After my tour of duty at the Pentagon I was discharged and we moved back to South Florida where I hoped to make my fortune in real estate. I didn't exactly make that fortune but I had a pretty good life. And, I made some money, but I also spent a lot of money on illnesses, which were devastating and Richard's disability. It hasn't been easy and there are way fewer programs that help those in need than there should be in a civilized country.
Wheelchairs, prosthetics, lifts, special cloths and equipment, material improvements for access are all very expensive.
Our lives would have been totally different if not for Richard who was born with crebral palsy. We have made so many sacrifices but it was all worth it. Being care givers has also changed our lives. I wonder if I would have had as much compassion for the handicapped if I didn't have a handicapped son? I think I would. I would like to believe I would, but there is no doubt that it made me more aware of how unfair and difficult conditions can be in the "normal" inaccessible world of the able bodied.
I think if not for Richard, I might be living in France or Finland, or maybe even in Israel. I don't know for sure, but I do know it would most likely not be here. But that is not the case and Richard is with us and we are here and we are enjoying a pretty good life in spite of many economic hardships and physical difficulties.
I have always had a love for books and my pursuance of untutored, unstructured knowledge has led to a need to understand life without the mythology. I have tried to live my life with a view to learning from those who are smarter than I am. Philosophy is interesting, but science intrigues me. I am convinced that we need to treat each other better and that won't happen until we start taking more than we need from this world and learn to share, to be less selfish. It make no sense at all not to do the research with stem cells which can improve the life of those who are already living.
An embryo is not a human being, but my son is human and I am human. My daugher and my wife and everyone can benefit from embryonic stem cells while too often the rich and religious fundamentalists oppose research that requires a embryo because they think an embryo is a person. It is no more a person than the cells in our skin which contain our genes or a blood cell - anymore than anyone can say that an acorn seed is an acorn tree. If embryos are persons why not count them in the census but of course that is a foolish suggestion just as much so as claiming an embryo will be a person because it has the potential to be a person or we are dead because we will all eventually die. Ending suffering is what makes us human, not some embryo which has the marvelous potential to heal and end suffering.
When we moved to Florida at first, before I went to work for dad, I trained by working for a period of time for several very large development companies, i.e., Rocket City, Gulf American Land, Golden Estates, and a few others, selling people the dream of living in Florida. And, sometimes the dream was illusory. This was 1963 and some of those companies I worked for used "bait and switch" tactics, showing one piece of land while actually selling another, by showing the best property to show, the one with the best access, and the highest lot, and a customer thinking that was what they got, when they actually received a deed to a different lot, sometimes not all like the property they were shown in a sales presentation or even in person and they all used "hard sell" to hammer the customer until they bought and most were eventually put out business for these business practices.
That was my training. When I went to work for these development companies, I first worked in a hospitality room signing people up for free trips to remote developments in Florida, and then I worked as a driver/salesperson, and later I worked myself up to become the closer but at each step in the process I made money and when I was a closer I made even more.
At the same time I was working in real estate and learning the business I was studying for an LL.B degree from one of the first distance schools in the country; from LaSalle Extension University, and it came at a huge cost in time and effort, since I could not attend school full time and still work and raise three children, one of them disabled. So it was something I did while I was in the real estate business in the 60s and I graduated in 1970.
It was the first university which offered a law degree through distance courses and approved for the G.I. Bill. Today nearly all universities offer some distance studies and subsequently I also took other courses that way, some in the sciences (Astronomy and related).
It was the only way I could go to school with my limited income then, when I was discharged from the military, and my situation as a full-time caregiver for my disabled son.
The studies were partially by extension and final exams were proctored by a lawyer and judge and when I graduated after the three years that were required to complete the work I was qualified to take the bar in 17 states. Today there are still 8 states where I can take the bar. I received the LL.B degree and a diploma in law and the school was accredited by the State of Illinois. The school closed sometime in the late 70s. While I never sat for the bar I did use the knowledge to great advantage in real estate development and brokerage and for personal awareness. But if I had it to do over again I would have gone to the University of Miami where my son graduated and I would have studied biology.
