"Borders of My Heart": Never Underestimate the Resolve of a Father's Love . . .

By Jim Driscoll

"Borders of My Heart" is a simple and true story of a father's love for his son and his refusal to give him up when ordered to do so by a Michigan court after the mother had remarried and settled down. In order to retain physical custody, he had to defy the court order, resulting in a clandestine cross-country move to Southern California in contempt of that court. The flight, and its resulting aftermath, make up the time line of that odyssey, even further endearing the father to his son, as well as eventually to the son's own family, including three children that later came along.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514457689

Jim Driscoll

Jim Driscoll was born in Detroit, Michigan, on May 10, 1942. He graduated from the University of Detroit in 1964 with a liberal arts degree, majoring in history and English. In late 1970, after a divorce earlier that year, he moved to Los Angeles, California, with his young son and raised him in Southern California. In June 2000, after thirty-five years of service, he retired from General Motors Acceptance Corporation, the automobile financial arm of General Motors. After retiring, he followed his son's family in his son's employment relocations to San Francisco, California, then Vancouver, British Columbia, and now resides in Vancouver, Washington, near the Oregon border, as his son and family now themselves reside in nearby West Linn, Oregon.

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Borders of My Heart

Jim Driscoll

Copyright © 2016 by Jim Driscoll.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016902025

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-5771-9

                Softcover        978-1-5144-5769-6

                eBook              978-1-5144-5768-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/29/2016

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Contents

Dedication

Forward

Chapter One Impasse

Chapter Two Reversal

Chapter Three Horizons West

Chapter Four The Mother Road

Chapter Five Westward Bound

Chapter Six The Wild West

Chapter Seven Badlands

Chapter Eight Breakdown

Chapter Nine Silent Night

Chapter Ten Merry Christmas

Chapter Eleven Room, With A View

Chapter Twelve Movement

Chapter Thirteen Deception

Chapter Fourteen Contact

Chapter Fifteen Trust

Chapter Sixteen All Quiet on the Western Front

Chapter Seventeen Grosspop

Chapter Eighteen Beautiful Downtown Burbank

Chapter Nineteen Walk the Line

Chapter Twenty ‘The Show’

Chapter Twenty-One Survival

Chapter Twenty-Two The Naked City

Chapter Twenty-Three Redlegs Rule

Chapter Twenty-Four Starshine

Chapter Twenty-Five The Perfect Season

Chapter Twenty-Six Tempus Fugit

Chapter Twenty-Seven Home Alone

Chapter Twenty-Eight A Grand Trek

Chapter Twenty-Nine You Can’t Go Home

Chapter Thirty Resolution

Chapter Thirty-One Blessed Events

Chapter Thirty-Two City By The Bay

Chapter Thirty-Three The Queen’s Country

Chapter Thirty-Four Acceptance

Chapter Thirty-Five No Future In The Past

Chapter Thirty-Six A Kindred Spirit

Chapter Thirty-Seven Attainment

Chapter Thirty-Eight Fulfillment

Post Script : After Thoughts

One sees clearly with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.

The Little Prince

(Antoine De Saint Exupery)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my son, Tim. Most or all of the following narrative is about him, occurred fully or in part because of him, and is a testament of my relationship to him, and his resulting own family.

Forward

In 1967 the price of gas was an average 33 cents per gallon. The very unpopular Vietnam war was raging, and Richard M Nixon was stumping for the presidency on the platform that he was not yet a crook.

Carl Yastrzemski won the American League Triple Crown in 1967. That consisted of the American League batting title, the HR championship, and the RBI title. Actually, he tied for the HR championship, with Harmon Killebrew, at 44, but since no one had more than him, the Triple Crown was his. Shortly after the season had ended, I watched an excerpt from a banquet he attended, celebrating his remarkable achievement. Speaking from his heart, he said he owed all of his success to his wife, for her love, her support and encouragement throughout the campaign. At the time I thought it odd for him to say that. After all, she never had had to face a Denny McClain fastball, or a Jim Kaat left-handed bender breaking away from one’s zone, and actually hit it somewhere. But he had, and apparently had done it successfully, while leading his Boston Red Sox to the American League pennant.

Later, during the following spring, I attended the Detroit Tigers 1968 season opener, as I had often done during my college years and after, versus those same Boston Red Sox. In the top of the 7th inning, Yastrzemski hit a towering fly ball to deep right-center field. From my vantage point behind third base, it looked long gone. But the ball hit high atop the right-centerfield fence, inches above the center fielder’s glove and less than a foot from the top of the fence. It then took an odd carom, bounding aimlessly along the outfield track towards dead center field and the deepest part of the stadium, at 440 feet. And with no fielder in sight! Well, Carl easily made it all the way around the bases for a rare inside-the-park home run. Then, in the 9th inning, Yaz connected again, but this time the ball landed 10 rows deep in the upper deck in right-center field, for his second homer of the game. Leaving the beloved Tiger Stadium that day, I couldn’t help but think ... wow ... his wife must really still love and support him!

