Summertime!

I mentioned before that my parents divorced when I was a youngster and as a result my mom was forced to take a full-time job. That meant that over summers my sister and I were left to our own devices all day. Fortunately, I was a level-headed boy and always showed good judgement. Always.

Funny how when you’re a kid in elementary school the last couple weeks of school pass slowly and painfully, like a peach pit out of a dog’s hind end. And then, when the last day of school has finally come & gone and you’ve gargled in the fountain of freedom known as “summertime” the days quickly seem to stretch and become…*gasp* boring. So it was for me and my neighborhood chums. It was July 1979, our thirst for school-free days had been quenched, and we were settling into the boring phase of summer. Greg McGuire’s pool had been emptied because it was being re-plastered, leaving us to bathe in the oppressive heat of the San Fernando Valley. Greg and I lounged at the Twangers’ house. The Twanger brothers - Danny, Dickie, and Doug – lived a couple streets over from where I lived. Mr. Twanger was in construction and Mrs. Twanger was a secretary. The buzz was that Mrs. Twanger didn’t have to work but she elected to so that they could save money and take the family on an annual trip to some foreign land. While Mr. & Mrs. Twanger were out pursuing the almighty dollar, the brothers stayed home looking for new ways to cause trouble. Looking back, I wonder if Mr. & Mrs. Twanger ever had a moment of peace on a workday knowing that their three sons were at home unsupervised.

As was typical, we were lounging about the Twanger house, watching Bonanza and The Rifleman re-runs when we finally cracked. We just couldn’t take it anymore. We became so desperate for some other form of entertainment that we braved the heat, threw a leg over our BMX bikes and hit the road. We rode without purpose or direction and eventually found ourselves at a strip mall where we hit the 7-11. We shot our wads on Fun-Dips, Slurpees and Space Invaders and then wandered around the strip mall until we stood outside Grouper’s Fish Emporium. A thick layer of filth on the storefront’s glass obscured the view into Grouper’s. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that old man Grouper hadn’t cleaned the windows since he opened the store when he was a young man. The store’s front window wasn’t the only thing lacking in cleanliness. Upon opening the front door to Grouper’s we were hit with a foul odor that was like having a dump truck full of warm, moist fertilizer and fish parts back up and unload on us. Even Doug, who had earned the nickname, “Crud” was impressed by the stench. Mr. Grouper, a grizzled shell of a man, sat hunched over his newspaper at the cash register, and alternated taking long, hard drags on a cigarette and drinking what appeared to be used motor oil from a dirty stein. He glanced up from his newspaper just long enough to tell us, “Don’t stick your hand into the tanks and don’t bang on the glass. I’m running a special today only, free guppy with any purchase over $5.00. Now, don’t bother me.” With that admonition, he left us to peruse his inventory. We wandered through the store, dazzled by the many aquariums full of exotic fish. We laughed and pointed, sucked in our cheeks to make “fishlips”, and generally had a grand time.

By the time we had seen the last of the fish, a solid two hours had passed and we were convinced that having an aquarium of our own full of the critters was critical to our existence. Never mind the fact that none of us had money to buy a single fish, let alone an outfitted aquarium. We huddled together at the rear of the store, discussing a plan to acquire what we needed to make our fantasy a reality. We knew that our parents had foul senses of priority and asking them to spring for this necessity would be fruitless. We had to do this on our own. We decided that we’d search every place imaginable for bottles & cans, exchange them for their deposit value, and put together the coolest aquarium ever. Mr. Grouper, I suppose thinking we were filling our linty pockets with live fish, hollered to us to, “quit dallying back there and get outta my store.” Our huddle scattered and the elder Twanger, Danny, approached Mr. Grouper.

“Sir, if we come back tomorrow, will you have any specials?”

Mr. Grouper’s scowl softened slightly. He sat back, scratched his bald, bony head and said, “Hard to say. With the special I’ve got going today I’m selling so many of these fish that I may not even have any tomorrow.”

