SCOUNDRELS IN PARADISE A TRUE STORY BY SCOTT ADLAI STEVENSON WITH JOHN GREENBURG COPYRIGHT 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY SCOTT ADLAI STEVENSON AND JOHN GREENBURG FOR FILM/TV RIGHTS CONTACT: SCOTT ADLAI STEVENSON 520-255-6057 /
[email protected] The events described in this book are true. Some names have been changed for purposes of privacy. PROLOGUE Even Good Stock Sometimes Has A Few Black Sheep My first childhood memory is a vision from the bottom of a swimming pool. I was two years old and playing with a few of my neighborhood friends in 1 Downey, California when I happened to fall into their backyard pool. I recall frantically trying to get my head above water, but despite my efforts, I landed on the bottom of the deep end. I stared up through the rippling water to the surface, where I could make out only the fuzzy outline of my mother. Fortunately, my older brother Michael noticed I was missing and dove in to save me. That feeling of sinking and then desperately struggling to reach the surface and keep my head above water has remained a constant companion. Ever since then, I spent a great deal of my life in over my head; nearly drowning in a deep pool of authoritarianism, materialism and greed that always seemed to surround me. Over the years, I developed an aversion to authoritarianism and materialism, and I have tried not to become a greedy, materialistic person with a rigid mindset. But in the environment I grew up in, it was like trying to remain dry while floating in a swimming pool.