I was beginning to understand exactly what he meant in those words he had said at the post-season banquet. And by saying them, for all the world to hear, he was telling his wife exactly what she meant to him. She must have already known, but it didn’t hurt to re-affirm the point. To that end, absence never makes the heart grow fonder.

But, while I was slowly beginning to understand these required conditions of the human heart, the winds of change were slowly beginning to stir in my own marriage, but in the opposite direction. Only one and a half years into the marriage, and now with a six month old son in the picture, the changes seemed too subtle to become alarmed over, or with which to be concerned. Secure in the feeling that we were married, and all marriages experience subtle nuances like this, my reaction was minimal at first. Things, I believed, would surely work their way out of this situation. After all, my heart had not changed; my feelings were the same. But foolishly I didn’t question hers, or address the issue in any meaningful way. Over time, however, the estrangement grew, and I found myself rationalizing its continuance, and compensating with more attention to my son, rather than to his mother. As mistakes go, that was a big one. Needless to say, the gulf widened.

–––––––––-

What follows is an account of one father’s experience and reaction to a family court decision that ordered him to relinquish custody of his son, barely three years old, to the boy’s mother, who had recently re-married and now could provide a proper home environment for the son, with her new husband, in their new home. It seemed reasonable at the time, and, to some, also in the best interest of the child. Lenient visitation terms were promoted, and everything seemed in order and producing order ... everything but for the sanction of the father.

This scenario has been played out frequently and without prejudice thousands of times throughout the time period of the story, before it, and ever since, and even today. Fathers, many of whom are willing to forego the care and provision of a child in deference to the mother, thus securing their own freedom, have been relinquishing their primary custody for ages, and often it has been a plan not only of convenience, but pragmatically sound. They have done it not always because they wanted to, but because they were compelled by the court to do it. Some have been a shared custody, although the child still lives with the mother. This is a story of a father who refused to accept this apparent pragmatic solution.

Times have changed little in some social settings. This setting begins in 1970 and, while some progress has been seen in the area of custodial responsibility, there still seems to be a long way to go. Faced with a looming deadline, at which the transfer point was to legally signify the custodial change, this father had some tough decisions to make, and little time in which to make them. They would change his life forever, and, even as he carried them out, he didn’t know how right or wrong they were ... ethically, socially, legally, morally, or, most essentially, fairly.

It is one thing to say you love your child, and want to be with him and raise him, and another to defy the court system, change your job, leave your home and friends and family, and relocate 2500 miles away, in contempt of court ... in order to do it. To most fathers, the freedom that comes with the mother’s custody, with the proximity of the child for visitation at his convenience, seems like an acceptable alternative ... difficult at times ... but at least a medial solution. But this father saw such a provision as far from medial, and but rather personally deprivable. And: unacceptable. I know, because I was that father.

The account of that refusal and the story it spawned, actually begins after the court decision has been made, on one pre-winter night, in the rain, in a parking lot of an isolated motel, in a rusted phone booth, somewhere in Missouri, some 500 miles from home, and westward bound.

("I’ve got a long list of real good reasons ...

for all the things I’ve done…")

Chapter One

Impasse

It was a dark and stormy night. The random raindrops continued. The tall, soaked pines remained restless in the post- storm calm. Everything was wet, but the rain had stopped, save for those remnants from the trees and the occasional plunks from above onto the roof of the metal phone booth, as I hung up the phone. My mom, I had figured, was worried, so a reassuring phone call had been in order. There was a quiet chill in the air, as I scanned the near-empty parking lot. And, as I did, I pondered how in the world I got to where I was, while also trying to figure out exactly where that was.

As far as I could determine, I was somewhere in eastern Missouri. The evening had slowly seeped into its darkness, and I was in a confused state of mind, anyway. In any case, Detroit, my starting point earlier that day, seemed a million miles away. It was, in truth, much farther.

Across the rain-soaked parking lot, next to the motel, was everything in my life worthwhile, save for my own family back in Michigan. In the little Pontiac Lemans hardtop, parked but 60 feet away from me, was my son, Little Tim, and my dog, Charlie. They were tired and hungry, and probably a little confused. They had bickered all day, but, in view of the circumstances, I suppose they had behaved pretty well. I left the limited shelter of the phone booth and went back to the car.

