Great Lovers I Have Known-1--Gary Mathews--2

Great Lovers I Have Known I--Gary Mathews II
Gary and I continued dating every weekend for some time until Gary fell hopelessly in love with our neighbor, Janet Bush. Of course, by the expression, "hopelessly in love" we generally mean "googly-eyed" or "puppy-dog-fawning", but Gary was never any of those things with Janet Bush. What it meant to be hopelessly in love with Janet Bush meant that you were in love and it was hopeless. For Gary to have sent her a large piece of butcher paper with a sentiment like "Roses are red violets are blue no matter what happens, I’m crazy for you", would have delighted her immensely. She would have roared for hours and put it on display in her living room, but it is doubtful that she would ever have gone out with him again.
It is fascinating to me that Gary, who always seemed eager to do his duty and get married as quickly as possible, should ever have started dating Janet in the first place. Not that she wasn’t a nice girl and very attractive, but she was also sort of ‘aloof". I came, in my own experience with her to refer to her as ‘the refrigerator", although I hear she has married and I doubt that her husband refers to her as "the refrigerator". She had graduated and was managing a finance company. She was, therefore, a professional woman and she looked and acted the part. For example, she had absolutely perfect posture when she stood (when she sat, at least, when she sat at home she had the posture of a raggedy-ann doll). She was very proud of her work, which often led her into being an absolute Scrooge, when her clients fell behind in their loans. On the other hand, she was very proud of being able to help people who could not get loans from the bank.
She would talk with pride of her helping the Arbizus, for example. I had known Ray Arbizu on my mission. He was the lead tenor for the Opera Company in Boon when I was assigned to work there. He and his wife were an interesting couple. Ray, who was, in appearance at least, a typical lead tenor, i.e. short and very stout, claimed to have been engaged to the absolutely most beautiful girl in the world. She (according to him) had all the curves of Jane Russell and the long blond hair and husky feminine charm of Marilyn Monroe. Anyway, he was engaged to this paragon of feminine beauty and within a few weeks of marrying her, when he decided to take a break from Opera singing and go for a weeks vacation back to the reservation (he was an American Indian). While he was there doing whatever Indians on vacation do on the reservation--I suspect, in his case, singing so everyone else can do the tribal rain dance--at any rate, while he was there he met and fell in love, apparently almost instantly, with a rather plain looking Indian girl and within a couple of days, they were married. It all happened so fast, that he didn’t have time to inform his fiancee that he had tied the knot with someone else. The result was that when he got off the plane in California to return to work, that his fiancee ran up to him and wrapped her voluptuous self around him in an only-to-be-seen-in-Hollywood embrace. When she finally came up for air, he pointed to his wife and introduced her as such leaving the now former fiancee wishing she had not been quite so ardent in her greeting. At any rate, the happy couple proceeded to have a tribe of little Indians that were as wild as anything seen in the movies. The Opera company had provided them with a very large (for Germany at the time) apartment but with hardly any furniture, which was a good thing, because whenever I was there, at least, the kids were all over what furniture there was. Ray had gotten a job teaching opera singing at BYU, but had been unable to get a loan for a house at the bank, so Janet had obligingly provided the ready for that purpose. Because she knew that I knew them she always informed me that they were right up to date on their loans, this being in contrast to her typical story about how she was having to chase after a delinquent client with a few tomahawks of her own.
But I digress, the point was that during his senior year, Gary pursued Janet with all the ardor that his lack of resources and her decided lack of ardor would allow. The latter was, or course, very frustrating for Gary. Probably as frustrating, or even more, was the fact that he perceived (he was always rather perceptive in this way) that I was becoming convinced that since Janet was dragging her feet, it was no doubt due to the fact that she really liked me! Dating Janet Bush may very well have put off Gary’s marriage by a good two years. I can speak thus rather confidently, because dating Janet Bush probably put mine back by at least four.
At the end of his senior year Gary was hired to teach school on a very remote island somewhere off the coast of Alaska--an island inhabited by a few Eskimoes and, during the school year for two years, Gary. The salary for performing this service was one that an MBA graduate would drool over, at least, he would until he found out that everything had to be flown in by hydroplane and that a quart of milk cost about as much as Gary had made in a week spreading butcher paper over banquet tables for BYU food service. He had hoped to save a lot of money but it became pretty clear that unless started shooting his own food (not likely, although he had read innumerable novels in which the hero shot, skinned, and cooked buffalo, they were all a little short on detailed explanation of how-to-actually-do-it) , he was going to have to live on bread and water--and moldy bread, at that.
