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Vignettes
[for when i write my memoirs]

”Impeccably Atrocious”
One night, when Mom and Dad were out, I got into quite an argument
and a fight with my little sister Joy. We were about 10
and 7 years old at the time. Joy kept saying she was gonna
“tell” on me.
So I used a little reverse-psychology on her: I looked in the thesaurus, and found 2 big words that
were synonyms for good and bad. Impeccable
and atrocious.
Then I told Joy that I was gonna tell on her, ‘cuz she started it…
I said to her: “I’m telling Mom
on you… Your behavior tonight is
just impeccable, but I’ve been atrocious!!!”
So an hour later, mom and dad arrive home, and I don’t say a word.
Joy greets them at the door and states:
“While you were away, Robert behaved impeccably! ... but I was
atrocious.” I couldn’t stop laughing…
she swallowed the bait, and trapped herself…
Other memories? The time my
mom wouldn’t let me join boy scouts, because I was “bad” in cub scouts.
Another time, when I was 14, I was talking thru the open bedroom window to my
14-yr-old hearth throb (Stephanie Laddis) who lived down the street.
I was in my bedroom, and Stephanie was on the sidewalk down below.
My mom came into the bedroom, and objected, and told little Stephanie to
leave her son alone, and then she closed my window.
About 6 years later, I met another 14 yr old girl, but this time I was nearly
20. It was summertime.
I was home from college for the summer.
The girl was hanging out at the intersection of Moss Hill and Moss Dale
roads, with some other kids her age.
I went out to talk to her, and then as it got dark, she had to go, so I
decided to walk her home. I went
inside to get something. My mom
asked me: “Where are you going?”
I told her, to walk the girl home. When
I said this, my mother replied: “I
smell sex.”
Other memories? Driving to high
school many days, with a load of other kids from the neighborhood…
Summer camp at Camp Ousamequin…
Time I broke my nose. Late
summer, I think. Sunday
afternoon behind Peter Voisin’s house.
I’m playing catcher. Brother
Stevie rides up on bike about 2 pm says I gotta go home for Sunday dinner.
I say “Just about five more minutes…”
The biggest kid in the neighborhood is at bat. He swings, and then throws the bat right into my face,
breaking my nose.
I’ve never seen so much bleeding in my life!
Millie and Hy got me to a good doctor, who put me under and fixed my
nose. Still a little bump, but it could have been worse…
I should have listened to Stevie and left when he called.
One time, I came home from college for the summer. My friend from college mailed me about 10 doses
of LSD (in pill form, barrels of Orange Sunshine?), which were in paper inside a
book, in which a cube from the center of the book had been carved out…
The package was addressed to me, and I was surprised that Millie opened
it, and that she even opened the book. So
what did she do with it? Flushed
it down the toilet.
I’ll always remember the time I smoked a joint with my mom and dad, one summer,
in the back yard of our suburban home… They
didn’t feel a thing…
One
time, I was back from college, and David M and I decided to check out the
marijuana market in California… So
we told everybody we were going down to NY for the weekend, to stay with
David’s relatives, but really we flew to California, spent about 3 days, and
then flew back…
Another time, Bobby Reimer and I flew to NYC for the night.
My mom thought we were working at the hamburger joint.
New York City at night! Now
those were some bright lights!!!… It
almost seemed like an acid trip.
I
remember a hurricane… In
the 1950’s… Hurricane Carol?
We had a summer vacation home, with wooden shutters.
Was it in Gloucester, Mass? A
nice place…
Vignettes #2
So I see Stevie has a vignette about stealing cigarettes. That reminded me of the time i first smoked cigarettes. I was about 10 or 11 perhaps, and I just wanted to try them, so I took a pack of Pall Malls (my mom’s brand) from the kitchen drawer… and (with a friend I can’t remember whom), I headed down the “footpath” a little ways, where we lit up… All I remember was I nearly fainted after the first deep drag. It was horrible…
I remember when I was in high school,
about 16 yrs old, and sometimes on Friday nights I would go out to the high
school dances at Catholic Memorial high school (C.M.)…
I used to go with my friend “Tucky DeSimone,” who was Catholic. Of course, the Catholics didn’t eat meat on friday
nights, but we Jews always had roast beef for Shabbas dinner… Almost every time we went out to the dance on Friday
nights, Tucky used to tell me that he could smell the roast beef on me.