We managed to secure a dry motel room and immediately appreciated the new-found warmth of the moment. After some food and our prayers, Tim was soon sawing wood, with Charlie curled up at the foot of his bed. As I went out to the car to pick up a few items, the rain suddenly picked up, or so it seemed. But it was only the wind, stirring up the pine trees, which, in turn, shed its tiny reservoirs of rain droplets down upon the ground, and upon my head. I made it back inside ... tired ... and a bit wetter, and apprehensive of what the days ahead might bring. And reluctant to reminisce what the recent ones had brought.

Although mentally exhausted after but one day on the road, surprisingly I was not sleepy. I knew I needed a good night’s sleep, but I just sat there at one of those stark motel tables, staring out at the courtyard and the parking lot, through the cheap, parted plastic curtains. The rain seemed to now be picking up again, as it left even drops in the puddles on the lot that I could see, with the help of the one street lamp in the immediate area. And I could still hear grumbling thunder rolls in the distance. And as the tears of water trickled down the window pane, I gazed upon it as if it was a steamed up bathroom mirror, which had reflected my own image, just 36 hours earlier, as I was about to rustle up some eggs at my kitchen stove.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That was Friday morning, December 18th, 1970. It was cold but clear. The eggs were done. It was a special day ... one, I later discovered, that would be a memorable one for me. And while Little Tim picked at the eggs, I wolfed my portion down. Strangely, I wasn’t really apprehensive about the court hearing scheduled for later that morning. Any adverse effect that would be resulting from this gathering had not yet been instilled into any mindset I may have had. Funny, too, because I was usually always considering alternate contingencies. Still, my attorney was confident. The Friend of the Court, the investigative and recommendation arm of these proceedings, had given us a favorable ruling. The judge, in cases like this, almost always went a similar way. The change of custody petition, requesting transfer from my custody, in effect since the official divorce date of Mar 3, 1970, to Tim’s mother, was an extremely long-shot, at best. So said the legal tea leaves. And then I burned the toast.

A few hours later the courtroom was abuzz with a number of small conversations between petitioners and legal counsel on imminent cases, not only inside the courtroom, but in the halls outside, as well. My attorney huddled with me in similar fashion. I really hated this entire process ... having to go through all this personal mediation, with all the exposure it conceded to anyone present who cared to listen in. For the most part, however, most of those gathered are really not interested in somebody else’s problems, unless to maybe get a read on the judge’s mindset for that particular day, in relation to their own case being adjudicated. But, realizing this, as I did, was still not reassuring to me. And yes, my attorney was still confident, but I suddenly became wary, and with good reason.

Murphy’s Law was about to manifest itself, and my life, as I knew it, was about to radically change.

(Time changes everything ...)

Chapter Two

Reversal

I once read somewhere that time is the thing that keeps everything from happening all at once. How true. The following 10 to 15 minutes seemed to unfold all at once, as if time stopped and became condensed into a single moment. The judge in my proceeding, who appeared to be in his fifties, had the presence of seemingly a fair man. And I’m sure he had ruled over many cases like this one before. And I’m not sure he did anything that his wisdom and experience had not told him to do. He didn’t know me at all, nor the plaintiff. We were just docket numbers on a piece of paper. As soon as our number was called, he began speaking, while perusing the papers before him. And I immediately sensed the dread of his leaning away from any favorable ruling for me. While reiterating certain facts favorable to my side, his review was obviously leading to one universal conclusion in matters like this one: a child is always better off with his mother. And the mother, in this case, had settled down, was now remarried, and had a home environment to offer the child. Knowing only these salient points ... I suppose it was difficult for him to reach any other conclusion.

In just seconds I had lost Little Tim, at least legally. My heart sank. It was not prepared for this. I remember talking to my attorney in the hallway outside the courtroom after the proceeding. He felt bad, as well. He had won the Friend of the Court’s recommendation, not an easy feat in a mother-child friendly environment, prevalent throughout the family court system. It probably had not mattered what had transpired prior to the hearing; the judge was predisposed to rule as he had. Even other attorney associates of my own attorney came up to him to express their dissatisfaction with the ruling. My attorney knew of my own pre-disposition in this event, however, and told me that he could not sanction, from a legal standpoint, anything other than the imposed court order. The transfer point was to take place the next day, Saturday, when Little Tim’s mom would regularly come by the home to pick him up for normal week-end visitation, usually at 9 A.M. Only on this week-end, she would not be returning him Sunday night.

I informed my attorney of my intentions, little of which I had yet formulated to any degree, and sought my legal position. The news wasn’t good. I suddenly felt very isolated, and already separated