There is a strong tendency among men to jump into action. An immediate thought of doing, something, anything that will show the way we feel. An action defined by using our strength or resources to accomplish the task that seems to fit the bill. Demonstrating commitment or love to the world at large or a small piece of it.
I felt he I was really getting through to my family, especially my wife, when I would do something on her behalf. Fixing something, maybe even a meal or a surprise action or gift. It wasn’t enough. That is my love language. I would wonder what I did wrong and why if it felt so good. Why it didn’t last or feel the same to someone else. There was something missing. I don’t listen to her, I listen to myself.
There is a short piece in the Bible (have patience now, this is important) that the most important thing we can do is love our Lord with all our strength, spirit and mind. That’s the first part of two. The second part is a lot like it.
Love your neighbor as yourself. It’s like an instruction manual with only two things to do to find fulfillment, peace and romance. The simple part of any instructions, you have to do them in order. You cannot build a house without first laying a foundation. You cannot lay a foundation without preparing the place. Before that is perhaps the architect’s plan and so forth. There is always a sequence to building and it starts with a vision.
Where does that vision come from? And why does it fit in with your life? Do we do the first things first?
There is a very old piece of wisdom which I may have mentioned before. It’s from the Jewish Talmud and it is a conversation between a Rabbi and Elijah the Prophet:
He asks Elijah when Messiah is coming. Why don’t you ask Him yourself? He is out by the city gate.The Rabbi complains that the Messiah has deceived him for not showing up that day when He said He would. Elijah laughs and says, “ He didn’t say He was coming, He said to listen”
And so, we make the same mistake, over and over again. Be still and listen.
We jump right into the second part of Jesus’ explanation of all of scripture, of all the prophets to love our neighbor. But again, we gloss over the first command which is Love Him. All of us. All of who we are.
There is no shortcut to loving by going to work. I have experienced this in several ways. I was a part of a ministry in Lino Lakes called, ‘God’s grease Monkeys’ This must be a calling for me!
I was sort of on board with this Loving God command but I wasn’t waiting for that still, small voice of the Lord. I thought I was on the right track, seemed logical. I grabbed tools and showed up, even recruited a some good friends. The ministry was not where I needed to be on my own reckoning. I was Not listening for His quiet voice. After all, I saw the newspaper column that wrote about those grease monkeys, a Sunday edition of all things which I hardly ever buy. Who needs that much fire starting paper just because the funny section is a good memory?
Now, the same thing happens when I try with works of sacrifice to show Julie my love. I do not listen to her as she needs me to listen and not rush into talking or doing. Just listen. That’s how the house is built. Not buying 2 by 4’s when we think that’s all that is needed. Listen and hear well. All of our heart, soul and mind. Love the Lord first by listening to him. He will show us how to listen to others and understand their voices . It’s hard some of the time, but it’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator
It’s momentary. A brief, but time stopping moment in your daily flow through life. An opportunity given without our knowing how it happened, a glimpse of what we all long for. Something more real than our lives seem to be.
Perhaps, reader you are a particular type of artist that is focused on your art. All of us are ‘artists’ in some way because art is a longing for the real reason we are here! The big longing. Why am I here and how am I here?
One of the authors that I know of, has had that reality vision is George MacDonald. A book he wrote, ‘At the the back of the North Wind’ has a sentence that explains the path of connection to the author of all beauty. All Art. The reaching out to us by this artist of all that was, all that is and all that will be, MacDonald’s story says: “Why are you closing My window? There is no window here! I did not say, a window. I said My window” 1.
A reach, a willingness to reveal ourselves. That is the the hardest and most rewarding decision we ever make in our lives.The Lord’s window can only be opened from the inside because that is where the latch is. You may certainly ask at this point; how is this done? It sounds pretty swell but is it really? How hard is ‘the hardest thing?’ That is another hard thing for me to explain because of not being understood.
There are groups of people that we find ourselves in now and then, sometimes our decision is to be there with them. It immediately makes me a bit wary because I have a tendency to open my window to my heart as a way to show it can be done. Awkward and fulfilling at times. That is the reason this column is written for you to read.
An unexpected shout of judgment from one of the hidden Sanhedrin can be unpleasant when truth is spoken. I was shouted out of a room when I revealed stalking a rapist decades ago with a nine millimeter hidden at my back. “Murderer!” was shouted several times and could not be quelled or explained as this was an open window to my heart. A teaching and revealing moment was not heard. I did not get the chance to explain why this was happening and how I was told to put the pistol under a bush and walk home. I was surprised, I know everyone has wanted to hit someone in the face with a rock. We just don’t like to think about it, let alone discuss it. We are all murderers and worse for those thoughts. The Lord tells us if we even think about those things, we have done them.
When Jack is speaking to Julie,, the windows to her heart are always open. I have to work quickly on my window latch to be of use to her. I’m learning. A bit of anointing oil applied earlier to the latch helps a lot. That oil is hard good work to obtain and the pun is: ‘ It is always Three in One oil.
