My name is Chris Ritter. I was born on Monday, July 11, 2011, in Portland, Oregon. America was intact then, and the ill-fated Trump was not yet President. I am the first child; my sister Jennie was born three years later on September 15, 2014. My parents, Gary Ritter and Jane Lin, had only the two of us. My father is your classic white American of German heritage; my mother is ethnically Chinese. I do not think either family approved of the relationship all that much, but having kids brought everyone together. So at very early ages, my sister and I played the role of glue to a divided extended family.
During the years of my early childhood, my mother kept a very good diary. I can report what my first fifty words were, and all sorts of milestones. The temptation to rely on my mother's diary is overwhelming. Instead, I am going to start with my first memory that I retained as an adult. I can date this memory since my sister was about two weeks old at the time. All at once someone was banging on the door. I thought it had to be someone who wanted to hurt my mother. I tried to get her not to open the door. But she eagerly opened the door and brought in a friend from college who was sobbing her heart out. I think her boyfriend or husband must have left her. All I remember is the shocking transition from what I thought was a threat to hearing my mother's concern and affection, all while she was holding an infant. I suppose I also thought I was never going to get my mother's affection again.
My mother's diary described in vivid detail the difficulty she had in getting quality daycare or any daycare at all. My parents ran their own business. It was essential for me to be placed outside the home. The diary made it clear that I never lasted very long at any daycare. I was always exploring everything and every place that I could find. I had difficulty listening to anyone since I never stayed in any one place very long. As I read the diary, it was clear that daycare centers do not like it when kids climb things that they are not supposed to climb, or things they cannot imagine can be climbed.
My parents were at their wit's end when I was about three years old. My parents made a rather bold arrangement. They had a client company that was owned by this sweet couple. Their name was Fisher. Anyway, they had two small kids cared for by a woman named Candy. They let Candy take care of me in exchange for a substantial discount on my parents' billings.
I spent my days with Candy and the two Fisher children. Candy was a master of psychology. If she found me climbing inside, she would say, “Wow, you are a good climber. Let's do this outside where the best climbing is.” She would take me to a tree that I could climb a little bit and ask me to climb it. When I could go no further, she would say, “Let's name this tree ‘October.’ I know by October, you will be big and strong enough to climb ‘October’ much further. Here is another tree that you can climb today.” She managed to keep me from climbing the furniture and the walls inside, while I was dreaming of that day in October when I could climb the big tree. Candy was very clever; she had me coming and going to her tune. I think at one time she had a list of four trees for me to climb when the right day came. She kept me practicing. By the time I was seven, I could climb a tree up about 25 feet without any branches, just by holding on by my knees and my hands.
She had this theory that when a small child jumps from a platform to the ground, it gives a signal to the bones and muscles to grow bigger and stronger. She had me climbing and jumping at playgrounds for hours. According to my mother's diary, Candy tried to explain to other parents how good it was to have kids jump, roll, and fall down. Apparently, they all shook their heads and took their kids away from “the crazy lady.”
Another theory she had was that thinking in humans is just an inner brain dialogue with words. To her, vocabulary was everything. Candy decided that pointing at things interfered with words. She would always say things like, “The napkin on the green plate on your left is for you, Chris.” If I pointed at something, she would say, “I know what you want. Now pretend that I do not and that I cannot see. Tell me what you want.” One day when I was four, she put on a blindfold and asked me to tell her about everything in the room, so that she could know what it was and where it was. Another day, she took us kids to an art museum and had us tell her what we saw in each object. She did not care about art. Her thing was not having kids “appreciate art.”; she just wanted us to extend our vocabulary. She drew simple pictures and maps so that we could find little treasures she hid for us. I still have a tiny teddy bear that I spent an hour searching for in the Fisher's huge backyard.
Going to kindergarten was very sad since I was leaving the very best teacher that I ever had. After I got married, I tracked Candy down. She runs a hair cutting salon. I went there with my wife a few times. The first time I sat in the chair, I said, “I am closing my eyes. Please tell me about yourself and your kids.” She just got real quiet and said, “Oh, you remember all that. My goodness, that was so many years ago, and you were so young.” Of course, I did not say that I used my mother's diary to facilitate my memories.
A week before I started kindergarten, Candy had me practicing for this big event. She had me sit on a small bath mat in the living room. She had me address her as “Mrs. Taylor.” I soon learned that was the name of my real kindergarten teacher. By the time I started at “real school,” I was well trained to behave myself. But it was still a shock to share a teacher's attention with so many fellow students. My verbal ability was several grade levels ahead of my peers. My first few years of schooling were a bit frustrating since I did not fit in very well.
My early education did not show great promise. I did not get good grades in my early years. I do remember in second grade watching a student at the blackboard adding $.69 and $.44 and getting $1.013. The teacher asked, “What is wrong here?” I raised my hand and eagerly said, “If this answer is true, it implies that there are a thousand cents to the dollar.” The teacher told me, “Be quiet; you are confusing the class.” She did not acknowledge that I had grasped the basic idea of the decimal point.
