family history, part two

If you have not already done so, you are strongly encouraged to first read part one.

More about my grandfather, Randolph Barrington, the mean ass sorry old dead bastard. . .

He took over Barrington Bolt and Fastener following my great grandfather's untimely demise in the spring of 1927. It was still a relatively small family owned business then. He was only sixteen and more than just a little freaked out. But he was crafty as a ferret with a shrewd sense of business, and an almost uncanny ability to sniff out opportunity. In 1928 he was able to con his way into a meeting with Henry Ford by posing as an orphaned teen raising money to pay the tax bill of the local Catholic orphanage. He left that day with an exclusive contract to provide the nuts, bolts, screws, and rivets that held together Ford automobiles.

He was instantly a millionaire. Later that year he took the company public and his fortunes exponentially expanded.

Until that Black Day in October 1929.

Little is known about how my grandfather kept the company running during the early dark years of the Great Depression. It is known that on two different ocassions union organizers who worked in his factory disappeared suddenly in the middle of the night. Investigations by local law enforcement failed to turn up any leads in both cases.

It is also known that around this time my grandfather began making generous donations to political campaigns.

Feeling the pinch of the Great Depression, Randolph Barrington traveled to Europe in the Fall of 1931 in order to seek new markets for Barrington Bolt and Fastener products. One night he found himself in a Berlin cabaret sharing a table with a non-descript yet still somehow rather odd looking man with a really bad haircut and an Oliver Hardy mustache. During the intermission of a drag show they discussed their selfish egomaniacal dreams of doing great things to change the world while marveling at the feature entertainer's highly skilled and delicately nuanced impersonation of Marlene Dietrich.

So yes, the rumours, innuendo and allegations you read on the internet are true.

(Minus that whole Space Alien Mars Atlantis Connection. And a descendant of Adam Weishaupt? Damn, you college kids must be freakin' high. All I can say is that I hope those dudes email me because I'd love to score some of whatever it is that they are smoking.)

Here and now for the first time I finally have the balls to confess to the world family secrets that others have thus far failed to honestly disclose. Randolph Barrington, my grandfather, made a fortune dealing with the Nazis.

So what. It was sixty plus freakin' years ago. If you have a problem with it, then cry me a fucking river, build a goddamned bridge, and get the fuck over it.

Nothing personal man, so don't freak. It was business, just business. And business was good. Very good.

When the Second Great War began my grandfather saw another great business opportunity.

He built a second factory.

While the first factory continued to quietly manufacture nuts, bolts, screws, rivets, washers, and wingnuts that were shipped with quiet discretion and fraudlent documents through third parties and third world nations to his German meglomaniac friend, the new second factory was busy churning out the same products to support the War Effort at Home.

Now herein lies the beauty of my grandfather's master plan, and I think coincidentally if not accidentally his great contribution to the postwar world and the future of mankind. . .

This great contribution to humanity was due in part to the fact that my grandfather, the late great Randolph Barrington, was a tight assed stingy motherfucker. He was apathetic as the day is long and didn't give a rat's ass who won the damn thing so long as he made money on the deal. In later years he was actually overheard saying that he had no complaints about the Nazi's labor policies and I think he secretly admired the efficiency of their operations.

He was also astute enough to figure out the long-term impact on his bottom line and his bottom under either a totalitarian fascist or a democratic capitalistic regime.

It don't take a degree in calculus to do that math.

Getting back to my grandfather's seemingly accidental brilliant master plan. . .

He sold the regular stuff to our guys at a reasonable wartime mark-up. Good high quality and higher priced nuts and bolts went into building the Great American War Machine.

He sold the fucking Nazis crap. He used inferior materials and inferior manufacturing processes. He cut almost as many corners in the manufacturing process as he did on labor. And he charged the fucking Nazis more for it!

As shocking as you may find this to believe, he did this all with the full knowledge and complicity of the government of the United States of America.

He was nearly indicted by Federal Grand Juries and almost charged with Treason and Aiding and Abetting The Enemy in a Time of War at least three times. He contributed generously to the re-election campaigns of a half dozen or so key U.S. Senators during this time period. For some reason or other those charges never quite materialized. "Lack of evidence" was the most substantial explanation given.

We in the family never knew why Old Granddad was allowed to continue to do business with an enemy during wartime. It never made sense. . . until a Federal lawsuit filed under a Freedom of Information Act request by Time magazine in the 1970's forced the Pentagon and the FBI to declassify and release literally thousands of pages of documents. On many pages the only word that is not blacked out is the word "Barrington".

In those thousands of pages was a recently declassified WWII era intelligence report from a for some reason still classified U.S. Army Staff Sargent. It discussed in great detail the impact of my grandfather's Nazi business dealings on The Allied War Effort. What it said was astounding.

The report actually credited my grandfather as much as General Patton with Rommel's defeat. Apparently the bolts and other metal fasteners Randolph Barrington sold to the Nazis were of such poor quality that they lead to a significantly greater degree of mechanical equipment failure all around. This was particularly true in the harsh environments of the African deserts.

Hmmm. . .

Randolph Barrington. Greedy Arrogant Selfish Bastard. Great Accidental American Patriot.

Maybe I'll go have that inscribed on his grave.