No More Share Sites

Dear Reader,

If you happen to be one one of the people to happen upon these pages right now, apparently two creations of mine, Pilbullshark and Noticing The Color Purple, will no longer be presented on these "Shares Sites" pages.  That agency had decided it was not profitable to continue arrying these offering and will be liminting no more very soon from now.

Of course this was very disappointing to me and all the others of peolpe who were enjoying the process with this acency, I do undertand (at least for me, I don't know about others), all this was free.  The issues that income will ultimately become an insure and frankly that was not an issue I had tought about although I should have...but IDO inderstand the situation at this point and realize that it is now high time for me to have my own setting for this kind of material.  I should have done it long ago!

If you happen to be here on the "demise" of Pitbullshark and Noticing The Color Purple because of THEM and their content instead of just curiosity, then you came at a good time.  If you were already a reader here, or wanting to be, yould would be disappointing.  I have every plan to remate similar and better platforms than I had had in the past.  At this point, I am not sure WHERE I will do this...so far it is time for me to deal with the taking down of this one that I already have.  I did not want to lose all the material that I had been writting since 1977.  I found that there was no simple "transfer" of all of my material to another computer Instead, I had to copy everything, which was extremely laborious and also expensive.

If I already had a "new home" already seat up, it would be easy for me to simly present the new loctions.  I certainly hidn't have enough time for that, so the only connection is from YOU to ME!  Let's say you connect with me after two years from now?  I know it's unusual, but.... Two methods of dropping a line asking me where we are now:

by U.S. Mail:

Tom Osborne, 18601 Hatteras Street, #320

Tarzana, California 91356

U.S.A.

or:  Telephone:  (323) 527-2392

All my kindess,

Tom Osborne

PITBULLSHARK and NOTICE THE COLOR PURPLE

The Third Year of Covid

 I was some horrified a few minutes ago when I realized that I had not posted anything on here sence early February last year, spretty close to my most recent birthday, which is February sixth.  What had suddenly made me just stop?  

I don't think it had anything to do with my birthday (although SOME kind of "time chime" might have rung), but it DID have to do with three years of Coved lockdowns.  In earlier lockdown years, I assumed that the people who were really suffering were those who had been sick, or hospitalized, maybe died or had loved ones who died, or lost their businesses, or any of all the myriad horrors would have happeend to a person.  I had not had any of those types of occurrences, so I assumed that I was "fine" and not really suffering.

That was very wrong.  I was not only suffering, I was getting psychically sick.  I am not married and do not have any children.  I had retired from the "normal working grind" a year prior and was working on some books I had hoped to publish and do a lot of other things that my previous work did not allow time for.  The "not going to the office" and "working on things I wanted to" had felt like a goal, not something that could actually hurt me.  This solitary situation sounds almost like a godsend escept for some pretty powerful aspects that point in the other direction.  For one thing, as humans we are NOT really made to be totally solitary and especially so for a person who is as much of a "people person" as I am.  I can and will talk with as many people as I can.  During the lockdowns, just about the only people I ever even got to SEE (let alone talk with them) were masked shoppers at the gorcery store for half an hour once a week or so...people who were even afraid to be in the same aisle and who would pointedly look away from you as if that would make you disappear. 

Where I live is a very large housing complex, about 2/3 or half a large city block.  All but two families I knew moved out, unable to afford the rent now that one or both of the bread winners lost their jobs or businesses.  New tenants took their places, all wearing mesks, and even now I don't even know who they are.  And it seems that most of them do not even speak English.  Why did my block turn into a United Nations?

The ONLY connections I really had for the three years of lockdowns was the telephone.  A voice on a phone is not a substitute for human connection but people grasp at straws and so of coarse demonic AT&T managed to continue raising their cates of phone calls until I was forced to get unlimited calling that was costing me $260 a month.  I won't even unpack the other things they were doing at this same time, such as claiming that their customers were potential hackers and every day you had to play "change the password" evey day until custemers finally got rid of them and ended up with NO telephonic connections or signed up with other carrirs that were even worse.

Throughout all this time, my brain was forgetting all kinds of nows so that I hardly ever knew the name of the simplest devices or place names.  It was as if my ability to  speak was fading away, and so was my ability to read.  I had larned how to read adult books before I was even in nursery school, but now I felt like my reading skill was like someone who had never even seen the letters before.  It actualy makes sence I think about it, that a skill, not being used will made away as it no longer having any use.  Even worse than that was that I was generating fears of the outdoors, prograstinating on going out to buy food because the aura outside seemed so hostile.

But my lowest level was when I didn't even want to get up out of bed anymore.  There was an actual name for what I was now, but like so many names now, I no longer remember its name, but it IS a genuine serious malady and there were therapists advertising to being able to treat it.