I may have been eleven years old, but I knew when my chain was being yanked. Not a single customer had entered the store the whole time we were in there. Most of the inventory would probably die of old age long before taking the coveted ride out of the store in a clear plastic bag full of water. Still, Danny was no brain trust and he bought it hook, line, & sinker. He swallowed eagerly and said, “But there are no other fish stores around here that we can ride our bikes to and we really need some fish!”

Mr. Grouper broke into a wide, crooked smile and told him, “Well, I’m expecting another big shipment any day now, so I imagine I’ll have a few that I can make a deal on. Don’t you fellas worry.”

A collective sigh was heard. We thanked Mr. Grouper for letting us look at his fish, and then set about the work that would fund our capital campaign. The rest of the day and all of the next were spent collecting every stray can and bottle in a 2-mile radius. And when I say every, I mean every. We dove through dumpsters, we rifled our neighbor’s trashcans, we scoured the sidewalks and gutters. We even used a length of garden hose to lower Crud into a few storm drains to retrieve some spent containers. Finally, we were satisfied that we had mined every potential nugget from the region. We had accumulated six large trash bags in our hunt. It would surely yield enough cash to buy the granddaddy of all aquariums. We slept peacefully that night, confident that the following day would bring the satisfaction that only comes from owning fish.

The next morning we congregated in front of the Twangers’ house. A nervous excitement coursed through us. We loaded our bags full of loot onto a couple of old wagons and dragged the mountain of trash two miles to Dirty Ernie’s Recycling Center.

Dirty Ernie came by his name honestly. He was a foot shorter than an average man, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in girth. His grimy T-shirt stretched across his breadbasket and his hairy belly protruded from underneath. His skin had taken on that special appearance that a bum gets when he’s so dirty that he actually becomes shiny.

As we pulled into the recycling yard Dirty Ernie called out, “That’s a good load you got there, boys.”
We puffed out our chests with pride.
“Let’s make us a deal.”
Ernie sorted our wares, counted them, weighed them and crunched a few numbers.
With a few pokes at his cash register we heard the glorious, “Cha-ching!”

“There you are, boys, four dollars and ninety-two cents.”

“FOUR DOLLARS AND NINETY-TWO CENTS??”

“That’s right, boys… you had 41 pounds of scrap at 12 cents a pound. That’s four dollars and ninety-two cents.”

An hour or so later, we sat glumly in the Twanger living room. All that work for five measly bucks. It was enough to buy a fish or two, but with nothing to put them in, we were as good as sunk. That’s when I hatched a brilliant plan. Why not build our own aquarium? Mr. Twanger had a whole pile of ½ inch thick plexiglass in the garage. With a bit of cutting and gluing, we’d have a tank in no time. And we could make it huge so that our fish would have plenty of room to swim around. We were back in the game. We worked quickly but deliberately. All measurements and cuts were exact and I must say, for a bunch of kids, the finished product looked pretty darn good. We put clamps on all the corners and joints and had a cold drink while the glue dried. When we were satisfied that all joints were secure, we lined every seam with clear silicon to be sure that the tank was watertight. We stood back to admire our creation. It was a true work of art. Not only was it pleasing to the eye, it was huge. The youngest Twanger boy could comfortably lie inside of it without bending a limb. The day was wearing on, so we threw a painting tarp over the tank, cleaned up the mess, and called it a day. The next morning found us wrestling the behemoth up the stairs, around the corner and down the hall into Doug & Dickie's bedroom. The move was kind to neither the walls nor the tank, but eventually it rested in the middle of their bedroom floor.

Thirty minutes later we dumped our bikes in a pile in front of Grouper’s Fish Emporium.

“Well, looky who’s here! I was beginning to give up on you boys.”

“We had to earn some money to buy some fish! Are there any specials today?”

“As a matter of fact, there are some specials today. How much do you have to spend?”

“A little under 5 dollars.”

“Just so happens that any 15 fish from any tank along that far wall is on sale for just under 5 dollars. Have your pick, gentlemen.”

We made a beeline for the “sale” fish and commenced with the, “We need two of these…and one of those… and three of those.”

