Be Safe Brother
a novel
by
Nicolas Thakar
Be Safe Brother
By Nicolas Thakar
Smashwords Edition
© Copyright 2012 Nicolas Thakar
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-4659-0026-5
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1 – Lawyers, Sons & Money
Chapter 2 – Back Home Again in Indiana?
Chapter 6 – Not the Golden Arches
Chapter 10 – The Other Grand Canyon
Chapter 12 – Half Dome, Full Day
Chapter 13 – Yosemite Semantics
Chapter 14 – Back Home Again Again in Indiana
Chapter 15 – Correcting the Record
For Mom & Dad
Lawyers, Sons & Money
“Half a million dollars?! He never said anything about this to me. What was he thinking giving that kind of money to three little kids?” Despite the fact that my dad rarely followed standard protocol, I couldn’t believe he had done something like this. At the very least, he could have warned me.
“Wait a second,” Arthur Plummer attempted to calm me down and regain control of the meeting. “I told you that he had me put the money into a trust and you are now the trustee. It’s not like he’s just handing them cash. You hold the purse strings.”
“Then why didn’t he tell me about it?”
“Stuart, you know your dad liked to do things his own way.”
“But” – I interrupted him, but Arthur caught my eye, and raising his eyebrows and tilting his head slightly, he made it clear he had more to say.
“This is why I wanted to talk with you separately before bringing in the kids,” Arthur continued, rolling right through my interruption. “Look, losing your father is hard enough – especially when it was a man like your father who truly seemed to be larger than life.”
“Posthumous surprises certainly don’t make it any easier,” I shot back.
The last several weeks had been emotionally exhausting, a surreal blur. After enjoying relatively good health since fighting off melanoma in 2001, my father Dan Lorenz (he hated to be called Daniel) checked himself into the hospital four weeks before, complaining that he just didn’t feel right.
When I arrived at the hospital that afternoon, the news was not good. The melanoma had returned – this time it had spread to his liver and other organs, and it seemed to be even more aggressive. At age 83, he did not have enough left to fight off cancer a second time. Even if he had been thirty years younger, the doctors advised his chances for survival would have been twenty percent at best.
Dad insisted that I take him back to my house – not to his own house and Carol, his wife for the past nine years. He wanted to spend time with my brother, sisters and me, looking at old photographs, watching his favorite movie, To Kill a Mockingbird, and laughing one last time at several Marx Brothers movies. But mostly, he just wanted to be there when my children – his youngest grandchildren – were home from school. He did not want to interfere with our routine; instead he wanted to observe. “I missed out on so much when you guys were growing up because I was always flying somewhere,” he told me.
Though it wasn’t easy, I was grateful for the chance to spend this time with him. I had recently left my job as general counsel of a furniture company following the company’s bankruptcy; and while I had begun a job search and was doing some sporadic consulting work , I had no idea what my next great career adventure would be. The flexibility in my schedule proved to be especially timely.
Three weeks after I had brought him to our house, Dad said, “Okay, it’s time for you to take me home now.” I helped him get settled into his bed that afternoon. The following morning Carol called to tell me he had died overnight. Apparently he knew his time was near and didn’t want the kids to find him.
It was comforting for me that I was able to spend those last few weeks with him, but my nerves were raw with all the emotions and what-ifs that go hand-in-hand with losing the cherished patriarch of my family.
On another level, I felt that my family and I had been rather lucky to have him in our lives for so many years, especially considering that he had smoked three packs of Camels (no filter) for almost thirty-five years before quitting at age 54. But this did nothing to soothe the immediate sting of my loss. I was justified in my irritability.
A little more than a week after my father’s death, I had brought my three children to San Francisco to meet with Arthur Plummer, my dad’s attorney for the past twenty years. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you any sooner,” Arthur continued, while the kids waited in the reception area, “but your dad gave me explicit instructions. I know you have a lot of questions, and quite frankly, so do I. My job here is to pass along all of this information while respecting your father’s wishes. The attorney-client privilege survives your father – again, he gave me very specific instructions.”
I took a deep breath, with the immediate thought to lash out at Arthur with a blistering verbal attack, because he knew that I was an attorney, and I was quite familiar with a lawyer’s ethical obligations. Instead, I exhaled, rubbed my eyes and thought about this latest development.
I began to look around Arthur’s 22nd floor office as I tried to summon the right words for the moment. The plush wood-paneled walls and impressionist artwork belied Arthur’s modest, almost home-spun appearance. Actually, the only item in the office that appeared to be an accurate reflection of Arthur’s personality was the stainless steel framed cover of the December 1982 California Monthly with a picture of a triumphant Kevin Moen jumping up and raising the football over his head with both hands after crossing the goal line following what is simply known as The Play. Stanford, led by John Elway at quarterback, had just kicked a field goal to take a 20-19 lead over Cal in the 1982 Big Game, with four seconds remaining in the game. On the ensuing kickoff, Moen had fielded a squib kick near mid-field and threw a backwards pass toward the middle of the field. After four more laterals, the last one being a no-look, over-the-shoulder toss, Moen had the ball again as he avoided Stanford tacklers and weaved his way through dozens of confused Stanford band members, who had stormed the field in premature celebration, to give Cal an improbable 25-20 victory.
