“Time to Meet
Maggie”
The
weekly saga of the Bari Family is presented to you as a light hearted tale of
estate planning gone awry. Through the
lives of this particularly unusual family, you may learn some fundamentals of
estate planning but mostly have some fun.
As you will see, however, estate planning is an oxymoron.
To summarize our situation: Auggie Bari, scion of the family started a successful restaurant business in the East Bay and now has a net worth of $15 million, give or take a scaloppini or two. His wife of 40 years, Angelina is active in east bay charities and apparently has a long time friendship with the family retainer, Bernardo Bertolucci. Their daughters, Frances Bari Carson (Anna) and her husband Tom we have met. Maggie Swenson and her husband Olaf we will meet today. Both girls are moving back into town to raise their new families. Recently we learned that the oldest boy, Danny, who has run the restaurant for the past several years, has allowed the entire family fortune to be embezzled without his knowledge and, in fear, he turned to Auggie's New Jersey relatives for a loan. Last week we learned that his loan was being called, and in order to collect, the mob would have to off Augie and/or Angelina to obtain Danny’s share of the restaurant which is being used for money laundering. The mobsters wandering around town are Vinnie and Pollo.
“Olaf,
you are a good man.” Maggie Bari Swenson
was duly proud of her 6’8” Swede as he bent low to get into the dormer room of
their new home. “You can barely fit into
this room, yet you were willing to let me buy a small house just so we could be
in my hometown. I love you big boy!”
As
he so often did, Olaf bent over (even more) and picked up the diminutive Maggie
unfortunately, as he also often did, and banged her head on an overhang in the
attic.
“Oh
my love, I am so sorry!” exclaimed the poor fellow. “I just don’t know my size, so well”
Maggie,
who was just short of conciousness, forgave him and politely asked to be put
down to an altitude where breathing came easier.
Well
Olaf may be a bit of a lummox, but he, along with a loan from Daddy, had
provided their first starter home in the town she always wanted to come back
to. With a 3-year-old daughter and one
on the way, settling into her old stomping ground was going to be a
delight.
Maggie
was the short and blond counter to her tall and raven-haired sister Anna. She had always been an athlete and looked
forward to volunteering come next soccer season. She was really just a sweet
kid and her husband Olaf was a delightful giant who was struggling with a new
company that sold Swedish sex toys over the Internet. While business had briefly flourished, the
new recession was attacking every business and his investors were getting
nervous. All of his engaging presence was needed at those meetings.
The
doorbell ringing got Maggie off the floor of the upstairs room and into
action. “It must be the phone guys”, she
thought as she hurried downstairs.
Sure
enough the PacBell crew was there ready to install her DSL and seven phone
lines. “You know, Maggie muffin, I
never to understand why you need so many phone lines for our home,” asked her
perplexed husband.
“Oh,
you big goof, we’ve been over this so many times. You know I can’t operate my business without
many lines coming into the house. And
you know we need my income to make ends meet until yours takes off!”
“I
know that, muffin, but I still don’t understand why so many just to trade
antiques the way you do”
“Just
don’t worry your big head about it- we had five lines in the apartment and I
knew I needed more- especially since I hired Monique.”
“Hokay-dokay,
sweetie. You always know what you are doing” replied her admiring husband.
No sooner had the phones been installed then Maggie went to work as she always did rearranging the finances of her between two and three hundred clients.
“Maggie” the first caller asked. “What you got on the over under for the Bears-Giants”
“22, Gino and I’m crazy to book it, but I got a feeling” replied the number one bookie in the East Bay. And so it went for the next two hours- her limit each day- until she closed the line on each of the days sporting events. She was good, often handling 3 to 4 bets at a time. During major events she had recently begun an Internet play by play or pitch by pitch round that had her fingers flying and the cash flowing.
So now you have met daughter number two. Her interesting career choice may weave its way into the current Bari Family crisis. What if she dies? How will her children be cared for? As always, stay tuned. Pretty soon this family is going to have to meet with their estate planning consigliore.
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