The Beginning

by Ed Nelson

  The story mentioned that the capture was by the Texas Rangers and had a brief interview with Mr. Walker. Thankfully my name didn’t come up.

  I said, “Thank goodness I wasn’t named.”

  The local news reported that the Bellefontaine High School golf team had won second place in the District tournament. Local golfer Ricky Jackson had the low individual score and would be advancing to the state championship this coming weekend in Columbus.

  This is the first time that anyone from Bellefontaine has ever made the state play offs, so let’s show support for Ricky this week. I groaned.

  Dad chuckled, “Well Ricky, you are a big frog in a small pond, but when you’re in the big pond you don’t even count as small.”

  He seemed to think he was funny.

  Once he quit chuckling over his misguided wit, he continued, “I took the contract from Warner Brothers to our lawyer on Friday. He called a friend out in California who works with movie contracts. This is a standard contract they use.”

  “There are no hidden tricks. You are being hired to perform in one movie at a given rate of twenty five hundred dollars a week. They will provide transportation, food and lodging.

  As a minor they will ensure your education by providing a tutor who will work with your school. They will also provide a chaperon as needed for going off set, as you will be in Hollywood for seven weeks.”

  “Rick, it almost seems too good to be true, but it is true. Now all you have left is to go out there and do the job.”

  I thought about what Dad was saying. I was going to be in a movie which sounded great but I was really being hired to work. So I was going to be working full time for seven weeks plus carrying a full school load. All of a sudden this didn’t sound like the good time that I thought it would be.

  “So Rick do you want me to sign this on your behalf?”

  “Yes Dad I do, but I can see that I will have to work for that money.”

  “Speaking of the money, I suspect that it will be expensive out there. Your check will be mailed here. I will deposit it in a new savings account that will be for your money only. Our bank has agreed to set it up that you can draw two hundred dollars weekly from a branch in Los Angeles while you are shooting the movie.”

  “The studio wants me to sign the contract and nondisclosure agreement, and mail them today via certified mail; and also let the school know that your tutor will be contacting them to see what you will need to study.”

  They will be administering your tests on site, so you won’t be behind when you get home. They really seem to have it together on this, but then they have been working with child actors for a long time.”

  “Dad what is a nondisclosure agreement?”

  “We agree in writing not to tell anyone what the movie is about or share the script with anyone, our lawyer, Eugene Burke.”

  Like if you had to share something about your hairdryer with someone you didn’t know real well. If they shared your idea you could win a law suit since they agreed not to share.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Rick you will now have more money than I have ever had at one time in my life, what do you plan to do with it?”

  “I’m not certain Dad, I will need to use some for my hairdryer invention, and I bet it is going to be more than I think before I have a product. Other than that I would like to see it used to better the family. What am I going to do, buy a limo and hire a driver to take me wherever I want to go? That seems stupid in Bellefontaine.”

  A sudden thought of a girl in Columbus made me start to rethink the limo and driver.

  My thought must have shown on my face because Dad asked what was going through my mind. I had never had too much of a problem sharing things with my parents. Of course there was some guy stuff that would forever remain private, but mostly I talked freely.

  When I started, “Well I met this girl.”

  Mum, who had been sitting quietly all of a sudden sat up and paid close attention. I described Judy and how I had met her. Dad had to interrupt about Tom Mix and a damsel in distress.

  Mum shushed him and asked more questions about Judy and her family. Only when she had every bit of information available and our interactions blow by blow was she satisfied. She should work for the FBI.

  The end of the conversation was, “No you may not hire a car and driver to take you to Columbus, at least not without our permission. I would suggest that you two write each other like planned and see if you even like each other!”

  I noticed that Mum hadn’t closed the door completely; they just had to be consulted first.

  Mum then went upstairs to begin the morning ritual of nagging Denny and Eddie out of bed. I noticed that somehow I had woken up. This coffee stuff must work, it still tasted bad. Mum had a pot of porridge on, so I helped myself, along with a glass of orange juice.

  Dad was going to run us to school, but I had at least half an hour so I went out into the garage and reviewed my hairdryer project to see if I was missing anything. I couldn’t see anything I was missing but I think that was the definition of missing something.

  I needed to experiment with the temperature and fan force. I was sort of stuck until the parts for the controller arrived. They should be in soon.

  School was the usual Monday morning zoo. The poor janitors were mopping like crazy but falling behind. Everyone was bundled up. Even Eleanor Price was wearing so many layers she didn’t stand out.

  When I came in the front door, “Go Bellefontaine” started. It followed me down the hall.

  It was hard not to smile and wave to my fans. Before I got too carried away I remembered the guy who would whisper to the Roman Generals during their triumphal processions, “You’re only a mortal man.”

  I don’t know if that ever really happened, but it was good advice.

  I saw that Coach Stone had already had our trophies placed in the trophy case in the lobby of the main entry. I wondered if they would like my National Bull Riding Championship trophy, which was three times the size of any in the trophy case. Currently it was in my bedroom and I was using it as a clothes rack.