I also remember, I used to like to drink a
lot of wine on Friday nights… I
liked that sweet wine… Mogen Dovid and Manischewitz…
I couldn’t imagine drinking any other kind of wine, especially the sour
kind… I would enjoy the
feeling of getting light-headed.
My mom used to tell me to control myself…
I tell my friends, I started drinking wine as a child…
When I was in high-school, my friends used to go out on Friday nights and
drink beer in the freezing-cold outdoors in winter, at night, without their
parents knowledge or consent… Meanwhile,
I was inside my warm house drinking sweet wine with my mom and dad, and enjoying
every minute and every sip… I was
very comfortable… I never
liked the bitter taste of beer either, and couldn’t understand how or why my
friends drank that lousy-tasting beer, in the cold …
I was never thirsty enough to drink a whole bottle of beer…
At least with wine, you could get high on a few sips… I consider myself
fortunate to have experienced and enjoyed drinking the alcoholic beverage (sweet
delectable wine) with my parents, indoors, in a warm home, without having to
force my body to swallow the more-foul-tasting beer…
I never liked the taste of sour wine or bitter beer, and from the time I left
home at age 18, until I was about 44 years old, a period of 26 years, I don’t
think I drank ANY alcoholic beverages, except there must have been an
occasional sip of wine or beer, although I can’t remember any!!!!
But in 1995, I started drinking again…
This time, it was ORGANIC wine (Frey brothers vineyard), which made
about3 or 4 varieties… I guess I had plenty of money at the time, because I
think I was drinking about a bottle a night, before dinner [about $10/night just
for wine]… I personally
would drink at least half, while Jackie, Seraphina, Cherub, and Rosey would each
have a little bit. I remember
one night, I drank a WHOLE bottle (light red, rosey colored) ALL BY MYSELF, on
an EMPTY STOMACHE… Before
long, I was experiencing hysterical laughter, total silly drunkenness -- to the
point where I was rolling in tears, on the floor of my 1,000 sq ft living room,
laughing hysterically, uncontrollably, unstoppable, where everything was so
silly, I couldn’t stop laughing…
My kids found this curious…
… That night, I must have
been so drunk, I eventually passed out, and went to sleep on an empty stomach…
The next morning, I had a big bowel movement, and felt as if I were 30
years younger! In my book
“Stop Eating” I recall this incident, claiming it proves the power of fruit
juice (wine) for elimination, and the power of elimination for rejuvenation…
I’ll never forget the time my friend from California (Conrad Hoxworth) came to visit me in Boston in the summer… He is quite a conversationalist, and also a historian, as well as a drinker… One night, my mom and Conrad stayed up to 3 am, drinking and talking on the back porch. My mom later said she couldn’t believe how much alcohol he consumed…
My mother told me she started offering me coffee
to drink at age 5… Of
course, coffee is not considered a health drink, and especially NOT for young
children!!!! One day, in
retrospect, I asked her why she started me drinking coffee at such a young
age (5 yrs old). She told me
that she “thought it would help (me) in kindergarden.”
I got my drivers’ license in September
1966 when I turned 16… In
late September or early October, within a month after I got my license, I drove
our Chevy station wagon down to Center Street JP one Sunday afternoon. Parking was tight, but I found a spot to squeeze into.
Getting out of the tight fit was harder.
As I tried to squeeze my way out, our car touched the other car, and the
chrome strip on our station wagon was ripped off the side of the car.
I drove the car home without noticing what had happened…
Dad asked me how it happened.
I explained. He asked me about the other car. I didn’t know anything.
One time, when I was about 8 or 9, Dad wad
driving home from Frannie’s late at night.
A slow moving car in front of us caused an accident.
We were all OK, but when we got home, I was afraid the house was gonna
catch on fire!!!