I wasn't interested in starting a whole long therapy, the kind that they continue to try to keep you going to it "forever" (after all, if I didn't even want to get out bed...) but I HAD gone to a very nice man many years go (in much happier times) and I thought he might be a good choice (after all, I WAS able to bring a end to that other series, so I would not be stuck).  I rememer that he was a very good person to talk with and wasn't that the think I really needed, a good person to talk with, IN PERSON?

I left seveal calls on his various answering machines around the city and I was able to determine that he was still in pracrice, but never ever returned any of my phone calls.  Mabye he was very busy, overwhelmed, or whatever, but he certainly could have at least simply left a message back to me that he could not take on another patient, or whatever his situation was.  BUT INSTED HE IGNORED MY CALLS ALTOGETHER!  Is that any way to run a therapy practice?  I say no.  I say that is a TERRIBLE way to run a therapy practice, especially NOW in this crucial situation in our present situation.  I call that a PERMANENT failure on his part.

But then I thought of a MUCH better person, an extremely powerful and vastly educated person who is an expert in numerous healing and spiritual modalities from all around the world.  I own and have read several of his books and have even had a private session with him where he lives,  Santa Fe.  I woldn't be  surprised if several readers of my blog are familiar with him:  his name is Jose' Stevens, PHD and can be easily found on the Internet by his name.  I also greatly enjoy reading his free monthly articles that are all timely.

I decided that the best thing I should do was to see if I could have an hour session with him over the telephone.  And I was right.  He was certainly familiar with my malady and when I started to explain to him that I thought I had developed this situation due to the three years of punishing solitude, he stopped me and said it would take time to deal with what could have caused the malady...yes it could have been brought in by that, but there could have been numerous other causes as well, but instead he would rather use to time for fixing it!  Well, fixing it is what we wanted!

He told me that he fully understood what I was going through and there were two aspects to what he was going to be doing for me.  One of them was medictions, and the other was a powerful spiritual practice.

For the medical aspect, he listed out numerous pills all of which I should buy and take.  I had never heard of any of them, but I dutifly wrote down their names.  For the siritual practice, he carefully guided me into details of the pysical and mental locations, aspects, and of the practice, the history and the discovery of the practice itself, and the fact that every highly advanced  spiritual master had each independent DISCOVERED the prarice without receiving it from any one else.

After our session, I went onto Amazon and I was surprised to see that every single of the medications (six different things) was available there, and, in fact several different choices and sizes and costs were here.  I have also found a pharmacy here that have some (but not all) of these.  As I was moving the cursor across the Amazon pages, I would see smatterings of what the medications were to do and all of it was right on to what I needed.  I have now taking them dutifuly and definitely have felt notable changes...no not wanting to get out of bed, no fears, and so on.  The memories and names for things look like they might be harder.

Regarding the spiritual practice, I was somewhat surprised that Jose' had even presented it to me, as it came from the independent discoveries of such elevated spiritual beings from around the world; was I even worthy to be presented to this.  But HE knows what he is doing and most likely those who can appreciate it and follow it, then it belongs with them, and others would let it fall by the wayside.  What I think about what Jose' had done, the medictions were for the physical aspects of my maladies, such as stress coming from the strugles of the solitude.  The spiritual aspect was for the "knew now" that we all (or so many) may be moving into the next level of whatever might be coming, or we will be fashioning.

On the heels of the Jose' session where I was moving back toward to someting new, I  got an advertisement about an upcoming CRUISE that was going to be leaving from Los Angeles and go south  down to the Panama Canal and all the way over to  Miami!  I had longed to go on a cruize through the Panama Canal, so I booked the Norwebian Bliss and was gone from December 2 to 17 and back home here from Miami.

What a blast...just exactly was what the doctor ordered!  I KNEW I had to get out of L.A. and joing five hundred thousand cruisers on this glorious journey.  I seemed to have made dozens of friends, many of which I hope will become permanent, but even if that doesn't  happen, it was wonderful for me and while I still have some aspects of my "malady", thinks have improved gigantically so there IS coming back!

I  hope you will join me!

All my love to all of you (even if I don't know you!).   Those who have felt ignored all this time, I regret that so much, but mayby now you will know why.   It was a hard road there, but things are now on the mend!

  

AN OMEN OF GOOD CHANGES

 Outside my bedroom window is this amazingly colored tree.  

Why hadn't I noticed it before?  I have lived here for several years!  I must be slipping in what I consider to be the first "commandment" of "my religion", which comes from Alice Walker and her glorious novel, The Color Purple.  It comes from the line, I think it pisses God off in you walk past the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."  Well, now having noticed this tree, I purposefully look at it every morning when I open up my blinds.

About a month after my seeing this tree, I was looking out the window at it and saw a black woman sitting on the grass under this treet.  The ground was heavily covered with leaves that had fallen and shared its color with the green of the grass.  In all the years I have lived here, I had never ever seen anybody sitting down on the grass here.  But here was this woman doing just that, adding her colors with those of the leaves and the grass.  I literally said outloud in my solitude, "How beautiful that is!", because the whole tableau truly was glorious.

