Yesterday I blogged about Joan Rivers. About her "No Fear" attitude. It's something we must include in our RTD (Regeneration and Transformation for Dreamers) bag of tricks. I was preparing to blog about the next RTD component when my mom called me this morning. My mom is a gregarious woman. She is in her mid-seventies (I am sure she won't mind me saying it that way) and she and I have been business partners since 1988--when I moved back home with my pregnant wife and three little kids, because I realized I needed a college education to provide for my brood.
The peach doesn't fall far from the tree...(I know, but my mom is more of a peach than an apple). Elizabeth, my mom, gets most of her personality from her mother, my grandmother, Delinda. Now, let me tell you about this woman WoW what a handful. Delinda was born in 1918. And she was a "Depression Child." Anyone who knows a person who lived through the first Depression during the 1930s (I believe we are living in the second, greater Depression now) knows that they are, how can I say it, hmmm. Frugal, yes. Frugal. Very, very frugal. And this colored everything my Grandmother did in her life. Including her ability to break rules and live life and have no fear. She would set her mind to something, and it got done. She DREAMED BIG and she accomplished bigger!
She told me two stories just prior to her death, that strengthen me so. The first was that during WWII she drove trucks. As many of you know, men were fighting and women were picking up the slack in the U.S. by performing jobs that only men were doing prior to the war. The second story, and what leads us to this very blog moment was how she purchased her first piece of land in Falmouth, Cape Cod. Her husband was away at war, in the Pacific. She working in the U.S. She found a piece of land that was in foreclosure which she wanted to buy but was unable to because she was a married woman. During that time, a married women could not purchase property without the signature of her husband. That was impossible. So, my grandmother being the quick-thinker that she was, got her brother to sign the purchase agreement--as her husband. Love that Ma! (that's what we called her Ma' Labeet). The first parcel she bought was small just a few acres. But over the next three decades she continued to buy property around the first parcel until she had amassed 12 acres. No small feat. 12 acres of prime real estate in Cape Cod. Good job Ma!
Back to peaches. If, my mom is a peach, well the image works well for me too. So, ipso facto, I am a peach. So, these three peaches, Delinda, Elizabeth and me (Robin) had many commonalities. My grandmother bought land and homes and made her "fortune." My mother did the same. And I followed suit. Three generations striving to capture the "American Dream." Swallowing fully the axiom of American Entrepreneurship. And in 2004 the convergence of three generations of hard work and sacrifice came together to test the metal of that American axiom on America's finest day: July 4.
I was in Falmouth assisting my mother after the death of my father, Ernest. A soft hearted man, with the most beautiful hazel eyes. I know why my mother fell for him. Handsome in his Army uniform for sure. We were picnicking at my grandmothers. Like we had done many years earlier. I was giddy--truly--as I hadn't been back on the Cape for almost 20 years. The BBQ was a blast and lasted well into the early morning hours. We sat in my grandmother's living room. Pictures on the wall that had been there from my earliest youth. Her home was like a museum, everything the same. I was in the 1960s again! Sipping wine, my grandmother left the room and returned with a bag. In it she retrieved these colorful pamphlets, they looked brand new. Until you read them. They were new home brochures...from the 1950s!!? I asked, "why?" Ma' Labeet said, "I always wanted to build a community here on my land. That's why." "Well, why didn't you?" She said, "Your grandfather was too afraid." There is that word again, Fear.
By the time the sun rose on July 5, 2004 the three fearless 'peaches' had reached an agreement to turn the 12 acres and 50 years of patience into a place where families could sink deep roots for generations. Just as my grandmother and grandfather had done for us. It was a great plan. My grandmother would sell the land to our newly created company. She gave us a deal--$1,000,000.00 for the land. In turn my mother and I would match Delinda's investment with cash to cover the hard and soft costs of construction--approximately the same amouth as Delinda's investment. In the decades and decades that my grandmother, mother and I have done business in real estate we never brokered a deal where we lost our investment capital. Until now. Until a bank, from the community, stole it from us.
I have to stop here. Because here is where the fear is. Here is where the Dreams of the Dreamers are being crushed. Here is were regeneration and transformation was perverted, forced by deceit; a meatgrinder of lives--past, present and future mangled. Here is where three generations of a family teeter on disaster from blood suckers in gray suits with dead 'fish' eyes. 29 1/2 days from today. Before I finish this tale, I have to decide can I voice the fear. I know I must -- to have victory. Take it from its muffled screams and pepper this text box with its darkness.
Tomorrow.
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