Anarchist to Abolitionist: A Bad Quaker's Journey
Dad's Itch Sends Us Back To California
At the end of our last job in Kentucky, Dad sold pretty much everything and bought a brand new class A motorhome. He kept the big trencher and one big flatbed truck to haul it. Almost everything else that we owned, other than our clothing, we sold or gave away. Roy and Judy had already moved their families to California City by 1974, and by summer the rest of us were on the road to California.
My uncle Arnold, the one that gave me the pocket knife earlier in the story, had been a full time employee of my dad by that time, so he stuck with us and drove the flatbed. For a good portion of the trip, I rode with Arnold, and we talked about everything imaginable.
Arnold had made a living doing a variety of things, including being an expert in bar bets and sleight of hand tricks. He taught me the basics of how confidence scams work and how to spot an easy mark, e.g. the victim. I say “victim” here so everyone will know what a mark is, but a mark is rarely an actual victim. A mark is a person who is susceptible to a con scam because of some character flaw, usually greed. The con artist exploits the mark's greed and turns it against them. It's almost always that simple. There are a wide variety of time tested con jobs that a true con artist can rely upon, and Arnold explained some of the most effective to me while we traveled across the country. Some would condemn Arnold for teaching me about con artists and their games. But I never once used that information to con a mark. I used it to prevent myself from being conned, and I believe that was Arnold's intention.
In the evenings, once we were off the road for the day, he and I would play card games and he would teach me skills like dealing from the bottom of the deck and stacking the deck while shuffling. It was at this time that he also explained to me how the game of pool works, and how to see the angles that make the balls go where you want them to go.
Wikipedia
If you wish to condemn my uncle Arnold, then leave him alone for his educating me about con artists. Put on your Baptist high hat and condemn him for teaching me card play, and how to gamble and win at both cards and pool.
Once I understood the mathematics and geometry of pool, playing the game came natural to me. In my youth, I had exceptional eye sight and I had spent many hours playing with my dad's tape measures and folding rulers. I liked them better than most toys. That came in very handy in construction, in carpentry, and in auto mechanics. With a glance, I could tell a 5/16 bolt from a 9/32 bolt. I could free hand draw an angle on a board within 5 degrees, and I could draw the common angles like 35, 45, 90 and 135 with dead accuracy. I could set studs down an entire wall at 16" centers without measuring one of them, and still, they would all be accurately placed. I could do the same with 24" centered studs. I could install drywall all day and never miss a stud with a nail, while never once measuring. That means I could look at a pool table scattered with pool balls and see the angles I needed to put the balls where I wanted them to be. The only skill I needed to develop was how hard to shoot and the science of striking the cue ball in different spots to make it spin in different ways, so that it would land where I wanted it for the next shot. That would take practice and it would be a few more years before the opportunity would arise.
In California
We first landed in California City, where Roy and Judy lived with their families. We didn't stay long, just long enough for my love of the Mojave to begin to develop. We rode dirt bikes a bit and we attended a couple desert races, but after only a few weeks, we left the flat bed and the trencher there with Arnold and hit the road north to explore California. We made it as far as Clam Beach, just north of Eureka, California, before we headed back south.
Clam Beach was the first time I had been to the ocean since we left San Jose. Things were so different for me. When we left California for Kentucky, I was a little kid who wasn't allowed to play in the surf. I could only go in as far as my feet and ankles. Now, even though only a few years had passed, I had changed. I didn't ask permission, and I didn't wait to be told no. I ran into the surf and swam out to catch a wave. I body surfed until I was exhausted. Then, I rested only long enough to have the energy to run back into the ocean.
We spent two days and one night at Clam Beach before heading south to Coalinga, where my Dad wanted to visit old friends. We parked the motorhome at the Coalinga airport, where my dad was good friends with the manager, and where my dad had taught himself how to fly an airplane back in 1966, when we lived in Coalinga before. As Dad visited his old friends in the area, it wasn't long before he figured out that there was a business opportunity waiting for him there in the San Joaquin Valley.
First post & table of contents
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