Brandy, the apricot poodle that had been
lounging on the office couch, started to
walk around the edges of the office, staring
out the window behind his master, and then
circling the desk to lay his head on my
knee. “Oh, now you’re my friend,”
I said as I petted his soft puddle coif.
Brandy was hinting, Merlo told me, that
it was time for his morning walk around
the block “to lift his leg.”
Seeing that no one was taking his hint,
Brandy returned to the comfort of the couch.
Given Merlo’s obvious affection for
the omnipresent Brandy, it’s no surprise
that one of his favorite books is John Steinbeck’s
Travels with Charle, about a road
trip that Steinbeck took around the U.S.
in 1960 with his French standard poodle.
Merlo, who earlier
had maintained that he had been “burned”
by interviews in the past, seemed more relaxed
as the conversation turned to questions
about his mother. He relayed, affectionately,
the story of one of his first personal land
deals and perhaps his mother’s first
real glimpse of his business prowess. He
put $4,000 down on a piece of land that
cost $40,000. The land was in Chula Vista
Estates. It had been sub-divided many years
before into 170 lots. The remainder of the
money for the purchase ($36,000), he borrowed
from a widow in Marin, CA. When he told
his mother, “Mama went to Mass everyday
to pray because her son had borrowed money
from a widow.” In Mama’s mind,
this was putting the widow at risk. Later
Merlo sold the property for $170,000 at
a profit of $130,000. When Merlo showed
his mother the profit he made on the land
deal, “Mama went to Mass everyday
to pray because she thought her son was
a crook.” Mama had a pay-as-you-go
policy. She told her son, “if you
borrow from the bank, you’re working
for the bank”!