Mr. Grouper, net in one hand, plastic baggie in the other, stood behind us wearing a wide grin. I think it did that old codger’s heart good to have some excitement in his store. His good humor began to fade, however, when it came time to actually net the fish. Each time he’d successfully capture what he perceived to be a good candidate, we’d scrutinize the captive and then tell him, “No. Not that one, that one,” while pointing at the tank. By golly, if we were going to spend $4.92 on something, we wanted our money’s worth. A short hour later (well, short to us anyway) we had selected fifteen fish for our new aquarium.

After paying for our fish, Mr. Grouper gave us a few instructions.

“When you get home, just set the bags into the full tank so that the fish get used to the temperature. After about an hour or so you can let them out.”

“Thanks, Mr. Grouper!”

“Make sure to put clean charcoal into the filter once every two weeks until the fish are settled in. Then do it once a month.”

We stood and stared at him blankly.

Crud finally offered, “Well, we don’t have a filter. We figured we’d just change the water everyday.”

Mr. Grouper barked, “You can’t do that, the tank will fill with bacteria and those fish’ll be dead in a week! Wait here, you lunkheads.”

He walked to the back of the store grumbling to himself and emerged a minute later with an old cardboard box.

“Alright, listen here, this old filter here works just fine but it’s a bit noisy. I’m feeling generous so I’m gonna give it to you. Here’s how it works…” and he went into a long explanation of how to hook it up.

We thanked him profusely and told him that as soon as it was set up we would invite him over to see it. He softened a bit at our invitation and told us that it was his pleasure and that he appreciated the offer.

As we headed for the door he called out one final instruction, stopping us dead in our tracks. “Make sure your pump is going when you let the fish out of the bags, they’ll be plenty stressed and they’ll need plenty of oxygen.”

We slowly turned around. “Umm… we don’t have a pump.”

“NO PUMP?? Those fish’ll be dead in two days! How do you expect them to live with no oxygen in the water??”

“Well, we figured that in the morning and at night we could just stir the water real fast with a ping-pong paddle and that would make plenty of air bubbles for them to live.”

Mr. Grouper’s face turned red and it looked like his head would come shooting off his shoulders any moment. He removed his bifocals and rubbed his face with both hands. “Wait here you nincompoops.”

He walked to the back of the store, this time grumbling a bit louder and using some of the very same words that Mr. Twanger used the time that Mrs. Twanger backed his new car into a telephone pole. He emerged with yet another cardboard box, this one containing a pump.

“Alright, listen here. This old pump is on the noisy side, too, but it works just fine. I’m going to give it to you if you promise that you’ll do all your future fish shopping at Scales ‘n Tails. Do ya promise?”

He shoved the cardboard box into my arms and said, “There’s instructions in the box. Now get outta here.”

We hustled for the door as he sat down behind the cash register. He’d probably deny it, but when I turned for one last look at him I think I saw him crack a smile.

The ride home went quickly, despite having to stop every few minutes to take turns carrying the fish. We tore into the house and up the stairs, anxious to release our pets into their new home. But first things first. Each of us was assigned a task to ready the aquarium. Danny and I hooked up the filter & pump. Crud collected a bucket of pea gravel from the side yard and used it to line the bottom of the tank. Dickie and Greg ran a garden hose up the side of the house and through the window. In no time at all our tank was filling.

