Surprised About Myself

Surprised About Myself

In the summer of 1982, I meet Judy, a very clever and attractive young woman, who at that time was one of the very few female executives in the business world of Los Angeles, CA.  

After a few weeks, Judy joined my family which then numbered four very different people, Michael, a Sioux Indian adopted son doing very well in middle school, Bong, a Viet Nam War injured child, now a super star at Pasadena High School and now Judy the newest member of my family.

I have a theory about raising kids. When children are young, they accumulate cute credits with their caregivers. When children become teenagers, they burn-up those cute-credits such that it is a breakeven as they become adults. For Judy, she came to a family with teenagers, no cute credits. Judy, a brave lady indeed.

At one evening meal, Michael had a warm-hearted idea. “None of us is blood-related to anyone else, but we are still a family.”

Bong was now a student at the University of California, Berkeley when a US Government letter arrived for me.  It was now time for Bong, Judy and I to go before an officer of the US Department of Immigration and Naturalization.

We three proceeded to the indicted US Government building. The examining officer had a stack of documents. The examiner scanned documents some of which I recognized such as my Single Parent Adoption of Bong and the associated name change, I had made for her.

The examining officer then came to a stop at the next item which I immediately recognized as the US Government Deportation Order that required Bong to depart the US within 48 hours...about 10 years ago. It was my understanding that I knowingly had committed a federal crime, punishable by imprisonment and/or fines.

The examining officer tapped her finger a few times without looking at me, and then proceeded to use official rubber stamps. She then shifted into a conversation with Bong about studies of physics and biology at Cal Berkeley.

Pete MacDoran is a Washington resident and author of Amazon.com : The Old Men Will Die First: A True Story of Cold War Espionage.

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