Illegitimate babies. Underage bar girls. Blue sky in the background. Beaucoup money, lots of it to do almost anything! Transoceanic legal battle with scores of lawyers and lots of impropriety. And a new convenient tool or weapon, if you prefer, of the end of this century, DNA! It all depends on which camp one is siding with.

This is the backdrop of a story that has captivated the minds of most people in the United States and Micronesia. Specifically, the pristine island of Palau, Saipan, the Philippines and Vietnam. More than anything, this is the story of a young California boy who grew up to be a very rich businessman who was worth millions of dollars at the time of his death in his twin-engine plane crash in the pacific. While still attending law school at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall, Larry Hillblom founded DHL, an international air courier, in 1969 with two friends, $ 500 in cash and a credit card . Federal Express did not enter the market until four years later. The "H" stands for Hillblom.

The story is a racy financial whodunit that began before Larry Hillblom was officially declared dead. It gave rise to a tumultuous court case full of legal arrogance, illegal shenanigans and mountains of documents, over which scores of lawyers would swarm. Most importantly, one needs to pay close attention to the parties involved in this struggle. It is reasonable to think of this saga as that of the haves exploiting the have-nots. The filthy rich, powerful western and first-world countries' people cruising—roaming over continents (Asia, Africa) and under-developed countries such as Cuba, Tahiti, Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, Belarus, Ukraine, Costa-Rica, Belize, etc. in search of third-world, innocent young girls. Abundance gave rise to unbridled acts of perversion, far away from the long reach of American laws or home countries' laws, in lands where abject poverty is the norm and where no one seems to give a hoot as long as money is involved and exchanged.

On one side of the struggle stood Hillblom's relatives, the DHL associates, the University of California and the California attorney general's office. Here, you have the most powerful group, with lots of vested interests and millions of dollars to spend. Obviously, this group laid claim to Hillblom's estate. In his will he had designated and left the largest tax-free amount he could—$300,000—to each of his two brothers and the rest to a charitable trust, with a substantial amount to be given to the UC system for medical research. Therefore, he had assigned the guardianship of this trust to his brothers and his DHL associates.

On the other side stood the children he fathered, but neglected to mention in his will, their mothers and their lawyers working in various countries. This group was the less empowered one. It was clear he left behind, not only his large fortune, but the children he fathered with young girls—except in the case of one of them who was 18 years old—whose service he retained from a Maman-san in his multiple trips to the islands' go-go bars. With a strong appetite for all sorts of sexual liaisons, Larry made sure that he came in contact with young virgins. He agreed to pay large premiums for them. He had an aversion to using protection, condoms. He also had an aversion to paying taxes and dealing with lawyers. That's why he chose to move from California to Saipan, site of one of the most brutal WWII battles.

With DHL Worldwide Express growing and large shares in Continental airlines, Hillblom settled on that remote island with all of it's small-town informality. Everybody looked up to him because of his wealth, down-to-earth style. He wears jeans, sandals and scavenges local papers and stores for what's on sale—a sort of cheapskate, a "penny-pincher", as the saying goes. Before going any further, let's take a look at the hometown of this rich, infamous California man, before he embarked on his pursuit of teenaged virgins in the bars and go-go clubs of the Far East.

On a sultry day, when the thermometer mercury easily read 106 degrees Fahrenheit, I drove down to this informal, small city, by the rail-road tracks. Kingsburg is Larry Hillblom's birth place. In the local papers, it is referred to as "this little town by the highway, a quaint slice of Americana complete with old-fashioned family values." Bear in mind that a description may just reflect somebody's opinion and is therefore relative, depending on whom you are talking to. Kingsburg history goes back to 1870 when news of a rich agricultural area prompted two Swedish families to settle in the Central Pacific Railroad crossing called Kings River Switch. Four years later the town was created and renamed Kingsbury, which changed into Kingsburg in 1894. On May 11, 1908, the town was incorporated with 94 % of the population claiming Swedish heritage.

The third weekend in May brought the Swedish Festival. Already the revelers started planning for the Summer band concerts and farmer's market. However, the really big event that brings people in—annual connoisseurs from as far away as Los Angeles, San Francisco and numerous surrounding towns, is the Watermelon Festival on July 31. Very few of them will come back for the crayfish and Jazz festival in September, though. I was walking in a1950s-style downtown, where the houses sit behind well-manicured lawns. The Kingsburg of today is a bedroom community so quiet that it attracts families raising their children from L.A., San Francisco, San Jose and other major cities with high standard of living and high crime rates. Many new Kingsburg residents had sold their homes to the Silicon Valley and "Internet Nouveaux Riches". They packed up and headed down Freeway 99. Surprisingly, Kingsburg is marketed as a place where morals and values are more important than growth and income. The towns' mayor states that there is no plan for major expansion because "the city's planning documents keep a rein on residential growth, for fear that costly roads and other needed services would not keep up." There seems to be a general consensus that the future of the city must be planned instead of reacting to it. Too much expansion would outstrip the uniqueness of the village.

The local churches and high school, which Hillblom attended, are strategically placed near the heart of the business section. As I continued to walk around, I easily spotted the dressed-up water tower, which is one of the most visible reminders that Kingsburg once had a great majority of Swedish-Americans. I saw a diverse town with a population of about 8,900 inhabitants, 85.2% white, 31.4% Hispanic, 1.8% Asian, .7% American-Indian, .3% African-American, according to the Kingsburg Chamber of Commerce and Kingsburg School District. Based on these demographics, one may opine freely that it will take some time before a representative of the other ethnic groups becomes the king or queen of this Swedish village. However, there is hope in the fact that the police Sgt. of the town is of Hispanic descent.

As one can clearly see, he is in a very delicate position. He has to serve both the members of the dominant group and minority group to which he belongs. Well, that has always been the case for police officers of color in America. The cohabitation, of the previously mentioned ethnic groups, has not always been easy. Relics of this era can still be felt in housing issues and the stark divide that seems to exist between the haves and have-nots. The protests that arose in 1993, when an African-American local hero was to be honored by naming a middle school after him, shows proof of the fear and underlying quiet tension. After all, California, more than the rest of the country, is the place where stars are supposed to be born and reside. No matter what, "any newcomers to Kingsburg will perceive it as a clean, safe bedroom community where they can walk in the evenings, be close to the river and the mountains". The ocean is not too far away either.