The Cat Easton Legend

"All right! That is really my most important job, the one I love the most. How many house servants do we have?"

"Gosh, Honey, I don't really know. I just keep paying a flat fee to the boss guy. We need to go see them soon. I guess there are quite a few people working for us, They run the farm, do the mowing and gardening, the place always looks great so I haven't worried much about it. I figured I would work that out before I moved in."

Cat grinned at me, "Let's do it now. That is a huge house, way too big for the two of us. Maybe we should open a bed and breakfast."

"No way, I like my privacy too much. But let's get dressed and go see what we can find out."

We got dressed and I told Mike we were going to walk over to see the Boss servant. He said. "That would be Mister Gordon, but you don't have to walk. That phone on the end of the dock reaches him, or there is a golf cart in that shed over there next to where we park. It belongs to you anyway, just unplug it and go."

As we walked toward the shed Cat looked at me, "You don't know much about what you have here do you?"

"No, I bought it in a hurry, I heard it was available at a great price while I was looking for a place to dock Ranger. I had Tony, who is a fishing buddy, check it out and give me an estimate on what it would take to restore the house properly. It sounded good so I went for it. I paid six million for it. The land alone was worth more than three times that much. In the year and a half I have owned it I haven't had time to really take much interest in the whole property, I have spent most of my efforts on the house. I do know that they keep Mike supplied with fresh eggs, veggies and some meat. As a matter of fact, I did notice our food bill is next to nothing for the Ranger since we have been here."

We walked to the shed and I backed the golf cart out. We drove up the drive to a road leading to the right. The road entered the oak grove then turned and we entered the tiny village. The houses were all modern doublewide mobile homes, all were neat and attractive with lovely landscaping. Most had fenced yards.

Many kids were playing in a park playground. An older child ran over to us and asked if she could help us. I told her we were looking for Mr. Gordon. She ran to the Mobile home adjoining the park and entered through a sliding glass door. We parked in front of the building and got out. An elderly black man came out and walked over to us, he extended his hand and said, "Good Morning, Mr. Murphy, I am Charles Gordon, this beautiful lady must be the future Mrs. Murphy. Won't you come in out of the heat and relax."

We entered a cool office with several desks, I noticed computers, copiers, printers, scanners and faxes, all the modern office equipment. A lovely young black woman entered from another office and smiled at us. She headed right for Catherine and extended her hand, she said "You must be Miss Easton! I am Callie Gordon Jeeter, the old grouch's daughter. She looked towards me, 'Ah! Mr. Murphy, we meet at last, I was about to visit you on your yacht. We need to talk business. She showed us into the other office, it was nicely furnished with a large desk and several chairs. She sat behind the desk and I noticed that her father sat in a chair off to the side.

Callie Gordon smiled at the two of us, "Please let me explain how we operate. We run the whole business of providing the people who operate your farm and household. Our family has been on this land through many owners since before the big house was built. My mother and father run the house, my brother runs the farm and gardens. This is a working farm, we provide about eighty percent of the food consumed on this property, and we supply meats and vegetables to a number of neighboring restaurants and the local grocery store. We also supply these same places with eggs, poultry, fish, crabs and frog legs.

"We need to go over the books so you can see how we have worked with previous owners. We have several suggestions we wish to have you consider." She paused and looked at the two of us, and laughed, "Please forgive me, I am giving you the spiel I usually give to prospective customers. In reality we work for you, you own everything on the property. We run it for you, as we did with the previous owners. We take care of everything so you don't have to worry about a thing. We want to change things with you some, but not much.

"Heck, I'll just come right out with it. We want more money for what we do."

I looked at her, "I have been sending you what Mr. Hatcher, the man I bought the place from, said he paid you."

"Yes, Mr. Murphy, I am aware of that, the thing is that you don't need to do that. We have expanded our operations since you bought the place eighteen months ago. I have your money in our bank. Right now, the place generates more than enough to pay our wages, and have a very nice surplus in the same bank. With Mr. Hatcher, he just wanted us to provide only enough for the use of the people on the farm. We now make a nice profit, we have an operating fund of about $800,000. We have a surplus the same size. We have $23,000,000 in the farm pension fund that started one hundred years ago. We have invested all of it ourselves and managed to double it every nine or ten years on average.

