Читать книгу CryptoDad - J. Christopher Giancarlo - Страница 28

For me, the 1960s began as soon as I could stand on two feet and take a good look around. I liked what I saw. My world seemed colorful, melodic, and good. After school, we played football, stickball, and basketball in the backyards and driveways of our leafy, 10-block neighborhood until my mother's loud whistle called us home for dinner. Most everything we touched or ate was made well and produced domestically, indeed locally. Many of our clothes were sewn in New York's garment district, televisions made in Trenton, furniture crafted in Connecticut, vegetables grown on New Jersey farms, meat butchered in town. My grandfathers, Charlie and Henry, drove cars made in Detroit: Cadillacs and Buicks, respectively. They were solidly built, and just as finely made as the Mercedes that my European-styled father drove. In fact, my dad's Mercedes looked rather pedestrian compared to their cars. Theirs were aspirational. The tail fins on Grandpa Charlie's 1962 Sedan DeVille made it appear as if it could take off and fly. The tiny tail bumps on Dad's Mercedes made you wonder how it ever got across the Atlantic.

I respected the cultivation and the language facility of my European aunts, uncles, and cousins—whom we visited some summers—and the many French, Italian, and Hungarian doctors who attended my parents' dinner parties. Yet, I preferred American things—especially football, rock ‘n’ roll, the Jersey Shore, the New York World's Fair, the Apollo space program, and muscle cars—all of which seemed to express the future's limitless possibility.

We went to a cheerful Catholic elementary school. We were fortunate to attend junior and senior high at the nondenominational Dwight-Englewood School, a fine private college “prep” school that assiduously set out a broad framework for how to think rather than imposing a narrow worldview of what to think. I respected and somewhat envied my older brother, Charlie, who seemed to win every academic award Dwight-Englewood bestowed. Unlike me, he was kind, easygoing, athletic, and wickedly smart. Like my dad, he loved gadgets, spending days at a time constructing electronic devices, even TVs and early computers. Unlike him, I played electric guitar, wore my hair long, and got into some trouble. A few times, Charlie got me out. I was probably less helpful than he was to our good-natured younger brothers, Mike and Tim.

I attended Skidmore College in picturesque Saratoga Springs, New York. There, under the guidance of some exceptional professors, I experienced a time of personal satisfaction and accomplishment. During my junior year, almost 21, I took an academic leave of absence, got a basement flat in London, and worked as a researcher for Sir Ronald Bell, a member of the House of Commons. It was during Margaret Thatcher's first term as prime minister. I was drawn to her unabashed advocacy for entrepreneurship, civil society, individual initiative, and anti-Communism. I admired her unapologetic rejection of the British welfare state, high taxes, industrial policy, and detente with the Soviet Union.

One evening, I was invited to meet Mrs. Thatcher with a dozen or so other young Americans working in Westminster. We gathered in the magnificent, crystal-chandeliered Pugin Room in the Palace of Westminster overlooking the Thames. As twilight warmed the windows, Mrs. Thatcher engaged us with her quick wit and enthusiasm. She described human liberty and free market capitalism as the essential foundation for achievement of humankind's greatest aspirations. She explained how government control and statism stymied limits on personal growth and societal advancement. Though it lasted less than 40 minutes, the meeting made a lifelong impression.

After graduation, I spent three years in Nashville, Tennessee, mostly living with two buddies in a ramshackle apartment building adjacent to Centennial Park. I studied law at Vanderbilt University during the week and listened to country music in bars on weekends. In September 1984, I began work on Wall Street as a first-year associate lawyer at the prominent law firm of Mudge Rose Alexander and Ferdon, where Richard Nixon had once been a partner. I had accepted the offer to train as a corporate lawyer, but, after nine months, I was still spending six days a week drafting municipal bond indentures. I left for an even more venerable New York City practice, Curtis Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle.

Joining Curtis Mallet proved an important move. And not just for my career. The same week I started, so did a comic and kindhearted woman who caught my eye. Regina Beyel, from Long Island's Suffolk County, worked evenings as a floor secretary at the firm to earn tuition at New York's Hunter College, where she was studying to be a teacher. As a young associate I worked a lot of late nights—even when it wasn't necessary, as I gradually fell in love with Regina. In the fall of 1988, while we were dating, the firm asked me to do an extended stint in London. They pressed me for a quick answer and a start date. So I took courage and proposed, but with the caveat that a “yes” meant moving abroad. Regina said yes to both marriage and what turned out to be a three-year European honeymoon.

Returning to London was wonderful. We rented a one-bedroom flat just off Kensington High Street, made friends, threw dinner parties, traveled throughout the British Isles and on the Continent and, during England's damp winters, lay by the fireplace to stay warm. In its glow, our marriage was forged.