SUBCHAPTER 126 - A FIGHTING CHANCE

The Titanic disaster should have been avoided.  The captain had actually been warned about the dangerous ice field ahead, but he inexplicably continued forward at a rapid speed. 

Following my graduation from St. John's, little did I know I too was on a collision course with doom.  Indeed, Mr. Murphy had warned me. However, because he was no friend of mine, I paid no attention.  Sad to say, Mr. Murphy could see it coming.  He clearly knew my fate was just a matter of time.  Given my childhood, my eventual downfall in Graduate school was as predictable as the Titanic disaster.

Upon graduation from St. John's, I had three major problems. 

My first problem was confidence in general and my inability to relate to my peers.  I was a loner who did not make friends easily.  In particular, that issue reared its ugly head during my time as a summer camp counselor. 

It was Mr. Murphy was had predicted my problem with authority and criticism would someday bring me down.  My issues with authority did not appear during college.  Typical of me, I jumped to the wrong conclusion.  I assumed I had matured and that Mr. Murphy didn't know what he was talking about.  I could not have been more wrong.  This issue was a ticking time bomb. 

The only reason I didn't get into any trouble in college was simply because I was left alone. With no one around to push my buttons, I got a free pass.  Not so in graduate school.  Once I met a professor who did not appreciate my outspoken ways, my big mouth got me in a world of trouble.  Lacking the political skills necessary to survive this situation, I was dismissed at the end of the year.

The Graduate School dismissal was horrible.  After my childhood scars... the inner ones... got me thrown out of graduate school, I hit rock bottom again.  I was in the most pain I had felt since my Senior year in high school.  I had no way to deal with the acute sense of failure I felt. 

However, to be honest, it was my total cluelessness around women that broke me.  I don't think there is any way I will ever be able to completely explain how much I worried about my looks following the acne explosion.  Unable to look in the mirror without feeling sick, I had a serious confidence problem to begin with.  Unable to date during high school, I hoped to catch up in college.  However I met immediate disappointment in my Freshman year at Hopkins.  Crushed by my girlfriend Emily, I became very afraid of getting hurt again.

I dealt with my fear by more or less avoiding women for the next several years.  All this did was kick the can down the road.  My inadequacy would eventually flatten me in graduate school.  It was the deceit of my two-timing graduate school girl friend that finished me off.  I was shocked to discover how easily I had been fooled by her.  Faced with the unbearable pain of loss, humiliation and rage, I developed a debilitating phobia towards women.  Similar to a boy bitten by a dog, I actually began to tremble with fear anytime I saw a pretty girl... yes, it was that bad.  Now I realized I had an even worse problem than my scarred face.  I was terrified of getting hurt again because I didn't have the slightest idea how to protect myself from letting this happen a second time.  

So far, I had spent my entire life waiting for the future.  I waited for four years in high school waiting till I could date in college.  That didn't work out, so I spent four years in college waiting to date in graduate school.  And that led to the worst pain of all!

They say 'delayed gratification' is the ability to resist temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a later reward.  In my case, there never was any 'later reward'.  Furthermore, I never deliberately delayed my gratification - I had no choice!  Every time I tried to date, I got crushed... absolutely crushed. 

The pain of my dismissal from graduate school combined with the pain from this broken love affair was too much.  I was a failure in career and a failure in love.  When would I ever escape my loneliness?  How would I ever figure out what I was doing wrong around women?  Furthermore, what would I do for a career? 

The pain of losing my dreams left me virtually motionless for an entire month.  Facing the most serious depression of my life, I spent an entire month doing nothing but lie on a couch thinking about all the things that had gone wrong in my life.

I was hardly the only child to ever get roughed up in childhood.  While some children get knocked down permanently by hardship, I was one of those who was at least given a fighting chance.  For all my problems, I emerged from childhood with enough skills to cope.  Wounded, yes, but not totally crippled. 

As I struggled to find the strength to move on, it was my memory of St. John's that kept me going.  My memory of St. John's was my single anchor while I drifted.  My St. John's experience reminded me that I had licked serious problems in the past. 