 

This was the kind of view that would stimulate taking a photograph, but I was a stranger three stories up above and hidden behind her, which would be creepy, so I did not.  I didn't want to sully the atmosphere by assentially being a spy.  But I did have the idea of going downstairs and around to tell her how beautiful she was in that setting.  I kind of laughed at the boldness of my thought, but in addition to my "God wants you to notice," another of my aphorisms is if you see something good about a person, then you tell them if you can.  Rarely have I ever come upon a person who did not like what I was saying to them, but there have been some and that's too bad for them.

I can remeber one time I was on a trip and was having lunch in a Dennys.  In the booth in front of me there was an elderly couple, a large man whose back was facing me and his wife who was across from him.  The man was doing most of the talking and the woman was listening and nodding as the man talked.

Let me tell you, that man..the most glorious voice he had!  It was deep and strong and had a powerful timbre.  It was a voice of great knowlege and the power to educate you with valuable truths.  Just based on the sound of that voice alone made me think he would be one of the most important sound casters in our day.  If he had a podcast that aired even deep in the night and lasted for three or four hours each night, I would nevertheless get my earphones, get into bed, and listen to him every single night.

The man and woman ate slowly and so I finished before they did.  I was eager to get back on the road.  All I knew about this man was his back and his voice, but there was no way I was going to leave that restaurant without telling him how I felt about how great his voice was.  So I walked over to their booth and I simply said to him, "I was eating in the booth behind you and I couldn't help but notice that you have one of the most wonderful speaking voices I have ever heard, people would fall in love with the power of your voice; if you aren't already on radio, I think the sound of your voice alone would make you a huge success on radio or anywhere else you could use your voice."

That was all, just my observation.  I wasn't going to stay beyond that, just tell him this and then leave.  He looked up at me with his mouth handing open and I smiled and then walked away to the booth where I could pay my bill.  As I walked away, I could hear him say to his wife, "What cheek!  Did you hear him? That guy said that I should be on radio", like that was the farfest thing he had ever thought of in his life.   I thought to myself, "Well, you lose some," yet somehow, I bet that guy rolls that thought around in his head and things start to change in his life in various beneficial ways.   I hope so!

So, I went down stairs and round the building and walked up to the woman sitting under the tree and simply said to her that I had seen her sitting there among the flowers, I had seen her from my aparment upstairs and thought the whole picture was so beautiful that I had to come down and tell her.

She was so gracious, accepting the compliment and appreciating my sharing that with her.  This happened to be a bit after the start of the New Year, so I said that she was a sign that we were going to have a very good year this year, she was a good omen, and with her being the bearer of that good message, she herself would find all sorts of good things happening in her life as well this year.  She smiled groadly and said, "Thank you so much, I like what you are saying!"  I said, "Well, the thanks go to you, and enjoy this year!" and then I left her.

Since I was now downtairs, I decided to go get my mail, so I walked over to the vicinity of the manger's office where all our mail boxes are.

I got my mail and then walked back to my building, climed up to the third  floor and then walked along the walkway to my aparment which is at the further end.  I heard a bisy-boddy little girl down on the ground below talking with a friend of hers.   She was saying to her friend, "Yes, I saw that homeless woman here again, let's go tell the manager to him to kicked off."

Homeless woman?  Could that be the woman who had been sitting under the tree?  I went into my apartment and looked out my bedroom window, but the woman was gone.  Come to think of it, every single apartment in this gignatic complex has either a large balcony (the upper units) or a gated patio (the ground floor units).  Generally speaking, there would be no reason to be sitting down on the grass if they lived here; they would be on their valcony or in their patio.  Even the numerous childred don't sit down on the grass--they're up and about playing, or if they are resting but not in their apartment, they sit on the seats and tables in the large barbeque area.

It hadn't occured to me that the beautiful woman sitting among the fallen leaves was actually homeless, finding a quiet place to sit and rest for a while.  Instead, there was someting regal about her.  Nobody homeless could come here to camp, as the complex has armed guards who patroll the grounds.  (My premious blog engry was about our new nighttime guard.) 

All that was near the beginning of 2022 and now it is early February.  Here is what that tree looks like now.  Instead of covered with ORANGE leaves, now the tree is dense with WHITE leaves!  You have the photo proof!

What kind of tree IS this, anyway?  It must be magic, the way it completely changes the colors and tells a story using its leaves.  When I told that woman who had chosen to repose under the tree that she was an omen of good changes, I utterly believed it.  I think she did, too.

God wants you to notice, because it is yet another way that He will share his promises with you, and when you know them, you can manifest them. 