When I was about 10 yrs old, my grammar school classmate (Mary Ellen Callahan) brought a book to school, with paintings of many religious subjects. One painting was of Satan, the devil, with hairy animal-like legs, and with hoofs for feet, with a threatening menace, carrying a pitchfork, and with horns coming out of his skull, and with red eyes… This was the SCARIEST thing I’d ever seen!!! It filled me with such horror, that the memories still linger… There was nothing that could strike such terror in my soul, as the thought of that picture!!! I honestly wish(ed) I’d never seen it! My innocence was forever gone…
In 1975, my friend Alan Palder died after a
long bout with cancer. We
were both 24 at the time. It
was in the summer when he died, and I was in northern California at a spiritual
community called “Ananada.” One
night, I called Millie and she told me the news about Alan…
so I walked up to the top of the meadow, a huge meadow, as big as several
football fields, without a tree… and
with no moonlight in the sky, there were millions of stars in the clear
California sky, and I said a little prayer, praying to Alan:
“Alan, if there’s life after death, send me a sign.” …
… As soon as I said the word “sign,”
looking up about 10-degrees above the horizon, there in front of me came a
gigantic flaming red orb, as big as the sun, with a flaming trail, that flew
across the whole meadow, 180-degrees across the sky, directly over my head,
taking about 2-3 seconds to traverse the wide expanse of sky… I took it as a sign…
but I always think back, maybe it was just a “coincidental” meteor…
Yah, right!!
My mother used to tell me she didn’t believe in life after death… She didn’t even necessarily believe in God… but she liked going to the Jewish temple… I guess the organ music was somehow inspiring, and she could socialize with her Jewish friends… One time I asked her about this, and she answered in Yiddish… She said she believed that this belief in life after death was “just a bubby-meintzah.” (Translated: “…just an old-wive’s tale.”)
One other time, about 1975, I was in Hawaii, living at the Decagon, our 10-sided home with no walls, overlooking Kealakekua Bay. It was a dark night, no moon light,and we had no electricity or candles… Eight guys were there that night, and we decided to have fun, and play our own version of the TV show “To Tell the Truth.” Three of us claimed to be real Jesus Christ. (Number 1: “My name is Jesus Christ…. Number 2: “My name is Jesus Christ.” Number 3: “My name is Jesus Christ.”) After 45 minutes of continuous joking, laughter, and banter, I (as the MC--the Gary Moore guy), asked the “panelists” to “mark their ballots.” Was it Number 1, Number 2, or Number 3…??? Everyone marked their ballots, and I proceeded, saying: “And now, will the REAL Jesus Christ please stand up?” Immediately, as soon as I finished saying these words, the nearly pitch-black dark room was suddenly illuminated by a vibrating golden-yellow-white light, which filled the whole room for several seconds. (The golden-white light started from a point in the very center of the room, halfway from floor to ceiling, and expanded to fill the whole room, then shrunk back to where it came from… Everyone immediately stopped laughing. I nearly fell over… About 10 seconds later, we all then heard the longest and the loudest thunderclap I’d ever heard … It must have rumbled on for 30 seconds, and was ear-shattering… Again, no one said another word, and there was total silence until the next morning… About 25 years later (last year), an old friend from those days called me in Hawaii. I asked him if he was there that night, and if he remembered it all… He sure did… He said he never forgot it either… At least I wasn’t hallucinating…
I remember another time I was in a bad
thunder and lightning storm… It
was in Hawaii in March 1991. We
were all living and sleeping in a little make-shift shelter with a thin plastic
roof, while our home on the property (on Beach Road) was under construction… It was pouring torrential rain, and thunder and lightning
kept striking all around us, all night long, very frequently, about every 15
seconds!!! All night long,
there was only a moment or so between the lightning and the thunder, which means
that it was right there, as close to us as possible…
We could see the lightning bolts, 4 times a minute, all night long…
The super-loud thunderclaps sounded like gunshots being fired right next
to my ears… and the lightning was so bright, I thought it was going to blind
me… So after awhile, my only
defense was to hide my eyes in my pillow and hold my fingers in my ears…
The date: December 26th, 1980…. It was exactly a year and a day
after I met Jackie… She was
eight-and-a-half months pregnant, (with Seraphina)… We had been growing marijuana most of the year, since
early spring, and now we had harvested a huge crop, worth almost $2 million to
us, and we didn’t owe anybody anything…
At daybreak on that day, we were attacked by gunfire, by about a half
dozen teenage Hawaiian boys,
who lived nearby, and who had been watching
our operation for a long time… they
were firing at us, downhill, from about 20 or 30 feet away.