Well, he actually did save up some money so he returned the next summer and we resumed life where we had left off the previous summer. When he had left he had told me that he expected that I would begin "beating around the bush", meaning, of course, that I would start dating Janet Bush as soon as he left. Which I did. But by the time Gary came back for the summer I had figured out that Janet Bush didn’t like me any better, in fact, probably not as much as Gary so I had given up temporarily. So Gary began dating Janet again, but fairly quickly gave up there himself. He took a couple of classes, but fairly easy ones so he had time to read, which he did with a vengeance. Almost every other day he went off to the city library and came back with 6 to 10 western novels. I suspect that during the course of that summer Gary read (or re-read) every western novel ever written up to that time. I figured out that he was able to read 10 novels in two days because all he had to do was read enough to get the names of the main characters, the location, and whether the plot was plot A, plot B, or plot C. Having read only a couple of Zane Grey westerns myself, I’m not sure whether the plots extend beyond C. The three I read never got beyond A. Of course, western novels are big on the description of the scenery, but I suspect that Gary only had to find out the local and from previous readings, he already knew where all the mountains, rivers, stage coach routes and trees, passes, and big rocks behind which outlaws could hide to rob the stage, so he could skip all that. Of course, we dated on most weekends, but it seemed to me a rather desultory thing, at best, on his part. Toward the end of the summer, I found out why.
It turns out that Gary was smitten, almost from the start of the summer and with increasing intensity with a girl he home-taught named Sharon. Of course, since he home taught her he could not date her, but rather than the traditional once-a-month visit, he dreamed up every excuse imaginable to perform home-teaching duties. Toward the end of the summer he confessed his amour to me and I hit the ceiling. This was, I told him, Janet Bush all over again only worse. Sharon was a prim and proper Easterner, from, as I remember it, of all places, Boston or someplace close to it. She was as different as Gary as Boston is from Tooele, which I pointed out to him. To this he protested that after all, he too was an easterner, having come from Washington D.C. To this I responded that I was convinced that the reason he liked western novels is that the all the gunfire and knives flying through the air in those novels reminded him of home.
Well, at the end of the summer, he returned to Alaska, and Sharon returned to Boston, but before that happened, Gary confessed to Sharon having strong feelings for her--something that, no doubt, came as no big surprise considering the fact that he had been hanging around all summer on the flimmsiest of possible excuses. But he said that he would have dated her had he not been her home teacher. She responded that she liked him too and hoped that he would keep in touch. Well, the bottom line to that story is that he started writing, she responded, then he started calling, so much so that he didn’t make any money that year due to phone calls. What he could possibly have written or said, I have no idea. He must have quoted Longfellow or Tennyson or, possibly, Jane Austen, which certainly would have been a stretch. He obviously had the good sense to avoid quoting Zane Grey or Max Brand, because after a couple of months they got engaged. A few months later they were married.
For my part, I was convinced the marriage would not last a month--they were just too different, but somehow it did. Years later, I was at one of his children’s wedding receptions. I have never known anyone so thoroughly happy with his marriage or the family that resulted from it--the sign in my opinion of a truly Great Lover.

Great Lovers I Have Known-1--Gary Mathews-1

Having last year in February told the story of my own romance, I have decided to begin telling the stories of some of my roommates. I had hoped to finish the effort in February, but it appears I will have to extend it well into March, or even April.
I begin with my dear, dear roommate and very good friend, Gary Mathews.
Great Lovers I Have Known--Gary Mathews
Gary Mathews was my roommate for about four years, although the last two were only in the summer months. He was not what I would characterize as the "great lover type" which was probably better represented by the other Gary in our apartment, Gary Jensen. Gary M. was rather short and chubby and a little rough around the edges--speaking about his manner rather than his appearance, In appearance, Gary had no edges
Gary was always very much for doing his religious duty and since, for a returned Mormon missionary almost your most important duty is to get married, Gary was all for doing it and the sooner the better. If he had had a crystal ball that had told him how long it was going to take, I suspect he would have been very discouraged indeed. But those of us who did not get married until we were 35 are in no position to talk about either crystal balls or discouragement.
But, of course, all of us in our apartment were conscientious about doing our duty and were, therefore, pretty diligent daters--all except Robert Patterson. I throw that in just to point out that Gary must have had several dates and much dating experience before the first great love of his life. But I don’t really remember much about Gary’s early dates (for that matter I don’t even remember much about my own from that period). What I do remember is how hard we worked to get Robert Patterson out on a date. We felt that it was absolutely terrible that Robert was not only not doing his religious duty, i. e. getting married--none of us were doing that--but not even moving in that direction by dating. We all would encourage him in every way we could, by, for example, telling him about what a wonderful time we had on our latest date, which, of course, was generally an exaggeration if not an outright lie, but, naturally, when you are encouraging a person to do his religious duty, you are naturally allowed a great deal of leeway, religiously speaking. I mention all this because we were finally able, using a great deal of persuasion, an even greater deal of force, a bit of fib telling and a great bit of chicanery to get Robert to go out on a date with the girl next door, who, we felt, was just his type.