YOUNG SECURITY GUARD

I had a little bit of fun satisfaction tonight.  We have a new nightime security guard here on the complex where I live.  He parks his car in the spot that had been mine for two years before our underground parking space could be fixed from all the sludge that had been dripping down from the parking above.  My car was the worst hit by all this, so I am extremely thankful that that situatiion is now finally fixed.

One of the complex's managers had called me last month and asked me if I would go back to using my old underground parking space even BEFORE it being fixed.  She said that it would be finished befor the rains became.  Actually, it actually DID rain before that it happened, but I covered the car with a cover that I have, so that was okay.  I just don't want to have to put it on every day (it takes a while), that is why I have an underground parking garage.

Well as soon as I was no longer using the temporary spot--that is meant for maintainance workers--somebody else started using it, but only after the normal working hours.  From my spending a lot of time out on my balcony that looks out onto the parking entrance and the maintenance parking spots, I figured out that who was using it late at night now was the new security guard.

As you can imagine, I am totally in favor of secure guards.  And I could see that this one was a very young man, and it reminded me of myself when I was going to Law School, a very expensive private law school that in order to be able to afford if one's parents weren't paying for it, students had to get financial aid (which I did and it took me several years to pay back and I had NOT become a lawyer), the only other or supplementary way was to have a part time job or be already rich.

Having a part time job is NOT compatable with going to law school.  All the highest scoring students in our law school were married and the "deal" was that the wives would do ALL the "family" work and the husband students would just study 24/seven.  Othewise, according to many, you could not make it. (Sadly, a common end to those situations was that after the guys passed the bar exam and get a legal job, they divorce their wives.  Or as the concept went...)

I guess if you wanted to menorize every single legal case in all of United States jurice prudence...my attitude about that was no.  My tack on the law was what really makes since, what is moral, what is just. Of course one learns that that is NOT the standard...the standard is really a lazy and frustrating one, and that was simply "what had been ruled before".  Well, that bored me; how can you ever evolve?  And anyway, my strong suit is not memorization.

So I broke all the rules in the book--had numerous dinner parties, had sex all the time (at times I could not concentrate in class because I could smell on my fingers the powerful sexual scent from woman of the night before) AND I ended up getting a NIGHTIME JOB (which I guess you figured out stopped at that time the dinner parties and the sex).

One of the jobs I had while in law school was security guard at a luxury appartment complex.  My shift was midnight to 8:00 AM, and then the first law school lecture of the morning would began.  When I had that job, after classes I would THEN have breakfast, and then go to bed.  I had to disconnect the telephone, beause now I was trying to sleep during the day.  It was a very hard way to operate.  My parents HATED it, because I was to carry an armed gun and my parents were afraid that that I would therefore get shot.  Well, I could have been shot even I wasn't carrying a gun!

The rules of that job included that every hour I was to complete a total security tour around the complex grounds.  I had a device (a watchman's clock) that I was to use to clock into various spots on the grounds that would make an imprint on a reel in the device to show a person in authority the next day that I had been to each required spot and the times I had there.  Other than that hourly "tour" duty, and being available for the needs of the tenants ("Help, I locked myself out of my aparment!"), I could sit in an office and study my law homework.

This was a terrible job for me to have...uttelry lonely, nights in Sacramento during the school year were cold and damp, and I hated being outside to walk these grounds at night. I was chilling in my thick jacket while everybody else in the complex was warm and cozy in their apartment with the flikering fireplaces and lights of their televisions taunting me through the closed blinds of their living rooms.

So now when I saw our new securty guard here, my heart would go out to him and I yearned to at least acknowlege his existence.

Late tonight, I was out on my balcony, enjoying the night air and having a delicious night cap, I saw the guard come aroud, lean against his car, light a cigarette, and talk on his cell phone (of course).

I wished I could at least say hi to him, but I was up here on the third floor, and finally I realized, "Why not just go down there and talk with him for a moment?"  So I did.  I knew I was interrupting his cell phone conversation, but I apologized for that and said I wasn't going to be long. I identified myself, asked him his name (Colby).  I said that I had seen that he was working here and I was glad to see it.  I mentioned that I knew it is a lonely job (but I guess the cell phone with a girlfriend fills in the gaps), and he agreed, yes, it was a lonely job.  He was a very beautiful young black man, and most likely not the least bit similar to me, not doing work while going to law school, etc., but that doesn't matter, I wasn't expecting to be FRIENDS with him, I just wanted to acknowledge him.

I liked it that he pointed out that he saw that our entrance gate was stuck open (that must have happened sometime earlier today), so he was monitoring that situation.  I told him that at least once a month some bozo here crashes into the gate, but that the management get that fixed as soon as possible.

Anyway, it was a satisfactory few minutes, I had gotten to do what I wanted to, and maybe he feels a bit more appreciated on this otherwise lonely and thankless job.  I can see how valuable cell phone contact is for a young man of that generation.  It would have come in handy to me when I was in law school!