While the bags of fish bobbed around the filling aquarium, we rewarded ourselves with a tall glass of Yoo-hoo and an episode of The Incredible Hulk. It took a solid hour with the hose running full blast before the tank was filled, just enough time for the fish to become acclimated to the water. With both the filter and the pump buzzing loudly, we cut the knots off the plastic bags and released the fish into their new home. There was much celebration and backslapping at the display of what we had accomplished. Some of the fish darted wildly about the tank, others glided by passively. We surrounded the tank, lying on our stomachs with our heads resting on our hands. We were absolutely mesmerized by the sight before us. We all claimed a couple fish as our own and began thinking of a fitting name for each. About that time Mrs. Twanger rolled into the driveway after a hard day at work. At the sound of her slamming car door, the boys came a bit unraveled. Not only had they failed to ask permission to set up an aquarium in their bedroom, they hadn’t even mentioned that we had visited Grouper’s Fish Emporium. Mom and dad would sure be surprised. Dickie screamed, “We gotta hide this thing! Let’s put it in the closet!” Assuming that we could actually lift the 500+ pound reservoir, there was absolutely no way it would fit into the closet. It was simply too large. I suggested we push it to the side of the room and cover it with a blanket. We assembled on the same side of the tank and began pushing with all our might. We were unsuccessful at budging it even an inch. We were successful, however, at torqueing the plexiglass just enough to weaken all the joints we had earlier taken such great care to glue. Just as the front door of the Twanger house slammed shut, the aquarium let out a groan and an entire side separated from the tank. In an instant, well over 60 gallons of water, gravel, and fish covered the bedroom floor. We all shrieked simultaneously as water rushed out the bedroom door and down the stairs, alerting Mrs. Twanger that it was going to be “one of those days that she regretted not following her original childhood plan of becoming a nun.” Upstairs it was pandemonium. We were all soaking wet and scrambling wildly to save our fish. Our $5 fish. Mrs. Twanger appeared at the doorway with a look of absolute insanity on her face. We froze in our tracks. Time stood still. I looked at Greg. He looked at me. We both spoke in unison, “I gotta go” and dropped our handfuls of fish on the still squishy carpet. By the time Greg and I reached the first floor, the deluge of water had already begun seeping through the floor of the second story and had begun to drip through the first floor ceiling. I paused at the door briefly, turning to take a final look at the destruction we’d wrought. It was just in time to witness a large chunk of plaster fall from the ceiling and smash through a glass coffee table in the living room. After that I simply jumped onto my bike and pedaled for my life.

We didn’t see the Twanger boys for three weeks after that. They didn’t come out to play and we were too afraid to knock on their door. Turns out they had been grounded, and they spent most of that time standing up. They later said that their father actually levitated off the ground when he saw the devastation we had caused. Dickie said the visual was really neat, but the audio portion of the performance was a little scary. Pretty soon after that Mrs. Twanger quit her job to stay home and keep an eye on the brothers. What a shame. If the Twanger boys had been level-headed like me, they might have been world travelers.

Put your money where your mouth is

www.susantorresfund.org

Susan Torres, a 26 year-old pregnant woman, collapsed early last month. She was taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed with stage four melanoma and pronounced brain dead. That's a tough, bitter pill for her husband to swallow. Besides loving the unborn child, he knows that his wife would want every measure taken to ensure that the baby lives. So Susan languishes on life support while her baby grows inside her. This is not a common occurrence and is not a slam dunk. The baby faces all sorts of challenges ahead. So does dad, as he faces the emotional, physical, spiritual difficulties associated with losing his wife, continuing to be a daddy to his 3 year-old son, and paying astronomical medical bills. Yes, there's insurance but not near enough to cover the $7,500 a day hospital bill.

As Christians, we're always preaching about the right to life. We "encourage" women to gut it out and carry the baby. We tell the pro-abortion crowd that "we stand behind the mothers". Well here's a chance to stand behind the daddy who is making the toughest decision he'll ever make. Let's stand behind Jason Torres in prayer... and in a tangible way. You can make a tax-deductible contribution via PayPal at the link above.

In the blood?

Bad investment 


God's country 


"Paul, I'm considering a pretty significant real estate investment but I'm concerned about what the market will do."

“Well, all the experts say we’re in the 5th inning of a 9 inning game. So the prevailing wisdom is that you’ve got at least a few more years until you risk really being stung.”

“Yeah, I know what the so-called experts are saying, but I would like your advice.”

Good grief. I don’t have a crystal ball. And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be spending my days stuck in an office rendering accounting, auditing, tax and investment advice. Instead, I’d be betting the ponies and squandering my winnings on various hunting and fishing adventures across North America. I wonder if this guy would be so insistent on paying me $280 an hour to speculate on real estate given my family’s history.