Laying on that couch, every time I wanted to throw in the towel, I would remember my success at St. John's.  Yes, I had been tossed out of graduate school, but that didn't mean I wasn't stupid.  Not by a long shot.  Yes, I had been badly fooled by that woman, but surely I was smart enough to learn from my mistakes.

St. John's had taught me to compete.  St. John's had taught me to fight.  St. John's had taught me to persist.  Based on my time at St. John's, I knew I had talent. 

I clung to that thought like a man clinging to a life ring in the ocean.  It was that thought that kept me going.  Every time doubt crept into my mind, I reminded myself that for nine long years I had held my own with the best and brightest. 

Yes, I had failed, but no, I wasn't a failure.  St. John's had taught me this.  Yes, right now I had no direction and no idea what to do next.  No matter... someday I would find my way.  Deep down, I knew that if I could just find a way to solve my personality problems and gain some confidence around people my own age, I had a lot to offer. 

Although it is true my childhood doomed me to all kinds of future problems, it was my St. John's education and my St. John's experience that gave me a fighting chance in life.  It was my St. John's-instilled qualities... persistence, hard work, ambition, desire for achievement... that made quitting not an option. 

St. John's helped in one other way as well.  Although I lacked confidence when it came to interpersonal relationships, I had supreme confidence in my intelligence.  During the three year period following the Graduate School debacle, I decided to use my brain to heal my soul and help me deal with my blind spots.  During this period, I read every possible self-help book I could find in a determined search for answers to my problems.  Thank goodness a couple of those books made suggestions that would help me turn my life around.

Although I have to say my "Angry Young Man" Twenties were almost as miserable as High School Hell, once I managed to overcome my childhood problems, my days of delayed gratification were over.  I led a charmed and quite wonderful life once I passed 30. 

Facing the most serious crisis in my life, my memory of St. John's had acted like a lighthouse in a storm.  I will never forget that I owed my fighting chance to St. John's. 

SUBCHAPTER 127 - BLIND SPOT

At some point, the reader will surely have asked whether I am nuts or not.  After all, I sometimes refer to reincarnation and supernatural interference in our lives as if these things are as natural as the air we breathe.  Considering I have little more to go on other than some very interesting coincidences, I will be the first to admit I don't offer a lot of proof.

Do we have free will or don't we? 

I don't have an answer for that question.  All I know is that whenever I develop the attitude that I don't have to do anything because everything is "meant to be", all kinds of things go wrong.  Long ago during my Magical Mystery Tour back in college, I came to the conclusion that I had to assume I was in full control of my own ship in order for my life to work. 

Therefore, on a day to day basis, I run my life the same way as everybody else... when a truck is coming, I get out of the way.  I pay my bills, I obey the law, and I complain about the weather just like everyone else.  I don't attend church and I don't talk about God unless something brings up the subject.  Indeed, to the average person, I suppose I seem normal enough.  I am certainly not crazy, let's put it that way.

However, when no one is looking, I give free rein to my curiosity about the mysteries of life.  I am always on alert for further evidence that might support my growing belief that my life is secretly being manipulated.  In a private corner of my mind, I examine everything that happens to me for any hint of something out of the ordinary.  This is all part of the little game I play called "Spot the Coincidences". 

I trace this strange habit all the way back to the curious events of my Senior year in high school.  If ever there was a time in my life when I believe I was being manipulated outside my conscious awareness, that would be it.  I went through an entire year totally unaware of what was really going on behind the scenes.  When I re-examined that year from a different perspective 40 years later, I realized I had missed some very obvious clues as to what was going on.

I came to the conclusion that I suffered from some serious blind spots.  Now I had to ask the obvious question.   Was I really that stupid or did someone deliberately pull the wool over my eyes?

Literature is full of fictional stories where people have suffered tragedy due to blind spots.  By 'blind spot', I am referring to knowledge that the reader has access to, but the central figure is completely unaware of.  Lacking this vital information, our hero stumbles mightily.

Perhaps the most famous blind spot involved the Greek legend of Oedipus.  Here we have the Greek Gods manipulating the fate of this sad individual to create a terrible tragedy.  King Laius of Thebes was told that one day he would be murdered by his child.  Completely convinced of the validity of the prophecy, Laius ordered Oedipus, his first born child, be thrown upon the mountainside to die.  Except that a shepherd found the child and took the boy to safety.  Oedipus was raised by another family who loved him very much.