The Universe Wants It To Happen

A small kitchen window screen tossed away on the front of my house alerted me that I had had a burglary. Yes, indeed, the house had been under “ransack” for an entire working day, so a thief had been looking into every single thing I had so as to determine what would be the most valuable things to take on this first pass.

 

The sheriff who came to get fingerprints showed me how easy it was to break in despite all my locks and screws and dowels in the sliding glass door runners.  All he needed was one screwdriver, the normal tool of the burglarizing young drug addict.  The sheriff said they pick them up all the time; youths with a fanny back containing a screw driver and a pair of socks, that is their burglary kit and how they keep from leaving identifying fingerprints, socks on their hands once they are inside the house.  He warned me that the burglar would see that I have quite a lot of more valuable things, so if I wanted to keep them, I needed to begin moving them away from that house that every evening.  He said the burglar now knows everything I have and where I have it, and will be back for more, for as long as I live there.

 

So I began the process of moving away from what had been the best place I had ever lived and was the happiest period in my life, now ruined forever.

 

The neighboring people who came to my “garage sale” all asked, “Did he get any guns or knives?” and I said yes to both accounts, and one knife was a custom carved and forged knife hand-made by a good friend of nine who lives in northern Sweden; that knive I consider to be priceless (among several other things stolen).  Every person said to me “guns and knives, that is a sign of a young man”.  They now knew exactly who the burglar was, someone recently released from prison for burglary, now living back in the neighborhood.  Oh, that guy?  I would give him rides into town.  So that was how he repaid me, uh, learned my work schedule.  

 

But this blog entry is not about the burglar.  It is only to explain why I ended up living with my parents again when I was 45 years old.

 

It had taken me a very long time to find the place where I was now having to move away from, including leaving my friends and income and life style and renown in theater circles…but this time, the moving had to be done in a hurry.

 

Three other times in my life I had chosen to leave California to live in the east.  Each one of those had been definite destinations that I wanted to go to.  The first time to North Carolina, the second time to New York, and the third time Alabama…only to move back to California after a while.  So here I was going to do that yet again, but with no idea of where. Nothing grabbed me, which makes sense because I hadn’t really wanted to move.  Louisiana, Florida, the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, all left me flat when I looked around them, so I tried checking out inland into Pennsylvania, but I was only getting more and more depressed.

 

As I was by this point at the end of my rope, I followed a method that always worked, called my mother from a phone booth for advice or hoping for a quick motherly pick me up.

 

She had an instant solution. She said they she and Dad were both so old now that she could hardly even cook their meals any more and there was a lot of other things I could do to help them.  Well, I had always loved our home town of Asheville, North Carolina, and if I could help them, then that would get me out this bind that I was in. So I went there.

 

Believe it or not, it was actually pretty good.  My parents were really extremely wonderful and it was interesting to mutate our roles in life from me being one of their children to us being adults together.  Despite having some duties such as the afore-mentioned cooking meals, I had gotten a full time job, had made friends, went to movies, was in a play, as well as preparing meals for my parents and helping them in other ways.  They actually loved my cooking and sometimes I could prepare some meals ahead of time that they could just microwave, so I wasn’t even necessarily tied down even regarding that.

 

So, (pant, pant) one morning I woke up late and didn’t have time to cook my own breakfast.  I decided to go to McDonalds for breakfast to take to work, and I chose to go to the Biltmore Forest McDonalds because it was the closest to where I worked.  Normally I would have gone thorough the drive-through, but this time the drive-through was shockingly crowded, so I parked and went inside.  Alas, they were packed solid in there, too, so I chose one of the three lines to get into.

 

Pretty soon after I got in line, an elderly man came in the door and got in line behind me.  I said something to him, like “Wow, they are really crowded this morning!” and that got us talking about who knows what…just letting the time go by faster.  When it became clear that we were getting close and I would be placing my order, the man said, “Well, it looks like you will be up there pretty soon, so let me tell you I really enjoyed our conversation, do you mind if I ask you your name?

 

I said, “My name is Tom Osborne.”

 

He said, “Oh, I knew an Osborne once.  A Bodwell Osborne.”

 

I said, “Bodwell Osborne, that is my father’s name, that certainly isn’t a common name!  Could this be the same Bodwell Osborne?  How did you know yours?”

 

He said, “I was a Mayflower moving man and in 1955, I moved Bodwell Osborne and his family from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He was going to be getting his master’s degree in Nuclear Physics at MIT.”

 

I said, “I was seven years old when we made that move.”  It was amazing to realize that this man actually had known my father from such a lot time ago.  I said, “You must have moved hundreds of people during your career with Mayflower.”

 

“No, thousands of moves,” he said.

 

“How on EARTH could you possibly remember the date of this one move, the name of the man you were moving, where you picked up the belongings, what the destination was, and the reason for the move?”

