesson that while it may be nice for a man to be protective and attentive, it is not wise to rely on it....and it is not necessary to wait for it. Behavior afterwards doesn't change anything.
Fast forward a number of years later. I held the power of attorney for a cousin who was getting a divorce, who had gone to China for a year to provide a specialized kind of engineering during their massive dam building project. My cousin's spouse was nuts; part of the strategy in the China trip was to put my cousin out of reach of the other person's obsessive behavior. The spouse didn't like me, because my volunteering for the power of attorney had made it possible for the trip to China. It became necessary first for me to get an ordinary civil restraining order, and when that was repeatedly violated, a criminal restraining order. As with the college party date, I was disenchanted with the protection provided by law enforcement in following through on the restraining orders, as in none. On top of which, the erratic behavior, including some truly odd religious notions on the part of my cousin's spouse had convinced me this person was just romp stomping nuts, dangerously so. I adamantly refused to be manipulated, bullied, threatened or otherwise coerced into doing what this person wanted. I actually enjoyed that doing the things I needed to do with the power of attorney, for the divorce, thwarted this wacko spouse more effectively than anyone else had ever been able to do. This was a person who got their way, regularly, through the most despicable means possible. I took a lot of satisfaction in that not working with me.
The very old and dear friend who introduce me to my friends who now blog, both Pen and Mitch, was always very protective of me, but in a reserved, very courtly sort of way. I think he was perhaps rather shy, but in his own special way he always gave me the most wonderful feeling of being safe that I think I have ever enjoyed as an adult.
He was what some people might consider a 'gun nut'; he knew and loved guns the way I know and love dogs. It was his 'thing', and he was singularly skilled. Why he undertook to be concerned about my safety and to extend himself to such a great extent, I don't fully understand, but I appreciated it. His response to my situation was to enroll me in a more advanced combat pistol class - I already had a minimal fire arms proficiency - and to join me for a lot of range time, practicing.
I can appreciate that he had my best interest at heart when he was demanding about routine handgun maintenance, after our visits to the range. I'm still not entirely convinced it was necessary for me to be able to field strip my personal weapon blindfolded, but I suppose it did add to my confidence. I have always wondered if he just thought that was simply funny to watch. But he was correct that both the target shooting and the blindfold drill, along with simply the assurance that I found in his company encouraged both my confidence and my competence. Fortunately, it was a skill I never needed to use, but I am glad he taught me.
He died a few years ago, from cancer.
He told me a story a long time before that took place, back when he was still very healthy. When he was seven years old, his parents took him to their usual church service where a guest pastor was preaching the Sunday sermon. His subject for the sermon had been heaven and hell, and which one people might be going to in the afterlife. As the congregation filed out of church, the guest pastor was at the door shaking hands, and he asked my friend's family what they thought of the service. My friend, contrary and clever child that he was, indicated when asked in turn, that he had decided he wasn't going to either one; not to heaven, and not to hell.
This rather disconcerted the reverend, prompting him to ask how he intended to manage that? My friend, with his seven year old's reasoning, told him he had decided to be a ghost when the time came, and to stay here on earth.
There are times when, in adverse moments, I feel my friend very comfortingly at my shoulder, reminding me that I am capable and resourceful no matter what life might throw at me. Not really because of those skills that he was at such great pains to instill, but because of who I am inside. Who is to say what is merely memory or something more?
So, what no one else who reads this blog has known, until now, is that references to me being afraid make me think fondly but sadly of my dear friend, who I miss very much. I am grateful that he was so generous in sharing with me his special gifts with the intention to empower me, one of the very special people I cherish for having done so in my life. His second gift to me was to remind me that there are men like him, who make others feel safe instead of afraid.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Father's Little Dividend - Part 3
"Beware the fury of a patient man.”
John Dryden
British Poet, Dramatist and Critic of Literacy
1631-1700
“Thou call'st me dog before thou hadst a cause, But since I am a dog, beware my fangs”
William Shakespeare
English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet
1564-1616
"Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.”
