“We made our way back a couple of kilometers to where the column had taken cover through fields of wheat, opium and grapes; the trenches were deeper than our guys were tall.
“No sooner did we get back and start to leave the area when another gun battle broke out, only this time it was the column that was ambushed by another group of Taliban fighters. It took us 3 hours and a lot of support to break contact and move out. Our platoon in particular and the column was hit twice more the next day, not more than 100 meters from making it back to our regular patrol base. By that point we had been in combat and under almost continuous fire for the better part of 4 days.
“An Afghan man with a child was spotted several times at various points during the first through the fourth days’ action. We just knew the man was acting as spotter for the Taliban and using the child as a shield.
"They knew we weren’t going to shoot him when he was with a kid," said Real. "It’s frustrating."
“Holy cow, you guys really were in the soup. Was it as useless as it sounded in reducing the Taliban presence?” asked Al.
“Anyone that has been there for a while and keeps their ears and eyes open and their mouths shut know there is no winning. After a couple deaths and 4 seriously wounded, along with another 8 lightly wounded, we accomplished exactly nothing. To gain even a semblance of stability that whole area will have to be taken over one piece at a time again,” Ivan told him.
Everyone was feeling emotionally drained after talking about men dying and being wounded; it was time to let these memories fade a while and do something more pleasant.
“You guys just told me a story of hard times, dead comrades, how close you came to dying and you are understandably affected by it. Somehow, some way you seem to be accepting it all rather well. I don’t think I would be handling being under constant attack, shot at and having explosives explode in my face as well as you are.”
Real spoke up. ”It was bad, that’s for sure. It’s not something I would like to do for the rest of my life, let me tell you. For us though, it’s what we trained for all our lives. Being in combat, being stressed for a couple years straight, is exactly why we joined the service. Like good steel must be heated, hammered and tempered, that is what we needed to do the job the family demands of us. We are rolling with it because the experience is what we were trying to get.”
All the cousins just nodded their heads in agreement.
For the umpteenth time Al asked himself; who are these men, and where do men like this come from?
“Al, I’m tired of talking about war, I’ll tell you about what else we got involved in before we left the Stan another time.
“Al, guys, let’s do dinner tonight, why don’t you and your girls come over around six, and we can talk about happier things. I started a couple of croc pots of homemade spaghetti sauce this morning, and it should be ready by dinner time.
“Right now the guys and I need to get busy, Al.”
“Sounds good, I’m looking forward to it.” Al sounded genuinely enthusiastic.
Madd’s house, 7:20pm
Madd was working in the kitchen getting his homemade spaghetti sauce ready along with the angel hair pasta and all the fixings. Itsy and Susie were helping by making a garden fresh salad and Annie with the help of the Hotchins twins was making sure everyone had something to drink.
Al was looking around at all the happy faces and excited voices. What a family. He had to be about the luckiest guy alive to get to join them. The house was jammed, not that anyone seemed to mind. Five cousins, Al and all their girls came to 23 people spread out between the kitchen and the great room. Good thing the house was open concept. At least they could all see one another, even if they were squeezed a bit.
There was one stool left at the island Madd was prepping on.
“How you doing, Al?” Madd asked him.
“Doing great actually. This is what I call living. You sure got a house full of folks!”
Madd laughed and said, “Yep, and its great!”
With a smile Al said, “Bet you never imagined entertaining this many folks when you bought this place.”
“I don’t own it Al. Guess that is one more thing you don’t know about. Very few of the farms or the buildings on them that the family work or live on are actually owned by the family living there.”
“How can that be, Madd? There have to be at least a couple hundred farms or ranches with houses on them that family live in and work on the land.”
“Hey Ivan, got a minute?” Madd called to Ivan.
“Sure thing Madd, what’s up?”
“I have my hands full, but Al was asking about our owning the houses we live in. Could you explain it to him while I get things ready?”
“Sure thing.”
“I don’t get it, guys. You’re saying that this house or Rose’s house isn’t yours or hers?”
“Exactly. Haven’t you ever wondered, Al, how we manage to maintain a core of people who think alike? Who hold the same values?”
“I have to admit, I hadn’t really considered it. You’re family and family sticks together, right?”
“It’s pretty obvious you aren’t from a big family, Al. I know that story books and movies sometimes portray the solidarity of the family. That does happen, of course. But for every Beaver Cleaver family out there, there are five dysfunctional ones. You will never see a more vicious group, or people willing to slit throats over money, than a family group.
“The good ones are great. The bad ones are a nightmare. I think you need some education about family farms. Let’s look back a few hundred or even a few thousand years. We’ll say that Mr. Jones starts a farm of 1,000 acres. He is prosperous and has two sons. When he dies and leaves the farm to his children they each get 500 acres and chug along. They have a couple of sons each and when they die they leave the farm to their sons.
“Right there, you have a problem in an agrarian society. Those four sons who now have 250 acres are barely making a living off their land. When they have a couple of sons each that means that when the father dies and passes on the farm, each son only gets 125 acres. One more generation and there isn’t enough land left to make a living.
