A SUMMER STORY

BY

ROBERT WALLACE PAOLINELLI

The beach house was of moderate size and plain looking.

There was nothing about it to make it stand out and be remembered save for a trellis laden with small pink roses off to the right side of the back porch. The outside of the house had once been painted white, but because of neglect, the paint had peeled exposing grey, weathered wood underneath.

From the back porch one had a clear view of the beach and far out into Monterey Bay. On a clear day the curve of the bay stood out sharply as seen from the back porch of the

house in Santa Cruz.

The house belonged to a dentist who lived in San Francisco,who was the epitome of the absentee landlord: as long as the rent was received each month on time he didn't care much who lived in the house or what happend to it. Usually students rented it. At the time that this story takes place the rent was relatively inexpensive--especially for a student, and it was a university student who lived therein.

The student was not a common student, that is he was not a young student; he was older than the average-aged undergraduate. He was just thirty years old and was a senior, enjoying his last summer as a student. When the fall quarter would end at the end of the year, he would graduate and take up another year of study at another school to study for a teaching credential. But for the moment he was enjoying his long summer respite and taking advantage of his idle time after an intense quarter of assiduous study.

He went to bed late and got up late. He would begin his day with a walk on the beach, strolling the sands, usually barefooted and not caring if the waves caught him and wetted his trousers. From the beach he would walk to the nearby grocery store and buy a morning, San Francisco paper,return to his house, wash his feet, change his trousers if needed, make coffee and eat something, drink coffee and read the newspaper.

Just enjoying lazy summer days. He'd earned this respite. He had maintained a B plus average and had not participated in all the partying his fellow students had. He had an ample supply of money, having husbanded his resources all during the two previous quarters and then he had a wind fall of almost two thousand dollars: He got into a poker game with a student who came from a very wealthy family. The maximum betting for the game had been agreed on at one dollar; the rich student kept losing and the more he lost the more he wanted to bet thinking that by raising the stakes he would recoup his loses. All the students dropped out of the game except the young man who lived in the cottage where the roses grew. He was a good poker player. Originally he had started the game with twenty dollars and would not allow himself more; but he kept on winning; and when the rich student decided to raise the stakes, our hero had more than two hundred dollars of winnings. The rich student kept losing because he was angry that he was losing and kept making bad judgements. His cash on hand eventually went to the winner and he then started paying with IOUs. When the hero of our story had one almost two thousand dollars, he called it quits, and with the IOUs in his hand, walked the loser to his room where he wrote out a check for the IOUS. The very next day, twenty minutes before the bank opened our hero was at the door and was the first customer and he cashed the check before the loser had time to play a fast one on him--which he did. But the loser was a late riser and by the time he had waked and called the bank to put a stop payment on the check, he was informed that the check had already been cashed.

The loser did not like that and he vowed to do something to our hero and make him sorry he had won so much money. That is the sad part of of this story; for the poor loser was stupid enough to write our hero a note saying he would seek revenge for his loses and that he had better sleep with a gun and look over his shoulder. Well, our hero took the note to the police and the police picked up the poor loser, who screamed with indignation had being in police custody. His father came to Santa Cruz. He spoke to the police; he spoke to his son; he even spoke to our hero. The father was aghast that his son would do such a stupid thing and could not apologize enough. He even offered our hero some compensation if he would drop the charges. After due consideration our hero made out a year's budget to include rent, school fees, books, groceries and etceteras. If the father would give him a check for said amount he would drop the charges. The father pulled out his check book and wrote out the check. The son was released and our hero went about his life feeling very rich--which he was, for he had not only won all that money in the poker game, he had his entire academic year's expenses already deposited in hs savings account.

To be a student and to not have any financial worries is a gift. To be a student who has no financial worries and to be the kind of man our hero was is a double blessing, for he was not a spend thrift.

A Summer Story12/4/95 6/8/95 Konko religion) root themselves more deeply and, through proper nurturing, they will spread everywhere.

Before me, many ministers have come to San Francisco to propagate the Konko religion. The San Francisco Konko Church was established sixty-four years ago by the late Rev. Yoshiaki Fukuda and his wife, the late Rev. Shink