Taking a break from blog posts about wine, books, or spiritual insights…and sharing a story from my youth.
My childhood was a weird mix of suburban predictability and wrecking yard madness. On the predictable side, I grew up in a typical tract home in the Willow Glen district of San Jose, we shopped at the regular stores, we wore clothes typical for the era, we ate regular middle class meals, and we attended a conservative Baptist church. Life was pretty straightforward.
But there was that madness side. Dad always had some odd deal in the works and he knew some odder people. This created the spice in life. It led us all to be more comfortable with risk. Sometimes that risk worked, sometimes it didn’t.
For instance, bartering was a common way to get things done (e.g. “I’ll trade you that Chevy V8 engine if you build us a new front porch”). Dad always had an angle, and he worked with a lot of people who were short of cash. So every routine transaction could easily turn into a mini-drama, like the time he traded an old pickup for a camper that he then traded for a boat that he then traded for an old pickup. Get the idea?
A few weeks ago one of his odder deals came to light when I was talking to my Mom. She and I were laughing about the old basset hounds that we had when I was a kid, and I said, “Isn’t there a picture of me with them on that ugly old waterfall that Dad had built in our backyard?”
She said yes, and then added, “That waterfall was built by a murderer.”
I shouted, “WHAT?!?!?”
“Yes,” she said, “he hired a known murderer to build that ugly waterfall. Not sure what he was thinking.”
The backyard of our house was empty when we moved in, so Dad began to add different elements over time. A concrete patio here, privacy fencing there, eventually a swimming pool, etc. Almost all the work was done through barter with contractors who owed Dad for something.
At some point he decided it would be cool to build a big rock waterfall in the corner of the yard. What resulted was an ugly mass of a thing, and it never quite worked right. The water didn’t flow down along the full surface, but instead kind of trickled down one narrow area. And it leaked all the time.
But the real stunner, for me, was finding out that Dad had knowingly hired a guy who was a murderer. Now Mom was none too pleased about it, as you might guess. Having such a guy around her two teenage daughters and young son was more than a bit nervewracking for her!
Dad told Mom it was nothing to worry about. Not sure why he thought that way because he never gave Mom a full answer.
Ultimately it all worked out. Dad got his waterfall. The murderer got his … well, whatever it was he was working for. Mom kept herself and her kids safe. And as you can see from the picture with me and the dogs on the waterfall, the basset hounds found a fun place to climb.