Chapter 9

Now that puts a whole different slant on things...

The next morning Grace and I went to Mr. Smithson's office. After we were seated in the office and coffee was served. Mr. Smithson got right to business.

"Gary, thanks for coming in. Before we get started, do you wish to have your attorney present to go over any of the documents before you sign them?"

"Well, let me ask you a question Mr. Smithson, were these documents prepared in accordance with Harry's wishes exactly like he wanted them?" I asked.

"Yes" He replied. "When you read them, you will see that Harry's signature is on each page and duly witnessed by Miss Perry, my secretary. Once you have signed, the documents will be recorded in

in the County Recorder's Office so there will always be a secure certified copy available if ever needed in the future."

I turned to Grace. "Perhaps we should get one of your corporate attorneys to be here and spend the time to make sure everything is correct. What do you think?"

She looked at me and then at Mr. Smithson and said. "Perhaps that would be wise. Mr. Smithson, may I use your phone. I will call my attorneys office and have him send someone over right away. Maybe he can come himself. We mean no offense, Mr. Smithson. It is just that this is a little unorthodox and unsettling for Gary. He has never been in this position before.

"Please feel free to call your attorney Grace." He indicated his phone. Grace went to the phone and dialed from memory. "Hello, this is Grace from Homestead Foods, is John in yet. Oh' good, I will hold for him. Hello, John, this is Grace. I am with a friend and he needs legal assistance. Can you come immediately over to Howard Smithson's office. We are there now and would feel better if you were here to help us with the documents that we will be examining. Twenty Minutes? Good we will see you shortly. Thanks John."

"Grace, who is your Corporate Attorney?" Mr. Smithson asked.

"John Davenport." She replied.

"Oh', good, I know John well, that should help to expedite things, why don't we move into the conference room, I have had rolls brought in and a lite breakfast is also available if you would like, while we wait for John.

Grace and I moved to the conference room and helped ourselves to the food and sat and talked quietly together while we waited.

I don't know what made me suspicious of Mr. Smithson, may be it was just the questions that he asked of Grace and I the first time he came to the house. Then it was obvious to me at least, that he thought we might be up to something. My instincts might be wrong, but since I didn't have my Grandpa there and Harry was gone. I didn't feel that I was adequately armed to deal with the complexities of inheriting $28,000,000. I just sort of felt like a fish out of water.

When John Davenport arrived, we all gathered back in Mr. Smithson's office. John, Grace's attorney had taken a short while to review the will before meeting with us in a small private room.

As we settled in the office, Mr. Smithson got right to the point.

"Gary, do you have any further questions?" He asked.

"No, Mr. Davenport has gone over all the important points with Grace and I, please proceed."

Mr. Smithson continued.

"It was the Captain's wish that the bulk of the Estate go to you and should you choose to, I am willing and ready to continue on as Administrator, dealing with the day to day issues of handling all taxes and insurance on the Real Estate portion of the estate, the liquid portion, at least most of the $5,000,000. Is in Stocks, Bonds and other easily converted forms of currency. There is a small amount of Gold and some precious stones, that the Captain picked up during his travels about the globe." He finished up.

"Shall we go ahead and complete the paper work now?" He asked.

I looked at Grace and John Davenport and they seemed alright with everything.

"OK, lets get it done"

As we started to sign the paper work, I couldn't help but feel a sort of out of body experience, like I was up in the corner of the office looking down at myself and every one else. I still couldn't understand how this had all happened and how I had come to this point in my life. I was signing and watching myself signing at the same time. It was really weird.

When all the paper work was completed, we all stood and Mr. Smithson walked with us to the door of the suite of offices and bid us good day.

"Gary, please take a few days to get used to everything and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to call me. I am sure you can feel free to consult with Mr. Davenport as sell." He said.

We went out and Grace turned to John Davenport and thanked him for coming over to help.

"Gary, please do as Mr. Smithson advised, take some time, don't make any decisions for awhile, if you feel you need any advice, don't hesitate to call." John said.

I knew there was one person I could turn to for guidance.

BACK TO THE FARM...

When we got back to Grace's house. We spent the rest of the day just catching up with each other and talking about what had happened in the last few days.

Finally later in the evening, I turned to Grace and said.

"I think I want to go home and see my Grandpa. Would you go with me?" I asked her.

"Of course I will go." She replied.

"OK, when can you be ready to leave? I asked her.

"I can be ready my 10:00 AM tomorrow." was her answer.

"Good, I will get the car ready and be ready to go by then." I told her.

"Are you sure you want to drive all that way, you know we can fly. It would be much quicker." She told me.

Now for me, the idea of flying had not even been in my mind. It was just not something that I would have thought of first. Even though I was in the Marine Air Wing. I still considered myself a earth bound person and didn't make the association of saving time vs saving money. I always had the idea that flying was way to expensive to even consider except in extreme circumstances.

