Chapter 20

[Saturday, June 28th, 1986]

Kim and I made it to the kitchen just a few minutes before Amanda and Rob joined us. If the smile on Amanda’s face was any indication, we weren’t the only ones in the house who had a little fun this morning. Kim had just started the Coffee going, and I was looking in the fridge for breakfast ideas.

I noticed a pound of breakfast sausage and a nearly full carton of milk in the fridge, so I offered to make biscuits and gravy. Everyone liked that idea, so I got to work on it. After mixing up the biscuits and getting them cooking in the oven, I got to work on the gravy. Well browned sausage, plus a little extra butter, got coated with a good dusting of flour and cooked for another minute or two. Slowly adding milk and letting it thicken, then thinning it out again with more milk and allowing it to thicken up again until I got it to the volume and viscosity I wanted. A quick taste told me that adding just a little extra salt would make it “good to go.”

I served up the food by breaking open a couple of steaming hot biscuits on each plate with a fork and then smothering them with the gravy. We all took our food and coffee out to the table by the pool to eat our breakfast. I was pretty pleased with how it came out, and I got confirmation from everyone that they enjoyed it too. Neither of the ladies finished the large servings I had given them, but I didn’t want to offend them by giving them less. That’s a game you’ll never win.

Kim and Amanda told us they would take care of the dishes and that Rob and I should relax after eating. We did for a while, then we both migrated over to the deck to give it a good look in the morning light. Rob debated about giving it another coat of the weather sealant and ended up deciding against it. They were supposed to be showing up to install the tub reasonably soon, and another coat wouldn’t have enough time to dry.

Amanda and Kim joined us, and both commented that they were looking forward to trying the hot tub this evening. That made it unanimous. Rob said he had to go out to check on a few job crews but would be back early this afternoon.

Amanda said, “I’ve called the bank manager, and he assured me that we would be welcome to stop by the local branch this morning any time after 9 am. I would prefer to be prompt and not ruin more of someone’s weekend than I have to.”

I agreed that would be best for me too. I dug out the lottery tickets, which I had not had the opportunity to do before we all went to bed last night, and handed them to her. She glanced at them, thanked me, and stuck them in her purse.

I asked, “I’m somewhat surprised that we didn’t have a team of experts validating those tickets. You are showing a lot of faith in me over it.”

Amanda replied, “I do think very highly of you, John, so I hope it won’t hurt your feelings that I’ve had a lot of experts investigating this during this last week. They had already confirmed where and when someone purchased the ticket. They also had the lottery office reproduce a slightly redacted copy of the winning ticket’s information, including a second “only one digit off” number on the same ticket. All of that matches with your story and the visual confirmation I could already give of the tickets. The final item was of the last few digits of the confirmation number on the ticket’s bottom, which I could see just now. I truly believed you, my young friend, but I’m not foolish enough to hand away this kind of money without considerably more than just my faith in your good character.” She left the room, saying that she needed to take care of a few things before heading out.

I could only shake my head at ever doubting the woman’s capabilities. We were ready to go at 8:45 am, and we all took the Bentley to the bank that was less than 10 minutes away. We were greeted at the door by a middle-aged woman with a winning smile who introduced herself as Mary Johnson. Mary told us she was an assistant manager of the bank and was capable of handling any of our needs. She was an attractive woman in her late 30s or early 40s, dressed professionally in business attire, and seemed very competent.

She led us to a small conference room, and we took seats. Mary offered us coffee and had a small platter of items that looked like they just came from a bakery on the conference room table. We all declined as we had just eaten.

She asked, “So what can I do for you this morning Mrs. Kerns?”

Amanda said, “John will be opening an account with the bank, and I wanted to ensure he is well established here. I’m sure he will want an appropriate credit card and other services set up as quickly as possible. I’ll be transferring the $350 thousand that I recently freed up from my investment account to fund it.”

I said, “Amanda, that was only supposed to be $250 thousand.”

Amanda smiled at me and said, “As this transaction is a gift from me to you, I suggest you allow me to decide what amount is appropriate. Don’t you agree?”

“Thank you, Amanda. I do appreciate the extra amount. I’m just surprised by it.”

Mary told us it wouldn’t take very long. She just needed to make a copy of my ID, and she would return with some filled-out forms for our signatures. When she had gone to get started on all of that, Amanda explained her excess generosity.

“I worked it all out with my accountants. I am making out like a bandit on this transaction. That is even after considering the extra I am donating to the charity. That full million will be another write-off for my taxes. With that in mind, I can easily afford to increase the amount you are getting out of this, John, and I’m happy to do it for you. I’ll still be gaining quite a lot. Factoring in paying the gift taxes on your amount and the write-off to charity, I am still more than happy with the profits involved.”

I thanked her again, and Mary soon returned with several things for us to sign. Amanda authorized the transfer of funds first, and then Mary turned to me.