As he aged, Oedipus was made aware of this prophecy, but vowed to never let it happen.  Unfortunately, Oedipus had no idea he was adopted.  He thought the prophecy meant he would kill his adopted father.  So to protect the father he loved, he left his home permanently.  How can he kill his father if he leaves home?  Soon a youthful Oedipus met an angry older man upon the road.  They quarreled over right of way and Oedipus unwittingly murdered his real father in the process.  Thus the prophecy was fulfilled. 

The next part of the prophecy had Oedipus marrying his mother.  He was bound and determined to defy this part of the prophecy as well, but he was blinded to the truth by the Gods.  So he unwittingly married his mother anyway.  Upon discovery of his mistake, Oedipus cursed his ignorance and his helplessness to prevent this further horror.  Oedipus took the action of blinding himself.  Tormented by guilt, he spent the remainder of his life wandering the world in a self-imposed exile.

The story of Oedipus is meant to explain that no matter how hard an individual struggles to defy the Gods, ultimately he has no power to change his Destiny in a harsh universe.  What will be, will be.  The Gods will make sure of that.

I go about my daily life assuming I have free will.  On the other hand, I don't think I have free will all the time.  Although I act as if I am captain of my own ship, there is a part of me that believes some things will happen to me whether I like it or not... like cutting my eye out or having a freak attack of acne.  I then have the "free will" to decide what to do about these events. 

Am I correct in this belief?  That is the question I have spent my entire life considering.  My answer is that based on my experiences in life, I do believe in Fate.  However, I am helpless to prove this theory.  The best I can do is write this book and let the readers make up their own mind on this all-important subject.

One of the reasons I have spent my life preoccupied with the concept of Destiny is that I sometimes wonder if there might be more to that Oedipus story than meets the eye.  Is it possible that sometimes we are deliberately deceived by the Universe so that we are forced to learn a lesson?  I have no evidence on this matter, just a suspicion.  It seems like people make major decisions all the time that turn out terribly, then in hindsight they ask themselves how they could have ever been so foolish.  Feeling like an idiot, they can't understand why they were so blind to the dangers when they made their move. 

A simple example would be my mother's decision to buy that rickety house in my Senior year.  She made that decision based on the slimmest of economic margins.  In the process, she completely overlooked the fact that my father's child support would end two months after she bought the house.  Alarmed at this sudden shortfall, she made the crazy decision to depend on Janie and Linda, two complete strangers, to hopefully pay rent and bail her out.  That solution failed not long after I left for college.

The boyfriends of both Linda and Janie got tired of living there.  Both couples decided they would be happier finding places of their own.  Once they left, my mother lost that house.  My mother's blind spot had led her to make a reckless move and she paid dearly for her oversight. 

Knowing the risk she was taking, why didn't she foresee the dangers ahead of time?   I suppose the obvious answer was that my mother wasn't very smart.  That would be the realistic answer.  But what about the mystic answer??  What if my mother was deceived into becoming over-confident?  And if so, who would deceive her? 

We are taught to take responsibility for our decisions, but what if there are times when we are just reading lines from a script?  It seems like we all make at least a couple terrible decisions in our lives.  Then we look back and say, "What on earth was I thinking?  Why did I marry that man (or woman)??  I should have known better!!" 

There is a part of me that wonders if we make bad decisions because we have no choice... it is part of our Fate.  Is it possible that the Universe deceives us into making bad decisions so we can learn something?  I have no way of proving such a thing, but it certainly is an interesting possibility. 

Let me explore this question another way.  Where do 'ideas' come from?  Divine Inspiration is the concept of a supernatural force, typically a deity, who sends a creative thought to a person.  Divine inspiration has been a commonly reported aspect of religions for thousands of years.  In its simplest form, a human prays and God delivers a revelation. 

So, if we can accept the possibility of divine inspiration, can we also accept the possibility that misleading ideas can also be sent to us?  That is exactly my point.  Is there such a thing as Divine Deception??  