"I think I should tell you every adult working here has at least an Associate Degree, most have Bachelor's degrees, and my father and I have our Masters in Business from the University of Florida."

Cat smiled and said, "Go Gators!"

Callie Gordon grinned. "Miss Catherine, you and Mr. Scott may call me Callie. The old owners called my father, 'Uncle Charley', and my mother is 'Aunt Bessie'. My mother and two of my sisters have degrees in Culinary Arts."

I looked at Callie, "Callie, I am happy with the things you have told us, Miss Catherine and I plan on living here and raising our family here. I do have one question, do you have a child care program and a facility to house it in?"

"No Sir, we were going to bring it up and request you approve the use of company funds for the facility and a full time nurse."

"That is approved, I assume that most of the kitchen and maid staffs are female and it would be convenient for them to have a place in or near the main house"

"Yes Sir, the original house had such a room in the kitchen wing, that room on the new plans is designated as a utility room."

I looked between the girl and her father, "Is there any other planned use for that room?" They looked at each other and shook their heads. "Fine, I'll tell Tony to get input from you, Callie, for how you want it laid out, I'll tell him to include a fenced outside play yard with swings, slides, a sand box and what ever else you need. If you need more room I'll have it worked out. Was it furnished with cribs and kids beds for naps and such?" I felt Cat squeezing my arm and looked at her, she was grinning from ear to ear.

She said, "Can our kids use it too?"

Callie grinned back, "Miss Catherine, your children will always be welcome there."

Cat said, "We will be moving in about four months from now when the house is finished. Then about a month later we are going to be married here. We may have a number of guests including the President of the United States and the first Lady. Can the staff handle that?"

Callie clapped her hands and looked at her father. He grinned and nodded.

She said, "Oh! Yes, we can do that. We need to get together and start planning."

"Great, that is what I do for a living, I am a wedding and event planner. I have three offices in Miami, one in Tampa, and two in Orlando."

Callie smiled, "This should be fun then, maybe we could rent the house out for other people's weddings and receptions."

Cat grinned at her, "Good idea! It will be perfect for that. We wouldn't want to do it too often though, perhaps two or three times a month. I'm thinking fifty to a hundred thousand for a wedding and reception. We can figure out how many people we can handle. We need to do that for our wedding too. Why don't you come down to the boat for lunch and you and I can hash things out."

"I'll be there, I have always wanted to see the inside of that boat, my husband says it is very nice and comfortable without any glitz."

I left the two women talking and giggling after lunch and I went up on the bridge and took a short nap on the couch. I woke up and found that someone had covered me with a light blanket. I went back down to the salon and the two ladies were sitting side by side looking at Cat's laptop. Cat smiled, "Are you feeling better after your nap, Honey?"

"Did you cover me up?"

"Yes, there was a cool breeze over you."

"Thank you, Dear. What are you two up to? Have you got the wedding figured out yet?"

Cat jumped up and kissed me, "Sweetie, Callie and I haven't even talked about our wedding, we want to make our home the most desirable place in the country to be married. We can do the whole deal. From the wedding dress, bride's maid's dresses, the tuxes for the groom's party and the wedding, the reception, and the honeymoon night, all right here.

"Aunt Bessie is going to work up a bunch of menus for receptions and honeymoon dinners and breakfasts. Callie's sister is a baker and is going to do the wedding cakes."

I smiled at them, "Cat, Sweetheart, I have been through this when I thought of making the place into a bed and breakfast. We would have to give up all of our privacy to do it right. I do believe that if it is properly promoted and the word got out that this was 'the' wedding destination, the income potential is way above what a B&B would do. The only solution I came up with was that I would have to build another house to live in. I even picked out the spot. I would build on what the old maps call 'the dock bluff'.