 

He said, “Oh, I would neverforget Bodwell Osborne.   Throughout the thousands of moves I had made as a Mayflower mover, your father, Bodwell Osborne, was the ONLY man I ever worked for who looked me straight in my eye and treated me as a man equal to him. Every other person treated me like somebody beneath them, to give orders to, not to consider as a full human being. No, I will never ever forget your father, who fully saw me.”

 

Now, I was way adult enough to fully appreciate the unique qualities of my father as a human being, who treated people by their soul and saw their unique value as human beings, and he had a special appreciation of hard working men as he, himself, was, despite his being a genius who had numerous patents and racked up various astounding accomplishments.

 

This experience waiting in line at McDonalds wasn’t to tell me about my father and his impact on others, as amazing as that experience was.  No, this was something else.

 

Six years later after that experience in McDonalds, my parents and I moved back to California and I was now working at a private school in Los Angeles.  Like the Parents-Teachers Associations at a Public school, our private school had something similar, the Parent’s Association that works very hard in providing various valuable services to the school and somewhere past mid-year in the school year, volunteer staff of employees at the school provide an appreciate breakfast for the members of the Parent’s Association, complete with entertainment by the staff.

 

I was one of the employees providing entertainment, which, like many others, might be singing an appropriate song, but some years, I would do something different.  One of those “something different” was that I the story I just provided here, my experience with the elderly man behind me in line at McDonalds who so cherished memories of my father from so long ago.

 

After I told the parents my story, I explain why I told it to them.  I said that I know how much they love their children, and how deeply they care about their education and hopes for a good and successful life when they grow up. And I knew they paid a lot of money when they choose to send their children to a private school; after all, they can get an education for free at a public school.  I was aware the other things they do for their children…and I pretty much bet that their children were probably too young to fully grasp and appreciate the sacrifices that their parents have been providing for them.  In short, they currently are unsung-heroeswhen it comes to appreciation from their own children.

 

But someday that appreciation will be realized and they all can count on that happening.  How do I know this?  Because my own experience led me to understand that the Universe wants it to happen, or for other goodness to come your way when everything lines up correctly.

 

Thinking back to what I experienced.  I had to be living in Asheville, North Carolina, which I normally did not; mostly I lived in California.  I had to wake up late one day.  I had to decide to go to McDonalds for breakfast.  I had to decide to go to the Biltmore Forest McDonalds.  I had to choose to go inside instead of using the drive-through like I normally would.  I had to choose a particular line.  And this elderly man had to choose to get in line behind me.  I had to have chosen to talk with him, and he had to choose to ask me my name.

 

All those unbelievable events had to come together to give me that message.  WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE ODDS?  It was astounding.  No person could make that happen.

 

What miracle lies in wait for you?

HOPING TO SEE PRESIDENT JOHNSON

A couple of days ago the U.S. Government was required by law to reveal to the general public all that was really known about the assassination of President Kennedy. (I think in general it could debunk the "lone gunman" theory.)   This led me to think of President Johnson, who had been Kennedy's Vice President and therefore took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy.

 

President Johnson was the President from when I was 15 years old all the way to my college year when I turned 21.  I graduated from Berkeley my senior year when I was 22.  Nixon was president then.  After I graduated from Berkeley, I got a job as a College Textbook Sales Representative for a company called Cummings Publishing, Inc.  I was given the "Southwest territory", a region I wanted to go to (I was born in Asheville, North Carolina and always maintained a love of that area). This mean that my job was introducing and sell professors Cummings's test books in every college and junior college in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

 

This was the first time I would be driving across country on my own, so my mother worried about that and asked me if I could ask my good friend, Jim, if he would travel with me.  Jim had wanted to visit his sister in Ohio, so this idea of a cross-country trip with me appealed to him.  I would pay Jim's expenses from California to Asheville, which was going to be my headquarters. Jim said he would pay the expenses from Asheville to Cleveland and then back home to San Diego, where he lived at the time.

 

Having Jim along with me on my move eased my mother's concerns, and made the trip extra fun for me.  Jim could kill you with laughter, he was so funny.  On this rip, he enjoyed himself, too.  

 

I picked up Jim in San Diego, and since we were heading to the southern states, our route took us through Tucson, Arizona and Las Cruces, New Mexico (really enjoyed the Tex/Mex food!), and slid into Texas. We saw that a reasonable route across Texas would be to head towards Houston, and when we studied the map to see the way from where we were to Houston, we got a kind of silly idea that really appealed to us.

 

Both Jim and I were deeply into politics. Looking at the road map of Texas, I saw that it would be quite easy to drive to where the L.B.J. Ranch was without going very far out of our way.  The location of Johnson's ranch was not all that far north of San Antonio and west of Austin, two major Texas cities. 