Is it possible that our Karma dictates we will be tricked into making terrible decisions so we can learn something or experience something that will balance the scales from a previous lifetime? 

There are people who say that certain accidents are God's Will... the Titanic sinking for example.  Legend has it that several people avoided going on that fateful trip because they had a premonition.  Yet others had no qualms and went to their doom.  Perhaps that was their Fate.  For the others, we might conclude it wasn't their time yet.

Following this line of thought, perhaps it is our Fate to make certain really bad decisions because we are clueless as to the truth.  If Oedipus can be deliberately deceived, maybe the rest of us can be deceived as well.  Let me explain why I wonder if this is possible.  I spent my entire Senior year of high school completely deceived as to what was really going on.  In retrospect, I have to wonder if I was kept in the dark for a reason. 

As we recall, I had one single goal in life... go to college.  That was all that mattered to me. 

Following the acne ordeal, as early as my Sophomore year I gave up all thought of dating.  I also sacrificed my all-important dream of basketball glory.  I did this in order to concentrate on my pursuit of college.  Studying endlessly, I became perhaps the most over-achieving student in the school.  I didn't stop there. Worried about my parents' inability or unwillingness to finance my college education, I took the dramatic step of getting a job after school to begin saving money on my own.  In other words, I did everything in my power to assure my college education... and what good did it do me?  I went through agony as all my plans went up in smoke during my Senior year.

As one thing after another went wrong, the final blow was seeing Katina Ballantyne handed the Jones Scholarship instead of me.  Now barring a miracle, I believed I would have to wait another year before starting my college career.   The thought of staying another year in Little Mexico was more than I could bear.  My disappointment and bitterness was so pronounced that I was on the verge of collapse. 

Fortunately my miserable story had a happy ending.  First the charismatic Maria Ballantyne walked into my life and removed my pain with her magic wand.  Then two weeks later the enigmatic E.K. Salls solved my problems by sending me to Ralph O'Connor to receive a college scholarship he had arranged for me before the school year ever started.  

Only a miracle could have saved me... and that is exactly what happened.

Except there was one problem with this picture... the image of Mr. Salls coming to my rescue had never once crossed my mind. 

This was my blind spot.  I had no idea that Mr. Salls was responsible for my scholarship.  Furthermore, I thought Mr. Salls hated my guts.

Mr. Salls, the man I had admired throughout high school, was trying to help me throughout my entire year and yet I thought he hated me.  I thought the man had turned his back on me!

As hard as it is to imagine, I spent my entire my Senior year in high school completely blind to the truth where Mr. Salls was concerned.  Operating under a blind spot, or 'misconception' if you prefer, of the highest magnitude, I spent my entire Senior year desperate to solve a problem that had been solved long ago without my knowledge.  Unaware of the gift awaiting me, I stumbled badly at every turn.

Starting with the absurdity of my mother's decision to buy that house, I experienced the distraction of the Holy Roller music, the torment of the forbidden sexual availability of Janie and Linda, and the bizarre transformation of my home into a Third World country.  Then there was my father's broken promise of college tuition as well as the strange issue of his salary preventing me from getting a scholarship.  As the pressure mounted, I did the stupidest thing of all... I cheated on a test... and I got caught against all odds! 

I still remember the incredulity that crossed my mind when that boy stared at me with suspicion.  I wasn't a cheater by nature.  Where on earth had this stupid idea come from in the first place?  I wrote it off as temporary insanity. 

Do you see where I am going with this?  Maybe our lives really are manipulated.

With each plot twist, I sank lower and lower.  The final blow came when Katina Ballantyne was awarded the Jones Scholarship. 

When rescue did appear weeks later, I made another mistake.  I completely overlooked Mr. Salls' hand in the matter and gave all credit for my college scholarship to Ralph O'Connor.  How did I jump so easily to the wrong conclusion?   When my full-tuition college scholarship simply showed up in my mailbox, my immediate conclusion was that Ralph O'Connor, a man I had met a week earlier, was responsible.  He had promised he would be in touch... and this letter was proof that he had come through.  So Mr. O'Connor became my hero.  In the process, I completely missed Mr. Salls' involvement behind the scenes. 