I was in Memorial Stadium that day with my father, who was attending his first Cal Football game with me. Soaking in the sun and beauty of Berkeley’s Strawberry Canyon, we watched a most exciting game even before the pandemonium of The Play. As usual, I found myself momentarily mesmerized by the photograph and by the memories it elicited. Now that my father was gone, it took on an even greater meaning.
“Okay, Stuart, there’s more,” Arthur brought me back to reality. I turned back toward Arthur, who was standing beside his large walnut desk. Behind him was a floor-to-ceiling window that opened the office up to the striking vista of the suspension portion of the Bay Bridge gleaming in the middle of San Francisco Bay on what was a breezy, late April morning.
At 61 years old, Arthur carried a few extra pounds on his six-foot two-inch frame, but it was obvious he took the time to get some exercise. He still maintained a healthy head of sandy brown hair – fifteen years younger than Arthur, I wondered how many years it had been since I had even half that much hair.
“There’s a letter your dad wrote that he wants – wanted – you to read to your kids,” Arthur said. He hesitated momentarily before sensing my desire to interrupt again – actually, I wanted to scream – and added, “These are the instructions your father gave me.”
“Great. Let’s have it,” I replied in disbelief.
“We have to bring the kids in first,” Arthur stated in a tone that indicated he knew it would annoy me, but he had to say it anyway. He was my dad’s lawyer, after all.
My wife, Diane, had been specifically asked not to attend today’s meeting, so our three children, Alex, 12, Tom, 10, and Maggie, 8, were alone in Arthur’s small reception area. Diane was shopping at the Ferry Building, two blocks away, where the old ferry terminal was converted to accommodate several trendy food shops and restaurants. She would be buying artisan breads and cheeses, organic fruits and our favorite Scharffen Berger Chocolates to take with us for our picnic lunch in Napa after the meeting.
I was proud (and relieved) that the kids had entertained themselves quietly while Arthur and I met privately. This was not their first experience with a family death – their maternal great grandmother died two years before at the age of 97 – however, they did not quite understand why this time they had been summoned to a lawyer’s office. But recognizing the magnitude of my loss, they had been on their best behavior and had been showering me with extra affection.
They walked into the office quietly, with only mild confusion on their faces as they politely greeted Arthur Plummer. I observed Arthur and was impressed by the way he welcomed them into his office with a grandfatherly, yet not condescending tone. Using the same tone, he explained that their Grandpa Dan had left instructions to be carried out after his death, and it was Arthur’s job to make sure these instructions were passed along to the right people: them.
The children’s eyebrows were all raised when Arthur explained further that Grandpa Dan had left them a large sum of money for the sole purpose of fulfilling his dying wishes. I was grateful that Arthur did not disclose the actual amount of money my father had left for them. Picking up an envelope from his desk, Arthur finished his remarks by saying, “He asked me to give this letter to your dad for him to read soon after his death.”
Taking the envelope from Arthur and beginning to open it, I said to the kids, “Grandpa Dan had his own way of doing things. I didn’t know about any of this until this morning. In fact, neither Mr. Plummer nor I know the contents of this letter, but he wanted us all here today when I open it.”
“Why isn’t Mom here?” Maggie asked in a matter-of-fact tone, as she studied me with her big brown eyes.
“Well –”
“Your Grandpa really cared about your mother,” Arthur interrupted, “but he told me that he wanted this to be about you three kids.” I had some other thoughts about Dad’s motives, but I certainly was not going to speculate in front of the kids. I was just relieved that Arthur had rescued me from having to come up with an excuse.
Getting back on track I said, “Even before reading this letter, I have a bunch of questions, but knowing your Grandpa Dan the answers won’t be easy to come by. So I want you to hold any other questions until after I have read the whole letter.” The three kids nodded in unison, and I pulled the letter out of the envelope to begin reading.
January 10, 2008
Dear Alex, Tom and Maggie,
As my youngest grandchildren, there is much you do not know about me. In fact, you are about to embark on a journey that will ultimately reveal things that no one knows about, not even Grandma Carol, your dad or his brother or sisters – I never told your dad’s mother either before she died. I wish I could have revealed this information earlier, but my brother and I made a promise to each other that we would keep the secret during our lifetimes.
In other words, you will be helping me to set the record straight about my family. At the same time, I expect that you will be exposed to some unflattering episodes in my past. They are unfortunate incidents that I have regretted every day of my life, because of the way they affected your Grandma Jennifer, as well as your dad and his brother and sisters.
To help you with all of this, I have asked Mr. Plummer to set up a trust in your names, with more than enough money for you to accomplish my goals. Your dad is the trustee, and he and Mr. Plummer can answer your questions about what this means. I hope you will look at this as a great adventure that will help you to understand me a little better as you learn more about your country. I expect at the same time you will learn a great deal about yourselves. Each of you is very impressive, and I could not be prouder that you are my grandchildren.
When I wrote the first version of this letter it was addressed to your dad and his siblings, but as time marched on, it made more sense to address it to my grandchildren. I am asking you, and not your cousins, to take this journey, because they are all older and had an opportunity to travel with me. You could look at this as the trip you never had a chance to take with your Grandpa Dan, especially since I will be “communicating” with you while you are on the road.
Before you begin, however, there are some things I need you to understand. Your dad and his siblings knew I had a brother who died young, but I never revealed the circumstances of his death. I rarely spoke about him because I was afraid it would lead to questions I could neither answer nor explain without breaking my promise.