"It is up along the lake shore about a half mile. It is a steep cliff with deep water below it. At one time wooden derricks located on the top of the bluff unloaded the cargos of sailing ships and paddlewheel steamers there. I thought of building a somewhat smaller, but completely modern, copy of an old plantation house. My original thought was to tear down the old house and start over. Then I fell in love with the old place. When I first bought it I would come over when I had a chance and wander around, trying to imagine how it would be living in a place that huge by myself or with the girl of my dreams. I always thought it was way too big for me to be comfortable in it."

Cat smiled at me, "We have to remember that we also have a responsibility to provide employment for the wonderful family that has lived and prospered here for all these years. I can't believe you never found out everything about them."

"Oh! I have been aware of what they do here since before I bought the place. I was born and raised not 20 miles from here. I was born in an old plantation house that has since burned down. I wanted to preserve this one." I reached over and picked up Catherine's hand and held it. I grinned at her, "Cat, I think this is the time for me to ask my future bride where she would like to live."

She looked up into my eyes, "I have only one requirement, you must be there with me! Everything else really doesn't matter that much. Assuming that we will be together in all the options, I would like to see a proposed floor plan and elevations for the new house before I give my opinion. I also want to look at the site you have in mind."

I looked at Callie, "Would you like to ride with us on the golf cart? Perhaps you can give the grand tour of the place while we are at it."

"Yes Sir Mr. Scott, I would love to do that."

I held up my hand, "Hold it, while we are alone, we don't have to worry about decorum, you will call us Catherine or Scott, no Mister, Miss, Sir or Ma'am. OK?

"Yassa Massa Murphy, Suh! We ain'ta gonna do dat no mo."

I said, half under my breath, "Damn, Ah hates dem uppity ass damn nigras."

Callie held her hands over her mouth as she laughed. "Scott, you have that down too pat to not have heard it before."

"Hey when I was a kid I heard it all the time, integration was pretty old by then. Any black that was doing at all well brought forth that kind of remark from both blacks and whites."

Callie nodded, "Ninety percent of the time I hear the word 'nigger' it comes from a black mouth. I choose to believe that word derived from the word Niger, which was the name of a river in Africa and the area around it. The name was used to describe the people that came from that particular area, all of whom were black. It was originally no more derogatory than 'Negro' or 'black'."

I told them about when I was growing up and the only black children who went to our school were from the family who lived on a piece of land on Orange Creek. It had been deeded to them by their previous owners after the Civil War. The family name was Suarez and they had been on that land since the 1700s when the Spanish owned Florida.

Callie said, "Hey! I went to the University of Florida with a girl named Sylvie Suarez from Orange Springs."

I grinned, "I know her, light skin, long black straight hair, glasses, tall, and very pretty. Right? We rode on the same school bus for years."

"That's my Sylvie. We are good friends and see each other often. I'll see if she remembers you." She giggled, "Let me see if I can get her on her cell phone." She dialed a number and then grinned as she said, "Hi, Syl, guess what?-----"Do you remember that I told you we had a new owner of the place about a year ago?"------"Well he says he knows you!"------"Yes, that is what he says."-----"He's about six, one or two. Maybe, 200 pounds, reddish brown hair, deep clear blue eyes, freckles, quite handsome and very nice."- -----"No, you got the last name right, but the first name is wrong."-----"Yes, you have a good memory girl!" ------She giggled again, "You had a crush on him all the way through school? ------"He is sitting right here in front of me with his beautiful fiancée. And yes, I think he is very rich now." She looked at me and smiled as she handed me her phone.

I said, "Hi! Sylvie, how are you?"

"Oh! I am fine. It's so good to hear your voice, you have been away for a long time, no one heard much about you after your mother and father were killed. We heard you were overseas and they were buried before you could get home. It is so sad to see nothing but the chimneys of your old home."

"Yeah! It breaks my heart to go there now. I miss them very much." I guess a tear ran from my eye because my sweet Cat gently wiped it up with a tissue, then kissed my cheek. Sylvie chatted for a few minutes and I turned her back over to Callie. That voice from my past really brought up some feelings I had kept buried for a long time. I hugged Cat and held her tightly. She caressed my back and whispered that she loved me and that everything would be all right. I let her go, then went to the head and washed my face in cold water.