I mention all this about Robert because it was almost the end of the year before we got him to go on that date--actually, I think he finally went on two or three--all with the girl next door. Anyway, we all went home to work for the summer and what should we get from Robert toward the end of the summer but a wedding invitation! Naturally, we all went to his reception and lo! And behold! Wonder of wonders, the girl he married was very cute and very charming, which we all agreed was terribly, terribly unfair especially considering how little effort he put into the whole "struggle to find just the right person" thing. But the other thing we all agreed on was that it almost certainly never would have happened had we not essentially forced him to date the girl next door. I mention all this because, if anything, Robert was even rougher around the edges than Gary M. with, physically speaking, even fewer edges. For example, when we all went to the opening social at church, the Bishop came up and asked Robert his name, he said, "Robert Patterson." To which the Bishop good naturedly asked, "Do your friends call you Bob?" To which Robert replied very gruffly, "Some people do, but they aren’t my friends."
But I digress. The point of all that was that Gary went out on several dates before he started dating A_____. I don’t really remember her name, but I do remember that it began with A and I’m pretty sure it was April, but if her parents had wanted to name her by characteristic they would have named her Anxious--as in "Eager to get married". By the time Gary started dating April, he and I had become good friends, so naturally, I wanted the best for him, and, in my view, at least, April was anything but the best. She was cute enough, but she had just graduated from high school, was not interested in going to college, and saw life (again in my opinion) after high school as a Sadie Hawkins race in which she was determined to grab the slowest runner who could take care of her for the rest of her life. When it came to running away from cute, young girls, Gary was (at that time, at least) about the slowest runner around.
Gary would be in absolute ecstasy when he described their latest date. For my part, I don’t remember the dates so much as the notes they wrote to each other. Gary was working a job at the time that allowed him unlimited access to butcher paper, which he used for his own notes and provided to April to use for hers. So all over our room were these large notes with messages that can best be described as mushy. I think Gary got his from the Western novels he was always reading--after all, those cowboys, after they finished chasing cattle rustlers and running from Indians, would have to think of something to say while they sat on the front porch with the boss’s adoring daughter. I think Gary figured that since it always worked for his western heroes, it should certainly work for him--but I would have been dubious, if I had been him. One went, Roses are red violets are blue, I love you lots and I hope you love me too." Another read, "How do I love you? Let me count the ways" (admittedly, not a bad line. He must have gotten that one from one of the better writers--Zane Grey or Max Brand, but it went down hill from there), "I love you from your head to your toes and in lots of other ways too."
But if his notes to her were bad, hers to him were even worse. The one I remember went something like, "When I am with you I shake all over and come unglued." (Which, of course, one hopes is not the same thing as coming unstitched.)
At any rate, it was pretty clear that Gary thought his duty--at least so far as getting married was concerned--was all but done. What he would have known if he had read Shakespeare instead of Zane Grey (which I know, because I had to read him in the 10th grade) was that the course of true love never runs smooth and (I’m not one hundred per cent sure this is Shakespeare--I was in the 10th grade a long time ago) you should never count your chickens before they are hitched. The fly in the wedding cake, so to speak, in Gary’s case was that he didn’t have any money--or at least, not very much. A trip to the jewelry store showed him that if he could have bought an engagement ring at all, the biggest thing about it would be the microscope required to see the diamond in it. This discouraged him a great deal and resulted in the use of a great deal less butcher paper, especially on April’s part, who, as soon as Gary mentioned that they might have to wait for awhile before they happy day, began to notice that her glue was beginning to hold. Finally, she did Gary the biggest favor (in my opinion) she could have done for him. She hopped onto the back of an old boy friend’s motorcycle and together they ran off to Las Vegas. Gary learned that for someone like April, a large piece of butcher paper--even butcher paper covered with lines from a horse lover like Zane Grey--will not hold up to a Harley Davidson.
Poor Gary was disconsolate and for months and was even worse than Robert Patterson about doing his duty. But time, about fifty Wester novels, and a little pushing to remind him about his duty, and he was--to all appearances at least--pretty much his old self.

Remembering Dad--Part 2

Some months after my 8th birthday, we were obviously more prosperous because we moved from out first home on 8th to a new home on 18th. We were moving up in the world, both economically and geographically. The home on 18th was designed not only to be a symbol of increasing prosperity, but also of Dad’s partnership with George Hargraves. That was symbolized by the fact that we lived almost next door (one house in-between, whether they were unable to get adjoining lots or whether being side by side all day and all night too was too much, I was never able to find out) in houses that had exactly the same exterior and the same floor plans. When I say exactly the same exterior, I mean the same shape, they were different colors on part of the house.
The house on 18th was a fun one because it was at the edge of town. When we first moved there, there were no other houses between us and the hills behind us. On two sides we had open fields. It was also fun to help Mom and Dad with the landscaping, mostly because after a hard evening’s work Dad would take us to the root beer stand where we could get a mug of cold root beer for a nickel. The two look-alike houses, did not look-alike long, however. As soon as the landscaping was done, Dad began tinkering on the house--a process that did not end until we finally moved. One of the first changes was the conversion of the garage into a bedroom. Of course, after that we had a wall with a window, where Dad’s partner had a garage door, so the two houses ceased to look alike except that for a couple of years Dad left the driveway in place and would, in fact park one of the cars in the driveway. The driveway was very steep and came to an abrupt demise after Mom lost control of her car when backing out of the driveway and hit Dad’s car. A few days later we came home to find that what had been driveway was now just an extension of the lawn.
