Road Sign Inheritance

A Son of a Tax Dodger Picks Up a New Hobby

Age nine. On the road with my cavalier father, the rogue. A man recently parted from a bold and less ordinary life, but somehow still ordinary. Wife, four kids, homeowner, business owner, tax protester.

Tax protester.

Now he was a tax dodger on the run from the law. No, no; it's not what you're thinking. There was no dragnet, no ambitious sheriff, no manhunt. He didn't want to pay his taxes for several reasons (As an adult, I understand why but can't justify his actions), so after a fight with the IRS where they took the house, vehicles, business and most of our material possessions, he simply packed up the family and moved us to Arizona without telling them where we were headed.

We disappeared.

So, there I was, on the road with my dad, driving through Utah on our way back from Wyoming. The home we left. I had flown up to visit my aunt and uncle; he drove up to tie up some loose business ends.

I now understand that he reasoned that if he was going to be a fugitive, he might as well do something criminal. His conscious was clear about doing business with those that descrambled your satellite and cable TV and turning a blind eye. It was an attempt by Corporate America to squeeze more money out of the consumers.

He justified it one way or another. He wasn't a participant, necessarily, but he knew all about it.

To dodge taxes, he needed a rally point and abortion was the typical battle cry for the American tax dodger of his day. Even though .0001 percent of his taxes might have funded a Planned Parenthood condom drive, it was too close to abortion to not fight.

Back to the road. I was nine, reading Boys' Life Magazine, going through this small canyon in Utah carved out by the Colorado River, my dad was driving the van he still has today, 20 years later. The windows were down, pouring in the warm summer air.