Gardner Mountain was an act of faith in service of a dream.  Dad and Mom took a huge leap in their lives, to move to the mountain to build a new home.  We all have had some investment in the mountain, in the home, in the dream.  Many if not all of us, probably feel like we knew a bit of what Dad must have felt, that he was not building just a house, but a home; THE Gardner Home that would last beyond his lifetime.

My memories of working side by side with Dad go back to Ludlow.  Before Bermuda, before Rantoul, before Champaign, before Indianapolis, before Gardner Mountain.  Dad and I worked to paint Miss North’s house.  We scraped and painted the boat in Bermuda.  We tuned up the Corvair bus in Rantoul.  He taught me electronics at the bench in the garage.  We fixed TVs and dozens of other appliances – because that was Dad’s part of the American Dream: using his skills to support his family.  We built a garage in Champaign. We hauled buckets of water out of the sump, in the dark, during an ice storm power outage.  We worked on dozens of projects on Central Avenue, including repairing the damage from an exploded water tank because another attempt to save a few dollars almost killed one of his kids. We cut dozens of trees for other people and cut and hauled dozens of trees off Gardner Mountain for firewood.

What is the point, of all this?  The thousands of times I worked side by side with Dad provided me with a point of view of how Dad thought, how Dad viewed life and his Family.  Dad suffered no fools gladly.  Dad was willing to bend a few rules, but he also valued skills, trust, hard work, and careful thought.  Over and over again, my memory of him has been sullied (attempted) by various members of the Gardner Family by telling me Dad would have embraced the culture of lies in the hate-based political cult.  He would not have.  They justify their hate of those who don’t look like them, who don’t speak like them, who don’t live like them, all in service of the fascist dream this world has seen before, and are all so willing to destroy Dad’s Gardner Family in the process.

We’ve lost Dad.  We’ve lost Jim.  Jim, despite all his problems, tried his best to live up to Dad’s ideals in support of Dad’s Dream of Gardner Mountain as a Family Home.  Now we have lost Mom to Faux News.  She has embraced the cult to the point of attacking her own children for not being members of the same cult.  The eldest son has never stepped up to weigh in on the situation that I’ve seen.  The remaining four siblings have baptized themselves, confirmed themselves, and married themselves into a false religion.  And in the process, they have destroyed Dad’s Gardner Family.  Now I know, the cult members are screaming – “No, WE are still a family” or “It’s all your fault”!  And so, maybe a few of you are a dysfunctional hate-based family, but you are no longer Dad’s Gardner Family.  You no longer are living Dad’s Dream of The Gardner Family on Gardner Mountain.

Monica and I have not felt like a Member of Dad’s Gardner Family for years.  The incessant scrambling to control Gardner Mountain’s financial resources, the unending stream of insults and accusations, and the poisoning of all family dynamics with noxious politics have destroyed any reason to claim family membership.  Mary’s vindictive nature and her need for total control, refusing to let Monica and I disconnect from the LLC.

You laughed at us when we told you how bad Covid would get.  Hundreds of thousands died needlessly. You laughed (and attacked) us when we told you how this cult would end up.    Someday in the not-too-distant future, you will realize there is nothing funny or good about the cult that you’ve made a part of your family’s lives.  Enjoy your fantasy while you can.

So, there you have it.  Anyone reading this who wants to connect to the cult side of Gardner Mountain, to see Mary’s landscaping, her role as presumptive leader of the family, as well as her political diatribes, they can be found at gardnermountainllc.com

Mike

P.S.  The maga cult are protesting furiously, attempting to bolster their belief in the corrupt POS.  Deep down, beneath the thin crust of hypocritical christianity, beneath the viscous layers of hate, misogyny, xenophobia, racism, and homophobia; buried away in their subconscious – “You know I’m right!”.