My grandfather was a railroader. He worked for Southern Pacific and didn’t spend a whole lot of time at home. I’m told he was a good man, though, and did his best to provide for his family. Soon after WWII ended and my father was just a nipper, his parents decided that a Russian missile attack was imminent. To safeguard his family, gramps decided that he needed a piece of property where his family could be entirely self-sufficient. Big enough for an orchard, alfalfa, vegetable garden, cows, chickens, pigs. But not so big that a couple of them couldn’t run it. A hundred acres or so ought to be just about right. But where to put this little farmstead? Gramps searched high and low. After a lot of searching, researching, examining, and anguish, the decision was narrowed to two locations – the Pacific Palisades or Lucerne Valley.

I’m told his reasoning went something like this:

“The Pacific Palisades has a nice view, but it might be a distraction and the last thing I need is my son standing around staring off into the ocean when he ought to be working. It’s awfully rocky, and it would probably take a year to just clear the rocks before you could plant anything. Sure it’s cool weather, but tomatoes thrive in a hot, sunny climate and I do love a good ‘mater. Besides, damp weather can cause real problems with the respiratory system.”

“Now, the Lucerne Valley is hot, but it’s a dry heat, and sweating is supposed to be therapeutic. And if a Russian sub decides to slip inside of Catalina Island and cook off one o’ them nook-ya-ler de-vices, we’d be sittin’ ducks there on the coastline. Sure, the land is a bit more expensive out there in the Lucerne Valley, but this is a long-term investment. I think my money is better spent on land with real potential. Land in God’s country. Land in Lucerne Valley.”

I suppose all those years sucking diesel fumes from locomotive engines knocked gramps off his nut. But I can’t fault him too much. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a great real estate clairvoyant, either.

In August of 1993, having just graduated from college with an accounting degree, I got a call from my friend Patrick. At one time Pat & I were dirt-biking buddies until one afternoon I was going faster than I ever went and then fell off, breaking various bones in the process. That put a very large period on my dirt-biking days, but our friendship continued for some years.

By trade, Pat was a custom appliance installer. He worked for a company that was contracted by major appliance retailers. If you bought a new dishwasher or some other appliance from Sears, Pat would come to your house and install it. Usually it was a slam-dunk pull-out-the-old-and-stick-in-the-new-unit process, other times it was true custom work that took a fair amount of fabrication. I worked with him frequently on the more difficult installs where he needed an extra set of hands or some extra muscle to get the job done. Occasionally a customer wanted a complete remodel - new stove, dishwasher, oven, the whole schnitzel. In that case, Pat and I would bring our friend Rod along with us. Rod was a pretty good finish carpenter and was a good compliment to our team.

Anyway, Pat called me one day with a business proposition. It seems that during his travels he had come across a little 3-bedroom house for sale. Structurally, the place was sound but the lawn was overgrown with rocks and weeds and it needed some moderate cosmetic work (paint, carpet, etc.). The residence had been owned by a hermit who croaked a couple years prior. The property was then put on the market where it sat for a good year with no interest. Pat’s Aunt Ginny was the real estate agent handling the property and she had it on good authority that the financier who held the note on the place was in a bind and just wanted to unload it. She told Pat that she had been instructed to accept any offers on the property above $60,000. Pat proposed that he, Rodney and I buy the place. With no money down and all closing costs included in the new loan, the monthly nut that each of us would have to cover amounted to about $280. The plan was to buy the place, rehab it, live in it for a little while, and sell it a couple years later when real estate values started to climb. I had mixed feelings. I told Pat that I would think it over and call him back the next day. Like any good accountant, I immediately went to work preparing a spreadsheet listing all positives and negatives, assigning a numerical value to each attribute based on its relative importance. When the analysis was complete, I compared the sum of the positives and negatives and reached a decision.

Positives:
Owning a house would help to cultivate the successful, playboy image I was putting out to the ladies. +15
Cool guys for roommates +10
Tax benefits from home ownership +5
Potential for return on investment. +5

Negatives:
Location – Tujunga – not only would this require a long commute, but Tujunga is the white trash/meth lab capital of Los Angeles County. -10
Derelict co-investors who would probably blow their share of the monthly mortgage payment on Coors Light and Slim Jims. -15
Potential for loss on investment -10
Time, energy, and $$ to rehab the place –5

I’m sure there were some other attributes but the above is a pretty good recollection of the original list. The bottom line: the negatives won out and my home ownership days were still far into the future. I called Pat the following day and told him to count me out of the deal. In an effort to change my mind, he ridiculed me unceasingly for a good hour until it became clear that I wasn’t going to budge. Eventually he resigned himself to a 50/50 ownership with Rod and they made the offer.