That same year, I remember hearing a discussion about philosophy. I had no idea what philosophy was. I ran to my mother and asked her what it was. Without even the slightest pause, she explained philosophy to a young child. She said, “Philosophy asks very deep questions that are hard to answer. One question is ‘what is beauty?’ It is easy to say one particular object or person is beautiful or not. That is an easy question. The hard question is to figure out what beauty is without looking at any object or all. You could say ‘Beauty is pleasing to the eye.’ Does this mean a blind person cannot appreciate beauty? That sounds unreasonable. Here is a second question: ‘what is the universe?' Is it infinite or not? Even after years of work, it is hard to imagine a single thing containing everything that is possible. And if it goes on forever, how can we ever understand what this means, even though it is so easy to say. A third question: ‘what is the truth?’ Let's say you and your sister were to meet in 25 years. The question of how you got along together comes up. You say, ‘I was always good to you, Jennie.’ Jennie says, ‘You were always mean to me, Chris.’ At any moment you are together, you are both experiencing it together. How could your views of ‘the truth' be so different? By the way, I hope you hug and agree that you have had a great childhood together. I said that just to illustrate to you that people might differ on basic issues of the circumstances of their life. I think that will do for now.”
My mouth was wide open with wonder at how complicated the simplest things in the world were. For years, I thought about all those difficult questions. As a child, I had great respect for philosophers. As an adult, I have a different take on this interesting moment. All I could think of was how smart my mother was to be able to say that all without any preparation at all. I understood every word, and I have thought about this exchange many times in my life.
I also remember asking my father what trigonometry meant when I was in middle school. He patiently explained about the ratios of the sides of a right triangle. I remember being confused about why so many words were needed to describe these relationships: sine, cosine, tangent, etc. The basic definitions were easy to understand. I did not grasp at the time that the actual math keeps students busy for months and years.
By the time I was in high school, my parents had given me some of their best introductory college textbooks in math and physics. I learned that I could understand short parts by reading and re-reading. Since I did not have the proper math background yet, this was pretty exhausting. I am not sure if this was a good idea or a bad idea, but I was determined to unlock all of this material.
I had several friends in high school who were good at math and science. We went around as a group of six. There was one girl in our group. We all agreed that we would date outside of our group to avoid any internal tensions. I don't think we were into dating all that much. We called ourselves the “NS.” We never revealed to anyone that this meant Nerd Salad. My love for math and science came equally from my family, my Nerd Salad, and my mastery of academic subjects.
The reality was that my parents' business dominated my childhood. They ran a computer services company. The company took up so much of their time and energy. I did spend a lot of time in a variety of daycare centers. Our family did not go on that many vacations, but the vacations that we did go on were wonderful. I especially liked the long car trips we had together.
As kids, we did not feel rich. But our parents effortlessly had enough food for us, and they were very generous in allowing our friends to eat over quite a bit. They knew how hard it was for many to feed a family, and never turned anyone away. When I was ten years old, the business significantly picked up. They were the first to have software to support LSBO's (Large Scale Buying Organizations), which were entities that allowed people to avoid paying the markup to either physical stores or Amazon.
Yes, there was a point when it was clear that my parents had a great business. But I did not thrill about any perks, such as a household staff that helped our busy family. I was fascinated by the details of the business. I picked up the idea that when I was old enough, I could join the company. I was aware that when my parents retired, they would prefer to turn the company over to a family member, rather than sell it, if only because of the tax consequences. I think one of my aunts on my father's side set me on my life course. She explained what I was going to do, and why I was going to do it. I accepted the mission without any hesitation. I think I drove my parents crazy since I was always asking what sort of education I needed to help join the firm. I always got the same answer, “Chris, do well in Middle School and High School, go to college and major in Computer Science. If there is anything we need you to learn, we will tell you a year or two before you graduate. Right now, just be a good student, and do not worry about your education.”
My father's siblings lived relatively close to us. So we tended to have them come to our house on Thanksgiving. These were German themed events that minimized my mother's role in things. My uncles would point out that Ritter means knight. They told heroic tales of Teutonic knights defeating their enemies with their strength and bravery. It was a bit too Nazi for my tastes. But Jennie soaked it all in.
In 2025, my mother's two siblings made the long trip to Portland. It was nice to see my Chinese uncle and aunt. I think they wanted to scout out the area since so much of the nation was continuing to fall apart. Hydropower from the dams in the Northwest kept this area much more functional than other parts of what was now known as FUSA (Former United States of America).