Francis Quarles
English religious Poet
1592-1644
When I was a young teenager, 13 or 14, my parents took our family on a trip west to Montana and Wyoming. We visited Glacier and Yellowstone Parks, and another stop included a visit to a working (not 'dude') ranch. My father had been indulging my horse interest, which easily rivaled if not exceeded my love of dogs, since I was around 9 or 10. When I had been very small, my special time with my father was Saturday mornings, sitting in our pajamas on the floor of his den watching cartoons and old movies on television while my mother slept in, eating cereal out of the box while both of us drank large glasses of milk and laughed at having milk mustaches.
As I outgrew cartoons, riding on Saturday had replaced our mornings together, although dad preferred to catch up on his reading while I rode. It was the hour or so drive each way that comprised our time together. While I was actually in the saddle, my non-animal loving parent preferred not to watch me 'break my neck'. I preferred riding very large thoroughbred hunter jumpers, and thought hurtling over very large jumps on a very tall horse was the next best thing to riding hell for leather across country, hurtling over large fences and other natural obstacles like fallen tree trunks on very tall horses. The faster, the higher, the bigger the better as far as I was concerned, and the devil take the hindmost.
So while we stayed at the ranch, it seemed perfectly normal to my parents that I would choose to get up at crack of dawn or even before sunrise, in the mountains, volunteering to help bring in the horses to be ridden that day, before breakfast. What they hadn't known, and I hadn't thought necessary to tell them, was that we rode out to get the horses doubling up, and then those of us who were double riders, grabbed horses, and helped round up the rest and rode them in. This meant that maybe you used a bridle, and rode bareback, but more often just a hackamore or a halter and lead rope, relying on leg cues and neck reining for control. A few times, I rode with just a handful of mane and nothing else, including at least one occasion where I rode thundering past my parents waving to them madly, but they apparently didn't notice my lack of tack, given the clouds of dust and the commotion. Fair enough I suppose, given I was on the opposite side from them with some thirty horses in between, and they hadn't had breakfast or even coffee yet.
But it did surprise me when they drove up after a minor shopping trip to the nearest town which was some 60 or 70 miles away, each way, and became extremely upset to find me riding unbroken ranch horses in a corral, while a handful of the ranch hands sat around on the rails drinking beer, smoking cigars and chewing tobacco. I was having a very good time, the best time I had the entire vacation, doing something I enjoyed. The ranch hands got a break from their work. The horses had a lighter rider with gentler hands and voice; it seemed a win win situation to me. Given that the ranch hands tended to go for quicker, rougher training methods, which included not only drinking beer but breaking the bottles over the heads of the more unruly horses when they reared back, as evidenced by all of the broken brown glass in the corral sand and their own admissions. So, I thought I was doing a good thing. Now I will admit my derriere got bounced around a bit, but I knew how to ride. There is a slang term in riding, called 'daylight', that refers to an undesirable gap between saddle leather and rider's nether anatomy. I allowed precious little 'daylight', and I was never thrown either. I was able to get nearly as rapid a result as the more violent techniques, and had ridden more than a few horses before my parents uproar, without incident. While my parents objected to what they thought was dangerous, after the ranch hands explained what I had been doing rounding up horses every morning, it didn't seem nearly as bad as charging through mountainous terrain in dawn lighting for miles at speed. Although there was a...conversation about that later.
I was allowed to continue, but that...conversation, a rather one sided conversation, objected to my behaving inappropriately. They didn't think it was a good thing for a young woman to be hanging out with crusty ranch hands all afternoon, much less to be doing their dangerous jobs. To be fair to the ranch hands, I had first had to prove my abilities to their satisfaction, then begged like crazy. They were surprisingly self-censoring, compared to their usual earthier, cruder language, and delightfully courteous and solicitous of my well-being. This all took place in a very central location, the corral, with people coming and going, watching for awhile, leaving, coming back, so I didn't see the problem with spending a quantity of time with a group of older men. Well, to be more precise, I had calculated the risk pretty fairly to my abilities, and decided it was manageable, and I wasn't going to be a snob instead of having a good time doing what I liked, and was good at doing. I think I had much more fun than the rest of my family on that trip. I have made a habit of having a fun time doing my own thing, on family trips.