In other words, I got one hero right, but missed the other.  I have to be honest... I think Mr. Salls wanted it that way.  I think it was his nature to do good deeds on the sly and never take credit.  Well, he sure fooled me. 

It took the events of my daughter's Duchesne tuition issue in 2008 to realize I had completely misunderstood the role of my Headmaster.  I was incredulous to realize this fairly obvious conclusion had completely escaped my naive teenage brain. 

The first thing that crossed my mind when I uncovered the truth in 2008 was "How could I have been so blind?"  No doubt Oedipus said the same thing.

In fact, I was so completely deluded by the events of my Senior year that my superstitious side wondered if the Universe had played some sort of Cosmic Joke on me.  I recall being flabbergasted at my realization.  Where Mr. Salls was concerned, how could I have possibly missed something so obvious?

Well, I could only come up with two explanations.  The first explanation was that I was an ignorant teenager who kept jumping to the wrong conclusions.  Okay, to a certain extent, I'll buy that.  That would be the realistic explanation.

However, that explanation did not satisfy my 2008 adult mind.  Yes, I was young, but I also spent countless hours trying to understand why Mr. Salls would give that scholarship to Katina Ballantyne and not me.  NOT ONCE did it ever cross my mind that Mr. Salls had given Katina that award because he might have a bigger surprise for me.

Considering how superstitious I am, I had to ask the question.... Did the Universe deliberately keep me in the dark so I would learn a lesson?  Given my tendency towards a fatalistic point of view, I certainly had my suspicions.  Perhaps it was my Fate to be kept in the dark that year. 

Now as my 2008 adult brain retraced the events of 1968, I reached the new and quite obvious conclusion that Mr. Salls and Mr. O'Connor had a pre-existing arrangement to send one quality St. John's student each year to Hopkins.  If the boy needed financial assistance, Mr. O'Connor would use his influence to make it happen. 

No doubt I was Mr. Salls' hand-picked candidate for the 1968 Hopkins slot.  That explains why Mr. Salls practically ordered me to apply to Johns Hopkins in September 1967... without telling me, of course, that he had already penciled me in for a scholarship care of Ralph O'Connor. 

I should have caught Mr. Salls right from the start.  I had always sensed there was something odd about my Headmaster's insistence.  So why didn't I catch on when I had the chance?   The weak link in Mr. Salls' scholarship plan was figuring out how to get me to apply to Hopkins, a school I had never heard of.

When I visited his office at the start of the school year, his hands were tied.  How was he supposed to sell me on a college that had virtually no obvious attractions for me?   Mr. Salls was not a born salesman, trust me.  Embellishment was hardly his forte.  Mr. Salls was forced to persuade me to consider a school that had zero name recognition for me, an unattractive location and no women. 

Trust me, Mr. Salls wasn't terribly persuasive during our interview.  When he first brought up the school, he failed to instill even the slightest flicker of interest.  I think Mr. Salls realized this, so at the end of the interview he more or less ordered me to apply to Hopkins.  His exact words were, "I highly recommend you also apply to Johns Hopkins."

The implication was "Young man, I can see you are not remotely interested, but do it anyway because I am asking you to." 

Fortunately, his word carried a lot of weight with me.  It was due to my immense respect for Mr. Salls that I went ahead and applied to Hopkins anyway.  At the time I had no idea there was a potential scholarship involved.  I was simply doing what he told me to do.

How on earth did I miss what Mr. Salls was up to that day?  I should have caught on right there, but it went right over my head at the time thanks to my Oedipal Blind Spot.

There was another curious feature to that interview.  Mr. Salls never once suggested an in-state college.  Considering what Mr. Salls knew about my financial situation and the fact that Johns Hopkins cost four times more than St. John's, one would think he would also recommend applying to a school I could afford like Texas A&M or the University of Texas.  Not a word.  The only subject he brought up was Johns Hopkins.  In other words, he already knew I wouldn't be needing to apply to any in-state schools. 

Too bad I completely missed that clue as well.