Before I had time to even think about it, I blurted out, that it would be too expensive to fly. Besides, we would have to get to the airport and get the tickets and all the hassle of the car and everything. I knew I was rambling, and didn't know how to stop. I was reacting like my old self would have reacted in the same circumstance.

Grace looked at me funny and said. "We could take the plane."

"What plane?" I asked.

"We could take my Dad's plane." She told me.

There were still things about this lady that I did not understand. It seems her Dad and Grandpa were both pilots and had been for a long time. Shortly before his death, her Dad had bought a brand new Cessna 421B Golden Eagle with all the bells and whistles. It was set up to do what ever kind of flying that you might want to do. It was stored in one of the warehouses that the Corporation owned along with a runway that ran behind the warehouse. I guess we hadn't gotten to all the holdings that Grace was owner of.

"I'll just call the pilot and tell him what time to have the plane ready tomorrow." She said.

"Who is going to fly it?" I asked.

"I would, but we can have the Corporate pilots fly us, that way we can rest and look at the scenery. We can leave when we want and it will be a very short quick flight. The plane is very fast, it flies almost 300 miles an hour. So it won't take us very long to get there." She said.

I sat there listening to all this and could only shake my head in wonder. This lady really was something.

"Come on, let's go to bed, I really need to show you how much I love you. How much you really mean to me and how thankful I am that you are in my life."

The next morning, Grace left for the store and got everything set for her to be gone for a couple of weeks. When she got home, We had Mr. Johnson, the butler, drive us to the plane.

Now all my other flying had been limited to commercial large jets during movements around the country reporting to one duty station or another, or small helicopters in the Marine Corps. This was the first time to ever fly in a small private plane.

The pilots were waiting for us and the plane was ready to go. Our bags were stowed in the luggage compartment and we got on board.

"Miss Grace, everything is ready, there is food in the galley and drinks in the ice box. If you need to stop anywhere along the route, just let me know and it will be no problem." Said Stu, the pilot.

"Thanks Stu, we are ready to go when you are." She said.

I was excited to be going home like this. I had never flown in a small plane, and I looked forward to seeing the sights from a lower altitude. Normally my flights in Marine helicopters had been quite low. Of course commercial jets flew so far up there that you really can's see much. I sat back and closed my eyes after we took off and I had a chance to look at the Everglades from the air. When we got out over the gulf, there was not much to see for awhile.

The Farmer's Daughter...

I was a in the 10th grade, my first year back in Iowa, My Mom and my brothers and I had moved back to the farm after my parents divorce in 1960. My Uncle Rich, had come to Denver with a big old Dodge Pickup pulling a big roofed over livestock trailer to move all our stuff. He had to make two trips to get all our stuff back to the farm. On each trip a couple of us kids would ride back with him and Mom stayed in Denver for a couple of more weeks and then she drove her car back with the baby. I had been working at the Safeway Grocery store in Aurora in 1959, when I had met Grace.

It was a short time after Grace left Colorado that my Mom told us we were moving back to Iowa. I had just finished up my 9th grade at East Junior High School. We moved that summer, One of my brothers and I were just in time to start playing on the Schools first Football team. It was the fall of 1960. It was because of Football and the games that we played, that we were able to fit right in with little problem, we were new, but since the Team was brand new all the players were kind of in the same boat. None of us had ever played together and at least my brother and I had played in 7th and 8th grade and were on the first string offense. I played tackle and he played guard. We played right next to each other and because of our size, we could generally open a hole in the opposing defensive line that you could drive a Semi through.

When we got back to the farm, we were parceled off to our uncles farms as the home place didn't have enough rooms for all of us to stay at Grandpa and Grandma's. I went to live with my Uncle Ed. He was married to a gal and they had a couple of little girls. I had my own room and as soon as I got to his place, he proceeded to teach me the chores that would be my part of living on the farm. His living for himself and his family was primarily milking cows. He milked about 20 head and stored the milk in a cold water cooler in ten gallon milk cans. We used milking machines and our job was to put the milking machines on the washed teats of the cow. Wait for it to finish remove the milker and pour the milk through a sieve screen to make sure no dirt got in the milk can and once the can was full, to put the can in the cooler.

Once I had learned the ropes, My uncle stopped getting up early and it was my job.

My Uncle told me that he didn't care what time I came in at night, he just wanted me to understand that the cows got up at 04:00. I was expected to be there. Like most teenagers, I grumbled about having to get up that early, but if the truth be known, I kind of liked it after I got use to it. I use to love to sit in the back door of the cow barn looking East and watch the Sun come up every morning. Each day you could mark the change of the season as the Sun came up just a little further to the South each morning

The barn was raised a little and the view looked down the hill toward the cow pasture. The trees were fairly close, I use to love to watch the birds flit from tree to tree and the deer come down to the creek to get a morning drink. It was a wonderful place to grow up. By the time I got the milking done, my Uncle had done the rest of the chores, feed the chickens and gather the eggs and make sure the pigs had feed in the self feeder.

