It is the summer of 1994 and my Father and I are having a phone conversation and I am living in one of the units of the 4-plex I had purchased.

My Father is once again asking me how many rentals I own and what my cash flow was per year from the rentals. I refused to answer him – telling him I thought it was inappropriate to brag about ones finances.

      Some how we got on the discussion to my Grandfather; my Father told me that my Grandfather also believed in investing in real estate. He mentioned that my Grandfather was very smart and hardworking and also very generous of heart.

      Then he said that I took after my Grandfather and than both he and my Grandfather had discussions on my character more than once and that they both agreed that I was also very generous of heart and finances and that I was the type of man that was ultimately forgiving in nature. He told me that my Grandfather had told him that I was so generous that I would give the shirt off my back to help friends and relatives and their was nothing I would not do for them.

      I recognize a squeeze when one is being applied. He thought he was being smooth and subtle but he was failing miserably. I knew my Dad was trying to work me the way a cheap carnie works a mark.

      I cut him off telling him that I was no longer generous or forgiving and even if I still possessed those qualities – my financial situation was limited in that I was asset rich and cash poor since I had been buying real estate at a clip faster than I could keep capital reserves. Also, the $5,000.00 dollars I had lent my Brother James months before to help him purchase the necessary licensing and bonding for his business put me in an uncomfortable position.

      I had not shared that last bit of information with my Father, but I strongly emphasized that I was not in the position to help anyone financially.

      Suddenly, my Father got to the point and told me he wished that he had truly caring friends and relatives that had the means to loan him money. As it turned out, my Father had run afoul of the I.R.S. or at least that’s what he told me. (To this day I believe that my Dad had squandered his money elsewhere and wanted his sons to bail him out), or perhaps he needed more money to impress his new wife with the life style he was trying hard to show her he could provide for her.

      Then my Dad hit me with a bombshell!

      “Well at least James loves me enough to help me!”

      “What do you mean, I asked?”

      “James is really doing well. When I casually mentioned to him my problems, he sent me $10,000.00 dollars and told me to keep it and also told me that I did not have to pay him back.”

      I was stunned, because the month prior I had talked to James’ wife and she was concerned that James was suffering from major depression and she worried for him.

      Evidently, James quit drinking and was struggling hard to get his business afloat. She also mentioned that had been despondent over his less then satisfactory relationship with our Father. He lamented over the fact that our Father would not help him to get ahead in life and that our Father seemed purposely oblivious to my Brother’s needs.

      She told me that she asked him why he could not simply write our father off the way my Sister had or learned to acknowledge like I had that our Father was simply unable or unwilling to be a proper parent.

      Quite frankly, our Dad was not James’ only source of stress; his wife was now adding stress to an already intolerable situation. Before she got pregnant, James use to wine and dine her regularly. Now that they had gotten married and they shared a child, my Brother wanted to redouble his efforts to become successful and to provide for his son. In his words, he wanted to become the type of Father that he wished our Dad had been to us.

      For this to happen, James knew that he had to cut back on his expenses by cutting back on unnecessary activities such as wining and dining his new wife. He knew he had to work longer and harder hours and that he needed to invest as much of his disposable income into his business if he hoped to succeed. 

      Money to be reinvested into tools, materials and let us not forget… he needed to come up with enough money for his license and bond.

      His new wife was not happy about their new standard of living and she nagged my poor Brother mercilessly.

      This was my Brothers lot before I lent him $5,000.00 and this was lot after I lent him the money and sadly, this was certainly his lot after he gave my Father money.

      I did not know this until much later.

      I just assumed that my Brother had come up with all the needed funds to pay for his license and bond and therefore he was able to increase his income to a level to be able to afford to just give my Father $10,000.00. Although I could not but wonder why I had not heard of my Brother’s good fortune or to wonder when he would be able to pay me back… I did after all have my eye on a few choice properties and the $5,000.00 I had lent him would come in handy.

      I also was pondering on the fact that my Father had not hesitated to slyly hit me or my Brother up for money, after all, he had spent all of my life emphasizing that all men needed to pull their own weight. He had always done everything in his power to nip in the bud any thought from us that we should ever ask him for money.

      Now he had shamelessly hit us up and accepted money that my Brother needed desperately and worked hard to raise.

      My Father interrupted my thoughts and made noises as to how great my Brother was, and of course it seemed as if he was trying to intimate that my Brother was a worthier son.

      A few months later, I found out that my Brother was still depressed and that he was still working hard to put money back into his business. His wife mentioned again that James was depressed that he still did not have the relationship with my Father that he had always longed for.

      I had always meant to check up on my Brother, but unfortunately, many events in my life conspired to work against me and I scrambled just to survive. One of the major obstacles was my failing health due to many negative variables.