Eight months later when I received my scholarship in the mail, there was a two month gap till graduation.  Not once during this time did Mr. Salls give any indication he had arranged my scholarship behind my back.  Mr. Salls remained so secretive that his involvement went right over my head.  If I had not hit that speed bump concerning my daughter's 2008 Duchesne tuition, I would never have discovered the truth, but when I did, I was incredulous to realize I had spent 40 years completely blind to what had taken place.

Now that I gave it some serious "adult" thought, Mr. Salls' decision to help me made perfect sense. I realized Mr. Salls was smart enough to know I was in big trouble.  His years of experience dealing with colleges allowed him to realize what a headache my father's salary would pose long before it ever hit me.  Without his help, I would be lost.  Therefore, based on his understanding of my situation, Mr. Salls made a quiet decision to personally solve my financial crisis.  

Thank goodness Mr. Salls believed in me.  Without Mr. Salls, I cannot imagine how I would have solved the issue of my father's salary.  However, I wish Mr. Salls had let me in on his good deed.  My ignorance of his secret moves not only caused me untold panic and heartache, it had a direct effect on causing my defiant behavior.  If I could have eliminated all that fear, no doubt I would have behaved much better during my Senior year.  Instead, due to my continued ignorance of the good fortune awaiting me, I was bouncing off the walls with anxiety. 

That said, my adult mind decided I would have handled things the same way that Mr. Salls did.   It would be suicide to go around making financial promises to students out in the open.  What if I wasn't accepted at the school?  Or what if other students learned of my generous gift and now their parents wanted a similar deal?  I was forced to agree that discretion and secrecy were definitely called for.

When it came to secrecy, Mr. Salls was the right guy.  Mr. Salls certainly knew how to be secretive, that much I could say about him.  No doubt his World War II training in military intelligence had rubbed off on him. 

A very private man, not once did Mr. Salls drop the slightest hint to me about what he was doing.  This was typical behavior for my inscrutable Headmaster. 

Unfortunately, his taciturn nature set me up to be the victim of this nasty Cosmic Joke.

I think I was kept in the dark for a reason.  I have a hunch the Universe had a lesson for me to learn the hard way.  I was to be the unexpected beneficiary of a magnificent gift.  However, before I received my gift, the Universe demanded that I suffer no end. 

Just like Oedipus.

SUBCHAPTER 128 - CHEATING RE-EXAMINED

If Mrs. Ballantyne had not shown up when she did, I cannot imagine where my guilt over cheating on that test and my anguish over losing that scholarship would have taken me. 

Kind of a lucky break for me that she showed up, yes?  

Given the significance and perfect timing of her unexpected appearance, one can certainly see why I have concluded Mrs. Ballantyne's surprise visit was nothing short of a miracle.  If not for her timely intervention, my teenage ignorance was taking me in a very dangerous direction.

After graduating thinking Mr. Salls either hated me or disliked me, I kept that thought throughout adulthood.  It wasn't much fun to think I had disappointed a man I had admired so much.  Were it not for the 2008 Duchesne tuition incident, I would have never known the truth.  In fact, I have to wonder if my 2008 revelations were meant to be as well.  Divine inspiration??

I cannot even begin to describe how silly I felt in 2008 to realize Mr. Salls wasn't punishing me after all.  Good grief.  I could not believe I had spent 40 years thinking Mr. Salls was mad at me when in fact he was looking out for me the entire time.   All that guilt and anguish for nothing. 

Oh well, the truth is I deserved all the suffering I went through, so I don't feel sorry for myself.  Besides, there was some good that came out of this.  At the time I was caught, the odds were so remote that I assumed I was caught "for a reason".  I concluded the Universe was sending me a very blunt message.   Based on that incident, I developed a sense of integrity that I have cherished ever since.  Considering I never cheated at anything again in my life, I have the right to say I learned my lesson.

The Universe certainly has an interesting way of teaching its lessons, doesn't it?

As I taught, every now and then I would glance over at my important guest.  Mrs. Ballantyne never took her eye off of us.  She watched our dance lesson intently with that constant bemused smile of hers.  No doubt the lesson brought back memories from her days of Swing dancing with her husband Jay during World War II.

