“If I have any debt to pay, I will pay it to god.” That sentence and that image kept me out of jail… I think.

Just out of high school and barely 18, I got my first job. Well, my first job was as a theater usher at the age of 16 for $1.50 an hour but this was my first real grownup job.

No one had encouraged me to go to college. I guess making something of myself, in the traditional sense, was not an option. This was 1967 so smoking weed and taking LSD and going to live dance venues represented adulthood and freedom and a meaningful education in real time. My main occupation was expanding my mind. But in order to do this, I needed a job.

I’m out of the house, I have my own apartment and my frontal lobe obviously was not fully developed. Good sense hadn’t even occured to me yet. Making reasonably good decisions was not my strong suit, let alone a priority. But finding a job to support my new lifestyle was.

I could do retail, I told myself. The most interesting shop around was Import Plaza owned by Bill and Sam Naito. I applied and was immediately hired, on what merit, I hadn’t a clue. But this was my first step in becoming an independent woman. This is where fate took over.

This is where I met my new best friend, Laurel Lee. Yes, it was that Laurel Lee (may she rest in peace), author of Walking Through the Fire, and subsequently, many other books. She was working there before she became famous so that she and her husband, Richard, could travel to Alaska in a house he was building on the back of a truck.

This was a general retail position. I stocked shelves, put price stickers on new items, straightened the merchandise throughout the store, helped at the cash register bagging purchases and that kind of thing… in other words, anything I was asked to do.

I proved to be reliable and a good worker. I was promoted to cashier and merchandising. The Naito brothers liked me and soon, but not warranted, they put their trust in me. I was given the keys to the store to open and close. Before long, I was invited into the office where they discussed training as a buyer. I had met the current head buyer and I liked her. This would mean international travel as a trainee. But how did I fuck this up?

I was not new to fucking up. I had a couple of opportunities while in high school that I passed up that could have set me up for a successful future. The first was working as a designer for Star Sapphire. My art instructor saw potential that others did not see. She knew people and set me up with an interview. Without going in to painful detail, suffice it to say, I foolishly let that slip through my fingers.

My second opportunity was with the Portland Junior Symphony. Again, a teacher saw potential, this time in my musical abilities. I auditioned and interviewed and was accepted. But once again I let an incredible opportunity pass me by. I won’t go into great embarrassing detail but it’s another example of me fucking up.

So continuing on with the story of the perils of being young and an already established history of being really foolish, I made a bigger mess of things. I’ll make this short.

First, my criminal escapades started with taking smoked oysters and exotic crackers off the shelf to eat lunch with Laurel. She was already taking from the store. Richard would come to pick her up and I noticed that he was leaving with goods without paying. His strategy was to pick up several things, pay for one or two and stash the rest in a bag leaving with the stolen goods.

As time went on, I was taking small imported objects to decorate my apartment and imported cookies from Belgium, baskets from Thailand, fabrics from India, stained glass lamps from Morocco. Once I was closing the store, I took a rattan “King Chair” from Indonesia. I took, unabashedly, jewelry from around the world.

What was I doing? I had never even shoplifted the odd candy bar or lipstick or mascara as a kid. My parents taught me perfectly. Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t walk across the neighbor’s lawn. Don’t skip school. Don’t cheat. Be kind and conscientious. And they were good examples as far as I knew. I grew up happy for the most part. So what was I up to now?

I liked to justify my actions with excuses like, I was taking from the rich and giving to the poor… the poor which included myself. I was obviously deluded and a liar… and a thief. What I was actually doing was taking from people who were trying to give me a chance in life. I was stealing from people who wanted to help me.

My “career” as a thief did not end there. As a cashier and a manager, I was able to steal money, as well. I thought I was so clever. Even at this point, I allowed a friend to come after closing and he loaded up his car with stolen goods.

I was doing all of this while expanding my mind with psychedelics and entering the world of Eastern religion. My studies alone should have deterred me from the path I was on. I really don’t know what I was thinking. I suppose you could say I wasn’t thinking at all and you would be right.