My brother (your great uncle) and I were American patriots. We believed strongly in the ideals upon which the United States was founded; we were proud of the principles for which our country stands. We talked a great deal about how important it was to protect these ideals and to protect the amazingly beautiful land upon which these ideals were founded.
At the same time, we recognized at a relatively early age that the United States has had some serious flaws – slavery before our time and segregation that existed when we were growing up are just two examples of rather sorry chapters in American history.
Although far from perfect, the United States is always trying to improve itself. This serves as a challenge to people throughout the world to fight injustice and to treat others with fairness and dignity. The fact that we have a country that embraces ethnic diversity, as well as diversity of opinion, gives me great comfort as I prepare to depart this world.
Unfortunately, no matter what happens here in the United States, it seems there will always be people whose warped sense of self-importance is used somehow to try to justify the abhorrent treatment of other human beings. That is why Daniel and Stuart Lorenz both readily volunteered to help rid the world of the intolerant and hateful regimes that emerged during our youth, and to fight for this great country in which we believed. Your great uncle gave his life for these ideals. He was a true American hero.
As you know, I served during World War II in the South Pacific, working in the engine room of a light cruiser, the USS Pasadena. Our ship, with its crew of about 1,300, was part of the Third Fleet and took part in the Allied invasions of Manila, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as well as many raids on Japan leading up to what we thought was going to be a full-scale invasion. We came under enemy fire numerous times, but our ship was fortunate to have suffered relatively few casualties.
My brother was a member of the famed 82nd Airborne that parachuted behind enemy lines in the early morning hours of D-Day as part of the Allied invasion of Normandy, which marked the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. Airborne troops enjoyed mostly successful campaigns in North Africa and Sicily, but they still suffered numerous losses. My brother was one of the replacements who joined the regiment in England as they prepared for the Normandy invasion.
Given the nature of our involvement in the war, and the fact that we were nearly half a world away from each other, my brother and I were only able to correspond with each other sporadically. It was this correspondence, sparse though it was, that helped sustain me during the war, especially since we were the only family either of us had. You cannot imagine the relief I felt every time I received a letter from my brother, particularly following the Normandy invasion; although at the time I could only guess that he was actually part of that effort. I often went months without receiving a letter from my brother. Those letters are my most cherished possessions.
Since we were not allowed to write about our missions, or even our locations, we wrote instead about all of the places in the United States we wanted to visit after the war. Our nation offers some of the most amazing and diverse geography. My brother had a particular affinity for western national parks and points of interest.
By the summer of 1945, the war in Europe was finally over. We were gaining ground every day against the Japanese in the Pacific when President Truman ordered the use of a devastating new weapon, the atomic bomb, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese had no choice but to finally surrender.
I don’t want to stray too far from the real purpose of this letter, but there are a few things you must know about President Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons: (1) the Japanese military machine had brainwashed civilians to believe that Americans would kill and even cannibalize women and children if they landed on Japanese soil, whether by force or surrender; (2) though the atomic bombs killed about 200,000 people, based on how the Japanese refused to surrender at Okinawa, Iwo Jima and throughout the Pacific when there was no hope for survival, at least double that number – including countless thousands of civilians – would have died in an Allied invasion of Japan, an invasion that would have taken many months of bloody fighting to bring to a conclusion; and (3) the fact that the world saw the horror of atomic weapons in World War II served as a strong deterrent to the use of perhaps dozens or more nuclear weapons during the Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs incident in the early 1960s – and continues to serve as a strong deterrent today, more than sixty years later. Don’t let anyone ever vilify President Truman or the United States over the decision to use the atomic bomb to end World War II.
Several days after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, I witnessed the official signing of Japan’s surrender after I had climbed up to put a cover on one of the smokestacks on my ship. The Pasadena was anchored in Tokyo Bay about one mile away from where the ceremonies were taking place aboard the USS Missouri. My mind was racing as I watched the historic event unfold. From my perch I daydreamed about meeting my brother back in the States and embarking on a Lorenz Brothers victory tour of all of the places about which we had written. Three days later, I received word that he had been killed by a sniper in Northern France three months before, just days before the end of the war in Europe.
As you can imagine, I was devastated, and at first I vowed I would never visit any of the places we had dreamed about – it was just too painful to contemplate. But we had promised each other that if we didn’t both make it home, the survivor would spend time at each of the places we wrote about in our correspondence. By the time the Pasadena sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge the following February, I decided that I would keep all of my promises to my departed best friend and brother.
My decision was punctuated by the two letters from my brother that were waiting for me when we reached the port at Mare Island (near Vallejo, just up Interstate 80 from where you are now). I was discharged from the Navy in May of 1946, and I spent about three more weeks in San Francisco. When I received the death benefit – a horrible oxymoron, actually – as my brother’s sole surviving heir, I saw it as a sign from him that it was time to start traveling. On this first trip I decided that I could best honor my brother’s memory by visiting only the places he wrote about. I bought a used Mercury roadster, joined AAA where I was able to get all the maps and tour books I would need, and I made my way to Yosemite National Park, the last place my brother had written about. Three months later, I completed my initial journey and settled down in the Denver area, before moving on to Chicago and then Wabash, Indiana, where your father grew up. Though I traveled the world during my lifetime, even returning several times to Japan, my favorite places to visit are in the United States, especially those initial destinations I visited following the war.