Since Johnson was no longer in the White House by then, we figured he would be completely back home now at his L.B.J Ranch.  Who knows, we might actually happen to see him in town!  The idea of that suddenly became an exciting potential.  We decided we would have breakfast in some likely coffee shop that would be in whatever town was near the L.B.J. ranch.

 

When we got there, we found what we thought might be "the" coffee shop in this very tiny town, and went on in and ordered a nice big Texas breakfast (at least we would be eating good!).

 

When the waitress came to take our orders, Jim said to her, "We felt that this place would be the kind of coffee house that President Johnson would frequent when he was in town.  Does he ever come in here for a meal?

 

The sweet elderly waitress wearing a white lacy bun on her head said, "Well aren't you two boys the sweetest thang!  You hoped to see Lyndon?  Well, you almost did!  This is his favorite place to come into in the mornin' and get his first big tall cup a' coffee. He comes in pretty early... them ranch fellas get an early start, you know, and even though he had been the PRESIDENT, bless his heart, he is still a ranchin' man at heart.

 

Jim and I were eating this up!

 

The waitress said, "Where are you boys from, I know it's not Texas!" and she gave us a knowing smile. 

 

Jim said, "No, we're not from elsewhere in Texas, we're from California."

 

"California!  You boys come all the way from California to see Lyndon?"

 

I said, "I am moving to North Carolina for a new job I have, I just graduated from college this year, and my friend here, he decided to join me for the ride since this is the first time I have driven across this wide country all by myself."

 

Jim added, "We chose to come through this area of Texas with the hope that we would see President Johnson.  I graduated from college with a degree in political science."

 

The waitress's brows furrowed, "Science what?"

 

I answered for Jim, "Politics, the science of politics."

 

Jim continued, "I studied the works of President Johnson in college.  He took on a very hard task...replacing the assassinated President Kennedy, and having to deal with the pressures and horrors of the Vietnam War.  The Vietnam War is a subject that is very important to people our age."

 

Everybody was silent for a moment and I wanted to enliven the mood back again, so I said, "Beagles, I want to see him with beautiful beagles!  Did President Johnson ever bring his dogs in here with him?"

 

"Oh you make me feel happy," she said, "He LOVED them dogs! Those big ol' floppy ears.  No, he never brought them into the shop, but sometimes you'd hear them barking and yelping as Lyndon would take them down the street.  He liked to show them off.  And they made us forget about Vietnam for a moment." 

 

Then she swiveled in her chair and pointed over to a brown table in a corner of the shop and said, "Right there, that was where Lyndon was sittin' early this mornin'.  Most times when he comes in here he is happy and funny, likes to joke with who all is in here.  He says he wants to set his mood right from the very beginning of the day, but this morning as I brought him his coffee, I could hear a sigh in his voice when he said good morning.  I hate to see him down like that."

 

Jim and I just looked at her with a sense of regret on our faces...what can any of us say to cheer up a President who has carried so much of a burden?

 

Then the waitress brightened up.  She said with a sudden glow in her cheeks, "Next time he comes in, I will tell him about you boys.  I will want him to know about you, you who have the brand new job and will be living in a fresh new town, and you who studied Lyndon's 'science', you both who came all the way from California and chose a route to come here into this little town with the hope of seeing him.  Two smart handsome boys startin' out their adulthood, seein' acrost America and finding it good, I just know that Lyndon will give a great big smile at that."

 

"That is a wonderful idea, I am glad you will tell Lyndon about us, you make me feel that I really know him better now, please tell him of his importance to us!" I said."

 

“Tell him I listened to all his speeches, too," said Jim; "let him know that so many people knew that he cared about us and we won't forget that." 

 

"Okay, okay, it is settled then, you will be the boys who will make him believe again!"

 

She then said that even though we didn't have the chance to see Lyndon, there is something we can do that would be kind of close.  She told us how to get to the L.B.J ranch, itself.

 

"Someth' just good about lookin' at it," she said.

 

She drew a map and wrote down street names.  She said, "This is where he lives, you can go up and see the gate.  It is protected, of course, but you just might happen to see him out and about.  Or maybe the dogs will be runnin' around.  If nothing else, you will be able to see where the ranch is that he cared so much about.  You will have laid your eyes on it. Do you think that is a good idea?"

 

"That's a perfect idea", I said, and Jim concurred.

 

Now it was time to leave, so the waitress hugged each of us and we hugged her and she followed us out to my car.  I grinningly pointed out the California license plate and she touched it like it was talisman.  We thanked her for everything, got in my car, and sadly said good-by.  She waved good-by as we drove down the road.  “What a nice woman,” Jim said.  “Wonderful,” I agreed; “she makes you love Texas!”

 

I highly doubt that the roads and landscapes are the same as they were in 1970.  It looks to me that now the L.B.J. ranch is a museum and a park, not a place lived in as a house anymore.  A lot of things can change in over 50 years.  Jim and I are no longer those wide-eyed boys like we once were.  So many times I wish he hadn't changed.