“That is an oversimplification, of course. There will be sons that want to move to the big city so they sell their part to their brother. Since farmers and ranchers in the old days went in for big families they might have had six sons. Then it would only take three generations and everyone would be down to 20 acres or so.
“For those who are trying to create a dynasty, for lack of a better term, that is a problem. Take our family, for instance. Our ancestors were pretty progressive in some ways but steeped in tradition in others. They wanted to create a safe haven for their descendants so the constant division of land was a problem. Then came what the older folks called the Great Depression. The news was full of families that lost their land, lost everything. About that same time one of the family had an unhappy marriage. That effected a lot of their immediate family, of course. But what really flew in everyone’s face was the divorce. The court awarded the wife all the man’s land and the buildings on it.
“She didn’t want a farm of course, and out of spite sold it to some, let’s call them, undesirable folks. For five years the family watched as the farm became more and more run down. The new owners stayed drunk and belligerent most of the time. It was a very grim time for the family. Soon there were all kinds of trashy drunks that couldn’t make it in the city hanging out there. Things were getting very bad indeed around here. Finally, the family caught a break. The farm got put on the auction block for nonpayment of taxes. The family snapped it up and sent the trash back to town.
“The depression, the bad marriage and that incident with the farm made a huge impression on Popa’s father. He and some others came up with a plan to not only secure the family’s continuation but to make sure the farms never again could be taken through legal chicanery.
“All the land including what we now cal
l the New Family Home Place were either sold for a dollar to Popa’s father or were left to him in the wills of those who wanted to maintain ownership throughout their lives.
“That brings us to how things are handled now. When LLCs came along, the land was put into one with some very specific rules about how the land and or buildings could be used. The board of governors of the LLC have total control over all the property and structures. How that works in practice is pretty simple. Take this house, for instance. It belongs to the LLC but Madd has the use of it for his lifetime as long as he does the upkeep and improvements. By the way, any improvements also belong to the LLC.
“How does that work in everyday life, you might wonder? We will say that cousin A finds himself in debt up to his eyeballs or he is in some type of wreck, and gets sued. He may be in trouble but no one can take his house because he doesn’t own it. Let’s go a step further. Let’s say cousin A is legally married. His wife takes him to court and demands all he has. Now, in most states the judge might give her everything, leaving him destitute. In this case she can’t get the house or land or ranch or farm, again, because he doesn’t own any of it. He has the use of it for his lifetime, but has no ownership rights.
“About fifteen years ago there was another ugly little divorce. The usual lawyers got involved and the judge made his ruling. Only thing was, the man being divorced didn’t own the farm, the house or even the vehicles he and his previous wife drove. They all belonged to the LLC. He worked for the LLC farming and made minimum wage for his efforts. That may sound raw, but consider. He had no house or property mortgages. No truck payments. Consider if you had little or no expenses; minimum wage doesn’t look so bad. Actually, it gets even better. He needs dental or medical care, so what does he do? The LLC carries all the insurance anyone could want. Any extras that the insurance company won’t pay are paid by the LLC.”
“I can see what you’re saying Ivan, but still, if he doesn’t own anything can’t they just arbitrarily throw him off a farm he has worked his whole life?” asked Al.
“Define arbitrarily. It takes a full vote of the council to do any such thing. If the guy is working and contributing to the family you are never getting enough votes to do any such thing. It may sound like he has no rights, but the reality is that he has a lot more ‘rights’ than a bank who wants to foreclose would give him. Frankly, I will tell you I have never heard of a person who was acting in good faith where the family is concerned ever being asked to leave a property. As I said, about this house Madd lives in. It is his for life. It’s the same for everyone. If a person decided they are too old to farm and don’t want to live on the farm any longer, the LLC provides them someplace nice to live. There are a couple really nice retirement communities in Florida with a number of our family living there now. All provided by the LLC, as are the living expenses.
“Keep in mind Al, that if a person doesn’t like that arrangement they are perfectly able to buy land, a farm or ranch from others. Some of the farms that have common property lines with acreage owned by the LLC are owned by our family. The trick is that the land they purchased was never part of the lands held by the LLC.
“Admittedly, over the years, those that went independent have slowly sold their holdings to the LLC at one point or another. Many of them went bust in the 2008 financial crisis and the LLC bought them up. Not because we actually wanted the land but because they were about to be repossessed and the family that owned them would have been financially ruined. The LLC stepped in and payed them pre-2008 prices for the land.”
“They paid full price when they could have waited and bought them for thirty cents on the dollar?”
“Yes Al, they did. I know a lot of our ideas or customs are hard for you to understand or grasp. But those who chose to buy their own land were still family. It isn’t like anyone begrudged them their idea or their land. Just because someone wants to do a thing a little differently doesn’t mean we suddenly think ill of them. They might own their own land but they can still be contributing members in good standing in the family.