…. I almost got shot in
the head about 10 or 20 times, as I ducked behind some big rocks, every time I
tried to see over the rocks, bullets ricocheted off the rocks within inches of
my eyes!!!! At the time,
there was no panic, but later the nightmares were grave!!! Anyhow, we all got out of there unscathed .
Time I almost got run over by bulldozer…
See last 2 pages of “Stop Eating” book, a link to which may also be
found on www.Jesus-Diet.com.
Time at the beach when I almost got killed by 17 falling coconuts…
My 22 yr old friend Rachael had been murdered just a week before by her
step-father, and I had just finished telling the story to a friend, concluding:
“You never know when your time is up…”
Within a minute after I said those famous last words, I sat down
underneath a shady coconut palm, and within a few seconds after I sat down, I
heard and perceived what I imagined to be about 6 or 7 children jumping off a
rock onto the sand right behind my back…
I turned to the children, to see who they were, or what the prank was.
They weren’t children at all, but a bunch of hard and heavy coconuts,
all held together on the stem, a total of 17 coconuts, all full of water, that
fell from about 25 feet up above me!!!
This bunch of coconuts narrowly missed me, landing about 6 inches from my
back….
If I had lay down on the sand instead of sit, they would have probably killed
me, or smashed my skull to smithereens, or cracked every rib… I never sit
under coconut trees anymore… Usually,
coconuts won’t fall in a bunch, nor do they fall one at a time if they are
still young (like these were)… The
only time coconuts fall out of coconut trees (on their own) is when they are old
and dry (and then usually light weight), and then it also could take a forceful
windstorm… My friend who climbs
coconut trees at this same beach was as surprised as me. He looked at the fallen bunch, studied it carefully,
and concluded that someone else had recently climbed that particular coconut
tree, and had stepped on that bunch of coconuts, and broken the stem… I just
happened to be under it when the stem finally broke…
But what is amazing is that I had just finished telling my friend: “You
never know when you’re time is up…” and mine, too, was almost its end…
The date: December 26th, 1980…. It was exactly a year and a day after I met Jackie… She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, (with Seraphina)… We had been growing marijuana most of the year, since early spring, and now we had harvested a huge crop, worth almost $2 million to us, and we didn’t owe anybody anything… At daybreak on that day, we were attacked by gunfire, by about a half dozen teenage Hawaiian boys,
who lived nearby, and who had been watching
our operation for a long time… they
were firing at us, downhill, from about 20 or 30 feet away.
…. I almost got shot in
the head about 10 or 20 times, as I ducked behind some big rocks, every time I
tried to see over the rocks, bullets ricocheted off the rocks within inches of
my eyes!!!! At the time,
there was no panic, but later the nightmares were grave!!! Anyhow, by luck or good fortune, we all got out
of there unscathed. But out
of fear, we didn’t even go back to the site for about a week.
Finally, we went back, and among the rubble and ruins I found an unopened
letter from Millie, wishing me a happy new year…
I almost may have never seen it.
Now I open my mail when I get it. Tomorrow
may be too late.
Time I almost got run over by bulldozer…
This story is also on the last 2 pages of my book “Stop Eating” which
is also published elsewhere on this website.
In May 1997 I was almost crushed to death by a 30-ton bulldozer.
I was saved by inches, only because the bulldozer driver (a 300-lb
Hawaiian guy) said he “heard a little voice in (his) head, that told him to
stop and look for me," just before he was about to run me over.
This happened on May 3rd, 1997 (a Sabbath, I shouldn’t have
been working), on my own property, when I got stuck in a thicket of 15-foot-tall
grass and vines, and was pulled to the ground, and trapped, in the path of the
oncoming 30-ton bulldozer. There
wasn’t enough time to panic, so I just started shrieking for him to
“Stop!!" at the top of my lungs, as loud as I could scream. “Stop!”
