MoxieLifestyle.net

I was home visiting with my parents one weekend. I was telling them about my how my ex-girlfriend was stalking me and trying to figure out how to get a restraining order

Frank, an old friend of my father, was in the CIA for fifteen years helped me come up with a different plan, “The best way to ditch her is go somewhere she thinks she’ll get attention. Go to a Sears and buy something small so you look like the sane one, then when she follows you in and starts making a scene let store security take care of their problem, and yours. She’ll probably be so embarrassed that she’ll leave you alone after that.”

What did I have to lose? Frank had been giving me random advice for ages. When I was 14 I got a paintball gun for my birthday. The first thing Frank told me was, “don’t ever turn it sideways because it’ll jam and it’ll stovepipe and then you’ll have really big problems.” “Stovepipe?” I replied. “Well that won’t happen unless it’s a real gun, but just trust me, you try an look cool and you’ll end up dead.”
—
Later in high school before a lacrosse game, someone locked my gear up with a MasterLock. No one knew the combination. As I was walking to find a janitor that might have bolt cutters I ran into Frank who had come to watch my game. When I told him what happened he laughed, “A MasterLock? Piece of cake, where is it?” he said.

I walked him down to the locker room and he proceeded to open the lock just by putting it up to his ear and listening while he turned the dial. To this day it is still one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. “Next time that happens, just get a can of compressed air that you would use to clean a computer keyboard, turn it upside down and freeze the lock, then you can just smash it. Good luck in the game.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
—
A few weeks into college I got into my first bar fight and broke my hand. When I came home to visit the following weekend my hand in a cast, Frank lectured me, “In a fight you have to be careful not to break the little bones in your hand on someone’s face. That’s why I like bathrooms, plenty of hard surfaces.”
After my first year of college I transferred to a University closer to home. At a welcome home party some friends threw for me, my friend Mark had his laptop stolen. We knew who did it and I consulted Frank for advice.

“If you really want to get it back yourselves don’t be stupid. Its cool at night now so he probably leaves his window unlocked to open it at night, that’s your entry point.”

“Alright thanks Frank, now we just need to go get some black clothes and a ski mask.” I joked.

“Are you kidding me? Don’t run around in a ski mask, if somebody catches you, what are you gonna say? Just dress normal. Bring a soda or something with you. If you get caught just act confused and apologize like crazy for taking the soda. Use their confusion to get the hell out of there.”

The plan worked. The laptop was right inside the window on the desk. We were in and out within a minute; I didn’t even have to open my soda.
—
It didn’t even occur to me that I was only experiencing one part of Franks life until just recently when I sat down to interview him about his life in the CIA for this paper. I asked if he still had a lot of friends overseas and he got deadly serious…

“Tim, you and your parents are some of the only friends I have. I’ve known your father for 25 years so I trust you guys; but, if tonight I sit down at a bar and meet someone – even if I had the greatest night of my life, I can never talk to that person again. Since they found me, they could be a plant. And this is life AFTER I retired. To this day there are still countries I can’t visit because if I did and the wrong people found out they would try to have me killed. I love my country and I don’t regret a thing about my career but given the chance to do it all over again, I can’t say that I would.”

“Wow Frank, I never realized it was such a lonely life.” was all I could come up with.

“Yeah, it got lonely at times, that’s why I value your father’s friendship so much. Here’s a funny story. On one of my first missions I had to parachute into a jungle from a really high altitude. So I bought this cool NorthFace jacket to wear, but when I got into the jungle I had to toss it. I only needed it because I was parachuting through the upper atmosphere. I had fun picking it out and I liked the way it fit but I had to leave it in the middle of the jungle. I tried getting another when I came back but they didn’t make it anymore. I still miss that jacket, I didn’t really have anything else in my life at the time.”

I laughed in spite of myself; Frank always had a way of getting a serious point across using humor. Talking to him though really shattered the view I had of Frank and I looked at him with a whole new respect. Until that point I never really understood what he gave up for his country. Growing up I was always so excited about spies like James Bond and he fed into that to amuse me. I keep in regular contact with Frank and I father figure and a friend. He inspires me to be a better person and not take advantage of things, like traveling and meeting new people, that someone like Frank doesn’t have the luxury of experiencing.