The deal was a slam-dunk and, after a 30 day escrow, Pat and Rod were the proud owners of their first home. On the day that the deal closed, Pat and I picked up the keys from Aunt Ginny and went over to the house. Upon opening the door, we noticed that the house was still packed with the hermit’s stuff. Pat was not a happy camper. He immediately called Aunt Ginny from his cell phone to find out what the heck was going on. Apparently the hermit had no relatives, no will, and nobody who wanted his belongings. Aunt Ginny told Pat to be cool for 10 days or so and she would take care of it. We locked up the place and hit the road. Two Fridays later we returned in the early morning hours with Rod, only to find that nothing had changed. Despite Aunt Ginny’s promise to empty the house, the place was still packed to the gills with hermit junk. Pat’s face turned bright red and I think I noticed smoke coming from Rod’s ears. I, on the other hand, stood smugly, feeling better & better about my decision to reject this investment opportunity. Aunt Ginny happened to call at that moment and was full of apologies. Due to a busy week, she was unable to have the stuff removed. She told Pat that they could keep whatever they wanted and sell the rest at a garage sale. In a very enthusiastic voice and with language I’m not comfortable repeating here, Pat told her he didn’t want any of the hermit’s stuff and it would be a cold day someplace that doesn’t get many cold days before he burned a weekend trying to hock this hooey at a garage sale. I think Aunt Ginny detected a hint of homicidal rage in Pat’s voice. She volunteered that she would personally pay for a dumpster to be delivered and would pay us $500 to relocate all the hermit’s stuff to the dumpster. This seemed to mollify Pat, at least enough that he stopped searching through the kitchen drawer for a knife with which he could slit Aunt Ginny’s throat. Later that day a giant blue dumpster was unloaded onto the driveway. While awaiting the dumpster’s arrival we managed to consume a significant number of Coors Lights and were in no condition to do any heavy lifting when it was finally delivered. We watched the hermit’s black & white t.v. (complete with tin foil balls on the ends of the rabbit ears) until the effects of the barley pops wore off and then drove home.

The next morning we were finally ready to purge the house of its offending contents. With bellies full of Winchell’s donuts, we dove into the work as though possessed. After a few hours the house was about ¾ empty when I carried a coffee table out the front door. Just as I hoisted the table over my head to pitch it into the bin, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a yellowed letter size envelope fall from the bottom of it. I tossed the table into the dumpster, wiped the sweat from my brow and picked up the envelope. Scotch tape, its adhesive long dried and decayed, suspended from its edges. Inside the envelope were fifteen $20 bills, perfectly crisp. Date on the bills… 1977. Very strange. About then Pat emerged from the house with a cardboard box full of debris atop his shoulder.

“What are you doin’… you loafing?”
“Man, I was just tossing that coffee table and this envelope was taped to the bottom of it. There’s 300 bucks in it!”
“Hey, Rod! Get out here!”

We spent the next several minutes discussing my find. It eventually occurred to us that perhaps there was more hidden booty in the stuff we had already discarded. What had taken about four hours to load into the dumpster then took about 20 minutes to relocate to a pile on the front lawn. Various tools (hammers, Sawzalls, crowbars, etc.) were retrieved from our trucks and we began dismantling each item before returning the remaining debris to the bin. The spectacle of three guys emptying a dumpster that they had just been filling, demolishing various items, and occasionally shouting, “whoo-hoo!” was out of the ordinary… even for Tujunga. It didn’t take long before neighbors began to wander over. There were numerous questions.