Now I need for you to start a journey of your own. The first order of business is for you to travel to Wabash, to the house where your father grew up. When I moved from there in 1982, I left a small cash box with a few mementos and instructions for carrying out my final wishes. Then you will need to head back home to start planning a road trip with multiple stops. I’ll try not to make you drive more than five hundred miles in a day. I know it is a lot to ask, but I think in the end you will agree that you are taking a trip of a lifetime.
I have left letters for you at various points along your journey. Each will have a set of clues which will direct you to the next location. In the unlikely event that someone else has stumbled upon one of these letters, I have omitted a clue from most of them, and I have placed them in this letter instead as “Wildcard” clues. This will prevent someone from deciphering all of the clues and following the path meant for you. These Wildcard clues will not make any sense to you until you are further instructed to use them:
(1) In an alcove along the west wall, dig at the point of the arrow.
(2) Knee-Breaker Rock: stall for time and look to the right of the trail for a rock that looks like a baseball cap.
(3) You could say it’s off the Wall, but it’s actually inside the Wall.
(4) Take the Cliff Palace tour and enjoy.
(5) On the rock, to the right of the plaque bearing his name.
(6) It’s hidden where it’s Hidden.
(7) Check behind the No Parking sign.
I strongly suggest that you each keep a journal of your travels. Also, please keep Mr. Plummer apprised of your progress. Keep your eyes and your minds open, and I will “be in touch” with you while you’re on the road. Be safe.
With great love and appreciation,
Grandpa Dan
P.S. Stuart, the cash box is in the hiding place where you and your brother used to sneak a beer when your mother and I were entertaining – you didn’t think I knew?! Just be careful when you are retrieving the cash box, because Rendle Gilbertson seems to know everything that goes on in that town.
I re-folded the letter and returned it to its envelope, not quite knowing what to say or do next. I could not help but think that my father had just died, and now from the grave he was sending my family and me essentially on a search for his Holy Grail. But apparently he was only offering us a piece of the puzzle at a time – we did not have all the information we would need.
If he left that cash box in Indiana, it meant that he had set this in motion more than a quarter century ago. Yet the letter was dated just three months before he died. Why couldn’t he have gone on this adventure on his own? Or when he traveled with my nephews and nieces? What changes had he made to the letter other than to address it to my children?
Then there were the questions about his brother. He had talked about how he and his brother were mostly on their own after their parents died, but why did he wait until his death to reveal that his brother had lived to adulthood? Why did he not trumpet the fact that his brother was a World War II hero?
“I don’t get it. Why didn’t Grandpa Dan tell everyone about his brother?” Maggie asked, as if she had tapped in to my thought process telepathically.
“I don’t get it either, honey.” There was a lot I didn’t get. “Let’s go on up to Napa like we planned, and maybe we can begin to sort this out.”
We talked for a few more minutes about my father and the logistics of the trips we would be planning. As we started to make our way to the door, Arthur Plummer said, “I know you have my email address; here is my private cell phone number that I answer 24/7,” and he handed me a slip of paper with the number hand written on it. “Don’t hesitate to contact me – I mean that; any time, day or night. I’ll look forward to receiving your updates.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And don’t worry about using any of the trust money for attorney’s fees,” Arthur Plummer added. “Your dad took care of it, and then some.”
With that, we said our good-byes and made our way to the door. I caught one last glimpse of The Play, and reflecting momentarily on that magical day which my dad and I had shared, I hoped this would indeed be the adventure my dad had imagined for us when he wrote that letter.
Back Home Again in Indiana?
Not quite three weeks later, I breathed a big sigh of relief as we were finally “wheels up” over San Francisco Bay, following a two hour delay, on a Friday morning on our way to Chicago. Maggie was snuggled next to me while Tom stared intently out the window. Across the aisle was my beautiful wife, Diane, who was so engrossed in her book that she did not realize I was staring, again, at her.
When we met during our third year of law school twenty years ago, it was the contrast of her shoulder-length dark brown hair and her piercing blue eyes that had initially attracted me to her. But it was her calming influence and steady determination that I fell in love with. She had only honed these attributes during our eighteen years of marriage, especially in how she dealt with our intelligent, energetic children.
Next to Diane was a rare open seat, with Alex sitting by the window, calling out the landmarks and roads he could see from the air. “Tom!” Alex tried to get his brother’s attention. “See if you can spot our house from the air!” he exclaimed, before turning back to his window.
“I think I’m on the wrong side of the plane,” Tom responded, probably a bit too loudly.
Alex was able to zero in much better than I would have thought, spotting our exit off the 680 freeway as we climbed over the San Ramon Valley to our cruising altitude.
My father had an idea of what he wanted my family and me to do; however, he did not consider the practical realities of planning and traveling on short notice with a family of five – not just the journey itself, but work and school schedules, as well as soccer, piano lessons and other extra-curricular activities. It occurred to me that planning such a trip was so much less complicated when I was growing up. At the same time I had no doubt that a great deal of that impression probably owed to the fact that someone else (my mother) was handling all of the packing and other details. Still, I was trying to respect my dad’s final wishes and follow his instructions. Fortunately, given my limited work commitments, I had the flexibility in my schedule to put all the pieces of the puzzle together despite the limited lead time. Plus, with my ever-present HP laptop and a wi-fi connection, I knew I would have no problem getting some work done after everyone else had settled in for the night when we’re on the road.