Then louder “STOP!” and then even louder:
“S T O P!!!” and again
“S T O P ! ! !” and
again “S T O P ! ! !”… as loud as possible. But
the bulldozer operator definitely couldn’t hear me, as he was wearing
earmuffs, to muffle the noise of his horribly loud D-9 bulldozer, which is about
the biggest bulldozer there is. I’m
sure he couldn’t see me either, as I was wearing brown and green earth colors,
and was trapped at ground level in the thick jungle, and also because the
17-foot-wide by 6-foot-tall shovel blocked his sight.
So since then I have developed compassion for how it would feel for an
insect to be crushed to death by a human. The real challenge for the human being
is to protect the animals, and the insects, not to kill them.
Any human can kill an insect. That’s
no challenge. The respect for life is a little challenge. Of
course, any human can kill an insect. But
the real challenge is to not harm them, and insects rarely bother me.
Albert Schweitzer, the famous medical doctor who worked in Africa, was
known to not even kill mosquitos. Similarly,
it’s easy to eat. Everyone does
it. The Bible says: "The
gate is wide, and the way is broad, that leads to destruction, and many are
those that enter by it. But straight is the gate and narrow is the way which
leads to life, and few there be that find it."
It’s more of a challenge to fast and pray, and to be in control of your
life, rather than letting events control you. It’s easy to destroy your body,
by eating and other means; it’s more of a challenge to be perfectly healthy,
and to stay that way... But there are rewards for it, basically the greater
enjoyment of life, and the ability to serve others.
Lesson: Don’t work on the Sabbath, and know where you’re going…
Finally, there was the time at Kehena Beach when I was nearly killed by a bunch
of 17 falling coconuts… My 22 yr
old friend Rachael had been murdered just a week before by her step-father, and
I had just finished telling her story to a friend, concluding: “You never
know when your time is up…” Within
a minute after I said those famous last words, I sat down underneath a shady
coconut palm, and within a few seconds after I sat down, I heard and perceived
what I imagined to be about 6 or 7 children jumping off a rock onto the sand
right behind my back… I turned to
the children, to see who they were, or what the prank was.
They weren’t children at all, but a bunch of hard and heavy coconuts,
all held together on the stem, a total of 17 coconuts, all full of water, that
fell from about 25 feet up above me!!!
This bunch of coconuts narrowly missed me, landing about 6 inches from my
back…. If I had lay down on the
sand instead of sit, they would have probably killed me, or smashed my skull to
smithereens, or cracked every rib… I
never sit under coconut trees anymore… Usually,
coconuts won’t fall in a bunch, nor do they fall one at a time if they are
still young (like these were)… The
only time coconuts fall out of coconut trees (on their own) is when they are old
and dry (and then usually light weight), and then it also could take a forceful
windstorm… My friend who climbs
coconut trees at this same beach was as surprised as me.
He looked at the fallen bunch, studied it carefully, and concluded that
someone else had recently climbed that particular coconut tree, and had stepped
on that bunch of coconuts, and broken the stem… I just happened to be under it
when the stem finally broke… But
what is amazing is that I had just finished telling my friend: “You never know
when you’re time is up…” and mine, too, was almost its end…
Possibly a coincidence… but a real life lesson…
Hy Hunter -- vignette #1
I met Hy in person only one time, when he
came to look at 300 acres raw land I had listed on the Big Island, as well as a
few other properties. When
he arrived at the Hilo airport, accompanied by Giese, he reminded me of a
flamboyant Santa Claus – a big jolly guy, with reddish rosey-colored cheeks,
thick white hair, wearing an over-sized aloha shirt, and with rings on every
finger… When he went to the auto
rental counter, the lady there wanted to know where he got the largest ring he
was wearing, with a huge green stone of jade or emerald. “Oh,
this ring was a gift from the Sultan of Brunei” Hy chimed humbly in response.
At the airport, Hy pulled out a thick wad of paper money… it looked
like all hundred-dollar bills. He
said to me: “Oh this is
nothing... Look what I’ve got in my briefcase.”