Part of the reason that the driveway suffered so quick a demise was the fact that when Dad filed a claim with the insurance company, they refused to pay the claim. When Dad demanded to know the reason for the refusal, the agent simply said, "We won’t pay it because we know that you won’t sue your wife." It seems to me that Dad, being a lawyer--and by all accounts, a good one--could have made mincemeat of that argument, but Dad who was always eager to fight for other people’s rights, seemed strangely reluctant to fight for his own. He accepted the refusal with good grace and simply switched insurance companies--making him one of the few community leaders who was not insured with Farmer’s (they had a regional office in Pocatello). When ever anyone would ask him how he would dare to insure with another company, he would simply tell the story of their refusal to pay a claim based on the fact that "we know you won’t sue your wife". I suspect that in the long run, it cost the company more in lost business than paying the claim would have done.
As Dad’s business picked up, I think he got tired of tinkering with a house that was essentially George Hargrave’s (his partner) dream house and wanted to build one of his own. That finally happened when he built the house south of town--and it really was a dream house. But even more than the house, was the property on which it was built. We had 2½ acres of beautiful forest land--in fact, a national forest actually began just a block or so behind the property. We had a warm-water creek running through the property beginning with the source spring, which was also on our land.
We lived on the hill next to "Snob Hill" where many of the wealthiest people in Pocatello lived, and I suspect, that Dad wondered why more people were not eager to live on our hill. After all, to get to Snob Hill you turned up from the golf course and turned left at the top of the hill. If you turned right, you went down a dirt road and arrived at our new home. The most probable reason that we didn’t have any new neighbors (there were two families living there long before we moved in) was that right at the turn-off there was a chicken farm. Dad, who had very bad hay-fever, and consequently, could hardly smell anything, did not notice when he bought our property that whenever the wind blew west (which, in Pocatello, it almost always did), we got the smell of the chicken farm. Fortunately for us, occasionally the wind would blow east, so that the rich, and influential, folks on snob hill used that influence to force the chicken farm people to buy some sort of anti-smell device. But every now and then--usually about once a month--the device would break down. Mom would call out and Loni and I would frantically run around the house, closing all the windows and doors, while Dad sat blissfully out on the front veranda looking out over the golf course across the street and the Portneuff valley beyond, no doubt wondering why no one else had bought property on our hill to get this magnificent view for themselves. Had he thought about it, he may have realized that the reason was somewhat connected to the fact that his own family was carefully closeted inside the house burning scented candles.
We moved South of town when I had just started at Poky High. A few years later I was elected Student Body President and early in the year, I was expected to attend the Homecoming Dance. Since many of my friends had told me that they were getting a new suit for the occasion, I somehow felt that, being the important person that I had become, I ought to be wearing a new suit myself.
I can still remember everything about the conversation in which I asked Dad if he could buy me a new suit. I expected that to ask was a mere formality and that he would simply say, "You bet, we’re so proud of you being student body president and all. Anything else you need?"
I chose the time when we were sitting in the car together. Dad had driven me in for seminary and he was then going to work. Just before I got out of the car, I made my request.
To my surprise, Dad did not respond immediately, Instead, to my amazement I saw tears forming in his eyes. This amazed me because Dad was not emotionally expressive--not at all. In fact the only times I could remember Dad getting emotional at all was the two times he got angry enough to spank me. The first time occured when we were living in Germany and I was about 5. Dad had asked me to do something which I didn’t want to do so I got mad at him and hit him in the face and busted his glasses. The thing I remember most about the spanking that followed was that, considering the provocation, it was remarkably mild, and that Dad was remarkably controlled. The other time occured when we were living on 18th and I was about 11. This time Mom had asked me to do something which made me mad and I had given her a mild swipe. Dad, who saw me hit Mom, was standing at the other end of our living room. The room was divided into two sections by a couch that stretched 3/4 of the space across the room. Dad came straight for me, jumped over the couch, laid me across his knee and spanked me. I don’t remember anything of that spanking because I was in such a state of shock at seeing my dad, who was not an athletic type at all--quite the contrary, jump over the couch.
But now he was silently weeping. "I’m sorry son," he finally said. "But I can’t get you a suit. Since I signed the right-to-work petition, I’ve barely made enough to pay my office help and rent. Our family has been living on savings for a year."
"Oh, that’s alright," I quickly responded. "I really don’t need a new suit." Which, of course, was true, I really didn’t. Looking back on it, I’m surprised I even asked. I have never been much of a "clothes horse". But even more surprising, and more troubling, was that Dad could have been struggling for so long and that I was completely oblivious to it.