My uncle James asked Jennie and me, “What do you want to do when you are out of school?” Jennie paused for a long time, but then said: “I want to be a teacher.” James nodded and said, “That's great. I am sure you will be a very good one.” He turned to me, and I said, “I want to study computer programming in college and join my parents' business.” James looked surprised. He said, “Some major fortunes come from the second generation of a family business. I do believe you will become a titan of software someday, just like Bill Gates.” Jennie had a shocked look on her face. She started acting out and yelling at me that I was, “Stealing everything from her.” I am certain that she thought that I was making her goals look so marginal. I was a bit upset that my uncle had exaggerated my potential. I would do anything I could to go back in time to serve him some more mashed potatoes, to avoid having him ever ask that question.
I was surprised many times that my sister did not share my enthusiasm for academics. She seemed to think that her future was already secure. She said, “Mom and dad have worked very hard, so we do not need to. We are rich. We will always have what we want. Why should I work hard?” My parents were also concerned. It did not bother them that Jennie was not interested in working for the family business. What concerned them was that despite being fairly bright, Jennie did not seem to be interested in any subject, whether a school subject or an area of interest outside of school. She seemed to be interested in new clothes and having an up-to-date phone to impress fellow students. I had to tell her to cool some of her more outrageous demands, or she would end up with a tiny allowance. I was amazed that she did exactly what I requested. She also asked for my advice about how much I thought she could get out of our parents in a month. I was uncomfortable with these questions and just tried to pin her down about what she was asking for, and how she could justify it. I told her, “They are not going to buy clothes just for you to show off what you have. Tell them, ‘My last pair of shorts ripped after only a few months. Now I want to buy a replacement or two that is made better.’ They like that sort of practical thinking. If you don't buy something that lasts, hide the evidence and see if you can cover your tracks. Just appeal to parent logic, do not dwell on your desires all the time.”
Jennie was better than I was at making friends. By middle school, she was solidly in the center of the “goth” community. Her friends helped fuel her dislike of family and school. In the spring of my junior year of high school, Jennie's behavior was getting worse. She was doing poorly in school and behaving badly at home. It got to the point that my parents could not control their daughter at all.
She went to live with her aunt and uncle in Lodi, California for the last two months of 8th grade. Uncle Conrad and Aunt Herta were from the German side of the family. They were good to take in Jennie for a few months to help her learn about hard work on a farm. There was a downside to the bargain. My uncle had limited knowledge of the whole human family. I think they were careful not to say racist things about Chinese people around Jennie, but they talked up dad and trashed mom a lot. I suspect they were very racist about black people. This is important because I married a black woman, and she disliked her right from the start.
She went through some intensive counseling and academic help over the summer. Bit by bit, things got better. She pulled herself together; she did much better in high school. It seemed that the crisis had passed. As I went through my high school years, I confess that I did not pay much attention to Jennie's friends or her thoughts about her family. This was a serious error on my part. I could have been a better big brother if I had given her more guidance on how to make good choices in her life.
My earliest political memories are of the 2016 presidential campaign and the brief presidency of Donald Trump. In 2019, a large number of Special Forces soldiers captured Donald Trump and his family. None of them have ever been seen again. I know that the basic outlines of the story are in some high school textbooks, but it was different living through it as a kid. I don't think many people in Portland liked Mr. Trump, but once he was gone, all hell broke loose in the economy. I wish I had saved some of the newspapers and magazines of my youth. They would be valuable today. The only problem is that holding these publications was illegal during the worst of the troubles.
Yes, there was mass starvation and no end to all of the disasters. But the hydroelectric dams kept the region and Portland with functioning electricity. I think that is why so many military units relocated to our region. It was an island of stability in an ocean of hurt.
In 2019, things went from very bad to much worse. There were widespread failures of computer networks that made many organizations fail. In the same year, those who owed large sums of money were required to turn over half their earnings for debt repayment. As many of you know, many of these schemes failed to generate sufficient income. Some schemes required very expensive supervision. Eventually, in 2023, the creditor organizations (mostly credit card companies) took advantage of the lapse of constitutional law by reinstating chattel slavery. There was an effort to clear the debts of most people in 2019. The criteria for sale was having $30,000 or more in uncleared debt at the end of 2019, with no significant pay down since. Quite a few people discovered that their college loan balance brought them to the “marketplace of debt clearance,” but their college degree did not guarantee them an interesting “job placement.”
The introduction of slavery was fairly traumatic to me. In 7th grade, about five classmates disappeared as their families were sold and immediately relocated. Two of my best friends disappeared from 7th grade. For years afterward, I was in fierce opposition to slavery.
Behind the scenes, the billionaire class built a network of control and power. In the year 2021, the use of the HTTP protocol was banned from long distance cables. It was clear that the billionaires wanted to bring down the free exchange of information. They figured that businesses would be able to meet their communications goals with new computer protocols. They were right. This gave my parents a chance to increase their business by assisting local businesses better communicate with customers using (or abusing) the e-mail protocols.
So there you have it. I was a privileged prince from a family that was directly profiting from “the troubles.” My sister was unpredictable. My parents worked hard. My extended family was deeply split between the German and Chinese sides. And I was going off to college.