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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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