While out rounding up horses for the day, I came across a big red thoroughbred that someone out east had 'dumped' with the ranch owner. He hadn't been ridden in at least three years, and I was intrigued. We brought him back in and got him saddled up; to be fair, it took two strong men holding his head for me to get in the saddle. We tried using only one strong man, but he was lifted clean off his feet. My dear mother was having hysterics on cue. But after a bit of riding, he turned out to have excellent manners (rather like the ranch hands) and I fell in love with him. I brushed him, found and soothed his sore spots and where he liked to be rubbed. By the second day he was following me around without even a lead rope or halter, more like a dog than a horse, and I could ride him at will. I wanted to bring him back with us but mother won out with "he's too big, he's dangerous, he scares me". One of my dogs couldn't have been more protective of my safety than that horse was; he became quite territorial.
So, a few years later it did not surprise my parents to find that when my debate coach was 'stuck' covering the journalism class while the usual teacher was on sabbatical, he signed up a group from the debate team for the class. The journalism class produced the school paper, which immediately became massive litter; it deserved to be trash, it was so badly written it was garbage. The first I knew I was taking 'journalism' was when my fall schedule arrived, a few weeks before school. My then-boyfriend, from the debate team, the same brave soul who chastised me for going off like a grenade on the bully, and I, were the co-editors; it wasn't a choice. We were simply told. We were also given the direction to make this rag worth reading, make it interesting, make it relevant, or you flunk.
Another member of our debate team, great guy, worked part time at the local McDonald's. Due to unseasonable weather, lots of rain, high water levels, the Mickey D's had developed a problem with their garbage dumpsters and sewer rats. He and the other guys who worked late night shifts, especially on weekends, objected to having to brave the rats, and were fired.
I thought that was unfair, I was even angry on his behalf. So I decided that the newspaper would do a full front page color photo expose of the rats. The staff were students, the customers were students, students from the nearby parochial schools were customers too. It was perfect. We gave them the chance to correct the garbage problem, but they were too cheap. We gave them the chance to hire back our debate team friend and the others, with a raise, but they had already replaced them with more 'compliant' students they could bully because they needed the money. So, we ran the edition, copied the health department, and copied the local metro big papers. Knight Ridder ran with it, B-section, prominently.
My co-editor boy- friend was a good sport about it all; he didn't leave me to face any of it alone, even though I was far more the driving force behind the whole thing than he was. We drastically exceeded our allotted budget for the entire journalism class, with our little project. I was never able to verify that the difference was made up from a collection in the teacher's lounge, but that was the rumor. The debate coach wouldn't say; he just grinned a lot, and told us to "carry on", and leave the rest to him.
The first my parents learned that their darling daughter had been taking photos in close proximity at 2 a.m. to piles of garbage swarming with many quite large sewer rats was when McDonald's, the Corporate, not the mere franchised McDonald's, threatened to sue our school district, if we didn't print a retraction. It was the only time in my entire life I was called to the office because I was in trouble, along with the poor dear boyfriend, and our journalism teacher/debate coach. We were threatened with expulsion, which particularly troubled me as I had already taken my college boards as a junior, and applied to the only college I planned on attending. I was accepted during my journalism adventure, my junior year of high school. High school graduation was not strictly required by that college; but it was definitely required of me by my parents.