Following our meeting with Arthur Plummer, I had handed my dad’s letter to Diane for her to read as we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to Napa. Diane and my father had had an uneasy relationship, an uneasiness borne in large part out of Diane’s attempt nine years ago to protect him from his then fiancée, Carol. Several weeks before Dad and Carol were married, Diane was at their house to set up for a party we were throwing for them. Apparently Carol did not hear Diane come in, and Diane overheard Carol on her cell phone with one of her daughters saying that her attorney could not find any loopholes in Dad’s will and trust documents that would allow her to claim any of his assets when he died. Carol told her daughter that she would just have to “work on him” to amend his estate plan after they were married. When Diane relayed this information to my father, he was furious, but not with Carol.
He accused Diane of eavesdropping and lying about what she had heard, and to my knowledge, he never confronted Carol over the matter. My dad had been alone for several years after my mother had died, and he and Carol had been dating for about five years before they were married. While I think my father appreciated what Diane was trying to do, he simply was not in a position to do anything about Carol because he did not want to find himself alone again. He had grown comfortable in his new life, and he simply did not want to have to make any changes. Having lost his parents at an early age and his only sibling when he was young, he did not like living alone – this despite his almost over-the-top independent streak. Diane seemed to understand all of this and she truly mourned his death.
We had planned on going to Napa following our meeting with Arthur Plummer so that we could visit my father’s favorite winery, Domaine Carneros. After my parents moved to California more than twenty years ago, my dad became a rather avid wine connoisseur. A couple years after moving to his East Bay Area home he planted multipulciano grapevines, a sangiovese sub-varietal, on the hillside in his back yard. When the hundred vines had fully matured, he was able to produce about ten cases of wine each year. His wine was not award winning, but it was a fine every-day wine. It was also a great diversion for him after my mother died.
He enjoyed involving the entire family in the production each year, even enlisting my kids to help with the harvest every September. He designed his own label each year, and he took great pleasure in presenting one or two bottles as a hostess gift when he was invited out. The fact that there was a story to tell about each year’s production made it the perfect gift, because Dan Lorenz was such a great story teller.
I had helped him to bottle his latest vintage only two weeks before his final illness, and now I was planning on delivering a bottle to each of his friends as a sort of parting gift. I planned to cellar the rest, to serve on his birthday and other special family occasions.
After the novelty of his small wine production wore out, he started to try other wines, particularly champagne – sparkling wine, actually, because it wasn’t from the Champagne region of France. Dad sampled all of the best sparkling wines Napa had to offer and decided that he enjoyed Domaine Carneros more than any of the others. So he joined their wine club, receiving a sparkling wine and a red wine (usually a pinot noir) every other month. He especially enjoyed driving up to the winery, less than an hour’s drive from his home, to pick up his wines. Even more important was sitting on the patio while sipping wine and taking in the scenery. My family and I often joined him for these outings.
After our meeting with Arthur Plummer, it was the perfect spot for us. Set in the Carneros region, which straddles Southwestern Napa County and Southeastern Sonoma County, Domaine Carneros boasts a chateau that was modeled after a French wine chateau. Though less than twenty years old, from the day it first opened it always had that “Old World” look and feel.
Settling in on the patio on a seasonably mild, sunny day, Diane and I sipped their latest releases, while the kids conducted their own “wine” blending experience, pouring different amounts of sparkling chardonnay, rosé and pinot noir grape juice into their glasses and discussing the different flavors.
I was thinking about the last time I had visited Domaine Carneros with my father when Maggie brought me back to our new task. “Dad, who’s that Rendle Gilbertson guy Grandpa Dan mentioned in his letter?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Tom added, “and what did he mean about ‘unfortunate incidents?’”
“Well,” I paused for a moment, “it was all pretty ugly.”
“The fire?” Diane asked.
“And the embezzlement.”
“What’s embezzlement, Dad?” Maggie frowned while she tugged on one of her blonde, shoulder-length braids.
As I paused to think for a moment to figure out how to explain embezzlement to a bright eight year-old girl, Alex responded with a straight face, “Well, it’s like Bedazzling, but only with money.”
“No it’s not,” Diane shook her head in amusement.
“First of all, you guys are watching way too much TV,” I looked at each of them, wondering to myself how many commercial slogans and jingles were going through their heads at that moment.
“Maggie, embezzlement is essentially stealing money,” I continued, “but let’s go back to your first question. Grandpa Dan started a company called Electrosonics in 1956, and Rendle Gilbertson was one of his business partners. They developed an electronic fuel pump that improved reliability and fuel efficiency. It was Grandpa’s idea, and Gilbertson and his friend, Mort Geoffrey, provided the financial backing. In 1961, there was a fire at the company, and a lot of people thought Grandpa set it on purpose to collect insurance money. Because they used gasoline at the factory to test the fuel pump they were developing, they couldn’t determine whether the fire was deliberately set or an accident. But suspicion persisted that Grandpa Dan set it.”
“Why?” The expression on Maggie’s face revealed her utter confusion by the notion that her benevolent grandfather could be suspected of any wrong-doing.
