Living Happily Ever After
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A Table, A Chair, A Bowl of Fruit and a Violin

Date: February 6, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“The woman gets the ring–unless it’s an heirloom.” (Vanessa Lloyd Platt)

Or in my case, in the aftermath of a Ponzi scheme. You don’t get to keep your wedding ring if it’s an upgrade–and paid for with tainted (ie. stolen) money. Oh well. I only wished I could have had it to sell for cash to provide for my children anyway. But like I said, I did get to keep my violin.

Paid for in 1982 by Dr. Andrew H. and Sandra Christensen, a Colorado orthodontist and his wife, my parents, with money legally acquired straightening crooked teeth and turning them into beautiful smiles. They purchased my violin from a very well-known master violin maker named Peter Paul Prier, originally from Germany but living and operating a store and violin making school in Utah.

I had begun taking piano lessons when I was 7 years old and in 6th grade, at 11 years old, I began playing the violin. I tried it because all of the neighbor girls older than me were in orchestra and it seemed to be the thing to do, at a certain age, in Grand Jct., CO. Plus, it didn’t look that hard. I took to the violin pretty well. In my last year of junior high, I was asked to walk to the high school from my school and participate in their orchestra class and play with them. By high school, when every serious violinist seemed to be upgrading their violin for a better one, that seemed like the thing for me to do too. I mentioned it to my parents. And true to form, just like everything else in my life, they came through for me.

They checked around, learned Peter Paul Prier was THE place to get the best violins, and without telling me flew to Utah, made a purchase, returned home one evening and surprised me with my new violin! They told me it was a very good violin, that I needed to take care of it–and that if for some reason I ever needed to sell it someday I should return to Peter Paul Prier and sell it back to him. That’s what Mr. Prier had told them.

What my parents didn’t tell me, was that they’d paid $2000 for my violin.

I enjoyed playing my new violin. Things went without a hitch until the weekend the band room at my high school caught fire or was robbed (I can’t remember which) and I happened to admit, “Oh no! My violin was in there!” My parents almost had a heart attack. I got a lecture about taking care of valuable things, which I completely deserved, and I was on pins and needles all weekend and into Monday morning until I could get in to the school and discover that my violin was ok.

I grew up, went to college, got married, had children and eventually played my violin only on very rare occasions. But I held onto it for sentimental reasons and in case any of my children chose to develop that talent. And when my former husband’s Ponzi scheme was revealed, my violin was one of a few “valuable” items I was allowed to walk away with–thanks to my generous parents and their support of the development of my talents.

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” (Albert Einstein)

After entering my unexpected life, my mom’s words from 1982 haunted me: “Mr. Prier told me to tell you that someday, if you ever need to sell your violin, take it back to him and he’ll buy it from you. It’s a good violin.”

I just NEVER imagined a day like that would come.

Their Phone Never Stopped Ringing

Date: January 19, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I refused David Letterman’s proposal of marriage for obvious reasons, but thanks for asking.” (Teri Garr)

Nana’s youngest son, my dad, utilized the telephone as an integral part of his first marriage proposal to my mom, Sandra Jorgensen. (Although my parents had dated, fallen in love and decided to get married “someday” when they were only 15 years old, they both fell in and out of love with several other people before finally marrying each other at 25 years old.) One night, as my mom was entertaining a date at her home my dad called.

He had been drafted into the Army during the Berlin call-up and was undergoing his basic training in what he always referred to as “the armpit of America,” Fort Ord. Apparently, my dad was calling to propose marriage to my mom! And she had a date waiting for her in the living room.

When she asked if they could talk about it later, my dad asked, “What’s the matter? You don’t have a date do you?” My mom admitted that she had a date waiting for her and that she probably shouldn’t keep him waiting any longer. My parents weren’t dating exclusively, but my dad said, “Well, forget I asked!” and hung up on her!

“But I felt all the more bound to make this proposal, because it at once turns to a reproach.” (Ferdinand Lassalle)

I’m not sure how he eventually proposed marriage and my mom agreed to marry him, but he did. And they were very happy (and busy) their entire marriage. They raised 5 children…and I can vouch for the fact that their phone never stopped ringing!

“My phone has been ringing off the hook. I have like 17 cell phones and pagers.” (Steven Cojocaru)

My parents’ oldest daughter is an entirely different matter. Me. My phone. My experiences. ”A woman is a person who reaches for a chair when she answers the telephone.”  (Milton Wright) I do that. I guess I’m all woman.

Life

Date: January 4, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise.” (Patrick Stewart)

Jean Luc Pickard had it right.

Life doesn’t always turn out how you planned. And you’re not necessarily preparing for the future you envision. I’m not sure why we go through all we do…only to end up in some very unexpected places having experienced some unimaginable things.

But this I do know.

Our experiences teach us valuable lessons—IF we allow ourselves to learn. ”Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God, do you learn.” (C.S. Lewis)

Isn’t that the truth?

I also know this.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

We’re stronger because of what we’ve overcome. And if we got through something that difficult, we can get through anything—especially the next unexpected new opportunities we’re blessed with!

Late last summer I took my kids swimming at a friend’s pool one Saturday. Afterward, we enjoyed a barbecue. Then we innocently returned to our home after several hours of fun. We walked into the house and noticed a strange humming sound. I thought, “Darn! Someone left the television on when we left. I’ve asked my kids not to do that a thousand times!” and in a bit of frustration, went to the turn the t.v. off. Only it wasn’t on.