He then proceeded to open his briefcase, and to my astonishment, it was
packed full with $100 bills, all neatly arranged in little bundles. He told me he had exactly $1 million in that briefcase, and also told me he
usually
carried 2 or 3 times that amount with him in cash.
So we took off in a convertible Wrangler Jeep, with the top down, and drove up
the Hamakua coast about 20 or 30 miles, and then turned up a cane road for
several miles, before turning left on another dirt road.
We drove down the dirt road for some distance, passing a few homes here
and there, while looking out at the spectacular ocean view.
Finally, we arrived at the edge of the property for sale.
I pointed out to him where it began and the approximate dimensions.
He stepped out of the Wrangler Jeep to take a better look.
A stream crossed the roadway there.
I decided this was far enough to drive, on account of the stream, but Hy
wanted to have a closer look. So
the three of us got out of the Jeep, and walking on high-ground (on slippery
rocks), we managed to get across the stream.
After about another 100 yards, we came to the front gate of the property,
where there was a driveway up into the interior.
We set off hiking uphill. After
about 15 minutes of strenuous hiking uphill, Giese
decided to take a rest… Hy told Giese to wait there, and that he and I would
continue hiking uphill...
After
another 15 minutes of walking, we didn’t see anybody, and
weren’t sure we here we were, but off in the distance across the gully or
ravine (where a river went through), we could see another residence or two. Hy asked me to hike down the ravine, cross the river,
and hike up again, and get some sense of direction from the neighbors…
So like an obedient soldier, I took off, down the ravine, across the
river, and back up again… When I got to the nearest home, there was no one
there, so I set off to the next residence, some distance away.
At both places I yelled out loudly:
“Hello!! Is anybody
home?? Hello!! Hello?? Is anybody home??” But no one was there, so about 45 minutes later, I
finally returned to where I left Hy, who was sitting there under a tree in the
shade.… Then he and I continued to hike up the main driveway, for about
another half-mile, until we came to a dead-end narrow isthmus, surrounded by
deep canyons on 3 sides, actually a scary place, especially if you have
vertigo… So we turned around and
headed back, downhill. About
15 minutes later, we came up Giese, who had been there by herself for over an hour, and about 15 minutes later, we were back at the Wrangler Jeep.
Altogether, we were gone from the Jeep about 2 hours!!
So what was the first thing I noticed?
Hy’s briefcase (with the million dollars in cash) was sitting on the
back seat of the open convertible (for about 2 hours!!)
At this point, Hy wanted to eat lunch.
So we drove 30 miles back to Hilo, and Hy was the first one to get out of
the car, and with Giese proceeded to enter the restaurant, but again left his
briefcase in the open Jeep. So
I decided to put the top on the Jeep, roll up the windows and lock the doors. As I was doing this, Hy yelled to ask me what was
taking me so long. I said, “Your
briefcase…” He yelled
back: “Don’t worry about
it!! No one’s gonna steal it.”
Vignette #2 (two pages)
I remember Hy kept trying to buy another property I had listed for sale.
He made the exact same offer to buy it, several times every year, for
about 7 years in a row… It was a 13-acre oceanfront property on Beach Road, with a
decrepit old shack at the top of the hill, owned by an old Hawaiian man whose
family had inherited the property back in the 1800’s in the Great Mahele,
through a land grant from the King of Hawaii.
The property had NEVER been sold in the history of Hawaii, and Hy liked
it as much as anything he found anywhere in Hawaii.
(He saw it in 1989 or 1990, before he lost his eyesight). The property had about 500 coconut palms around the
perimeter, about 50-75 feet tall, and the whole perimeter of the property was
bordered by a thick rock wall that was about 200 years old. It had a lawn like a golf course, and the approach to the
property was along a dirt road, through a picturesque canopy of trees, for about
a mile. There was a pasture
on the ocean next to it, another pasture next to that, and another pasture
across the road. Altogether,
on the 5-mile long coastal dirt road, there were no other homes!! The owner (70 yrs old) was the youngest child in
a family of 6 children, with 5 older sisters.