“You guys the new owners or just the hired help?”
“You know, Mr. Mulford, the old guy that lived here sure was a mean ol’ s.o.b. He’s probably spinning in his grave watching you bust up his stuff. How come you’re breaking everything like that?”
“You tryin’ to get revenge on ol’ man Mulford? He’s dead, ya know.”
“What’s all the hollering and celebrating about?”
“You guys want any help with that?”

Eventually they became bored watching the three crazy men break things and wandered back to their homes to drink Mountain Dew and watch NASCAR. We continued our treasure hunt ultimately collecting a considerable sum. Some of the places that the old codger hid this money were quite strange. Booty was found in places that you might expect – inside of mattresses & cushions, behind pictures, taped to the bottom of drawers, in a shoebox in the attic (where a rat had chewed up several $50 bills to make a nest – there’s a Matthew 6:19 lesson in there, for sure). But we also discovered stashes in unlikely places. There was a roll of paper towels which had been unrolled and then re-rolled with $100 bills meticulously placed inside. There was a seemingly new bag of cat litter which had been opened with a razor blade, a plastic bag of $20 bills inserted, and then re-sealed with glue. There was an umbrella, its handle removed, and the tube filled with painstakingly rolled $10 bills. And countless other bizarre attempts to safeguard the hermit’s wealth. All of which he left behind when he took a dirt nap.

The total cash collected from our day’s work… brace yourself… $18,680. My share - $0. The guys were kind enough to cut me in 1/3 on the $500 payment from Aunt Ginny, though. Cheap sons o’ guns. Over the next four months Pat and Rod painted the inside and outside of the house, replaced the carpet, and planted a new lawn. Just when the lawn had reached cutting length a guy knocked on the door and asked if they were interested in selling. Seems his daughter and grandkids lived just down the street and he was moving from back east to be near them. If they were interested, he’d write a check for $85,000 and cover all the closing costs himself. Pat actually had the nerve to call me later that day.

“Hey Hoss, we’re selling the place and making a big profit. We’re going to invest the proceeds in another property. Do you want in on this one?”

“Let me see, I need to make a spreadsheet with the positives and negatives, assign a numerical value to each…”

“Yeah, get back to me on that.”

"Someday, son, this will all be yours..."

The very moment I laid eyes on my sons it felt as if a new, tender part of my heart was realized. When the doctor pulled them from Donna’s gut, I held my breath. My eyes grew wide at the sight of them and I felt my heart grow “ten sizes”. Even though they were covered in womb-bits and goo, I loved them immediately. When the nurse put Jack in my arms, I was overwhelmed by a flood of emotion… love, awe, joy, responsibility, fear. It was quite a cocktail. The four years since have been some ride. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I grow to love those little monkeys more and more every day.

There’s a passage I’ve often struggled with since the boys were born.
Ezekiel 34:6-7 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

I’ve contemplated this verse as it relates to my sons and to my father. I’ve already got some anger issues related to my dad and this passage doesn’t do a whole lot to assuage them. (I have to be careful here. This isn’t a “poor me” lamentation. I’ve had a very blessed life and a mother that more than made up for my father’s shortcomings. Rather, this is a segue into what I’m trying to glean from this passage.)

I don’t think I would have ever described my dad as the ideal father. I didn’t fault him for never coming to a football game I played in. I didn’t fault him for birthdays and Christmases passing without receiving a card or gift. I didn’t fault him for divorcing my mother and re-marrying a troll. I blocked these things from consideration in my attempt to have a relationship with him. I was the one who called to talk. I was the one who asked to visit him for the weekend. And when I did, I got the impression that the whole thing was kind of a pain in the neck for him. I recall one specific instance when we went to a sporting goods store to buy some cots for a camping trip we were going on. He selected two different cots, one costing much more than the other. When the cashier rang up the sale, she mistakenly charged him the lesser price for both of the cots. I drew her attention to the error and she thanked me. My father’s eyes poked daggers through me. On the way to the truck, he muttered with disgust, “Thanks, you just cost me twenty bucks!” That instance was typical of how he lived his life – looking for the easy way, even if it meant lying and cheating. I don’t ever recall him giving me any kind of instruction on how to live life. He had an attitude of, “Just go and do your thing. You’ll grow up and be fine.” It wasn’t until I graduated college that he actually showed some interest in me. At that point I had become an asset (free tax return preparation!) instead of a liability. Unfortunately, I felt little connection and my interest in him waned. Cat Stevens’ “Cat’s in the cradle” is especially poignant to me.

