How I Got Involved With The Catholic Church #3 (Reporting Thebault Taxes)

1993.

My Senior year of high school, I didn't have a scholarship for cross-country anymore so I thought about music. I could sing. I didn't have vocal training, but when I was 16 years old, someone Janet Bechtold knew (or said she knew Janet), who was from San Francisco, California, invited me to consider moving to California to be trained in classical voice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I discussed this with my parents and they said no.

When I was 18, I decided to audition for a musical scholarship. I heard about The University of Portland from Janet and George Bechtold, as this is where they both went to college, met, fell in love, and dropped out. I didn't know it was a private Catholic college, but I wouldn't have cared either way. I also looked at Gonzaga and asked for materials about their college, and they sent a VHS tape. I told everyone I was going to try auditioning at University of Portland. When I went, after I gave my name (there was a list), I was treated coldly. I noticed the other girls didn't get the same reception. I sat through some of the auditions and they weren't very good. I sang my songs and still felt puzzled by the cool reception. But I got a "scholarship". Of $1,000. It was pitiful and almost a mockery. I was embarressed by it, if nothing else. I didn't audition anywhere else after that.

I was singing the graduation song. "Friends Are Friends Forever" which was played by my good friend, and best guy friend, Geoff Rasmussen. It was on a keyboard though, and the pitches had to be set ahead of playing. It wasn't full range. If it was too high, I could hardly hit the notes. I told everyone about it. On graduation night, Geoff had set the keyboard to the right pitches and then we left it unattended. When we sang our song though, it started out wrong, on the higher notes. Geoff didn't know what had happened. Robin told me Erik Lund had told him to give me a compliment, and that he didn't know I could sing so high.

As the scholarships were being called out, $35,000 for ____, $25,000 for _______, $30,000 for ________ at (Pepperdine, Claremont, Penn State,...), my scholarship was called out last, in a kind of finale-- "...and Cameo Garrett, $1,000 for musical scholarship at University of Portland!" Which makes me laugh, but even then I thought it was sort of weird.

So I bagged college and decided to be a nanny. I told the Bechtolds, who I thought were like a second family to me, all about my plans and which agency I was going through and what I was looking for. I ended up with The Thebault's, who said they were Protestant but were Catholic, but who cared.

After working for them, under the table (as we all agreed), I felt guilty and decided I should pay my share of taxes. So that same year, I wrote a letter to the IRS, explaining that I wanted to pay my taxes but didn't want to turn in my employer for paying under the table, and I sent them a check for what I figured my half should come to. There was no way I was going to report them, and I knew my life would be over if I did, because I had a glimpse of their power and connections. It really bothered me about Maritza though, and after I heard about what happened to HER, after she was kicked out for being pregnant, I did decide to go ahead and give out their names. I called the IRS and told them who I had been working for and reported the whole scenario. I think I did this as early as 1994. If the IRS kept a record, it would be there. I think I only reported a part of what happened though, and then reported it again, when I also called about a different situation (what to do about the Rabbi Rose taxes) in 1997.

I honestly was not trying to cause people grief by calling. I did call about the Thebaults at first because I was upset about Maritza, but when I called about the Rose's, it wasn't to be mean or vindictive--it was the response of someone who had been living like a doormat for years and got tired of being treated like crap, cheated, and lied to. And first, before reporting the Rose's, I DID ask a couple tax consultants if there was a way around it, to somehow just pay my half as I did with the Thebault's (they told me no) or if I misunderstood tax law. With the Thebault's too, they were upfront about paying under the table. But with the Rabbi's wife, I was told to pay as self-employed but I never WAS self-employed and didn't receive any of the benefits of self employment but they wanted me to file that way to save THEM money, which I felt was like stealing from me, and purposefully trying to take advantage of me.

If anyone knew how quiet I was, and subservient, and how happy I was to do my best to serve, only to be treated so poorly, it would make sense as to why I finally got tired of it. I forgave all kinds of things. But after so many years, something had to give and I was done making allowances and taking the burden upon myself every single time.

A complete tangent: when this recent computer hacking occured, I wrote about how my Username was changed from "Alterations" to "x". I wondered what "x" meant. X for Christ? Probably didn't have any meaning attached but I typed it into a google search out of curiousity and found wikipedia's entry for "Malcolm X". I'd never read about him before. As I read, I saw that "x" was the symbol slaveowners gave slaves. Malcolm took it himself and used it symbolically. I still don't know the x was for, maybe nothing. But after writing about being treated like a slave, and knowing what I've been through, I would settle for an "x". I'm glad I read about Malcolm X; that was inspiring.

So, after graduation in 1993, I became a nanny, and a kind of slave, and while I was carefree and happy and thought I hadn't an enemy in the world, maybe I did and didn't even know it.