“I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of it, because I was just a baby at the time, but this is what I know. Grandpa had a big argument with Gilbertson and Geoffrey about increasing the company’s insurance coverage. It was taking much longer than they had originally thought to bring their product to market, so Gilbertson and Geoffrey didn’t want to incur the additional cost of increased insurance coverage. But Grandpa argued they could lose everything if there was an accident and they didn’t have adequate coverage. They reluctantly agreed, and then the fire happened a few months later – when his partners were away on vacation – and everyone suspected Grandpa of having something to do with it.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Alex defended his grandfather.
“It’s called ‘circumstantial evidence’ in the legal world,” Diane advised.
“Right,” I plowed ahead, “and because they could find no direct evidence that Grandpa Dan had anything to do with it, he was never actually charged with anything.”
“But how is that embezzlement?” Maggie wanted to make sure all of her questions would be answered.
“It’s not,” I said before taking another sip of pinot noir.
“Yeah, that’s arson,” Tom pointed out.
“You’re right,” I turned to Tom, “and your grandfather was neither an arsonist nor an embezzler. Actually, the embezzlement allegations came a lot later. In 1978, when I was a senior in high school, Grandpa Dan left the company. Two days later, there was a front-page article in the Wabash Plain Dealer, which cited anonymous sources within the company alleging that there were multiple ‘accounting irregularities’ under Grandpa’s watch. The article talked about some funds being siphoned off of contracts that Grandpa had negotiated, and other company funds being hidden in offshore bank accounts. It was a pretty horrible time for all of us.”
“He didn’t do it, did he?” Tom asked half in defense of his grandfather and half in fear that I would say “yes.”
“No,” I answered without hesitation, even though my father had never given me a full explanation of what had happened.
“Who did it then?” Tom persisted.
“I don’t know. At the time, Grandpa Dan apologized profusely because of all the grief we were getting at school and around town. He said that although he made some mistakes, everything in the paper was false. He also said – and I remember this vividly – ‘I did what I did for all the right reasons.’”
“Dad?” Alex asked with apprehension in his voice.
“Yeah, go ahead, pal,” I encouraged him.
“I know Grandpa Dan was a good guy, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful to him, but…” Alex was clearly conflicted by his thoughts and what he wanted to say. “But it almost sounds like he did do some bad things that he didn’t think would turn out to be bad,” he finished with trepidation, yet with compassionate conviction.
I studied Alex for a moment, thinking he looked remarkably like my brother Daniel did at the same age, with his thick, wavy black hair and dark brown eyes. “You know what, Alex, that’s exactly what I thought when he first said that almost thirty years ago – and I was five years older then than you are today.”
“But if the purpose of this trip is for us to uncover information about his family, why did he warn us about the things that happened at his old company?” Tom was not yet ready to change the topic of discussion. Although I would never say this to him, he looked more like my sister Valerie did as a child than Alex looked like Daniel. His hair was sandy brown, and he had chameleon-like hazel eyes that seemed to always match whatever color shirt he happened to be wearing.
“I think he just wanted to make sure that there wouldn’t be any surprises along the way,” Diane jumped in.
“That makes sense,” I agreed. “I probably would not have told you about all of his difficulties at Electrosonics had he not mentioned it in his letter, but since our first stop is Wabash, he probably thought that it would inevitably come up.”
We started to talk about the particulars of our trip to Indiana, but my mind wandered around the just-completed conversation about my dad’s troubles there. Despite the mystery, I had a combined sense of relief and pride that the kids were already fully invested in doing what we could to honor their grandfather’s wishes.
Having no idea what kind of surprises were waiting for us in Indiana, we concluded that it would be important for us to get there as quickly as we could. This would also allow us more time to figure out what lay in store for us on the driving trip my father wrote about. That meant traveling to Indiana over Memorial Day weekend, which, once we recovered the cash box, we would hopefully have a better idea of what we were facing. Then I could make further travel plans to commence as soon as the kids finished school on June 12.
The down-side to our plan was that the kids would be missing school on the Friday and Tuesday at either end of the three-day weekend, as I was unable to get flights into or out of Indianapolis because of the Indy 500. Diane and I don’t like to pull our kids out of school unless they’re ill, and for the most part the kids didn’t like to miss school either. But they were intrigued by the trip to as-yet unknown destinations and were distracted by lure of summer vacation around the corner.
The unintended benefit of our travel plans was that for all the time Diane and I had been together, I had not yet introduced her to my hometown of Wabash, Indiana. Now I would have that opportunity. It would have been nice to have been able to schedule some time in Chicago as well, but the timing was just not right.
* * *
By the time we retrieved our luggage at the sprawling O’Hare Airport, took a shuttle to the car rental lot and loaded everything into our rental mini-van, it was 6:45 p.m. Our flight delay has probably saved us from the worst of the holiday rush hour traffic, but we would still have to traverse the Dan Ryan Expressway, the most heavily-traveled stretch of highway in the region. The daunting – on a normal day – twelve-mile stretch of highway would take us south through Chicago before we turned east to Indiana. (When I was a child, the Dan Ryan, with six lanes of traffic in each direction, was the stretch of road on which we were not allowed to say a word so that my mother would not be distracted. My exaggerated memory was of bumper-to-bumper traffic moving 70 miles per hour.) Though traffic was slow today, we were able to move at a surprisingly steady pace.
Driving southeast to Indiana, the modern Chicago cityscape gave way to the bleak industrial cities of East Chicago and Gary, and finally rural farmlands as we approached Valparaiso. The corn and soybean fields were just starting to sprout, providing a perfect backdrop in the waning light. By the time we reached Wabash, it was 10:00 p.m., and the kids had all fallen asleep following our long day of travel.
