The Divorce

By the time 1968 rolled around my Dad was back from Europe and was living (and working) in Boston. I don't know all the details - but his 21 year old Swedish girlfriend was with him... I heard that her (wealthy) family was pretty upset about it - especially since dad was roughly the same age as her father... And up until August of 1968 my mother was totally unaware of the relationship... She was still hoping that dad would come to his senses...

We weren't getting any regular support from dad at the time. I know mom sent him occasional letters with stories about needing money and I'm sure dad sometimes obliged. But there was one incident in particular that stuck in my mind:
I had not seen a doctor (or dentist) regularly in over 3 years. I was running a fever and we suspected I needed antibiotics... So mom sent dad a telegram (remember those things?) asking for some money for medical care and dad's response was "You can't squeeze blood from a turnip."...
Now - many years later I asked my father just what that was about - and he denied he could have ever said such a thing in response to being informed that I needed medical attention (whether he believed it or not). But he most emphatically did - I saw it with my own eyes... As a matter of fact, mom referred to him as "the turnip" from that point until her death many years later :-)

And in mid August of 1968 dad finally came for that fateful visit... Despite everything that had happened I have to admit that I was happy to see him. He had brought mom's paintings and a handful of my and my sister's personal mementos from Philadelphia with him. I particularly remember my left-handed Spalding catcher's mitt (Jim Pagliaroni model). I had bought it with my allowance at the first K-Mart in the Philadelphia area in 1964... It cost me $12 - which was a small fortune at the time... I thought I'd never see it again (and I still have it)...

Dad had called mom beforehand and "fessed up" that he was living with a 21 year old and he intended to marry her... Mom was enraged at first but after thinking it over she decided that the young lady would (at some point) realize that she was wasting the best years of her life catering to the whims of an ill-tempered egotistical old man and would divorce him, take all his money and leave him to die poor and alone... She even made me swear that I would never lift a finger to help him... Yeah - mom was off by a mile. They were still married when he passed away 32 years later. And I did a lot more than lift a finger to help out - my half-siblings were involved - that complicated things...

But back to 1968:
In a "conventional" divorce over half of dad's income would have gone to alimony and child support. But this was back when Mexican divorces were de-rigueur. And in a fit of bravado mom declared that she didn't need him or his money and agreed to $100 a month support each for my sister and me until we reached 21 (Karina was already 18 at the time)... And when dad arrived in Winnipeg he already had the papers drawn up - just waiting for mom's signature.
Now - I should point out that $100 was not a trivial sum of money back in 1968 - that's roughly $600 in 2010 dollars. But it was still just a fraction of what dad would have had to pay in support and alimony in a "regular" divorce...

Another thing I remember about dad's visit is the hour Karina and I spent trying to get him to admit that there might have been at least one tiny thing that he could have done better as a husband or father....
It was futile... He had been perfect. Everything he had ever done during the marriage was perfect. It was all mom's fault... Finally - he said "I will admit to one mistake! I married your mother!" Yeah - that's exactly what every child longs to hear :-) ... My parents were both hopeless cases...

And - after all the turmoil, drama and chaos - that's how the whole dysfunctional mess ended. Three years and 4 months after we were first dispatched to Germany under false pretenses...

The divorce was finalized in Juarez a couple of weeks later (my mom was represented by proxy). Dad married his girlfriend on September 9th - my birthday... That was probably so he'd remember his anniversary :-)