  Mum was complaining about me hanging my clothes on it. I used to hang my clothes up in my closet out in the hall of North Detroit Street. Now I had a closet in my bedroom and I wasn’t using it.

  In homeroom the announcements included the strong finish of the golf team and that I had advanced to the finals in Columbus this weekend.

  I liked Rodney Humphreys comment the most, “You play a wimpy sport, but at least you’re good at it, “Go Bellefontaine.”

  I may be a wimp, but at least I was their wimp.

  Chapter 50

  Looking at Rodney something clicked. There is a pecking order established among boys around middle school. Rodney had been bigger than me, both in height and weight. I was now at least three inches taller and forty pounds heavier.

  I filed that thought away for future consideration. I didn’t want to be a bully like him, but at the same time I didn’t have to be bullied.

  I also wondered if I could get fighting lessons somewhere, I knew they had golden glove boxing in Columbus and in the movies they showed mysterious techniques like Judo.

  In a small town we had none of that. A fight would be a pushing, shoving match with a black eye and bloody nose thrown in for good measure. Fighting lessons were something else to think about, maybe when I was in California for the movie.

  Classes were almost incidental to the day. I attended, handed in the work required, knowing I had the next day’s assignments finished. During class where I could, I read or worked problems ahead. My teachers knew I was doing this and seemed to be okay with it.

  On a rare occasion when we were officially working on problems, I would raise my hand for help. The help I was requesting was on future lessons, but help was given with no comment.

  Study Halls were spent writing essays that would never be turned in. I had one interesting learning experience several weeks ago, my
world history teacher Mr. MacMillan asked me to see him after class. I wondered what I had done. It was what I wasn’t doing.

  The essays I had been handing in were common variety high school plagiarism. You would go to the referenced text and copy the words, always citing that text in your bibliography. Ninety nine percent of all essays would only have one reference in the bibliography.

  He asked me if I was ready to take it to the level demanded in college. I told him yes, while having absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He was ready for me, he pulled out a paper he had done in college; he also had the reference texts. He had me read the text, then what he had written.

  He had written in his own words what he thought the message was and “cited” specific statements in the text to support his assertions. I see where he used citations from several books to form an argument against what was being taught.

  So besides having the title of the book, author, publisher and dates he would have specific page and paragraph identification. This was a whole new level!

  He told me, “Rick you show great promise as a student and scholar, please try this method. It will not hurt your grade in any way I promise. If nothing else it will give you a firmer understanding of the material.”

  I did try it, and was blown away by what I was seeing. Now having to think about what the author had written I was questioning the facts and conclusions. This led me to looking at the author’s bibliography.

  Very quickly I learned to have little faith in poorly researched work. If the book had no bibliography I didn’t even bother but would hunt up other books.

  This took time, so much time that I quit trying to do every essay question at the back of the text. I spent my time doing a quality job on one issue. This spread out to my other class work, where ever there was an essay type question.

  I was asked about this change by several teachers, I referred them back to Mr. MacMillan.

  Miss Bales told me, “It’s a shame we don’t have a grade higher than ‘A plus,’ you would receive it.”

  She continued, “This is college level work, I have read in my professional journal that there is a move underfoot to have advanced classes in high school for which you can receive college credit; your work would qualify.”

  Yeah, I had a fat head for the rest of the afternoon that day. Mary took care of it when I walked in the door that evening when she came out with, “Hola, gran hermano.”

  My four year old sister was speaking Spanish! I recognized the Hello, but not the rest. I asked her, she giggled she explained,

  “Hello big brother.”

  At least she didn’t tell me I had a big nose as I feared.

  I asked her where she was learning Spanish, “From Mrs. Hernandez next door silly.”

  I immediately asked Mum who Mrs. Hernandez was.

  “She just moved in with her husband’s brother’s family the Wingers, her husband is in jail in Cuba and she had to flee the country.

  “Why is her husband in jail?” I inquired

  “I don’t know the ins and outs, but Cuba is run by a dictator by the name of Batista, there are several groups trying to overthrow him. Her husband was arrested, she happened to be in Miami when it happened, so she didn’t go back. I guess she was involved also. Now she is here working on her teaching certificate, so she can get a job teaching Spanish in High School.

  “We don’t have a Spanish course in Bellefontaine.”

  “We will next year.”

  That was interesting, maybe I could hire her to tutor me after golf season was finished, then take Spanish with a head start. That conversation about learning Spanish was several weeks ago, now I had to get through the school day.

  You could tell things had changed at lunch time, before the golf team had joined Tom and me at our table. Today, Scott a senior was at another table with his classmates. Even the conversation at the table had changed; Gary, Tim and Tom are sophomores, their conversation was about tenth grade classes. I was feeling a little left out, but was content to listen.

