FIERCE FEATURES: God's American Dream by Bill Weld

            My father’s family came to the United States from England and were at the time called recusant Catholics (which means they refused to convert to the church of England when most abandoned the Catholic church along with Henry VIII.) 

             This in theory was an indication of the resolve of my ancestors, of their strength of conviction, their refusal to give in to the demands of a mad king and the sheep who would follow his will. In practice, we seemed to inherit all the worst qualities of both the “WASP” Anglo superiority that is so prevalent in the Northeast of this country, the buttoned up, sweater vest to family affairs, country club hopping arrogance that is far more concerned with the appearance of perfection for the benefit of the help than any actual substantive perfection in practice; while also taking on the shame based, vengeful tendencies so common amongst Catholics. 

            In short, we drank as much as any Irish Catholic family, but instead of whiskey, we had gin and tonics.  

            Now, this is not directly relevant to the story I intend to tell, but I do think it sheds some light on those involved. Their character is in many ways defined by an unholy combination of the Protestant work ethic and the shame reinforced behemoth that is the Catholic faith. The idea that those who work hard will be rewarded by God because to work hard is to do God’s will, in conjunction with the idea that we must feel shame for our shortcoming before God. Which in effect means that those who work hard will be rewarded with wealth and prosperity and those who do not work hard enough are doomed to a humbler state of being for lack of trying, and more importantly, that they should be ashamed of this. 

            Our story begins in earnest on the coast of Paradise Island in the Bahamas. It was 5 O’clock in the morning and a madness had taken hold of my father. It was the madness that only the children of middle-aged men who have taken a vacation that cannot afford know. He was shouting at us to get out of bed because we needed to hit the buffet while still leaving enough time for our stomachs to rest before a scuba diving lesson he had scheduled for 7 AM. Me being the oldest and most driven of my brothers had of course already risen and was on the way to the shower. 

I remember being disappointed, even angry at my bothers who were still grumbling and refusing to get out of bed. Especially Bob when he tried to tell my father that the point of a vacation is to relax and get some sleep for a change. This was not acceptable for my father. The day was being wasted by my brothers’ laziness, he had worked so hard to get us here and now they were going to sleep it all away. GET UP NOW AND GOD DAMMIT TRY TO LOOK LIKE YOU’RE ENJOYING YOURSELF. 

I had to agree. If I could get out of bed, why not them. 

Of course, it turned out that the buffet wouldn’t open for at least another hour by the time we made it down to the lobby, and we wound up waiting forty-five minutes by the pool for the scuba instructors who said they believed there was no way we would have showed up for a lesson that early. I mean the sun hadn’t even fully risen at 7. 

There are many stories like this from my childhood: my father filled with anger and myself siding with him. It defined my life for many years. A feeling that I needed to work harder, that there could be no rest, that my brothers were less worthy because I never questioned. Because I just got out of bed and slammed my nose to the grindstone no matter what. 

Fast forward to Christmas dinner many years later, at my father’s younger brother’s home. My father’s brother was an exceptionally successful man. MIT graduate who studied mathematics and then got an MBA. He worked at a hedge fund for some time then became a partner at a private equity firm. He was ten thousand dollars a plate fundraising dinner for Mitt Romney rich. He was what my father was chasing at 5 AM in the Bahamas. He was what I was conditioned to chase nearly all my life. 

Like me, my uncle also enjoys telling stories. The kind of stories that rich old white men tell about work whenever they get the chance. And the one he told this Christmas was one of his favorites. His firm had purchased a water treatment plant which had an agreement for many years with a local municipality where they would service the town in exchange for getting to use a public water source for private bottling. They had purchased the company knowing this agreement was scheduled to expire later that year. And had planned to negotiate a more favorable deal, charging the town a great deal more money than they had paid in the past for clean water. He would mockingly quote an official from the local government as saying

“I’m not in this for politics, my children went to school in this town, my mother still lives here. Please believe me when I say we do not have the money to afford what you’re asking”. 

Then my Uncle would say,

 “So I told this guy, "Well, you better find the money or tomorrow morning grandma is going to wake up without any water to take a shower."” 

This story would get many laughs. But on this particular evening, something changed in me. I had been at business school two and a half years at that point and wasn’t having a good time of it. And for the first time was starting to question some of the things I had taken for granted when I was a child. 

Hearing this story about my uncle threatening to turn off basic utilities for a man’s elderly mother, at Christmas dinner no less, made me start to question if this is really the type of person I should aspire to be. 

It made me question many things. 

If there was any point to those ruined vacations, and even worse if the sense of superiority I enjoyed for being able to wake up at an hour when most of the "hoi polloi" (as my father put it) was still in bed may have been very silly. It made me question everything I was and wanted to be. But perhaps that’s a moment we all have in our lives. 

Or at least maybe we should.

--Bill Weld