Towards the end of the lesson, I was dying to talk with Mrs. Ballantyne.  So I decided to cut the lesson a little short.  I put on some Swing dance music and told Christie and Yasmine to practice on their own while I went to greet my guest.  Christie nodded; he understood. 

Now I made a beeline over to Mrs. Ballantyne.  She quickly took my hand in hers and told me how happy she was to see me.  The feeling was definitely mutual.   I really cared about this lady. 

As usual, Mrs. Ballantyne had a surprise for me.  She always had a surprise for me.  I swear the woman had special powers.  We got to talking and Mrs. Ballantyne said she still remembered the day when she asked her friend Charlie what he knew about me. 

My ears perked up.  "Her friend Charlie...??" 

Did I really hear what I thought I had heard?  "Charlie" was the name Mr. Salls went by with his friends.  

A tingling sensation came over me.  Where was she going with this?

Mrs. Ballantyne told me she recalled the day that she and Mr. Salls were sitting in her living room. 

Now my eyes grew even wider.  Mr. Salls was in her living room?  

I had long suspected that Mrs. Ballantyne and Mr. Salls knew each other pretty well, but I assumed it was limited to casual conversations at St. John's.  I had no idea they were this close. 

Mrs. Ballantyne and her husband Jay met during the World War II Big Band Swing Era
 

SUBCHAPTER 132 - FAREWELL, MY FRIEND

Maria Mitchell Ballantyne passed away on Memorial Day, May 25th, 2015. 

Some fools might have the nerve to dismiss Mrs. Ballantyne as little more than a good housewife.  These people have no idea how much talent it takes to raise a good child. 

Mrs. Ballantyne didn't raise just one good child, she raised seven good children.  That is quite an accomplishment.  However, since her talent went pretty much unseen, I doubt Mrs. Ballantyne would have ever gotten the credit she deserved without my story.  Therefore I appreciate that I was given this chance to tell the world just how special she was. 

In a letter to me from Marina, her fourth child...

The warm, inviting, beautiful home my mother created was constantly filled with her children's friends, grandchildren, great grandchildren, as well as the 26 people from all over the world who came to live with Mom at various times.

For over 45 years, Mom hosted her famous Christmas parties.  Then there were the swimming pool parties she hosted for Dad's residents at the hospital.  Our home was filled with music, joy, and laughter.

Our home was also a haven for those in need – from the poorest hospital patients to royalty.

Mom treated princes and paupers precisely the same – with respect and a strong dose of her unique brand of truth serum sprinkled with a sailor's vernacular.

Parking attendants, waiters, bus boys, and shop owners would run to kiss her because she saw them – really saw them – and made them feel special.

Mom's civic activities included The Park People, Blue Bird Circle, and the Annunciation Orthodox School Board.

She could beat all seven of her children at tennis, and, as legend has it, even beat her brother, George Mitchell, when he was captain of A&M's tennis team.

My mother was a fixture at St. John's School where she and my father cheered zealously at her children's sporting and music events.

Throughout her life, my mother's focus was always her children and their families. 

We love her very much. 

Dana and Michael are standing.  At the table are George, Christie, Marina, and Lisa. 
Katina is standing at Mrs. Ballantyne's side

  A family gathering in Aspen, Colorado.  
 

SUBCHAPTER 132 - THE INSPIRATION FOR MY BOOK

I know more about the childhood of Maria Mitchell Ballantyne.  She came from a very humble beginning uncannily similar to mine.  Like Mr. Salls, she and I make a curious pair of twins. 

To me, it does not matter that Maria Ballantyne was given "the great miracle of her life" by a mobster. 

Is there some law that says "generosity" is limited to wealthy philanthropists like George Mitchell and Ralph O'Connor?  Of course not.  We can all be generous.

Indeed, thanks to the generosity of Mafioso Sam Maceo, his gift was exactly the break Maria Ballantyne needed.  Her education took her from a lonely existence where no one other than her brother cared about her to an amazing life wrapped around her brilliant husband and the joy of raising 7 remarkable children.

If there can be any remaining doubt as to the greatness of Maria Mitchell Ballantyne, a glance at this family photo reveals the life accomplishment of this remarkable matriarch.

The extended Ballantyne family is indeed a sight to behold.