  I did look around at the other tables, particularly the ones with freshmen. There is no way that I would fit in with them. They all seemed so childish. Not that I was that more mature than them, their interest were different.

  Who cared what the latest Pez dispenser looked like? Who was Grayson that got Tom Dooley hung and that deep philosophical question, “Why did he stab her with his knife?”

  What I thought was interesting and funny had changed without me even noticing.

  I got together with Coach Stone after school, we went out to the country club; he had his map of the Ohio State Scarlet Course there. It was still raining so there would be no outside work today. The Scarlet Course was interesting, but had been laid out in favor of the long hitter, so I should be able to get by the sand traps on the course.

  They had a lot of sand traps but Coach an OSU alumnus told me that when they were originally put in during 1940’s they were deep, but had been allowed to deteriorate over the years and now were fairly flat with little in the way of lips. We came up with a strategy for each hole.

  Coach told me there was no sense in coming out here tomorrow if the rain didn’t let up. Even then it would only be to get in some driving range work. This was the latest in the year they had ever had the state championship and he hoped the course would dry out by Saturday.

  When I got home there was wonderful news. It was in the form of a certified letter from the Texas State Cattle Commission. Mum had saved it for me to open. It was the reward check for the capture and conviction of the rustlers. It was for eighty five thousand dollars as promised.

  Dad got home from the rail yard while I was still dancing around waving the check. He asked Mum to fix some coffee while he cleaned up. We had to talk about what was going to happen now. The other kids were watching TV so we had the kitchen to ourselves.

  Dad started, “First of all Rick this is your money; you knew it was coming, have you thought through what you would like to do with it?”

  “I have thought about it, I would like to keep some for my own personal use, some for my hairdryer project and the bulk of it for the family.”

  “How would you break that down?”

  “Dad, I would like to keep five thousand for me, ten thousand for the hairdryer project and the rest for the family housing business.”

  “You’re willing to give us seventy thousand dollars?” inquired Mum.

  “I consider it an investment in the future of our family. You and Dad won’t be dependent on the railroad, my brothers and sisters will have a chance to go to college. Remember I am going to make another seventeen thousand five hundred dollars from the movie.”

  “Also since you have set up a company that I will own if anything happens to you, in the long run it is really an investment in my own future. I know nothing about the stock market, but I do know how hard my parents work.

  “Money is not an issue right now. That is unless you will let me buy a limo and hire a driver,” I said the last with a smile.

  “Well no limo, so we might as well take the money,” rejoined Mum.

  Chapter 51

  We proceeded to drink coffee and tea while talking about how to go forward. Dad would deposit the check, fifteen thousand in the savings account set up for me, the rest in the business checking account he had opened. Without moving so fast that a bidding war was started, he would buy the ten rental duplexes as planned.

  Mum and Dad were developing a written business plan. They estimated that a duplex would cost twelve thousand dollars; to buy ten would be one hundred and twenty thousand. Putting twenty percent down would be twenty four thousand dollars.

  They figured it would take about two thousand a unit to bring them into condition. That would be another twenty thousand. So they would have forty four thousand dollars invested.

  That would leave twenty six thousand in the bank. A man with a very good job would earn eight thousand a year.

  I had a thought,
“Dad you could hire two people to do the work for you, if they had the right skills you could save a lot of money and have the units ready to rent a lot faster.”

  “Rick, I’ve thought seriously about that. I have been studying for the Ohio State Contractors examination. If I am a licensed contractor it will make everything go easier. I think it will take a year to get the first ten purchased, brought into shape and rented out.”

  “At the same time we will be watching to see how many other units we can work with in Bellefontaine, we may have to buy some in Urbana or Kenton.”

  “The quicker the better, I read in the Examiner the other day that the recession is about over and the economy is going to take off.”

  “Well that’s what your godfather wants us to think,” Dad said with a scowl.

  He really didn’t like Ike.

  “Now Jack,” said Mum.

  It was that tone of voice that said settle down or else. Dad settled down.

  “Things do seem to be better locally, so maybe he is onto something,” Dad added.

  About that time Mary came in, she asked, “Madre ¿puedo ver el espectáculo que quiero?”

  Mum never blinked, “Si, Denny and Eddie, it’s Mary’s turn to choose the program.”

  “You both speak Spanish?”

  Mum laughed, “No but it has been the same question every day for a week.”

  “I would like to speak to Mrs. Hernandez about tutoring me in Spanish if that is all right with you.”

  “That’s fine but why do you want to learn Spanish rather than German or French?”

  “You know I do a lot of research on my essays for World History. History suggests that as a population makes more income the birth rate drops. If that is the case in my life time we will have to import workers. Where is a source of plentiful cheap labor?”

  I went on, “I know President Eisenhower deported a lot of the Mexican workers, but that is a problem that won’t go away. It may be handy for me to speak Spanish. Besides you never will know when Elvis and I may want to go back for more wine, women and song.”