The debate coach declined the retraction. We just shut up and nodded; we had faith, but it wasn't an easy faith. The debate coach was correct, although the school district's lawyers squirmed for a good few days. It turned out, or so it was explained to us, that because the Knight Ridder newspapers had run our story - giving us full credit for the information - that the McDonalds Corporation would have to sue them also, if they sued our school district. The suit was dropped, an offer was extended to our debate team friends and the other students who were fired to be rehired, at a raise. My boyfriend, poor darling, and I continued to strip-mine the story veins of students employed by area restaurants for exposes that made us very readable - and led to at least one more health department intervention. We got our 'A's for the class, the paper was well read, a boycott developed among not only our students, but other students from schools in the area until things improved, not only at the McDonalds but at the other restaurants that used student-aged labor. Most of all I learned the important lesson that I already knew about dogs and horses, that also with adversaries, size shouldn't intimidate.
My poor parents learned that their children (my red-headed younger sibling subsequently followed a similar course of independent minded indignation) tended to do things our parents never could anticipate forbidding us to do; things that seemed very logical to us but rather unexpected to them, especially when we were angry, and worst when we were angry on behalf of others, two legged, four legged,....others.
I have become angry again recently, on behalf of others.....
John Dryden
British Poet, Dramatist and Critic of Literacy
1631-1700
“Thou call'st me dog before thou hadst a cause, But since I am a dog, beware my fangs”
William Shakespeare
English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet
1564-1616
"Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.”
Francis Quarles
English religious Poet
1592-1644
When I was a young teenager, 13 or 14, my parents took our family on a trip west to Montana and Wyoming. We visited Glacier and Yellowstone Parks, and another stop included a visit to a working (not 'dude') ranch. My father had been indulging my horse interest, which easily rivaled if not exceeded my love of dogs, since I was around 9 or 10. When I had been very small, my special time with my father was Saturday mornings, sitting in our pajamas on the floor of his den watching cartoons and old movies on television while my mother slept in, eating cereal out of the box while both of us drank large glasses of milk and laughed at having milk mustaches.
As I outgrew cartoons, riding on Saturday had replaced our mornings together, although dad preferred to catch up on his reading while I rode. It was the hour or so drive each way that comprised our time together. While I was actually in the saddle, my non-animal loving parent preferred not to watch me 'break my neck'. I preferred riding very large thoroughbred hunter jumpers, and thought hurtling over very large jumps on a very tall horse was the next best thing to riding hell for leather across country, hurtling over large fences and other natural obstacles like fallen tree trunks on very tall horses. The faster, the higher, the bigger the better as far as I was concerned, and the devil take the hindmost.
So while we stayed at the ranch, it seemed perfectly normal to my parents that I would choose to get up at crack of dawn or even before sunrise, in the mountains, volunteering to help bring in the horses to be ridden that day, before breakfast. What they hadn't known, and I hadn't thought necessary to tell them, was that we rode out to get the horses doubling up, and then those of us who were double riders, grabbed horses, and helped round up the rest and rode them in. This meant that maybe you used a bridle, and rode bareback, but more often just a hackamore or a halter and lead rope, relying on leg cues and neck reining for control. A few times, I rode with just a handful of mane and nothing else, including at least one occasion where I rode thundering past my parents waving to them madly, but they apparently didn't notice my lack of tack, given the clouds of dust and the commotion. Fair enough I suppose, given I was on the opposite side from them with some thirty horses in between, and they hadn't had breakfast or even coffee yet.
But it did surprise me when they drove up after a minor shopping trip to the nearest town which was some 60 or 70 miles away, each way, and became extremely upset to find me riding unbroken ranch horses in a corral, while a handful of the ranch hands sat around on the rails drinking beer, smoking cigars and chewing tobacco. I was having a very good time, the best time I had the entire vacation, doing something I enjoyed. The ranch hands got a break from their work. The horses had a lighter rider with gentler hands and voice; it seemed a win win situation to me. Given that the ranch hands tended to go for quicker, rougher training methods, which included not only drinking beer but breaking the bottles over the heads of the more unruly horses when they reared back, as evidenced by all of the broken brown glass in the corral sand and their own admissions. So, I thought I was doing a good thing. Now I will admit my derriere got bounced around a bit, but I knew how to ride. There is a slang term in riding, called 'daylight', that refers to an undesirable gap between saddle leather and rider's nether anatomy. I allowed precious little 'daylight', and I was never thrown either. I was able to get nearly as rapid a result as the more violent techniques, and had ridden more than a few horses before my parents uproar, without incident. While my parents objected to what they thought was dangerous, after the ranch hands explained what I had been doing rounding up horses every morning, it didn't seem nearly as bad as charging through mountainous terrain in dawn lighting for miles at speed. Although there was a...conversation about that later.
