One of the first questions my summer friends in Evansville would ask me is, “Do you know anyone famous?” Or something similar.
I soon learned that, rather than impress, I’d be branded as a liar or phony. It was one of the ways I learned the advantages of being able to lie effectively or at least “fudge” the truth. The same could be said with my two sets of parents. The main protagonists hated each other. My mom forbade me to call Mother Alice ‘mom’ while I was in Evansville and my Dad told me he didn’t want me calling Daddy Bob “dad.” But my mom insisted I call Daddy Bob ‘dad’ and my dad insisted I call Mother Alice ‘mom’. So I followed the adage, ‘when in Rome’. While my dad never grilled me about this when I arrive in Evansville, my mom certainly did. At first I’d lie when she demanded to know if I’d called Mother Alice ‘mom.’ Later on I’d simply change the subject. I think my mom knew the truth but accepted the lie as long as it looked like I felt guilty. Yes, weird.
Actually, my dad never said a bad word about my mom and my mom never said a good word about him. He more or less dismissed her from our conversations while my mom was vehement and referred to him that bastard, a son-of-a-bitch and, her favorite, a horse’s ass. Both went out of their ways to make my annual exchange as difficult as possible. Which made it difficult for me as well, particularly when dad made it awkward for me to visit my maternal grandmother who still lived in Evansville.
The whole thing came to a head with my stepdad’s dismissal from Uncle Fred’s company and his subsequent bankruptcy after the company Daddy Bob started after his dismissal failed. My mom had taken advantage of my stepdad’s popularity to become a rising star of Santa Monica’s social scene. She became a member of the Women’s Club and other organizations that helped her status. We had a daily maid and, when the folks entertained at home, a barman to keep the drink flowing while the maid served canapes. Mom’s photos appeared in the social columns and in photos taken at ribbon cutting ceremonies that appeared in the local papers.
It all came crashing down after she overplayed her hand with her husband’s employer. My mom was aiming to be “Queen Bee” of the Roberts family but one thing stood in her way. It was Uncle Fred’s wife. Aunt Florence was a vivacious red head of Irish ancestry whom my mom considered unworthy of being considered “Queen Bee” by virtue of that ancestry. Even worse, Aunt Florence was a Catholic and for reasons I’ve never been able to discover, both she and my adoptive father hated Catholicism and mistrusted Catholics. I wasn’t even allowed to play with Catholic kids in case their religion infected me. How my mom and dad ever came to this extreme prejudice is beyond my understanding, but it was to have a major impact on my life. In any event, she badgered my stepdad into confronting Uncle Fred with a suspicion he had.
One particular supermarket was showing significant stock losses. And it happened to be the supermarket where some of Aunt Florence’s family worked as checkout operators. Daddy Bob was getting pressured by Uncle Fred to discover the source of these high losses and stop them. He mentioned to my mom that he thought the checkout operators related to Aunt Florence were failing to charge other family members for large amounts of items when they went through their checkout lines. He couldn’t investigate further without Aunt Florence’s family members being alerted and was worried how he should handle it.
My mom was adamant. She’d already convicted the family members. After all, “What else can you expect from an Irish Catholic. Go to Fred and demand that he do something about it.” She wouldn’t let it go.
Fred’s response was swift and final. He told my stepdad that he wasn’t about to approve of anything that could upset his wife and would rather absorb the loses than insult his wife’s family. Instead he fired my stepdad, which put an end to the subject.
Along with his job he lost the beach cabin. Ironically, not long after that Fred sold off the entire chain of supermarkets which solved the loss problem permanently. He kept the liquor stores and focused on property development and demolished the old ranch house in order to build a magnificent, beautifully designed new home in 1952. After a devastating Malibu fire 1982 that house was destroyed and today the entire ranch is now part of the Solstice Canyon National Park.
Suddenly, my mom’s social position faltered and fizzled out. She discovered the fragility of a status built on a “position” that wasn’t hers to control. Once it became clear that she was no longer welcome at the Women’s Club she resigned. Bankruptcy was a huge handicap. People she thought of as friends became strangers. Invitations dried up along with her invitations to others being ignored. She’d gone from social diva to social outcast and blamed everyone but herself. My dad, her ex-husband also came in for his share of animosity. While Daddy Bob was in a favored position that my mom could take advantage of, my dad’s position had also improved. He was no longer a senior vice-president of Servel Corporation. He’d been head-hunted by his uncle (mother’s brother) John Tyler Rimstidt, who had started a savings/loan and insurance company with his business partner Richard Meyer. That company had flourished after the Depression and now had offices in several neighboring states. My father became president, then CEO and Chairman as the company grew even bigger with offices from coast to coast. My father had also married a woman who was an astute investor in her own right. Her first husband (who’d adopted my stepbrother) had been a successful young insurance broker when he suddenly died of a heart attack. He was heavily insured and left his widow and their son independently wealthy with a mortgage free home.
My mom’s friends in Evansville kept her informed of all of these successes, but it didn’t turn to envy and bitterness until Daddy Bob lost his job and had to declare bankruptcy. From then on life in the Roberts household became a never ending drama.
Learning how to lie © Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All Rights Reserved
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 