Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Tim and Heather Peterson for their encouragement that enabled me to “cross the Rubicon” and fulfill my dream of becoming a writer.

I am also very thankful to my wife, Catherine, for her multiple readings of the book and uncompromising editing; to my son, Ian, for cheering me on and whose reactions, for a brief moment, made an aging father feel “cool” again; and to my daughter, Libby, for patiently interrupting her history studies to listen to her father’s chapters with cheerfulness and love.

I also wish to acknowledge many others who read and critiqued this first effort: my brother Scott Johnson; fellow conspirator Michael Schwartz; and particularly Sue Hoffman—whose encouragement helped make this book a reality. Thanks as well to Judy Wenderoth for the critical eye she applied to the recounting of banking practices.

And finally, thanks to my editor, David Long, for taking a chance with this new author, and for his repeated counsel that just one more rewrite and I’d finally have it.