After about a year with the development companies I switched to general real estate, selling land, and worked with my father in his office in Davie which was located at Roth Groves, which dad owned before he subdivided and sold it. When I wasn't selling land I mowed, pruned, operated the tractor, and maintained the orange grove, picked the fruit, and even took the oranges to the fruit plant. I would pick and take whatever oranges we didn't sell at the grove to the juice plants on St. Rd 84. They're all gone now and Davie is no longer that sleepy little one horse town it once was. But, in those days I had to wear snake boots whenever I went out to show property.
In South Florida when I was selling real estate there in the 60s we had Southern Copperheads, Cottonmouths, Rat snakes, Kingsnakes, Coral, lots of Water snakes, South Florida Swamp snakes, Ribbon and Garter snakes, Corn snakes, and some I didn't know the name of.
My brother did very well then and he still owns New River Groves, one of the biggest fruit shipping operations in South Florida. Bob was a hard worker and a nice guy, but we didn't see each other for about 20 years after his wife and I had a falling out.
 | After the freeze our grove (in the 80s) was wiped out. We had to sell the property and took a big hit on it. Nobody said, "I'm sorry it happened to you." So we moved on were a little bit poorer for it. |
But my brother is a nice guy. And he has reason to be nice, he has money. When I was building rental property and he had the opportunity to buy the packing house where he was working for the owners, they wanted to trade the packing h ouse for property in a a tax free exchange, so I sold my brother the rental property for less than my cost to build them so he would have something to trade for his business. I never made any money on my brother and my father asked me to do it, and if I had not done so my brother would likely not be in the position he is in today - and my brother never said "thank you."
I took a loss because my time to build those buildings used up almost half a year of my life and I gave that to him. It does matter to me that I sacrificed for my extended family in that and many other times and they never acknowledged my contribution to what I thought I was helping to create, a family that cared as much about each other as they cared about themselves.
My brother and I also do not have much in common. We don't have anything to talk about. He doesn't read and he has absolutely no intellectual curiousity. I don't know if that is a blessing or a curse because he likely does not have as much to worry about as someone who takes the world much more seriously. Actually, I agree with that assessment, that life is taken far too seriously as it is and since none of it makes much sense, if you look outside the scientific box for why we exist at all it really doesn't make much sense and all that we make of it is simply all that we make of it. We create our own reality about life. Maybe I'm envious of my brother for seeing life as simply as he does? Maybe it is because he doesn't have a handicapped son and he has always been lucky and also the favored one by parents who also did not have much in the way of intellectual curiousity but because they thought I was "smarter" so I needed less help and I got none - and all their favors (which I won't list here) went to my brother.
I do resent this extended family of mine that thinks family is important, only when they want something. The idea of family is important but it just doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. It didn't mean the same to my mother who, When Rick was very young, she suggested we put him in an institution which would be better able to care for him. It sounds a lot like conservative compassion, the kind that would prevent abortion, even for those who can't afford children, but does nothing about helping the child. Family should mean caring enough to have a responsiblity to provide for the least able in your family but no one ever asked nor offered to help Richard. Family is giving as much as you are willing to take from others. Family is more than a word. It is a duty to defend the family and everyone in it and it means doing for others in the family what you would do for yourself, no matter what the financial cost might be.
This Roth family is as dysfunctional as most and probably less than many. Sometimes I find my father difficult to put up with, but I do because after all, he is my father and we all walk in different shoes. My father ran out of most of his money a long time ago throwing it away at crap tables from Atlantic City, to Vegas to the Islands and everywhere else they would comp him, but never thought about offering anything to his severely disabled grandson when there has been a need for it - and there has always been a need. He is a man who loves to come and visit and for us to treat him like company and my wife to be his maid when I remember his own father when he was old and moved to Florida to be near us and was never, ever invited to our home. I remember going to Wolfies for supper and there was grandpop, outside and selling newspapers. I think my dad bought a paper, but he never invited my grandfather inside to eat with us. I keep thinking that maybe there was more to it than I knew about? Or, maybe I shouldn't judge at all even as I judge my own family. We are only animals after-all and we have this overly developed brain which sits up there on top of the rest of us thinking about all kinds of things which can drive us crazy.