And No One Saw It Coming (eBook)

Chapter 2

Before the Tempest

“The heart of a man is very much like the sea; it has its storms, it has its tides, and in its depths, it has its pearls too.” 1
—Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

I could hear his jacked-up, blue ‘65 Mustang with headers and deep-dish Cragar wheels coming from blocks away. He was so hot! But he had a girlfriend, my friend Colleen who lived across the street. Colleen and her twin sister, Corinne, were high school seniors, and I was a sophomore. It was the fall of 1972, and I had recently moved to California from Texas. My dad’s company transferred him to Southern California as a Western Region Sales Manager. Although my dad’s office was on Wilshire Blvd. in downtown Los Angeles, my parents bought a house eighty miles south in Fountain Valley, a city located in Orange County. Fountain Valley is a neighboring town to the more famous Huntington Beach, known as “Surf City, USA.” In 1972, there was a significant influx of residents into the area. The high school I attended had the largest student population west of the Mississippi River, with 4,500 students.

I was born in Texas and lived there most of my childhood, except for one year. In 1969, my dad received a promotion, and we moved to Memphis, Tennessee. I was so excited when we moved back to Texas the following year when I was thirteen. Texas was home to me, and I thought I would always live in Texas like generations of ancestors before me. The summer before my sophomore year in high school, my parents announced that we were moving once again to Southern California. I was devastated. I had just made the high school drill team! And in a big football-loving state like Texas, making the drill team was second to a cheerleading squad. In Texas in the seventies, junior high school was seventh through ninth grade, and high school was tenth through twelfth. But in California, high school was ninth through twelfth grade. Not only would I be moving and going to a new school, but I would also be entering the new high school as a sophomore when all the other students entered as freshmen.

Even worse, I was moving away from my best friend, Jaci. Jaci and I were inseparable; if we weren’t in school or sleeping, Jaci and I were together. Like many fourteen-year-old girls in the early seventies, we spent hours talking about secret crushes on boys, decorating our bedrooms with blacklight posters and peace signs, and listening to Carol King’s Tapestry album or Don McLean’s iconic song, “American Pie.” We enjoyed riding our matching 10-speed bikes to the local 7-Eleven store for a Slurpee or shopping for a new pair of bellbottom jeans or hot pants. How could my parents move me away from my best friend and to California of all places? I cried for weeks, hoping my parents would change their minds, but to no avail.

This 5’8” blue-eyed girl with long brown hair and a BIG Texas accent arrived on a Friday in Southern California in September 1972. I spent the weekend worrying about starting a new school the following Monday. I couldn’t believe how different Fountain Valley High School was from the schools I attended in Texas. I came from a very conservative junior high school with a stringent dress code: knee-length skirts, no sleeveless shirts, no jeans, and the boys couldn’t have sideburns or long hair. As I walked around the laid-back, coastal community high school campus, I couldn’t believe students were chewing gum in class, wearing shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. And everyone talked with an accent! (It took me a while to figure out that it was me who had the accent.)

Eventually, I found my way and made new friends. Settling into the California lifestyle was a smoother transition than I expected, probably because Huntington Beach was a short ten-minute drive away. What teenager wouldn’t like hanging out at the beach every day during the summer, watching those cute surfers with their sun-kissed long hair, tans, and easy-going, hang loose attitudes? Oh, and that boy I mentioned earlier, the one who drove that loud, blue Mustang? He happened to be one of those cute surfers. His name was Paul Glidden. Sometimes after school or on the weekends, I would hang out with Paul and the twins across the street. Paul was easy to talk to and always fun to be around. He was adorable, and I secretly wished he wasn’t Colleen’s boyfriend.

