WHO GOT MY DAUGHTER PREGNANT ??

Besides keeping bad people out of the Hunt Club , my job as gate keeper often revolved around keeping track of children and stray adults. Teens who were grounded were not allowed out nor were their undesirable boyfriends allowed in. Divorces were a whole "nother" nightmare. The only part of the job I really didn't like was being forced to police the personal lives of the owners.

Alice was the other gate keeper and one day she and I were chatting in the guard house. I had come to pick up my check when he burst through the door. Doug, an owner with two teenage children, was really upset. His face was red and he spit a bit when he bellowed at us.

"Ok, which one of you is responsible for my daughter being pregnant?"

I felt a grin coming on and had a strong desire to tell him the obvious, that it was a biological impossibility. Our bodies produced eggs, not sperm , and in truth my eggs had turned to dust which removed me from even being a donor. Somehow, his bulging neck veins and eyes made me think better of a flip answer. Alice, a sweet, bit naive, and a very religious young woman, was aghast.

It seemed he had come from home unexpectedly to find the unwanted , access denied, boyfriend Raul, snuggled up on the couch with his daughter. The boy bolted from the house and disappeared on foot. That is when the daughter broke the news about the coming baby to distract the father from chasing the boy. Perhaps now is the time to mention that Doug was a deputy sheriff and armed.

Doug's eyes were slits as he slammed out of the guard house in search of our boss so he could have our jobs. Right then, I felt like telling him he was welcome to mine. Alice and I both knew we had not let the young man in. I had personally turned him back several times. He was a persistent little cuss though, either in rut or in love, maybe both.

Unless he had sneaked through in someone's trunk, he had not come through on my shift. Not being allowed to search vehicles nor did we have "teen sniffing "dogs, we felt comfortable that we had done our j0b and he had not visibly come through the front gate.

Mike our boss, after questioning us, backed us up completely. He offered Doug all the security video tapes for the previous three months to see if we had let in the wayward boy. Seems Doug was not interested in viewing 2000 hours of tape to catch us in sloppy gate work.

When he questioned his daughter further, he learned that for months that summer, the boy had walked miles through pasture lands to the back perimeter of the Hunt Club, climbed the fence and nailed the willing daughter. Had to admire the kids determination in seeing his love. Regardless, we were off the hook.

The deed was done and while Doug was understandably unhappy, he realized that forbidding a relationship was not all that was needed to stop it. The tighter he had tried to draw the net before, the more holes appeared.

To keep her from running off with the boyfriend and out of Doug's life forever, he decided to allow Raul entrance through the gate at will, but would not allow them to marry. The kids seemed content with the new arrangement.

Doug's main objection to Raul was that he came from a poor migrant worker family and was quite content with his poorness. Raul from years of being uprooted as part of a migrant family, had not been able to muster the grades necessary to graduate and was happy to work the vegetable fields with his family.

Doug was no different than most fathers. While Raul was Mexican, I really don't believe Doug was prejudiced for Doug's wife was from a wealthy Cuban family. It was not the Spanish heritage. It was just that all fathers think no man is good enough for his daughter and a migrant field worker with no ambition, was pretty low on the list of suitables.

When the baby came, Doug went from disapproving father to proud grandfather. She really was an amazingly beautiful child. I wish I had a better end for this story but I left there when the baby was about 3 months old. As of then, the kids were still not married, daughter and granddaughter lived at home and Raul visited regularly. I know Doug was hoping the boy would tire, move on and out of their lives.

I would like to think that Raul was hit with a fit of ambition upon seeing his beautiful child, was able to carve out a niche for his family and they lived happily ever after. Just as easily though, he could have pulled up stakes when the crop season changed and went in search of work some where else, either taking his young family with him or just disappearing all together.

I'll let you create your own ending.