Mary said, “Okay, I am assuming you will want to open both a checking and savings account, is that correct, John? Good, that’s the way I filled these forms out. Here is a starter set of checks to give you something to work from until we can get some others ordered for you. We’ll look at options for that in just a minute. Here is a Master Card in your name. It is a secured card for $10,000 against your savings. That means that you will need to keep a minimum of that amount in your savings account. After one year, the funds will be released, and it will be just a regular credit card with a starting credit limit of 10K. If you need to make a larger purchase with the card in the meantime, just call ahead for pre-approval of that transaction, and you shouldn’t have any issues, assuming you can shift money around accordingly. Do you have an idea of how you will want the money split between the accounts?”

I said, “Let’s start with $30 thousand in Checking and the rest in savings. I will probably be opening an account with a brokerage firm soon, and I’ll be transferring the bulk of that savings balance to them.”

Mary said, “We do have excellent brokerage services available here.”

I shook my head and told her, “I don’t need full brokerage services, since I’m not looking for any kind of investment advice. I need a discount brokerage firm that will handle my transactions quickly and efficiently and preferably at the lowest possible commission rates. I intend to be a very active trader, and steep commission rates would ruin my plan. I’ve been considering Charles Schwab, but I’d be willing to entertain other ideas if you have a better suggestion.”

She said, “I see, well, I do know there are several places that claim to have lower rates. However, I don’t think you will see anything like that same level of access and quality of services. Just between us, I have an account with Schwab of my own, and I’m quite happy with them. The services here are great, but if you already know what you want, there is a lot of money to be saved going a different route.” Next, she gave me an ATM card for the accounts and the PIN to go with it.

“Alright, I think the last thing we have to do is pick the checks you want to get personalized. If you would look at these samples and choose one, I think we will be done. Unless there was something else that you needed?”

I said, “Actually, I also have a good bit of cash I want to deposit into the checking account.” I reached into my backpack and pulled all of my cash, then set aside $500. I handed the rest over to her while I tucked the money I had set aside back into my bag. She counted it and gave me a separate receipt to add to the others we had collected this morning. Then I picked out a generic check layout from the samples to use on the actual checks I would be ordering, which concluded our business with the bank.

On our way out, Mary handed me a business card with her name on it and said, “Here, call me when you are ready to set up that transfer of funds to the brokerage account you choose. I’ll make sure everything goes smoothly for you.” I thanked her, and we headed back to the house.

There was a crew at the house getting the hot tub installed. Amanda touched base with them, and they seemed to have everything well in hand, so we left them to it. We sat around the table in the breakfast nook and talked about Kim’s and my long-term plans.

When Kim mentioned that she was planning on attending UConn, Amanda asked which campus she would be attending. Kim said, “I was thinking of the main campus in Storrs because it was the closest to home. I’m not even sure where the others are located.”

Amanda said, “I think besides the main campus, there is one in Hartford, another in Torrington, one in Groton, and there is also one right here in Stamford.”

Kim’s eyes lit up, and she said, “Really? Now that is very interesting. John and I love this area.” I nodded my head in agreement and asked, “Do you know what courses they offer here?”

She said, “I’m not entirely sure. I know there is a Business focus, but I think they also offer a pretty full curriculum. You should check them out. The campus is only five or six miles from here to the northeast on Scofield Town Road.”

I said, “That sounds like a good idea. Why don’t we see if we can find and look at the campus today? Do you want to come along, Amanda?”

“I don’t mind showing you the way, but don’t the two of you want to explore it privately?”

Kim said, “We’d love to have you join us. Please come. It will be fun.”

Amanda agreed but wanted to touch base with the crew again before we left to see if they needed anything and when they expected to finish. The hot tub install staff assured her that they were all set and they would have everything operating correctly before they left for the day. If we didn’t return before they finished, they would leave instructions on the outdoor table. The foreman believed that the job would be completed before 2 pm. Amanda let them know there was a decent chance Rob would be back before then, and they could pass along any instructions to him.

We climbed back into Amanda’s car and were soon driving around the campus.

– SPOILER ALERT –

Everything above this point was already writen when I ‘Hit a wall” and just stopped writing this story.

Everything below this point is just plot concepts and the remnants of a timeline I was playing with plus some notes on where I was going with the story. I am throwing it out here for readers to enjoy if they want ... personally I don’t recommended it.

If I ever get the urge to work on this story again I’ll only do it as a full repost of a completed work, but don’t hold your breath. I just wanted to be able to call this “complete” and it was either this or deleting it.

I’ve re-submitted this version of this page, just to make a final attempt of displaying the following text in a readable format.

I’ve had recent requests to try to clean it up further, but I don’t see a way to do that. Not one I can live with anyway, so this is all there is folks. I don’t really expect to be back here again.

– SPOILER ALERT –

• Open brokerage account with Charles Schwab 9am.

• 1-800-257-1234

Timeline key moments

• [Sunday, July 5th, 2020]

• 9pm accident - finds the tunnel

• [Sunday, January 5th, 2020]

• Casino visit

• [Friday, June 20th, 1986]

• (6, 13, 14, 30, 34, 43) - lottery numbers

• 18 years old, graduated from High School on previous Tuesday

• Break up with Lisa

• First date with Kim

• Intro to family

• Lots of dating

• Making easy cash with Sam

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