* * *
Saturday morning greeted us with a bright, cloudless sky as we got ready for our 11:00 a.m. appointment at 536 Brookside Drive, the only home I knew until I moved to Berkeley for college. After being in my family for almost thirty years, the house had been sold twice more since my parents moved away in 1982. The current owners, Tracy and Darryl Michaels, had only lived there about a year and a half, according to my life-long friend, Jay Dietrich. Jay also had some surprising news for me: Darryl Michaels was the nephew of Rendle Gilbertson, my dad’s former business partner – and former friend.
It was the falling out between Gilbertson and my father that led my father to sell the bulk of his interest in the business in 1978. Their relationship began a slow, steady decline after the 1961fire – Gilbertson and Geoffrey actually accused my dad of arson when they returned from their vacation – and suspicion and distrust festered for years before their business relationship unraveled. Rumors persisted that my father could not be trusted after the fire. Then Gilbertson supposedly caught him with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, giving Gilbertson the ammunition he finally needed to “exile” my father from the company, and ultimately from the town a few years later.
In addition to his general apologies, my father said, “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but the truth will eventually come out.” My father’s favorite quote (from Mark Twain and used proudly by Harry S. Truman) was, “Always tell the truth. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” He kept a framed copy of this quote on his wall, and he never gave me any reason to believe he did not follow it. Besides, any time I had even a twinge of doubt about my dad’s explanations, it occurred to me that if Gilbertson had indeed uncovered any kind of fiscal impropriety, he would not have hesitated to have my father prosecuted.
My father had developed the idea for Electrosonics while serving in the Navy. Working in the engine room on the USS Pasadena he came up with a concept and rough design for an electronic fuel flow control valve that would increase fuel efficiency and prevent interruptions and hiccups in fuel flow that were common at the time. In addition to Gilbertson’s financial backing for the company, he had also claimed to have automobile manufacturer contacts that would be extremely valuable in developing a strong customer base. Those contacts never led anywhere.
Gilbertson came from a wealthy Chicago real estate family and was more than ten years younger than my father. He and his attorney friend Morton Geoffrey invested a total of two hundred fifty thousand dollars in Electrosonics in 1956, and it took almost six years to bring the product to market.
Following the fire in 1961, investigations were inconclusive and my father was technically cleared, but the cloud of suspicion continued to follow him. Of course, it did not help that Electrosonics actually benefited from the fire. The company had been running low on funds, and despite a two-month delay in testing, the insurance proceeds allowed my father to continue development, and later, production. At the time, this only fed speculation about my father’s possible role in the fire. This speculation ebbed and flowed over the years, reaching another crescendo after the stories about embezzlement allegations were published.
Fourteen months after the fire, Electrosonics was able to enter into a lucrative contract to sell the device to one of the four big American auto companies. Within five years two more of the automakers entered into similar agreements. Three different patents were awarded in the development in the original fuel control valve, with three more awarded over the years as improvements on the device were made. Now more than fifty years after the company was started, Electrosonics is still the industry leader.
* * *
We were staying at the Honeywell House, the former home of Mark Honeywell, a Wabash native, who was the inventor of the thermostat and the founder of the company that bears his name, and his wife Eugenia. Mr. Honeywell died in 1964, and when Mrs. Honeywell died tragically in a fire at her home about ten years later, the beautifully appointed brick home and grounds were bequeathed to Indiana University Foundation. The University repaired and renovated the home following the fire and has operated it as a cultural center and bed & breakfast ever since. Having met Mrs. Honeywell when I was a child, I decided that staying at her home would provide another opportunity for the kids to learn about my family’s history.
We could have walked over to my family’s old home this morning, but not knowing what we might find in the cash box, if we found it, I reasoned that driving made more sense. Moreover, I was not quite sure what kind of greeting we would receive from Rendle Gilbertson’s nephew. Actually, I was quite surprised when I spoke with Darryl Michaels that he did not hesitate at all when I asked if I could impose on him and show my family the home where I spent the first eighteen years of my life. Still, given our families’ history – of which he had to have been aware – I did not know what to expect.
Walking up to the front door of what was an idyllic home for a child growing up in the 1960s I had decidedly mixed emotions. I had driven and walked by the house several times over the years, but I had not set foot inside since my parents had moved to the Bay Area in 1982. The red brick house had been painted white a couple of years before my parents purchased the property, an “improvement” I never understood. Why would anyone want to cover up such beautiful masonry? The paint had begun to peel when I was a child, and it gave the house a more rustic look, but my parents had it sandblasted clean many years ago, restoring it to its original glory.
Tracy Michaels welcomed us into her home, and she apologized for her husband’s absence. “We’re having a Memorial Day party tomorrow, and he had a few errands to run. I thought he’d be back by now,” she said with some frustration in her voice. Although I found his absence odd, I tried not to let conspiratorial motives overtake my thoughts.
Alex handed me the British racing green day pack he was carrying, and I pulled out a bottle of Young’s Barbera to present to our hostess. I handed the lightened, but not empty, pack back to Tom.
Even though I had left this house as an adult, as Tracy Michaels led us on a tour, it seemed as if everything was much smaller than I had remembered – as if my only memories were from the perspective of a small child.