 

The ranch was (and still in) on the shores of the Peternales River.  When Jim and I got to the river, we saw a man waterskiing!  Neither of us had ever seen anybody skiing in a river.  On a lake, yes, but a river?  Well, why not?

 

It actually looked like it could have been President Johnson himself, and beyond that, the person waterskiing looked to us that he was naked!  Neither piece was likely...or was it?  Johnson owned all that.  He could do whatever he wanted.  Now that he had thrown off the shackles of the presidency, did Johnson take on nude water skiing...because he could?

 

The waitress back at the coffee shop said that the river was like a moat for a castle.  There was a submersible bridge (the bridge deck you drive on can be lowered below the water level to allow traffic to go over the water).  Her map took us right up the submersible bridge and we could see that the bridge crossed the river straight to the entrance of the L.B.J. ranch.

 

There it was, the entrance to the L.B.J. ranch.  We were looking right at it.  This is where President Johnson lives! 

 

Did we dare drive across the bridge right up to the very front door?  Well, there was no "No Trespassing” sign, no words warning that it was "Private".  Really, there was simply a large front door and an entry gate for vehicles when opened.  And in the middle of the door was clearly a doorbell and some light fixtures that were not on as this was still early in the day.

 

There was no sign of people anywhere, things were very quiet, almost hushed. Jim and I found our selves whispering at each other.  Something prompted me to drive up onto the crossing bridge that was in what looked like raised mode; about half the height of an automobile tire above the level of the river.

 

Jim said to me, "So, we are now trespassing on a former President's private house?"

 

I said, "Probably, but where are the Secret Service?  I feel that if I had the courage to, I would just ring the doorbell and see who answers.  Something about the presence of the doorbell seems to invite me.  We might be so bold as to say to whomever opens the door, is President Johnson in, we would love to say high to him, can we do that?  Maybe we would be invited in for a refreshing drink, or to pet the dogs, to make himself feel better and know that citizens care about him."

 

But Jim just looked at me without saying a word.  He seemed to be indicating "Well, it is YOUR car, I am just her for the ride", like he really wanted to see what would happen but HE wasn't going to be the one to do it!

 

However, the truth of my cowardice was almost immediately made clear.  We had driven across the bridge over the river and now were stopped right there at the front door when suddenly a light fixture that was in the door turned on and like an all-seeing eye, began to maneuver around as if there was a brain on the other side checked us out. Somehow the idea of a person now watching us was very creepy.  Presumably that was being operated by some guard, or a butler, or maybe even President Johnson himself (back from naked water skiing?), but in contrast to the former quietness and solitude, the sudden operation of this spotlight was way too alien or frightening for my previous thoughts.  Only a few seconds previous I contemplated that I really could have gotten out of the car and boldly rung the doorbell and either been invited in or summarily sent away.

 

The determining factor was that out of the corner of one of my eyes I saw that the river water was noticeably rising up behind us, when upon a second glance I saw that what was really happening was the bridge was sinking into the river. All I knew then was that we had to get the hell out of there and get back across that bridge or else we would be trapped at the front door with its frightening eye, or worse, we would be trapped in the middle of the river without being able to proceed any further since the car would be effectively downed in the river. (My car!).

 

Whatever intelligence I had disappeared, I only knew that I wanted to be back on the original side of the river, so I floored the accelerator and proceed faster than I had ever driven before or since.  Near the end of the distance (thankfully not all that far), there was some water resistance that I had to plow through as the bridge continued descending into the river (Jim was holding onto whatever he was able to grab onto), but we made it!  Once we were on dry land, we both began hooting and hollering and laughing out so loud like out of control kids that I guess we essentially were!

 

What on Earth had we almost gotten ourselves into?  Who knows.  Jim is one who likes the keep alive the mysteries.  I think that leaves one with so many possibilities.  All he said was, "I don't know about you, but from now on, I am going to tell people that on our trip across Texas, we saw President Johnson water skiing the Peternales River naked and I will swear on a stack of Bibles that that was the total truth." I think he wanted to have Johnson be a man who was now completely free.

 

I said, "Okay, that will be our story," but here I am breaking it, because this is my Blog and I want everything on it to be totally honest and real. I am not making up stories.

 

My fantasy regarding this is that President Johnson went to that coffee shop the next morning early and the wonderful waitress did tell him about us like she said she would.  He would say, "Oh, those guys, I think they must have been the two that came to my front door!  I was excited to have the bold company and wanted to invite them in, but they got scared off.  Seems that the river monitor saw further down the river that that water skier was coming his way and he lowered the submersible bridge so that the skier could get past.  Those boys got their car over that bridge to the other side faster than I knew any car could ever go!  All I can say about them is that I wish them continued “God speed” for their successful lives; God Bless America!