They say that all criminals, that get caught, fuck up in some way. I had been fucking up for a long time and in many ways without even knowing. The end of it for me came quite suddenly and was over quickly. It happened one day as I was cashiering. Three men in suits came in and approached me at the cash register in front of a line of customers. They said to follow them to their car and I did, heart in my throat.

I was taken to another building down the street owned by the Naito brothers and was escorted into an austere office. Both Sam and Bill were there. These were kind and generous and important businessmen in the community. These were men who had trusted me. These were men who saw potential in me just as my two high school instructors had. Here I was again having failed and fucking things up.

I sat and looked into their eyes and saw that they were sad for me. This was really painful. They could have allowed the investigation to be done by the professionals but instead they sat in front of me and talked face-to-face. First of all they asked me what kind of grades I got in math in high school. I replied that I had very good grades in math in high school, that all of my grades were good in high school. And then they put a box of cash register receipts in front of me and asked me to explain why then do these not match the amount of merchandise going out the door.

If I remember correctly, I sat silently having no answer for them. Then they showed a video of what I had been doing at the cash register. Again, I had nothing to say. I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

I was crying. Both brothers stood up and turned their backs to me and walked slowly out the door without turning around and without having anything more to say. The investigators once again asked me to follow them out to their car and we went to my apartment and they confiscated all the stolen goods. They said that the Naito brothers were contemplating whether they should press charges or not but in the meantime, I would be free on my own recognizance.

My theivery added up to grand larceny and could have ruined my life but for the kindness of the Naito brothers. They did not deserve my arrogant response. At the time I didn’t even realize my response was arrogant and was completely inappropriate and out of hand. Within a few days, I received a letter from the courts saying that I would be called and not to travel outside of the state. I wasn’t going anywhere anyhow.

While waiting for the court to call me, I tried to figure out what to do and worried about going to jail. I was suddenly dragged from a dream. I was fully aware that what I had done was wrong. How was I going to make up for it except by going to jail?

While all of this was happening to me, Laurel and Richard had left for Alaska just as they had planned. I received some letters from Laurel and I guess you could say the most significant was one in which she told a story of how they had met Jesus on a dirt road in Alaska. According to Laurel, which evidence proved out through the rest of her life, she had been transformed.

From this day forward, Laurel was a devout Christian. But what made this significant for me was that inside the envelope was a small card with a painting of Jesus ascending into the clouds. The card was about 2″ by 3″. I always kept Laurel’s letters because she was a wonderful storyteller and her letters were always full of great stories. Suddenly that card held more importance than I could have imagined.

I wanted to apologize to Sam and Bill but I didn’t know how. “I had a brilliant idea”, she says sarcastically. “I’ll write them a letter and include the card and ask them if it wouldn’t be all right for me to pay my debt to God.” This is entirely cringe worthy.

Apparently, my letter got to them because I received a letter asking me to meet with them. My biggest punishment was having to meet with them face-to-face again. They were not going to press charges, they said. The worst that they were going to do to me was to never recommend me for a job working with money. However, they would give me a good recommendation based on my skills and work ethics.

How could they have ever said anything about ethics concerning me. After that meeting, I slunk out of the office, my head hanging and my tail tucked under. Next was an official document from the court saying that all charges had been dropped.

I have no idea whether that little card had any influence on the Naito’s decision to forgive me or not. I’m sorry to have used Jesus, since I’m not a believer. Perhaps I could just as well have used a card with an image of the Buddha or any of the Hindu gods or any mythical images of gods and goddesses but perhaps it served its purpose.

As a girl who was under 20 years old, I sure was lucky. I had no criminal record and I would spend no time in jail. In fact, there was very little punishment other than humiliation in the face of love and generosity. I’ll never forget Bill and Sam Naito. These men are long gone, having passed away, but among many other things, their legacy lives on in me.