When I came back the two ladies watched me carefully, I said, "OK girls! Let's mount 'um up, and move 'um out. Let's hit the trail." It was my very best John Wayne imitation. They laughed and we got aboard the Golf Cart and drove up to the house then took a side road that was over grown. There was grass in the ruts but the old road was very easy to see. We went through a grove of giant old oak trees and came to a gate in a fence. Callie jumped out and opened the gate and we went through and waited while she closed it. We went through another gate and then entered another oak grove. On the other side there was a large clear area atop a bluff overlooking the lake. The view was spectacular. It was almost six miles across the water to the opposite shore.

To the North a creek flowed into the lake at the bottom of a steep cliff. The mouth of the creek was over 150 feet wide and the water that flowed from the spring fed pond above was crystal clear. The bottom was clearly visible in the water twenty feet deep. The land on the North side of the creek was much lower than the top of the bluff.

The old road curved in a large loop in front of where I envisioned the house to be. It then curved back to the west for fifty yards then reversed its self to drop down beside the creek below the bluff. A bulkhead separated the road from the creek and served as a dock.

The whole area was covered with huge old oak trees. A few would have to be moved or removed. The trunks on most of the trees were 4 to 8 feet thick, most were true giants and very old.

Cat stood and looked across the lake, Callie approached her and they quietly talked. Suddenly Cat's head jerked up and she wildly looked around until she saw me leaning against the golf cart. She grinned happily and ran to me, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me passionately, "I love it! It is a really beautiful place. I know we will be happy here, this is where I want to bear your children and raise them. This will be our 'home place' forever."

"Good, my love, I think Tony has the plans in his laptop, we can go over them with him and you can make any changes you want, or he can FAX us the plans if he is busy. It will be a smaller house but still be too much for you to handle alone. It now has a large family size dining room and a large kitchen, with a pantry and a large refrigerator and walk-in freezer. We may want to add a child care room and play yard for the help."

Callie said she thought that there had been a house on that spot many years ago, she would ask so of the old folks if they knew anything about it.

Cat stared into my eyes, "How long before we can move in?"

I made a guess, "A bit over a year, maybe a year and a half, depending on how busy Tony is."

She still held my gaze, "I don't want to wait that long to get married."

"Hell No! We will be married and honeymoon in the old house on schedule. After our honeymoon we can live on Ranger, we are comfortable aboard her now."

Cat grinned, "We sure are. We can do a really huge wedding for you and I and with any luck the President and First Lady will attend. We can hire a really good ad company, have it photographed and taped to use on our brochures and advertisements."

I looked at Cat, then at Callie. "The two of you really want to do the wedding bit don't you?"

They both nodded and smiled.

"OK then, you guys start working on it, go ahead and set up a separate account and run with it, I'll help if you need me." The girls squealed with delight and hugged and kissed me. They turned and started quietly talking and planning how they were going to pull this off, they talked all the way back to the boat.

I watched for a few minutes then went to my little office cabin. One bulkhead (a wall, in a house) was occupied by sophisticated communications gear. The adjacent wall held my built-in desk with a printer/scanner and my PC. Bookshelves and my filing cabinets covered the next bulkhead. I fired up my notebook PC, reviewed my financial status, and found I was in good shape in spite of recent and future planned expenditures. My sister and I had inherited large sums from our maternal grandparents and from our mother and father when they died. I had bought large parcels of land in the Miami and Naples, Florida areas. In only a few years while I was in the Navy they had more than quadrupled in value and I sold a lot of them. I retained a few key properties that limited the expansion of some of the other properties. I was getting offers to buy those properties almost every week. These were properties I had gotten rezoned to commercial before there was any development anywhere nearby. I knew they grew in value every day.

I worked on a few other projects I had going and verified that my small office staff had no problems with any of the routine information requests we handle. I was very fortunate to have all disabled vets working those jobs. They were damned good and were paid accordingly.