In my imagination it’s the Summer of ’51. The King and I is playing on Broadway, fighting continues in Korea, President Truman is in the White House and the New Jersey Turnpike is set to open in the Fall. The first families to gather at The Paugusset Club in Orange are just starting to make memories and set inaugural swim and dive records. It’s the year the Club was established. Little is known about those first few years. But when I think about it, I envision little vignettes of summer romances between the teenage lifeguards, all the mothers swapping recipes for their best dips and desserts and the fathers grilling hot dogs and flipping burgers.
Then my kid yells “Mom!” and I am snapped out of my reverie and brought back to reality.
My family had been to Paugy, as it is affectionately called, twice. Once last year for “Float Night,” and then again this year as guests for Memorial Day. My initial impression of the Club was that it appeared to be a Dirty Dancing-esque time capsule. A very family-oriented, good old-fashioned place, filled with hot summer fun, swimming in a cool crystal blue pool, melting popsicles in tiny sticky hands, a pop-up wiffle ball game out back, and…tennis, anyone?
Our hosts asked us if we would like to join the Club. Then our close friends and neighbors joined. So, we considered it.
To that end, right around the time of our second visit, I made my last car payment. Freedom! Thus, we did have a little room in the budget and it would be a good place for my kid to keep busy this Summer. Also, the Club has Wi-Fi so I could work from the patio and not miss a beat while he had the time of his life (pun intended). We began to realize we knew lots of the families that were members through little league and I kept hearing my sister in my mind saying “you only get 18 summers.” So, after some hemming and hawing, weighing the pros and cons and researching tablecloths, I signed us up “and so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” A quote from my all-time favorite book The Great Gatsby.
In addition to the pool, the tennis courts and the ga-ga-ball pit, there is a Clubhouse at Paugusset and one of the amenities inside is a “Free Library.” Take a book, give a book. It’s located on a cart outside the restrooms. So, every time, I would powder my nose in my early days as a member, my eyes would roll over the books and I would long for a moment when I could sit and read. However, it’s never quite the right time. Either I am swimming with the neighbors or running food back and forth from the kitchen to the grill or talking on my cellphone with clients.
But one day, there was a book that seemed to have been tossed upon the pile haphazardly. It was a vibrant emerald green color like the light at the end of Daisy’s dock, and it immediately caught my eye. So much so that I stopped in my tracks. As I approached the book, I noticed it said “The Gatsby Gambit,” I just had to take it. I later returned the gesture and dropped off a Danielle Steel novel.
In “The Gatsby Gambit,” author Claire Anderson-Wheeler reimagines the roaring 20’s and brings back, Jay, Tom, Nick, Jordan and Daisy, and introduces a new character into the mix named Greta Gatsby, in a Clue-like murder mystery novel. In stolen moments between mommy-ing and lawyering, I started to read snippets of the novel. As I read the opening scene, I had a bit of an epiphany when Jay Gatsby explains to his little sister, Greta, that a gambit is a tactic. “In chess it means sacrifice: you lose something to gain something.” Just like Bankruptcy.
People often ask me if filing for Bankruptcy will “ruin” their credit. I always reply that it will not ruin it, it will actually destroy it. After Bankruptcy, the filer must rebuild their credit from scratch as if having been born again. But I also make it a point to explain that rebuilding credit from nothing after erasing all of their debt is always much better than struggling to pay back debt while simultaneously trying to bolster their credit from a damaged base.
Sometimes you have to lose something to gain something.
I filed my own personal Bankruptcy in May of 2009. In the last 16 years, I have rebuilt my credit, saved money, opened a business, got married, bought a house and had a kid. I had lost my credit, discharged my debts and started over. Through the process I gained knowledge on how to manage money correctly.
During the Bankruptcy process itself, filers are required to take two courses. These are classes offered either online or over the phone. The first class is a pre-counseling course to allow filers to understand what they are getting into administered by an objective third party. The second class is a financial management or debtor reeducation course. It teaches filers exact action steps to take to start rebuilding their credit immediately after receiving a Discharge.
I do not tell the story about joining Paugusset to impress anyone. It took a lot of hard work to get where I am today. To me, it is not a privilege to be a member, rather, it is a hard-earned reward.
I do tell the story to impress upon folks that there is hope; there is life after Bankruptcy. You can rise from the ashes, change your circumstances, learn from your mistakes and get a second chance.