Although I didn’t get my new suit right then, I certainly got it--with interest. I left for college the next year and all through my college and military career, everytime Dad would come to town and see me, or when I would go home, I knew that times were better for Dad, because almost invariably he would say, "Son, you look like you could do with a new suit." And unless I could prevent it by pointing out that he had just gotten me a new suit a couple of months previously, I would get a new suit.
The suit I remember best came at the end of my college career. "Son," he had said at graduation, or shortly after, "since you’ll be looking for work now, what you need is a new suit." By this time Dad was working as a Federal Judge so, I suspect, that since he was covered up by black robes all day, the suits he wore tended to be a bit on the flashy side, but nothing he ever wore or bought for himself could ever match, in flashiness at least, the suit he bought me. It was creme-colored with rust-colored stripes (or vice-versa) and must have been made of material that included iron filings. I remember going to the interview that eventually landed me a job. The company was about half a mile from closest bus stop and the roads to the plant had only dirt sidewalks. While walking there a car drove by splashing me with mud that covered my pants from the bottom to well above the knee. Since it was winter, I simply used snow to rub off the mud. After undergoing a process like that a normal suit would have looked like you had pulled it out of a trash pile--that suit looked almost as good as when I wore it out of the store. I have always felt that the suit had a good deal to do with my being hired. The man who hired me was not LDS and did not like BYU, but I suspect, that he took one look at my suit and thought, "This kid only went to BYU because his parents forced him to."
It took me several months to find work after graduation. It was the midst of a recession in which engineering was particularly hard hit. I got dozens of interviews, and many companies said that they were interested in me, but they had a hiring freeze (or were laying off) but that they expected to be hiring again in a few months. But, of course, in the meantime I had to get by. I was living in an attic of a house in Salt Lake, and, although, the rent was low, so were my finances. Finally, I realized that I could not hold on any longer. I had exactly enough (or so I thought--mistakenly, it turned out) to pay my rent, but no money for food or transportation. I cried almost every night wondering what to do. Should I bite the bullet and confess my poverty to my parents hoping they would offer to take me back in until I could find work? Should I simply start living in the street (rather unpleasant in Salt Lake in December)? It was while I was thus at my wits end that I got a call from Dad. He was flying from Virginia--where he was living at the time--to California but had a short layover in Salt Lake. Could I meet him at the airport for a couple of minutes? I agreed. I was wondering if I should lay out my problems to him. But when he came it was obvious there was no time. "I’m sorry son," he explained as he came off the plane. "I only have a minute to catch my next plane." I walked hurredly with him to the a near-by gate where he checked in. We had less than a minute or two before he had to board. As he boarded he handed me an envelope. "Your mother wanted you to have this," he said as he walked through the boarding gate. I waved good-bye and then opened the envelope. In it was a check for $300. I had never really understood his problems, but he always understood mine.

Remembering Dad--1

I guess I always took it for granted that Dad always had plenty of money and could give me anything I wanted but didn’t because he felt that it would not be good for me, so he was inclined to be chintzy, supposedly for my own good. Mom, on the other hand, would always give me anything I wanted--if she could, but most of the time she couldn’t because she was as dependent upon Dad as I was and it seemed to me that he was rather chintzy with her as well. I assumed it was probably because Dad recognized Mom’s weakness toward me and had to hold back on both of us "for my own good". As I say, I felt that way until the Christmas just before I turned eight.
The first Christmases I remember were as a very young boy when we were living in Germany. I don’t remember much about them, but I do remember that I thought they were absolutely wonderful. We always got a few little toys and our wooden shoes were filled with candy--mostly hard tack, but because we didn’t get very much candy in Germany, it was a real treat. Later, after we had returned to the US I came to resent the amount of hard tack candy in my Christmas stocking, feeling that it took up room that would be much better served with jelly and chocolate candies--a feeling that I shared--rather pointedly--in a letter to Santa--a feeling he must not have sympathized with because the amount of hard tack was not diminished. Nor did he dispense with the orange--a suggestion I also made pointing out that we had plenty of oranges in the kitchen.
I always felt that if our situation could be described, it would be described as one of "plenty". I suspect that part of the reason for that feeling was that although, in a sense, we were part of the occupying US forces, we were not military, and, therefore, lived among the German people. Our situation, compared with theirs, was one of great fortune.
Many years later, Dad told me what happened when we came back to the US. Dad had always been a civil servant, and, I suspect, planned on always being one. After he graduated from George Washington U. with a law degree, he was hired as the head of Social Security for the state of Arizona. But at the meeting with the senior senator from Arizona in which his appointment was announced, the Senator looked over his resume. "How can anyone from Idaho be over Social Security in Arizona?" he bellowed. "He is far and away the best qualified candidate," the Federal Social Security administrator assured him. "I don’t care about that", the Senator roared. "I don’t care if the guy over Social Security is blind, can’t read, can’t write, and has to use an X for his signature, all I care about is that he be from Arizona!"