My oldest headed down to his bedroom right about that time, got to the basement and cried out. In a panic I raced down the stairs to see what was wrong, got to the bottom of the stairs, and unexpectedly stepped into a puddle of water at least 6 inches deep! The entire basement of our home was flooded! The “humming” sound I’d heard was the dying echo of ruined electronic equipment.

As I stood there, water sloshing against my calves looking at the utter ruin of the lowest level of my home’s interior and its contents, I belatedly thought, “Is it possible to get shocked standing in water with electronics humming and crackling as they float by?” And then thoughts of death-by-electricity fled my mind as I realized I needed to get the water to my home shut off. A pipe must have burst.

But wouldn’t you know, inept single woman that I am, I couldn’t find it? I looked high and low, everywhere I could think of, but I couldn’t locate it. I had my children down there hunting with me and it never turned up. I assigned my son to find a male neighbor who could tell us where the water shut-off valve might be located. He returned with an actual neighbor who helped us find it and shut it off. Then he suggested we look for the pipe that had burst–the source of the water.

Would you believe there wasn’t one? The entire basement was like a giant kiddie pool but there wasn’t a source of water! The ceilings were dry, the walls were dry, but strangely, in one room, there was water spray on everything below four feet in height. It was the craziest thing.

And I learned something about myself: unsolved mysteries (aka. house floods) make me think the darndest things! After hunting high and low with my neighbor for the source of the water, and never finding one, I’m ashamed to say one of my next thoughts was, “Oh my gosh! It has FINALLY happened! A Ponzi scheme victim must have located us, broke into our home, and unleashed their anger at the situation with a hose—by flooding our home!”

That was ridiculous. I put that thought out of my mind and unexpectedly it was replaced it with, “How in the world have we made an enemy like this already? Just one year living in Utah and we’ve offended someone so badly that they’d want to flood our home?”

That’s when I noticed it.

My son’s bedroom window was cracked and broken, pieces were missing. And then I noticed grass floating in the flood, mud and grass splattered everywhere inside my home, and mud and water floating in the window well.

My neighbor and I headed outside to find the source of the water. As luck would have it, the patio and everything outside near the broken window was completely dry. NO trace of water! Where were Fred, Daphne, Thelma, Shaggy, Scooby and The Mystery Machine when I needed them? There was a mystery to be solved.

Another neighbor saw us outside and came over to see if we had noticed the water outside my home. Due to the heat of the day, the outside water had dried up, so we hadn’t seen ANY water. (That was why the situation was so puzzling!) I told him, unfortunately,the water wasn’t just outside my home, the entire interior of the basement was flooded. But at least he solved the mystery for us.

It was entirely unexpected.

There are irrigation wheels in the corner of my backyard. While I was out, a farmer came to take his watering turn and failed to check that the appropriate gates were open when he diverted his irrigation water. He drove away…and my home flooded. I wasn’t home, the farmer wasn’t there, so I didn’t know anything untoward was taking place or needed to be stopped. The water ran and ran. Unchecked. Out of control.

A different neighbor happened to look outside and saw water flooding our cul-de-sac and the connecting streets so filled with water he assumed a water main had broken. Until he tried to locate the source of the “break” and saw a literal river of water running through my backyard, into my home, and into the streets all around it. Just a little house flooding, courtesy of a farmer who failed to check (as they are always supposed to) that the appropriate diversion gates are open. Just one little gate. I NEVER expected that!

I don’t think the farmer did either. As he told me later that night, “I’ve been doing this 30 years and I’ve never had a problem. I never thought to check that the south gate was open. It’s not your fault, it’s not my fault; these things happen. That’s what your homeowner’s insurance is for.” The farmer advised me to get my belongings out of my basement as fast as I could. I never expected that, either.

I stood there, alone, with my four children and thought, “How in the world am I supposed to clear my basement all by myself?” (I was tending a baby at the time, as well.) I was overwhelmed. But that is a great thing about Utah. (Get ready for another one of those, “Only in Utah” moments.) My son went to one neighbor and asked if he could help us move some furniture out of our basement as it had flooded, he came right over, took one look, made a phone call and within minutes, literally, there were 30-40 people from our neighborhood and church congregation hauling our belongings out of the flood and into our front yard. An impossible task was completed in a matter of an hour or so.

I helped, I hauled, and then I confess, I had a moment of meltdown. I escaped to the privacy of my bathroom, called a friend in Denver, CO, and lost it. For a moment there, I was afraid a house flood was going to be my undoing. Silly, I know, but after a year of shock, trauma, and attempted recovery, I was temporarily at my limit.

Thankfully, my friend “talked me down,” we laughed and I put the situation in perspective. Really, after EVERYTHING I had lived through, a house flood wasn’t that big of a deal.

Really.

Truly.

And I knew it.

Sadly, compared to decades of lies, betrayal, crime, drama, divorce, vilification and everything else played out in the media and on a public stage, a flood really wasn’t that big of a deal. I had lived through worse. Much worse. So that’s what I said when people expressed their sympathy regarding the flood. “We’ve lived through worse. Not a big deal. It’s just stuff. It will be ok.”

I never expected the collapse of my family and the public downfall we endured would  be preparation for a flood; would help me keep it all in perspective. But it was. And it did. We’ve certainly survived worse.

In the unexpected life.

Yet still, “I doubt whether the world holds for any one a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice-cream.” (Heywood Braun)

Or your first house flood.