“There’s still some evidence that the Lorenz family lived here,” I laughed as we walked through the living room, and I pointed to the ten-foot jagged crack in the ceiling plaster that still shone through the repairs. “That was caused when your Uncle Daniel added several logs to an already intense fire in the fireplace.” But I could see no evidence of what had been recurrent water damage to the crown molding and ceiling in the family room, which had been pervasive years ago. The family room had always been my favorite room in the house because of its multiple windows on three of the four walls. This meant there was almost always a place to sit in the sun on a cold winter day.
Upstairs on the second and third floors I recounted stories of childhood antics, including the time my Daniel held me upside down by the ankles outside a third floor window after I had pestered him incessantly.
As we made our way back down the second floor hallway, Tracy Michaels paused, asking, “I know it’s a long shot, but do you know what this switch is for? We’ve tested it and it doesn’t seem to control any lights or electrical outlets.”
“I’m surprised it’s still there,” I answered. “It was for the attic fan my parents disconnected probably thirty-five years ago.”
After returning downstairs to the foyer, I asked Tracy, “Do you mind if we take a look out in the back yard? The kids have heard many stories about the epic baseball and football games that took place in that yard. I can lead the tour if you have things to do.”
She thought about it momentarily while adjusting the multi-colored headband that was keeping her short brown hair out of her face. “Well, I was expecting Darryl to be here to show you the house,” Tracy replied, “and I still have quite a bit of prep work to finish for the party. Take your time,” she said as she walked us through the long, narrow kitchen to the back door.
The five of us proceeded out the door, past the garage and to the back yard that had been the site of countless neighborhood pick-up baseball and football games. With the house on a two and one-half acre lot, it offered more than ample room for all of our sports and other childhood adventures.
About one hundred yards from the house runs Charley Creek into which Daniel had unceremoniously dropped me on a cold autumn day after I had teased him one too many times about the lisp he acquired with his new orthodontic retainer. Apparently hanging upside down outside a third floor window had not dissuaded me from bothering my brother.
Connected to the garage is the storage room that served as the access point to the Lorenz kids’ (apparently) not-so-secret hideout. The door was ajar, as if attached to a house in California near an active earthquake fault, just the way I remembered it.
Following our plan, I gave Alex a nod, and he ducked into the storage room while pulling a flashlight out of the backpack. Before leaving on this trip, I had sat down with Alex, Tom and Maggie to go over where we would find the cash box my father wrote about, complete with diagrams and contingency plans – had we been accompanied on this tour, it would have served as a reconnaissance for a later visit to the house.
I was confident that Alex would be able to maneuver his way into the garage attic and retrieve the cash box, provided that he had enough time. Alex had recently experienced a substantial growth spurt that had transformed his body from a thick-set boy to an almost lanky pre-teen. One would expect such a rapid transformation to be followed immediately by a clumsy phase, but to the contrary, with his growth came surprising coordination and agility.
The rest of us continued past the north end of the garage to a section of lawn that years ago had been dubbed the Peony Patch. When I was about ten years old, our cat, Peony, a beautifully colored Seal Point Siamese cat was hit by a car. Two years before, she had survived a similar encounter, suffering only a broken leg. This time, however, she was not so fortunate. My dad had recently burned out the stump of an old elm tree that had stood behind the garage, and we decided to bury the cat in the middle of the patch and plant peonies all around. We had placed a piece of limestone as a marker in the middle of the patch, which, amazingly, more than forty years later, was still there.
As I finished explaining this story, Tom called out, “Hey Dad, go long!” which served both as our pre-arranged code for danger and as a diversion. I caught a glimpse of a man approaching us from the south side of the garage, as I ran east behind the garage and into the front yard to receive a twenty yard pass from Tom.
Tossing the ball back to Tom, I started to walk toward the Peony Patch. When Tom threw the ball back over my head – just like we had discussed – I had to go back to retrieve it, thereby adding more time to our diversion. “Nice,” I called out with fake sarcasm, scooping up the ball and this time holding it as I jogged slowly back to the group. As I reached them, I flipped the ball underhanded back to Tom, saying, “You have to work on your accuracy, pal.”
As I had suspected, it was Darryl Michaels who had come out to meet us. He and I studied each other briefly as we exchanged handshakes. He was wearing khakis and a green polo shirt, not what I would have expected from someone running errands the day before a party. He also wore what I call a “three-day beard,” and since patches of his beard were gray, he was definitely too old for the look. Just as I was about to introduce the rest of the family, he asked haltingly, “I thought you had three children?”
Before I could even think to make an excuse for Alex’s absence, he appeared from the storage room saying, “Sorry, I thought that was a bathroom in there.”
Relieved that I did not have to cover for Alex, I responded, “Not unless they installed a toilet in there in the past twenty-five years,” I teased him nervously. “We used to keep our yard tools and sports equipment in there.”
After completing introductions, I continued the tour of the exterior of the house with Darryl Michaels now suspiciously in tow. I described the layouts of the baseball and football fields and pointed to the various spots that we had used as tee boxes for the “Lorenz Golf Course,” explaining that we had cut one putting green and hole, and we had used four different approaches and distances to create the illusion of four different holes. We did not build any sand traps, but it was a challenging little course nonetheless because we had to steer clear of the creek behind the green.
“I found it Dad,” Alex whispered to me as we continued the tour to the front of the house.