So Dad’s appointment was rescinded and he was made the director of Social Security for Southern Idaho with offices in Pocatello instead. It turns out, that was probably a good thing, because Loni and I were born there and it seems that the only place Mom could ever have any children was in Pocatello. But Dad was ambitious and eager to get ahead. The chance came when the position for assistant Federal Attorney (or whatever they call the District Attorney for a State) became vacant. He applied and got the job, so we moved to Boise. We hadn’t lived in Boise very long when Dad got the chance to work with the war crime trials in Germany and he jumped at the chance.
I think the two years we spent in Germany were among the happiest of parent’s married life. They got to travel. Mom got to buy some really nice figurines and other beautiful things that were always so important to her and Dad really enjoyed his work. Of course, there were concerns as well, especially during the Berlin Airlift, when it looked like we might go to war with Russia and out family was in the place most likely to be first attacked. It was, in fact, the tension created by the Berlin Airlift that created the problem for Dad that resulted in his not being a permanent civil servant. If we were involved in a war with Russia, obviously, we wanted the wholehearted support of the German people. Amongst those people, Dad’s activity--the war crime trials--was very unpopular. They were halted and Dad came home.
When he went back to Washington to apply for a field position, he was told that because of his involvement with the war crimes trials--now a politically incorrect activity to have gotten oneself tied up with--they didn’t feel that they could send him "out into the field". Dad told me that his old boss at Social Security told him, "We certainly owe you something, but it will have to be here in Washington."
Dad told me many years later that after he heard that he went out and traveled around Washington. He said he looked at the people and the businesses and other things that were going on and said to himself, "I can’t do this. I can’t raise a family in this kind of environment." So he cut ties with the government and "hung out his shingle" in his hometown, Pocatello.
But it was pretty tough sledding in the first few years. Most of the time Dad was working. We hardly ever saw him. When he did come home for dinner, it was in, out, and back to the office. I can remember several occasions when Mom would hand me a little paper bag and say, "Take this to your Dad. It is his dinner. He is studying in the law library at the courthouse." (The courthouse was only a couple of blocks from our house.) Every year in those first years back from Germany Dad would call together shortly before Christmas and say something like, "I don’t want you to expect much from Christmas because we simply don’t have much money this year." Of course, that never bothered Loni or me (or, at least, it never bothered me) because all we ever got from Mom and Dad for Christmas was clothes. All the good stuff came from Santa Claus. I didn’t care that much what I wore, so even if Dad couldn’t afford to buy us anything, it was fine with me. I knew for one thing that if we ever ran out of clothes (which didn’t seem likely) that our Grandparents would come to the rescue before we had to go school naked.
All that changed shortly before the Christmas of my eighth year. Dad, as usual, called us together and said that we should not expect much for Christmas that year. I was a little uneasy because I had asked for a bicycle--something I knew to be quite expensive. So the next day I said to Mom, "Tell Dad not to worry about Christmas. Santa will take care of it for us."
Mom paused for a minute or two and then said rather deliberately (and I wish I could remember her exact words) something like, "I’m afraid that when people are poor, Santa doesn’t give them very much because he doesn’t want poor children to be spoiled and become dissatisfied with their parents." This was rather a shock to me, to say the least, but I more or less gave up on the whole idea of a bike.
Christmas came and I got my bicycle and several other things, smaller toys candy, and, of course, clothes. There was a hitch--a very bad hitch. The bicycle was an "American Flyer". I had seen it in a catalogue, so I knew that Santa Claus had not given it to me--it was Dad.
The next day I asked Mom, "What happens if someone can’t afford something and they tell the man at the store that they will pay for it later, but they really don’t have the money to pay for it?"
"Why they send the police to take the thing back and sometimes they put the person in jail." Mom sounded to me that she was as worried as I was about Christmas.
For the next few days, indeed, until I had to go back to school, I would sit by the front window. Every time a police car went by, I was sure he was coming to take back my bike and would demand to know where Dad was, so he could arrest him. After a while, of course, I ceased to worry and when spring came, I simply enjoyed the bike. Indeed, I think it was one of two Christmas presents I received that I remember with real fondness.
Years later I asked Dad why he always called us in and gave us the "don’t-expect-much-for-Christmas" lecture and then always bought so much to insure that we had a wonderful
Christmas. "You know," he replied with obvious pleasure as he reflected back. "That was the most amazing thing. When I called you in and told your mother and you kids not to expect much, I was in real earnest. I was almost desperate. But every year in those first few years when we were struggling, clients would come in just before Christmas--in a few cases, clients I had sent so many bills to that I never really expected them to pay me at all, and they would pay their entire bill. Generally, they would say something like,’I’m sorry this has taken so long, but I want to clear this out before the end of the year’. So we always had a nice Christmas. It’s a miracle really, or at least, I always thought it was."