He inherited the property, but in the 1970’s, more than 100 relatives
challenged his ownership in court. The
family had never received a deed to the property, and the old Hawaiian man had
no legal documents that could prove he was the owner.
Anyhow, after a 5-year trial, he was awarded ownership through “adverse
possession.” (i.e., like
squatter’s rights). But now
it was for sale. The old
Hawaiian man would boast proudly: “It’s
ALL MINE!!! … ALL MINE!!!” Although
he had never seen more than about $10,000 dollars in his life, and although he
was born and raised there, and had lived there all his life (with no
electricity, no running water, no phone, and no TV), and in a decrepit house
that was literally caving in on him (it had been built with hand tools in the
1930’s), he was asking $3.9 million…
When we drove up, in the same Wrangler Jeep, the old man was so impressed with
the Jeep, he could hardly stop talking about what a nice vehicle it was, and
that he wished he owned one too, and where we got it, etc...
So I introduced the 2 of them, and Hy spent about an hour walking the premises,
all over the very scenic property. Hy
told him he wanted to buy it, and said he would pay him exactly $1.5 million in
cash, in 90-days. The old man
agreed. Hy asked me to write
up a 1-page contract right there on the spot, which I did. Hy told the old man that if he signed the agreement
that day, Hy would give him $100,000 cash deposit, and the next day (as a
bonus) the old man could go to any auto dealer in Hawaii, and buy himself
any brand-new 4-wheeel drive he wanted, the price didn’t matter!!!
Hy began to count out the $100,000 in $100 bills, on the hood of the
Jeep, in front of the old man… Suddenly, the old man told Hy to put the money
away. He said he wanted to
show it to his lawyer before he signed anything.
Several days later, he decided the offer was too low, and since he wanted
to net $2 million, that’s why the price was over $3 million.
Later, the price was lowered to $3.6 million… Hy still offered
$1.5 million… Later it was lowered to $3 million. Hy still offered $1.5
million. Then it was lowered
to $2.5 million. But Hy wouldn’t
budge from his offer price of $1.5 million.
Finally, years later, the price was lowered to $1.5 million, but now Hy
offered only $750,000. Finally,
several years later, the asking price was lowered to $700,000 but Hy now offered
only $400,000. Meanwhile,
that same year, I bought 84 acres kitty-corner to the old man, where I lived for
about 10 years… I also purchased
another 365 acres [with a mile of oceanfront] just down the road, but in 1998 I
ended up in bankruptcy and foreclosure.
So in 1998, after 2 bankruptcies and 2 foreclosures, I was facing eviction, as
well as auto repossession. I had no
money, no savings, no inheritance, and a wife and 5 children.
I thought what Hy Hunter would do in this situation.
So I decided to make an offer to purchase the same property, for $300,000
cash (I had been offered a loan of this amount).
The old Hawaiian man wouldn’t take $300,000 cash, but after several
weeks of negotiation, he finally agreed to sell it to me for $700,000 with only
$1,000 down
and $1,000 a month for 3 years, and with no interest, then a balloon.
Within a month, using no money of my own, I bought and sold 2 properties, more
than $1 million combined, with no money spent on either property,
and resold both of them, for about $100,000 profit, which saved my ass!!!
All this thanks to Hy’s inspiration…
I was the first one in the history of Hawaii ever to purchase this property, and
I bought and sold it without spending a penny from my own pocket!!!
Again, thanks to Hy’s inspiration…
(Hy was also my father’s name, by the way)…
I later learned that the old Hawaiian man had been trying to sell his property
for 31 years, since 1967 (until I bought it in 1998), and all he ever wanted was
to sell the property and realize the cash, and spend it.
What was he going to do with all that money?
He told me he planned to take the money to Las Vegas and gamble with
it!!!
The end of the story is this: in
the end, the old guy got nothing, because after I bought the property, his
relatives went to court, and declared him legally incompetent to control his own assets, and now they are the legal
guardian over all his possessions. For
him, the dream of Las Vegas is over… (and the poor old guy has no children
either!!!)
He should have sold it to Hy in 1990!!!
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