I was allowed to continue, but that...conversation, a rather one sided conversation, objected to my behaving inappropriately. They didn't think it was a good thing for a young woman to be hanging out with crusty ranch hands all afternoon, much less to be doing their dangerous jobs. To be fair to the ranch hands, I had first had to prove my abilities to their satisfaction, then begged like crazy. They were surprisingly self-censoring, compared to their usual earthier, cruder language, and delightfully courteous and solicitous of my well-being. This all took place in a very central location, the corral, with people coming and going, watching for awhile, leaving, coming back, so I didn't see the problem with spending a quantity of time with a group of older men. Well, to be more precise, I had calculated the risk pretty fairly to my abilities, and decided it was manageable, and I wasn't going to be a snob instead of having a good time doing what I liked, and was good at doing. I think I had much more fun than the rest of my family on that trip. I have made a habit of having a fun time doing my own thing, on family trips.
While out rounding up horses for the day, I came across a big red thoroughbred that someone out east had 'dumped' with the ranch owner. He hadn't been ridden in at least three years, and I was intrigued. We brought him back in and got him saddled up; to be fair, it took two strong men holding his head for me to get in the saddle. We tried using only one strong man, but he was lifted clean off his feet. My dear mother was having hysterics on cue. But after a bit of riding, he turned out to have excellent manners (rather like the ranch hands) and I fell in love with him. I brushed him, found and soothed his sore spots and where he liked to be rubbed. By the second day he was following me around without even a lead rope or halter, more like a dog than a horse, and I could ride him at will. I wanted to bring him back with us but mother won out with "he's too big, he's dangerous, he scares me". One of my dogs couldn't have been more protective of my safety than that horse was; he became quite territorial.
So, a few years later it did not surprise my parents to find that when my debate coach was 'stuck' covering the journalism class while the usual teacher was on sabbatical, he signed up a group from the debate team for the class. The journalism class produced the school paper, which immediately became massive litter; it deserved to be trash, it was so badly written it was garbage. The first I knew I was taking 'journalism' was when my fall schedule arrived, a few weeks before school. My then-boyfriend, from the debate team, the same brave soul who chastised me for going off like a grenade on the bully, and I, were the co-editors; it wasn't a choice. We were simply told. We were also given the direction to make this rag worth reading, make it interesting, make it relevant, or you flunk.
Another member of our debate team, great guy, worked part time at the local McDonald's. Due to unseasonable weather, lots of rain, high water levels, the Mickey D's had developed a problem with their garbage dumpsters and sewer rats. He and the other guys who worked late night shifts, especially on weekends, objected to having to brave the rats, and were fired.
I thought that was unfair, I was even angry on his behalf. So I decided that the newspaper would do a full front page color photo expose of the rats. The staff were students, the customers were students, students from the nearby parochial schools were customers too. It was perfect. We gave them the chance to correct the garbage problem, but they were too cheap. We gave them the chance to hire back our debate team friend and the others, with a raise, but they had already replaced them with more 'compliant' students they could bully because they needed the money. So, we ran the edition, copied the health department, and copied the local metro big papers. Knight Ridder ran with it, B-section, prominently.
My co-editor boy- friend was a good sport about it all; he didn't leave me to face any of it alone, even though I was far more the driving force behind the whole thing than he was. We drastically exceeded our allotted budget for the entire journalism class, with our little project. I was never able to verify that the difference was made up from a collection in the teacher's lounge, but that was the rumor. The debate coach wouldn't say; he just grinned a lot, and told us to "carry on", and leave the rest to him.