Some people deserve miracles--Dad was one.

Personal Economics

With this essay I bring my series on economics to a close. This essay and the previous two require extensive work, but I decided that I need to get it over with and move on. Next month I plan to do reviews.
Personal Economics--Conclusion
Ever since Adam Smith showed that, because of the benefits we all derive from the division of labor, every real advance in economics has shown us how we can better live together in peace. Peace is the reward for correct living. When men are at peace they serve each other in ways they cannot even conceive. People on the other side of the world make it possible for me to enjoy blessings that help me meet my needs, but they do it without knowing me or without me knowing them. People all over the world help each other by helping themselves when they live by the six simple rules outlined in the previous essays.
Following those simple rules helps us to avoid the pitfalls that create disharmony, contention, and finally, conflict, which, in extreme cases results in violence and war. The first pitfall is the use of force to make others adopt our ends. The second, even more destructive, is the use of force to make others serve our ends. The subjective theory of value, Rule IV, applies not only to things but even more so to ends. I cannot judge< or place a value for you, on your ends. When I do, I almost always am tempted to use force for one of the purposes above, i.e. to get you to adopt mine or to use you to serve my ends.
What real economics attempts to do is first have people clarify their ends, i.e. decide what it is that you really want. Having clarified your ends, examine the means to achieve those ends. There is no purpose in attempting to examine and evaluate other peoples ends, but there is purpose in examining and evaluating the means they use to achieve those ends.
When we examine the means people use to achieve the ends they declare in light of the 6 rules outlined in the previous essays, we find that the means frequently lead to very different ends. In the eyes of the Austrians, this is the best way to determine if means are "good" or "bad"--"moral" or "immoral". In every action we should ask ourselves, what is the end I wish to achieve and will this action--the means--achieve that end?

Personal Economics--Rule VI

Personal Economics--Rule VI
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rules of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Ephesians
Rule VI says basically, "Know your enemy and keep your guard up." This rule stems from the work of Ludwig von Mises and Frederick Hayek, but Hayek shared the Nobel Prize for his work in explicating it. In economics it is simply the explanation of what is called the business cycle or boom-bust cycle. Karl Marx had explained it simply as an inherent feature of capitalism. Others had tried to explain it in a more detailed manner, but had failed. For example Stanley Jevons had attempted an explanation that correlated the boom-bust cycle with sunspots. At first glance, this sounds even more mysterious than the Marx it-is-just-an-inexplicable-part-of-capitalism theory. But Jevons theory attempted to make it more rationalistic, because it would tie the boom-bust cycle to a crop productivity cycle.
What von Mises and Hayek did was to show that the boom-bust cycle in the economy was tied to credit expansion. Banks increase their profits by making more loans and, hence, the temptation is to cut back on their reserves and loan more of their available capital. Of course, if a single bank does this and becomes over-extended, they quickly get into trouble. The problem is self-correcting. The problem only becomes a national one when there is a government controlled central bank, such as the Federal Reserve. Most countries have these. They are able to extend the money supply, i.e. allow all the member banks to expand their credit, thus lowering the interest rate. Unfortunately, this creates an artificial boom. It sends false signals to entrepreneurs who are eager to launch new enterprises, but are restrained from doing so for all but the most promising enterprises by the shortage of available investment capital. When, however, the money supply is expanded, i.e. inflated, the illusion is created that there is plenty of capital for investment in enterprises that earlier seemed unpromising. Unfortunately, all that has been expanded is credit. In an uncorrupt society, capital is available only as people save--hence, leaving vital resources, e.g. capital goods, available entrepreneurs. Thrift is a virtue not only because it allows individuals and families to prepare against a rainy day, but because it permits investment in new tools, equipment and plants and, thereby, increases the value of the labor of the people who have better equipment and tools to work with. Hence, the virtue of thrift increases prosperity.
Credit expansion, i.e. inflating the money supply gives the illusion that society is ‘better off’, i.e. more virtuous, without actually being so. Entrepreneurs feel that there is more capital available but the amount of capital goods remains the same. This becomes clear when it is apparent that many entrepreneurs have invested in enterprises that cannot be sustained. They lay off workers, some even go bankrupt and the economy is said to be in the bust part of its cycle.
If, for example, I, and thousands of others, decide to put off buying a new car, and put the money saved in the bank, then there is not only money available to loan, but there is additional steel so if an entrepreneur decides to build a new factory, the necessary steel is available. If, however, I, and thousands of others, go ahead and buy the new car, and the so-called capital is available only because the money supply has been inflated, there is no additional steel available for the building of the factory and before it can be built, the price of steel rises to the point that the new factory enterprise is clearly not going to be profitable and is abandoned.
The bottom line is that the desire to have "something for nothing", to succeed without effort, to have all the good of virtuous living without any actual virtue, has put pressure on the government to expand the money supply and, hence, create a boom. This undermines the work of entrepreneurs who become bitter because they have been misled, and misinformed. They feel betrayed and turn to political entrepreneurship. People become convinced that only political action is effective and that the only way to succeed is to use the force of law. In economics, credit expansion is analogous to sin--enticing at first, but leaves disaster in its wake.
