Thought I’d let you contemplate the earlier described maxim.
This is a description of how, when, and where I conceived the idea.
Many years ago I and my family lived aboard a boat, dockside, in
Hollywood Beach, Florida.
One day a young couple came strolling along then stopped and stood
there observing us. We could see they were intrigued so we invited them
aboard. Turns out they had run away from home and this is the story
the girl told us. Her family was Catholic and at fourteen years of age she
was enrolled in a Catholic high school. Unknown to her for the longest time
was the fact that her father was paying the nuns to spy on her and report
to him any involvement with the opposite sex, no matter how trivial.
In her sixteenth year she met this boy and they developed a thing, a strong
thing which her father quickly found out and threatened to have the boy
beaten to a pulp. At that point she attempted suicide by slitting her wrists,
she showed us the scars, but she was discovered, rushed to hospital and
survived. When her wounds healed she and her boyfriend fled.
At the time of this story my own daughter was nine and I thought how
fortunate I was to hear this young woman’s tale.
I vowed there and then never to fall into the trap that had snared her father.
Islander.