After my experiences with my father, I concluded that being a father is just one more thing on a life’s “to do list”:
Graduate college – check.
Get married – check.
Buy a house – check.
Have kids – check.
Get old – check.
Always drive 18mph with the left blinker constantly flashing – check.
Take a dirt nap – check.
Life complete.

When the boys came along (and I hate to use this cliché but it’s true) my world was rocked. Being a daddy isn’t something you check off a list. It isn’t like adding another layer to a casserole where all the original components retain their identity and are relatively unchanged. It’s more like adding cocoa to milk. It completely changes (and improves) the original ingredient. Or it should. I have wrestled with the fact that I was just another layer in my dad’s casserole. After having Jack & Joe and realizing the treasure they are to me, I’m crushed when I contemplate the low value my dad put on me. I alternate brooding over this and avoiding the subject because it is fertile ground for growing resentment. But if nothing else, it has strengthened my resolve to be a father who loves his sons the way a father should.

Anyway… back to the original thought. So the Bible seems to say, in a nutshell that future generations will be punished for a father’s sins. I’ve pondered how this occurs. Does it arise via some supernatural generational transfer? Or does it happen in a more mundane manner – i.e., a child watching his daddy in action and learning by observation? I’m still uncertain, but I think it’s probably a combination of both. We know that alcoholism gene can be passed to future generations so I think that the “supernatural” method is certainly possible. But I think a more probable way for this to happen is the observational manner.

After dinner on Tuesday evening, I took the boys for a bike ride. Though the boys are strictly prohibited from riding in the street, Joe immediately rode out into the street as a car approached. I sternly reprimanded him for this most serious of transgressions. He was pretty uninterested in my lecture, though, and rode away while I was in mid-rant. Bad move, Lester. We promptly returned home and he was grounded from his bike for the rest of the evening. This punishment was met with sobbing and great shrieks of despair. Just when my patience for his wailing was about at its limit, Jack piped up and said, “Quit bawling like a baby and go inside the house, Joey.” Though he was certainly just repeating what he’d heard before and pretty much took the words out of my mouth, I was stunned. What sounded just fine bouncing around in my own head sounded pretty awful when it came from the mouth of my son.

So that’s a prime example of how I think the sins of a father are visited upon his children. My kids watch how their daddy behaves and mirror it in their own lives. Fortunately, that mirror reflects back my sinful tendencies to me and helps me to correct them. I just need to have open eyes, an open mind and an open heart to see them.

The reality is that every family has a few “issues” that seem to be passed from generation to generation. It’s up to us to say, “This is a legacy I’m going to break. I’m not going to be unrepentant about this and in the process saddle my kids with the same burden I carry. I’m going to be honest about my struggle, I’m going to confess it and I’m going to work on it.”

Now, the flip side of this observational process is that the boys will also mirror the admirable qualities and behaviors I model for them. When I display kindness and forgiveness, they are kind and forgiving. When I’m loving, flexible and affirming, they are confident, content and loving toward others. It’s a pretty good system.

When I was a senior in high school one of my football coaches took me aside. He told me, “You’re the big man around here, Hoss. All those younger guys watching you are a big responsibility. Don’t blow it.” He then gave me a little poem. As applicable today as it was then.

There are little eyes upon you
and they're watching night and day.
There are little ears that quickly
take in every word you say.
There are little hands all eager
to do anything you do;
And a little boy who's dreaming
of the day he'll be like you.
You're the little fellow's idol,
you're the wisest of the wise.
In his little mind about you
no suspicions ever rise.
He believes in you devoutly,
holds all you say and do;
He will say and do, in your way
when he's grown up just like you.
There's a wide-eyed little fellow
who believes you're always right;
and his eyes are always opened,
and he watches day and night.
You are setting an example
every day in all you do;
For the little boy who's waiting
to grow up to be like you.