The first my parents learned that their darling daughter had been taking photos in close proximity at 2 a.m. to piles of garbage swarming with many quite large sewer rats was when McDonald's, the Corporate, not the mere franchised McDonald's, threatened to sue our school district, if we didn't print a retraction. It was the only time in my entire life I was called to the office because I was in trouble, along with the poor dear boyfriend, and our journalism teacher/debate coach. We were threatened with expulsion, which particularly troubled me as I had already taken my college boards as a junior, and applied to the only college I planned on attending. I was accepted during my journalism adventure, my junior year of high school. High school graduation was not strictly required by that college; but it was definitely required of me by my parents.
The debate coach declined the retraction. We just shut up and nodded; we had faith, but it wasn't an easy faith. The debate coach was correct, although the school district's lawyers squirmed for a good few days. It turned out, or so it was explained to us, that because the Knight Ridder newspapers had run our story - giving us full credit for the information - that the McDonalds Corporation would have to sue them also, if they sued our school district. The suit was dropped, an offer was extended to our debate team friends and the other students who were fired to be rehired, at a raise. My boyfriend, poor darling, and I continued to strip-mine the story veins of students employed by area restaurants for exposes that made us very readable - and led to at least one more health department intervention. We got our 'A's for the class, the paper was well read, a boycott developed among not only our students, but other students from schools in the area until things improved, not only at the McDonalds but at the other restaurants that used student-aged labor. Most of all I learned the important lesson that I already knew about dogs and horses, that also with adversaries, size shouldn't intimidate.
My poor parents learned that their children (my red-headed younger sibling subsequently followed a similar course of independent minded indignation) tended to do things our parents never could anticipate forbidding us to do; things that seemed very logical to us but rather unexpected to them, especially when we were angry, and worst when we were angry on behalf of others, two legged, four legged,....others.
I have become angry again recently, on behalf of others.....
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Father's Little Dividend part1
There is poison in the fang of the serpent, in the mouth of the fly and in the sting of a scorpion; but the wicked man is saturated with it.
Chanakya
Indian strategist and writer,
350 BCE - 275 BCE
As a small child, when my parents would take me for walks, I was fascinated by the tragically flattened bodies of the road kill creatures: birds, squirrels, snakes and frogs. I felt sad for all of them that had lost their race with cars and trucks interrupting their natural world, but most of all I felt badly for the poor snakes that having no legs could never be quick enough. I suppose this was a foreshadowing of my lifelong fascination with comparative anatomy, noticing how the flat bits were alike and how they were different.
Feeling sympathy for the garter snakes in the yard, it hugely amused my parents that I would catch them, and put them in a galvanized steel pail kept in the garage for yard work. And when I had a bunch of them, I would get my parents to take me by the hand, and walk the snakes in the bucket across the street, dumping them out in the grass on the other side so they wouldn't get flattened by traffic on the street. Poor snakes, of course none of them really wanted to be caught by a child, and some of them probably had no desire to cross the road, and may very well have gotten flattened trying to get back, but I meant well. I learned not to be afraid of things that wriggle or slither, and to have a quick, gentle touch.
As an adult I have no fear of spiders, or rodents or reptiles, or predators; I do not have the 'Disney-esque' notion of 'good' animals in nature, and 'bad' animals. Nature is simply nature. It is a view that makes camping much less complicated. A few nights ago a bat, a 'flying mouse', found its way into the house for example, and instead of harming it, I ushered it back outside with the admonition to go eat more mosquitoes, many more mosquitoes. We could always use fewer mosquitoes.
My parents were less amused at my compassion for garden creatures when I realized at a tender age that while I was unafraid of snakes, it was a handy way to rid myself of crabby old ladies hired to be my babysitter. A few garter snakes stuffed in her purse; a little frog dropped in her soft drink, bye bye crabby old lady, and hello parents home early. Father being a stock broker found it important to attend a variety of social events like cocktail parties, and there were a few occasions where the answer to a fleeing baby sitter was to dress me up, threaten me within an inch of my life to be on my best behavior (checking no snakes were accompanying me), and to drag me along to very grown up events.