On a personal level it is a reminder that if life is getting easier, you better be awfully careful that you are not entering an artificial boom made possible by an enemy creating an illusion. Hence, it is always a good idea to "know your enemy and what he is up to."

Personal Economics--Rule V.

Personal Economics--Rule V
Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.
Matthew
Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets.
Numbers
Rule V says simply that it is the entrepreneurial component of our exchanges that improves our lives, increases our choices, hence, our freedom, and advances civilization. Of course, in the ordinary exchanges that we make every day, it is hard to recognize an entrepreneurial component at all. An entrepreneurial component occurs when something has changed, when things are no longer as they have been and that change results in an opportunity for us to serve in a way that requires us to foresee future events and that will help people in ways they have not been previously helped--as we say, "to do something different."
The most successful entrepreneurs are envied because they reap what are called profits. Real profit is a very poorly understood concept. In a sense, if I plant a seed and reap twenty, forty, or even sixty times what I planted even after subtracting the cost of fertilizers, water and other inputs we refer to that as profit, but it becomes entrepreneurial profit only if it is serving a need that has come about as a result of a change. If, for example, I realize that people need bread so I purchase an existing farm and begin growing wheat, I am not in the strictest Austrian sense an entrepreneur. If thousands of others have done likewise and there is, consequently, a large surplus of wheat so that I and the other thousands cannot even break even on our venture, and in that extremity, I use my wheat for something entirely different, or market it in a new way, or in some other way use my wheat to bring something to consumers that they want but is new to them, then I become an entrepreneur.
It is important to recognize the difference between technical components of exchange and entrepreneurial components. George Washington Carver, for example, discovered many new products that could be made with peanuts, because so many people were growing peanuts that the situation was for them like the one outlined above for wheat farmers. What he did was provide technical input. If he, or anyone else, actually made and marketed any of those new products and consequently, gained more resources in the making and marketing than were used in the growing of the peanuts, he became an entrepreneur..
It is important to recognize that it is the entrepreneurial component of every exchange that enriches our lives and advances civilization. But it is also true that because entrepreneurs are envied and because so many people are eager to live without having to actually serve that entrepreneurs are almost always--and particularly in corrupt cultures--vilified. In our country where kings are looked down on, extremely successful entrepreneurs are referred to pejoratively as "kings". Hence, Andrew Carnegie was the "steel king", Hershey the "chocolate king". Our history books refer to these men as being powerful and often, devious and underhanded, and other characteristics we associate with kings. But it is important, indeed, it is critical to remember that kings, like Henry VIII and Louis XIV, were powerful because they ruled. An entrepreneurial king is powerful only to the extent that he serves. The day that consumers feel that Nestle’s chocolate it cheaper or better (or both) than Hershey’s, is the day that Hershey becomes the "former chocolate king".
All too often we confuse technical ability and expertise with entrepreneurship. Two examples, that I like to use to illustrate the difference are Thomas Edison and Gilbert and Sullivan.
Thomas Edison is often criticized as having borrowed other’s ideas, purchased their patents and then taken credit for the invention himself. For example, Joseph Swann’s English patent on the electric light bulb preceded Edison’s and numerous other inventors had patents relating to the electric light bulb, some of which Edison purchased, but the fact remains that without Edison we would not have had a working electric light bulb in people’s homes anywhere near as soon as we did, and possibly not ever. Edison and his team got all the financing and made all the auxiliary inventions and equipment necessary to make the electric light bulb available to the ordinary consumer.
My personal favorite is Gilbert and Sullivan. I very much enjoy their operettas, particularly, "Pirates", "Gondoliers", and "Patience". But the fact of the matter is that we would not have had those many operettas were it not for the entrepreneur who worked so hard to get the two to work together, Richard D’Oily Carte. Indeed, the real end of the relationship (with the "Gondoliers") came largely because Carte abandoned his role as entrepreneur and took sides with Sullivan. Recognizing his mistake, he tried to heal the breech, and the two did, in fact, collaborate on two more operettas, but so half-heartedly that they are never performed except by companies determined to claim to have done them all. Like all entrepreneurs, Carte took risks. For example, he was the first person in England to install electric lighting in a theater. Like most, he also had his failures. For example, he built a theater that was to be used exclusively for English operas. The first one (by Sullivan) ran for 160 consecutive performances--probably a world record for consecutive performances for an opera, but their was no second "English opera" so Carte had to sell his theater to a vaudeville company.
Rule V says simply that we should strive to increase the entrepreneur component of all our interactions. Real entrepreneurs are essential to the free society. The essential ingredients in entrepreneurial activity are courage and foresight--two qualitites almost totally missing in government planners, bureaucrats, politicians, and, alas, in most, corporate managers.