We would all sit down to eat breakfast together and then I would have to run to catch the bus at the end of the long lane into the farm. By the time I was dressed and ready, my Uncle would be gone over to the home place. All my Uncles and my Grandpa farmed together everyday. It was just one big extended family.

My life that fall consisted of farming, school and football. My Uncle Ed, loved to go to the games and watch my brother and I play. After every home game there was always a dance for the school. I had learned to dance in the 9th grade back in Aurora. I had been to one dance and had taken my neighbor from across the street, her name was Loraine, She was in the same class as me and almost as tall. She was over 6'. I managed to step on her toes all night. She was almost limping by the time my Mom came to pick us up. Needless to say, she wasn't to thrilled about going out with me again.

At the school dances there in Iowa, It was much like it was pictured in Happy Days, All the girls stood around the wall in small groups and giggled and the boys tried to get up the courage to ask one of them to dance. If you didn't already have a girl friend, then you were out of luck. Because I was the only new guy at the dance, I seemed to be the center of conversation and every once in awhile a girl would come over and ask me to dance. Most of them were to shy, but a couple did. The second one I met was Carol.

Carol, was a true Farmer's Daughter. She was large, raw boned, not an ounce of fat on her, she was buxom. Those breasts were glorious. Her hands were raw and red just like mine were from milking cows twice a day. She was a blonde, she was Swedish. I kept expecting to hear her speak with an accent. But she didn't. Her Grandparents had come over from Sweden and she was an all American Girl through and through.

I came to find out later that the reason she chose me to dance with was, because I was bigger than her. She didn't want to be seen with one of those little 'Shrimps' she called the other guys in High School. To be honest, I think she intimidated most of them. I know she intimidated me right off until I got to know her a little. She was a real doll. She was smart and self confident. She knew what she wanted and was not afraid to go after it. Later on I was to learn, that what she wanted was me. She told me after we dated for a while, that she took one look at me and decided that I was going to be the lucky recipient of her virginity. I just didn't know it at the time.

We danced that first time and after that it just seemed to be natural that we were together. I stood with her and her friends and then we danced the rest of the dances that first night and by the next Monday, were together, going steady. We were in most of the same classes, I don't know how I had not seen her in the first weeks of school, but I hadn't. I guess, I just was not focused on girls. I was just trying to find my way in a new school and a new way of living. As the fall progressed. I played football, and Carol was involved in all sorts of musical after school activities. She was in the band, chorus, she played the piano, trumpet and loved to play the organ at church. We went to the same church. St. Patrick's Church, it was the biggest Catholic Church outside of Sioux City. Even though we couldn't date formally, she couldn't until she was 16, we were always together at school and church activities. After a couple of weeks, we started sneaking kisses where ever we could. I could drive on a work license as it was needed for farm kids to be able to drive the farm vehicles and was just a normal part of farm life to see little kids driving farm tractors and trucks.

Carol was going to be 16 two days before Homecoming that fall. I asked my Mom if I could have her car to take Carol on a date to the Movies, She told me OK and gave me some money so I would have a little money to spend at the movie. My Mom had a big old 48 or 49 Dodge salesman's car. It had a back seat big enough for a full size bed if you could get one through the door.

Everything was set for the big date. I got my chores done in record time Saturday afternoon. Earlier in the afternoon, I washed the car and cleaned the inside. You would think I was getting ready to squire the Queen. After the milking was done, I ran to the house and got ready. I was ready and out the door an hour ahead of time. We lived 6 miles east of town, and Carols parents farm was 6 miles west of town. I drove to town and went to the Drug Store, this was a time when there was still a real soda fountain and the store was open all evening. The farmers and their wives and families would come to town on Saturday night and do their weekly shopping and selling of excess eggs, butter and cream. It was they way most families got their money each week. The kids would all go to the movie, it only cost a quarter to get in. Pop was 10 cents and popcorn a nickle.

I went into the Drug Store and looked around for something to get Carol. I ended up getting her a silver charm bracelet. I got her, her first charm. A small silver Cow. It was one of the things that we had in common. We both milked cows. We had laughed about it often enough.

I finally set out for her place. When I arrived, I got out and went to the door, Carol's Mom let me in and invited me to sit at the kitchen table and have some pie. They were just finishing up supper. Carol's Dad and I visited a little. I had gotten to know him slightly at the football games as he and my Uncle and Grandpa were well acquainted. There wasn't any of the usual questioning. It was just a comfortable home acceptance and we all just talked about farming.