Before we married,Dahlia had worked for a Building Contractor as an executive secretary. when l took the job as an assayer for A.R.D. Corp. in Nevada, my salary was sufficient to allow Dahlia to be a stay-at-home mom for Reyann. Since l did the assays in a building next-door to the house we rented, on a given day the three of us spent much of the day together. That situation turned into a memory when our produce "business" failed. Luckily, it was about that time that we met Aylene Lawson, a professional contestant, who taught a quite-popular class in "The Art of Contesting". She had many students who found success in contesting, as did Aylene. She also ran a child-care business. Her rates were good, as l recall and our giorls never complained about her care. (When they had been out of her care for a few years though, they admitted that they never liked her as much as Dahlia and l did. We saw her as a very pleasant person who used her contesting income to full advantage and helped her students to replicate her results. She made it possible for both Dahlia and l to have completely safe and sane care for our kids while we concentrated on our jobs.
She was absent from her day care on more than a few occations. Quite often she was on some cruise or trip that she had won, but no worries; She worked together with a group of child-care pros who filled in for each other. with that much going for her, she made it easy for us to hand over our kids and happily take our places in our workplaces. At the time Thom was offering me the Branch Managers position, at Patio Village, Dahlia was already several months
into her Executive Secretary position at IBM in Southern San Jose. That was a giant step from the Building Contracting company for which she worked previously. As we will learn later, she was to rise to much greater heights at IBM
and beyond.
l have neglected,'til now, to mention one of the most important persons who worked on the construction of Patio Village; My bio dad, Leon Gideon. A person
can have step-dads as many as are chosen by one's Mother, but there is only one bio dad to a customer. Mine had a varied work history, ranging from working as a cook on a merchant marine ship during WWII, to (when we first met) work-
ing as resident manager of Sunnyvale Mountain Park. Along the way, he had many other jobs, in shipyards after the war and in the logging industry after
that. He had also done a lot of carpentry, both framing and finishing. He, with
a couple of very competent helpers,did the re-construction of the big house.
Dad took some accumulated vacation to work there and my step-mom took charge of the park, in his absence, which she was well-accustomed to. Dad didn't really need the work though l guess he had an idea for using it. l was totally please that "the masterpiece in mohogany", which l called his work there,
would surround me, where ever l was in the office building.
The nearly two months that he was working at Patio Village, was the one time
we were able to spend most of a workday focusing on the same project and maybe having lunch together , some days a couple of beers after work. His
input visible in every square foot of the interior and exterior of our main building, l always felt that l belonged there.
One evening, after a particularly good day, about six months after our opening,
one of the closers and l were talking and half-listening to the TV in the back-
ground, After a while the show's host interviewed a guy living in New Mexico who was building a place near Taos where he intended to make a self-supporting
commune, where he and his family would share the place with other families.
Before long, most of the staff, still in the building, had pulled up a chair to watch TV with us. For the next few days, "the Northern New Mexico Beatnic" (that was
some time before the word "hippie" had reached the vocabulary)was the main topic of our conversations at work. l was very interested and l began to think l should go to New Mexico (Taos) and check out the commune, first hand.
Within a few days l prepared Dahlia for my being gone a week-or-so and asked
Deanne to cover the store for a few days.My brother Irv was in Vegas at the time so l stopped there on my way to New Mexico. l was surprised to learn that he had seen the same video about the commune and l convinced him to go with me to Taos . We left for Taos before sunrise the next day. We spelled each other with the driving and only stopped to use the rest area or to eat. We were well past Kingman when the Sun rose.
It was a good thing that both Irv and l liked travelling for travelling's sake, because we knew in the first half-hour in our visit to the commune at Taos that it was not going to be something we'd like to be involved with. We left there with promises that we would return soon. We then headed North and West
with Durango Colo. our new destination. Irv had a friend there that he hadn't
seen since she moved from Elko County a couple of years before. By noon the next day, we had decided to return to San Jose via Salt Lake City and Reno. we
stopped in Elko County for a couple of days and visited some of Irv's friends
Most of my old friends no longer lived there, or were unwilling to even talk on the phone or have anything to do with an old friend who had recently become an ex-convict.
At our Elko stop, Irv called a friend (David) who lived near Irv's place in Vegas
but at the time was visiting family in Lovelock. David was about to return to Vegas and agreed to wait for us to arrive in Lovelock. so Irv could ride home with him.
l decided to stop for lunch in Fernley for lunch. l had a couple of whiskeys before eating and then a couple more instead of eating. In an hour or so l was too drunk to drive, so l took a room at the Fernley Inn. l was having trouble
getting my room key to work, when the lady from the room next door came out of her room, noticed me and my predicament and offered to help. She had a little trouble with the lock as well, so by the time l was able to enter, we were well into conversation. She picked up the smaller of my bags and followed me
into the room.
l almost never get picked up by pretty ladies. And the only reason l can say "almost" is that it happened that time. This lady was way out of my league.
Most of the one's l like, are. But she seemed unaware of the imbalance. l sure was, though and l couldn't help but be a bit suspicious, but soon was convinced she was just a nice, self-confident pretty lady who was not opposed to casual sex. We sat and talked for about an hour before we decided to have dinner,
where we must have spent another hour, talking and laughing at each-others'
stories.
We returned to my (our)room, continuing our conversation as we undressed each other and slid between the sheets. It just happened as though it was scripted. Some time during our second day, she told me she would have to leave
in two more days and after that, we could not be together again or have anything to do with each other.
At first l was crushed. Hell, l had already figured how to break the news toDahlia. (And to Thom Kessler, if the change would involve crossing some stste lines)
During the fourth day l employed my sales personality, which almost always wins (93% closer). And it worked; Before we went to sleep that fourth nite, we
had decided to continue our friendship. We would spend a fifth night together to celebrate our decision.At least, that was our plan. On what would have been our fifth day together,l woke up at three PM with a bad headache and a missing room mate. l felt very bad for spoiling our last day together, by being a posessive asshorn. She had had a schedule to keep and she shared it with me.
Her having to "mickey" my drink was my fault for assuming that her schedule was less important than my need to win.
By 4PM l had showered, dressed for work and phoned the Patio Village office to
say l'd return that evening. l ate a late lunch, gassed the car and got on the road by about 5PM. l was in my office at 10 PM. (and that was before I80 was
built. Pulling into the parking lot at Patio Village, l noticed three employee parking spots were vacant; mine, and those of two closers, that are at that time no doubt, closing contracts. Before long the two closers showed up (each with signed contracts)Then all of us sat down for a couple hours QandA l won't bore
you with the details, but closers and their enablers were a bit unhappy about my recent absence, but they wound up welcoming me back.
This trip exemplified a tendency that l got caught-up with almost every time l was making more money than l deserved and just couldn't get enough travelling. this time was one of the less harmfull of the bunch.l got my butt chewed, but the job (and my salary) remained the same
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