I was rigorously schooled, on threat of a serious spanking, to answer any conversation by an adult with the words "My mommy says children are to be seen and not heard", which I repeated as often as necessary, usually with a big, innocent smile for punctuation. I learned that you could wander around drinking a Shirley Temple, and old bald men smoking smelly cigars would sit you on their knee and think you were adorable, all the while talking in front of you as if you had the IQ of furniture if you just kept smiling. Old men and even some women will talk about things in front of a child they would never talk about in front of other adults. Old men tended to think all children are stupid, and that girl children were even less intelligent than boy children, in my experience. I didn't discourage that impression; I just enjoyed that a mop of red curls tied back with shiny ribbon, big blue eyes and freckles were disarming. Like many children, I figured out at an early age how to identify when adults were talking secretively, and that was the fun time to listen.
Not even my parents, who had some idea of what they were dealing with, expected that on the drive home from these events, their little precocious darling would spout out information picked up over the course of the evening about price earning ratios, IPOs, reverse stock splits, mergers and changes in boards of directors. Or short selling. Short selling was always very interesting. Dad had always encouraged me to ask questions, and always patiently explained; but even he hadn't really expected that I was paying the kind of attention to his answers that would translate into understanding other adults' conversations. Really good evenings out after ditching the sitter resulted in dad cutting loose on the drive home with a big string of euphoric expletives after one of my little recitations of things I'd heard, given that swearing was fairly strictly avoided at home.
When my dad took to referring to me a 'father's little dividend' as a term of endearment, he wasn't referring to the old Spencer Tracy / Liz Taylor movie. He was referring to real money, our little private joke. To his credit, he never, ever directed me to listen to anyone or for anything. I doubt my parents ever knew enough of what to expect from me to even consider that possibility; I tended to be full of the unexpected. My parents certainly never planned on my little babysitter removal events at all, they were always a total consternation. I doubt all of what I heard was useful, but some of it certainly was helpful, sometimes very helpful, and very profitable.
My parents took a lot of flack for spoiling me and being over-indulgent, but I discovered that wasn't all bad so long as I displayed precocious manners and was on my best behavior. Usually even the sternest grown ups could be won over, with a little effort. Most of them thought my feeling sorry for little garden snakes was sweet. A few old crabs were convinced that any child who would deliberately get rid of a babysitter the way I did must be some kind of incipient monster. I always figured those must be the people my mother meant when she said that there were people who didn't like and didn't trust you if you were too smart, so it was best not to show off, not to let them know what you were thinking. Best to smile, and move away from them.
I spent much more time with adults than I did with children; I suppose that had distinct effect on how I observed them. Very few adults really observe children very carefully, but children, being dependent on adults become very keen observers of them, of necessity, as are many animals. Even when they don't understand words, they understand subtleties of body language and tone of voice, and expression.
Chanakya
Indian strategist and writer,
350 BCE - 275 BCE
As a small child, when my parents would take me for walks, I was fascinated by the tragically flattened bodies of the road kill creatures: birds, squirrels, snakes and frogs. I felt sad for all of them that had lost their race with cars and trucks interrupting their natural world, but most of all I felt badly for the poor snakes that having no legs could never be quick enough. I suppose this was a foreshadowing of my lifelong fascination with comparative anatomy, noticing how the flat bits were alike and how they were different.
Feeling sympathy for the garter snakes in the yard, it hugely amused my parents that I would catch them, and put them in a galvanized steel pail kept in the garage for yard work. And when I had a bunch of them, I would get my parents to take me by the hand, and walk the snakes in the bucket across the street, dumping them out in the grass on the other side so they wouldn't get flattened by traffic on the street. Poor snakes, of course none of them really wanted to be caught by a child, and some of them probably had no desire to cross the road, and may very well have gotten flattened trying to get back, but I meant well. I learned not to be afraid of things that wriggle or slither, and to have a quick, gentle touch.