After Paul and Colleen broke up, Paul and I remained friends and kept in contact. Over the next year, we continued to talk on the phone. Occasionally, we ran into each other at the beach. We enjoyed each other’s company and the flirtatious nature of our conversations, even though we both were dating other people. Paul called me one evening in March 1975, and after several minutes of our usual small talk and catching up, Paul finally asked me out on a date. What? Finally, Paul Glidden, the cute, hot surfer boy I had a secret crush on, was asking me out on a date! Bad news—I had a boyfriend, Steve, a freshman at the University of California, San Diego, and we had been dating for almost a year. I couldn’t believe I had to say no. Uggggh!

I sensed Paul’s disappointment over the phone, and I think he could feel mine, too. Paul and his friend, Tab, crewed on Tab’s father’s 35’ Erickson sailboat out of Long Beach every Wednesday. Paul wanted to take me sailing on a double date with his friend, Tab, and his girlfriend, Terri. I had never been sailing, much less with a boy I secretly liked. I felt terrible! After I hung up the phone, I called my best friend. I remember so well the phone conversation and advice.

She said, “Marci, you have liked Paul for such a long time. I know you’re dating Steve, but I know you like Paul a lot. Right?”

And because you tell your best friend forever (BFF) in high school EVERYTHING, I said, “Yes, I do!”

And of course, your BFF in high school always has your back and has your best interest in mind, so she says, “Then call Paul back and say YES! And then break up with your boyfriend! Duh!!!”

And that’s what I did! I called Paul back in less than an hour and said, “Paul, I would love to go sailing with you if the offer is still open.”

On a beautiful sunny day in March 1975, a seventeen-year-old girl and a nineteen-year-old boy sailed across the threshold of what would be a forty-year love affair. Five years later, on April 12, 1980, when Paul and I married, my BFF from high school was my maid of honor. Tab was Paul’s best man, and his girlfriend, Terri (who was now his wife), was one of my bridesmaids. Our closest friends were with us from the start of our decades-long romance.

In high school, Paul was a good student. He could have been better academically, but his social activities were more important. Paul was a wrestling team member, ran cross country for the high school track team, and was a drummer in the marching band. Paul was also a Boy Scout—a fact he kept secret from most of his high school friends. He stayed with Scouting and earned the highest achievement possible in the BSA Scouting program, Eagle Scout. Only four percent of all Scouts in the program have received this honor since 1911. As an adult, Paul was proud of being an Eagle Scout and occasionally sponsored young Scouts in the program. The values of leadership, perseverance, and discipline Paul learned during his Scouting years served him well as an entrepreneur. Paul also had a passion for surfing and spent his free time chasing the waves just off Huntington Beach’s pier.

After high school graduation, Paul spent two years at a local junior college before transferring to UCLA as a junior. He was quickly accepted as a fraternity brother into the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity and moved into the fraternity house in the fall of 1975, taking full advantage of all that fraternity life had to offer. Graduating from UCLA in 1978 with a degree in economics, he was offered a job as a stockbroker with a well-known brokerage firm. The view from his office in Marina Del Rey, California, proved to be a bit too distracting while studying for his stockbroker license. He failed the test, and the company immediately fired him. Needing a job, Paul called his dad for help. Paul’s dad had worked in the corrugated packaging industry for years and made a few phone calls to his colleagues and competitors. Within the week, Paul was offered a job as a salesman with Inland Container Corp., a large, corrugated mill in Los Angeles. Paul was paid nine hundred dollars a month and given a company car and benefits, and off he went.

Less than a year later, Paul and I married. Paul was almost twenty-five, and I had just turned twenty-three. After renting a 700-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment, Paul and I had less than two hundred dollars in the bank. Eighteen months later, with help from my parents, Paul and I bought our first home—a two-bedroom condo in Mission Viejo in August 1981. We welcomed our first son, Kris, in June 1982, our second son, Cory, in August 1986, and our daughter, Dani, in April 1989. Paul continued to work for the corrugated mill in Los Angeles during those years and earned top salesman distinction for several years.

In 1989, with three children under the age of seven and a mortgage, Paul came home one Friday evening and said, “I want to quit my job and start my own business. I’ve noticed most of my corrugated customers purchase labels, instruction sheets, and folding cartons, and I...