“Since you were the main agent for the family acquiring new wealth I should also tell you that while the family didn’t have much ready cash, the funds for the retirees were totally separate. Those funds were set aside yearly and invested by Tommy to make sure that even if the family projects here went belly up, the retirees would be financially secure.”
“OK, it will take me some time to get my head around all that but it still doesn’t explain the Beaver Cleaver comment you made.”
“Correct Al. Every building or plowed field. Every pasture or barn you can see from the front porch. Just about every similar thing you would see if you drove approximately six miles east, west or north belongs to the LLC. As many as 72% of the businesses in our little town are owned or controlled by the LLC. I know you met the man that runs the feed store and the man who runs the hardware store. They and all their employees are family and work for the LLC. Even some who work in the different business and aren’t family work in one way or the other for the LLC.
“We go to a lot of trouble and effort to help family members, bend over backwards you might say. On the other hand, let’s take cousin A again. He lives on that farm we spoke about. He drives an LLC vehicle every day. Uses the insurance provided. However, he talks trash about the family or the LLC. He talks and preaches against the very things the LLC believes in, the things the LLC thinks will save the family in the long run. How do you imagine that works out for him?”
“With what I know about the family, I imagine it isn’t going to turn out well for him,” Al admitted.
“Bingo! He will soon find that he has no place to live. No job. Unless he can get a job with one of the farms not associated with the family, there will be no job for him anywhere in the valley.
“That, my friend, is how we maintain a family that holds similar ideals, wishes and needs. No one really cares if he believes in Martians; as long as he keeps his opinion about them to a tolerable level, no one minds. They might think he is eccentric, but so what? Everyone has one crazy Uncle. He won’t walk under a ladder, won’t throw a hat on a bed? No-one-cares! Keep bugging people telling them that prepping is a waste of time, that we should sell all the land and divide the money between us? Then they care. Then he is gone.”
“OK Ivan, I guess I can see that. It makes a weird kind of sense. Control the farms, the income, and keep malcontents from filling people’s heads with crap. I can see how that could work,” Al admitted.
“Wait a second! Hold on! The LLC is controlled by the council?”
With a grin Ivan admitted, “Yes it is.”
Al slapped himself on the forehead.
“The council is all you guys, the cousins, Riders and Uncle Billy?”
“Actually, Uncle Billy has stepped down at his request. But we couldn’t let him go completely so he is a non-voting advisor. He won’t admit it, but we need him. He is a steadying influence that we definitely need. But basically you are correct again, sir.”
“I hesitate to ask, but how long have you guys been planning this?”
At first Al didn’t think Ivan would answer.
“Al, we owe you a lot. So I’ll give you a straight and unvarnished answer. I, Hey, Tink, and Real have known about it for between two and three years.”
“What about Madd?”
“I can’t answer that. Don’t get offended. I didn’t say I wouldn’t, I said I couldn’t answer that one. That’s because I don’t honestly know how long Madd has been planning to get us where we are today.”
“I can see by your eyes you have a suspicion, though.”
“Maybe I do, Al. Cast your mind back a couple of years to a conversation you had with Uncle Roy. He told you about Madd reading the book Alas Babylon.”
“Ya, it was when I first met you guys. I still remember him telling me that Madd was the most serious young person he ever knew. He told me how Madd marched in and asked the council if they had read the boo
k and what were they going to do about saving the family.”
“Yes he did. I was in the other room, staying out of harm’s way. But Madd had no fear of the most powerful men in the family.”
With a smile Al said, “It was a great story. He was like eight years old then and the story made me smile. Still, that doesn’t answer the question about how long Madd has been planning all this.”
Ivan looked him straight in the eyes and said, “It doesn’t?”
“OK guys, there are tables set up outside. Everyone get out there and let’s eat!” Madd called to everyone.
Could Ivan actually be saying that an eight year old planned all this, to end of in total control? Surely not.
After a great dinner, conversation turned to casual subjects. Whose garden was doing well. Who had taken a trail ride on their favorite horse. The kind of conversation one hears from a group of friends who know each other well and are comfortable with each other. Basically, Al’s mind was drifting along just taking it all in. That’s when he heard Madd mention some item in the news about the “Moral Majority”. Without knowing how or why, Al found his mouth was open and he had started to speak.
“Madd, a question. Are we the good guys? If an EOTWAWKI event does occur, will we be the good guys?”
“That depend on if you are asking me if we are good, or if we are moral.”
“Well…..aren’t they basically the same thing?”
“First you asked for an opinion, are we ‘good’, now you are asking a totally different question. Are we moral? Consider this before I answer. There have been many cultures where the word for ‘stranger’ is the same word for ‘enemy’.
“In our country, at least recently, there has been a sort of movement, if you will. One that says every person is born good. Every person wants to help others innately. One that says there shouldn’t be winners and losers, only participants. That no one should be taught that there is even such a thing as a loser. Philosophically, that might be a pleasant thought. Realistically, not very supportable.”
What Do You Mean Its Still Tuesday Page 9