As an adult I have no fear of spiders, or rodents or reptiles, or predators; I do not have the 'Disney-esque' notion of 'good' animals in nature, and 'bad' animals. Nature is simply nature. It is a view that makes camping much less complicated. A few nights ago a bat, a 'flying mouse', found its way into the house for example, and instead of harming it, I ushered it back outside with the admonition to go eat more mosquitoes, many more mosquitoes. We could always use fewer mosquitoes.
My parents were less amused at my compassion for garden creatures when I realized at a tender age that while I was unafraid of snakes, it was a handy way to rid myself of crabby old ladies hired to be my babysitter. A few garter snakes stuffed in her purse; a little frog dropped in her soft drink, bye bye crabby old lady, and hello parents home early. Father being a stock broker found it important to attend a variety of social events like cocktail parties, and there were a few occasions where the answer to a fleeing baby sitter was to dress me up, threaten me within an inch of my life to be on my best behavior (checking no snakes were accompanying me), and to drag me along to very grown up events.
I was rigorously schooled, on threat of a serious spanking, to answer any conversation by an adult with the words "My mommy says children are to be seen and not heard", which I repeated as often as necessary, usually with a big, innocent smile for punctuation. I learned that you could wander around drinking a Shirley Temple, and old bald men smoking smelly cigars would sit you on their knee and think you were adorable, all the while talking in front of you as if you had the IQ of furniture if you just kept smiling. Old men and even some women will talk about things in front of a child they would never talk about in front of other adults. Old men tended to think all children are stupid, and that girl children were even less intelligent than boy children, in my experience. I didn't discourage that impression; I just enjoyed that a mop of red curls tied back with shiny ribbon, big blue eyes and freckles were disarming. Like many children, I figured out at an early age how to identify when adults were talking secretively, and that was the fun time to listen.
Not even my parents, who had some idea of what they were dealing with, expected that on the drive home from these events, their little precocious darling would spout out information picked up over the course of the evening about price earning ratios, IPOs, reverse stock splits, mergers and changes in boards of directors. Or short selling. Short selling was always very interesting. Dad had always encouraged me to ask questions, and always patiently explained; but even he hadn't really expected that I was paying the kind of attention to his answers that would translate into understanding other adults' conversations. Really good evenings out after ditching the sitter resulted in dad cutting loose on the drive home with a big string of euphoric expletives after one of my little recitations of things I'd heard, given that swearing was fairly strictly avoided at home.
When my dad took to referring to me a 'father's little dividend' as a term of endearment, he wasn't referring to the old Spencer Tracy / Liz Taylor movie. He was referring to real money, our little private joke. To his credit, he never, ever directed me to listen to anyone or for anything. I doubt my parents ever knew enough of what to expect from me to even consider that possibility; I tended to be full of the unexpected. My parents certainly never planned on my little babysitter removal events at all, they were always a total consternation. I doubt all of what I heard was useful, but some of it certainly was helpful, sometimes very helpful, and very profitable.
My parents took a lot of flack for spoiling me and being over-indulgent, but I discovered that wasn't all bad so long as I displayed precocious manners and was on my best behavior. Usually even the sternest grown ups could be won over, with a little effort. Most of them thought my feeling sorry for little garden snakes was sweet. A few old crabs were convinced that any child who would deliberately get rid of a babysitter the way I did must be some kind of incipient monster. I always figured those must be the people my mother meant when she said that there were people who didn't like and didn't trust you if you were too smart, so it was best not to show off, not to let them know what you were thinking. Best to smile, and move away from them.
I spent much more time with adults than I did with children; I suppose that had distinct effect on how I observed them. Very few adults really observe children very carefully, but children, being dependent on adults become very keen observers of them, of necessity, as are many animals. Even when they don't understand words, they understand subtleties of body language and tone of voice, and expression.
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