Return To America

It is now fall of 1953.  My mother had successfully raised the $100 to have father allowed back into the US and father, under who knows what pretense, leaves his now pregnant wife and returns to America.  (Of course, this instantly raises the thought of father being a "dirty double crosser", since he crossed the Atlantic Ocean a second time to return to America.  And, a double entandre as well it would seem.....)

Father with a customer at the Duncet

Back in Portland, he needed employment and went to work at a sandwich shop near the train station I believe.  Though this is where a bit of a conflict comes up as he claimed later in life that he had owned the sandwich shop and went bankrupt later on.  This might be true however, but no matter which - the US Government now had him pegged as to whom he was and the wheels were quietly in motion to suck him to their employment.  Very innocently, the man whom had been father's INS case worker during his deportation jail time and trial, looked father up, was to become his best friend and gently guide father in the direction the government wanted.  It was almost Machiavellian how it worked out.  And though he was a family friend, even to a small child as I was, I could plainly see that there was an agenda being played - but then again, I needed to be an adult to understand why what happened, actually happened.

So father married the now 15 year old girl he had saved two years earlier and blam! she was pregnant.  Well, now father needs to do something because there is a family coming along and lots of expenses.  His new best friend sells him on the idea of joining the US Military - free medical, good income, career training, blah, blah, and blah.

This was so contrived you will not believe what happened next and father did not suspect a thing - ".....it had to have been circumstance.....".  After all, father (like most liars) believed he was smarter than everyone else ...  Unfortunately, that was both true and his eventual undoing.