A Fractued Fairy Tale I Thought I'd Never Tell--- about romeyesque 'business...

Once upon a time, there was a child born, not the eldest, but the first girl.  It was a time when the world was at war, and they were fairly safe in a place called Boheme for most of it.  But her father was a very clever lawyer, and before he had left their real home, well, let's just say he was an opportunist of the worst sort.  Bought up goods of people who had been driven away over third parties and gotten quite wealthy doing it.

After the whole thing was over, she and her family were driven out, and her first memories were of being on the run, and her world falling down.  Chaos, in other words.

Her father got to do time in a prison camp run by anglo saxons.  Where he learned to love Wodehouse., which became her personal favorite.  Daughters love their dads, no matter what.

Her younger sister was taken by a crippling disease, and she was the one to carry her to classes, before wheelchairs became available after the Great Conflict.  In other words, she became 'the caretaker' in the family, the 'dependable' one, the one who made the sacrifices. 

So, time passed, and so forth and so on, and both the daughters became lawyers, but with the eldest girl, nah, that wasn't what she wanted to do....  her world was music, it was her escape.  And her mother encouraged her, and hired the last student of a very famous composer to teach her to make a violin sing.  And she learned to play tennis passably well, till she got tennis arm and had to give it up, because it interfered with her greatest passion...  music.

She married a guy who was of the same political stripe as her father, but...  her heart wasn't where his was, actually.

They lived in Germany for a while, and she had trouble bearing children, and after some medical help, had three.  A boy and two girls.  And then the inevitable happened.

She was called back to her home city to run a hotel that her father had 'inherited'...  or something.

And got right back into being 'the caretaker'.  The sister and brother had partial interest in it, and so, she did what she could to make it run.

It was a run-down, shabby affair when she took it over.  So she thought, 'investment'.  Make it better.

She was fairly scurrile by that time, because, even in the feminist age, she couldn't juggle home, the husband the kids, and a business that usually produces more divorces than any other branch I can think of.

Some people who worked for her thought she treated them like 'hers', serfs.  But they missed the point, she was actually generous, and sometimes was too inquisitive into their lives and well-being, but meant well.  Which didn't always go over well with those in her laser-like view of interest.  And she was so direct...  well there's a saying, 'falling into the house with the door in your hand'...  which means tactless.  and goes beyong putting your foot in your mouf.

If they did have some sort of trouble, she would do her best to help them out of it. 

Which could be trying some people found, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions....

And over thirty years, the children grew up, but hey, a lot of the edumacation was done over the phone, because she put in the time in order to get the money to fulfill their desires and give them a damned good life.

They rebelled of course, the eldest son especially.  And as they were sort of racist...   he went mountain climbing in Peru one season, and came back engaged...  to a very nice lady from there.  Whose compexion wasn't the brightest.  'Inca Princess'---   oh my, how they talked, and when the first children came....  well the husband of this lady had to resign from his fraternity, because of all the denigrating shit he got about it.

We're speaking about a far-off kingdom here, where races just did NOT mix.  Not in her cirles...

And time passed again, it goes by so quickly.  But for her, music was still the center of hre life, her true passion.  Eveinings playing with like-minded passionate people.  There may even have been a romance there, but even the story-teller can't be certain.

But it was time for her to retire, her father had died 'way too early', as we always think, and her mother went a bit ga-ga, but that's the way of the world, she thought, and she took very good care of her. 

So she decided to lease the hotel to a group of four businessmen from Vienna, who tuned out to be sharks.

They set goals to be achieved....  how much MONEY had to be taken in each month, and went after their newly acquired serfs if the goal wasn't achieved.    They had bought into the US mode of business, and they were hell-bent on getting them achieved.... without their doing one single thing to help.

Sound familiar? 

Well, it turned out the real goal was to acquire a first rate place, but for that, they had to show they were successful, and that was why the pressure was on.  And in the end, they did, a 'noble' resort, and they were in.

And their modest no-name place, well they tied it to a franchise, and re-branded it, and it was the step-child.  

But their plans were much bigger, turned out.  Being good business sharks who smelled blood in the water, and having a very savvy lawyer among them...  they bided their time, till our heroine was getting ON in years.  And the contract was:  they kept up mainenance, but big investmenst were hers to make.

Now she and the family got a monthly stipend as part of whatever profits it was 'they wanted to devulge'. Which weren't always above-board.

So it came to the point where there were some very heavy investments to be made, and she had to decide...  put herself in hock till she's 86 or sell out, and the price being offered wasn't all too extroadinary, because, hey, so many investments to be made... 

This is called being between a rock and a hard place.

In the end, she caved and sold.

On the one hand it was a relief.  On the other, she felt a bit taken to the laundry.  But she'd already had a stroke, there was no way to keep up with it.  And she lost the use of her arm and shoulder, and couldn't play violin anymore, which was like breathing air for her.  So she just let it go, paid off her debts and gave the rest in equal parts to her children.

But there is a half-way happy ending to this fairy tale:  she still had a voice, so she joined a choir, and sang and sang, because god or whoever didn't take that away from her.

Some of you may know what this fairy tale is about.  Some of you have even met the lady.  She is actually a kind person.  She called me and rattled on for an hour the other day.  Mainly concerned whether I'm ok.  I spent thirty years five feet away from the woman, and one thing I learned was listen...  out of the seemingly disconnected verbal flooding river, you find the stream and what really is going on.  But we do have a mutual respect for one another, and I never held my tongue when something was awry.  Nor did she, and she never said a word about Peter, not one mean thing evah.  For the mistress of tactlessness, that's saying something.

She did take me aback asking 'when did your father die?'  There ARE subtler ways of asking...   'and ummmm...  your father?'   for instance. 

And I said, 'wellll  ....   not yet....'

She was ecstatic, 'how WONDERFUL...  oh, Herr B.  be happy, you got great genes!'

Listen, no one could ever follow her line of thinking, I broke up laughing.

But the actual PÒINT of this ist how the 'gang of four' got their hands on a property, gutted it to get what they REALLY wanted, and sheesh...  ended up buying it  for a pittance in their range of what anything is worth, and will treat it like the step-child and gut it till it doesn't bring any more revenue, and declare it dead. 

And THAT is what Mitt Romney does.  You think jobs were created?  Of COURSE they weren't.  They pared a crew of 13 to 7.  It's how it works for them. 

Anyone buying that line of thinking is a fool.