You can always tell when someone has an open heart. Believe it or not, it’s your choice to look and see. Once you have been with Jesus, the master carpenter that has made those windows in there. The ability to touch that heart is yours. It’s a great gift and is offered to one and all, even me, the broken story teller.
‘No body knows the trouble I’ve seen, no body knows my sorrow’ Old blues song by Louis Armstrong. He knew the deal. No one of us knows the trouble you’ve seen, nobody. There is a man, alive today that knows and is willing to listen to your trouble. He will tell you things about that trouble. Things made just for you to do. Often, for me, things I don’t want to do. However, that open window blows in and those things Jesus tells me to do or say become refreshing and right. It’s a decision for us all. Open His window which He alone has built into your heart. Always our choice from the very beginning of the world. Choose love, really, it is the only choice we have to make, have always had to make. It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator
1. George MacDonald ‘At the back of the North Wind’ 1871 isbn 0 85421 753 3
It was a restless night for me. I discovered the morning before that I had lost my wedding ring. I’ve worn it since 1992 and it means a lot to us. It has an inscription inside with the wedding date. There is another one too in italics: “Through headwinds and tailwinds” Julie and I met on bicycles under very strange and beautiful circumstances. Unbelievable ones. That is a story for certain. It involves a Lutheran Pastor, a bartender in Washington state, A camp cook and the bartender’s grandparents. It’s been written and published already, ‘A bicycle built for two’
So, back to the ring. The whole family clan began looking for the ring. Could be it was stripped off my finger when I removed gloves outside? (It’s happened several times) Search the garden, the wood shed, the garden tool shed, the glove box in the house and car. You get the idea. It was perhaps thrown off my hand in the night when I shook off a carpal tunnel numbness! The only way to search the room’s carpet was to move the bed. An awful lot of dust and the usual vacuum cleaner task. Incredible mess. After the bed was moved 90 degrees and the cleaning began in earnest, a dusty journal was discovered. In it were Details of my week long ministering to my old navy best friend Chuck, that was in hospice in Maryland. Cancer. That journal Hadn’t been seen for sixteen years. No ring was found. They left the bed turned ninety degrees and cleaned a lot. Their thorough cleaning was very thorough and they had been thinking about vacuuming there anyway.
Reading the found journal revealed memories that came came like a flood once again. Tears from that long ago relationship came. The trouble and the trauma that had been shared with my best friend. We were together at sea during the war between Israel and Egypt and Syria. Chuck introduced me to what he called a pep pill to keep them awake on long 24 hour watches. Communication duties in the top secret radio room. Wartime status. Those pills worked pretty well, we bought them in port from the pharmacy down the street from our apartment. They were pure meth and Chuck got addicted. I used them as needed. Chuck needed them and used them.
It wasn’t too long until the CID came knocking at our apartment in Naples, asking about drug usage. I was open and honest and told them about the legality from the pharmacy. They asked about marijuana too and I offered that a cook aboard had some that helped with the shakes from the pep pills. Suddenly we were in handcuffs and taken aboard to point out the cook as he sat in a corridor, also in cuffs.
We all got locked into a Marine brig on shore and the cook came after me in the night with a purloined knife. Chuck ‘set him aside’ the cook survived and was still in general population and we decided to escape. We climbed down from the third floor using a handy drain pipe and ran for our lives. I felt threatened and Chuck just wanted to get high. Maybe he made up the knife fight. Perhaps.
We were captured, tried and sentenced to hard labor in Spain for a half year and stripped of pay and rank. An honorable discharge ensued after a review years later by a friends uncle, a Kennedy. But my Navy career was over. Thanks Chuck for the disappointment and loss. It was not a good time for me to think about not making in to the brown shoe navy ( chief ) And I was doing so well. My division chief cried when he saw me being led away. I was his protege and successor. That was the end of the sixties.
Driving alone to an early prayer meeting, I began haranguing the Lord about the ring. The usual rant we all when things are difficult and not making sense. “Where is my ring! You know where it is Lord!” His answer was, of course, immediate and kind. I was reminded that gold ring would not follow me into eternity. Neither would my 18th century viola nor the 100 year old Gibson Mandolin. However, the story of me gently responding to Chuck’s dying request to visit will go with me to heaven. I answered Chuck’s question “So what’s the good news?” Indeed, there is very good news about forgiveness, redemption and the romance of Heaven. However, I still blamed chuck for the disaster and I held resentment within.
A lot of you know exactly what It is about. I asked Chuck to meet me when it was my time to cross the bar. Chuck cried when their parting embrace ended. They both knew that living at the hospice is not usually a long term situation. When I arrived Chuck did not want to talk about Jesus, just reminisce and watch movies. We talked about Jesus anyway. The tears shared were powerful and knowledge of what was said was understood by both. To meet me meant he had to be there.
A month after the visit, Chucks wife called and said he wanted to talk with me. Right away he said “what are the words?” I answered that there were no words. Lets talk. We talked for an hour and a half. “Let’s just talk to Jesus right now!” So we did. I forgave him for all the trouble he got me into with the drugs and such. We talked more about all the things that matter on the party line to Jesus. After that hour and a half I asked him how he felt about revealing ourselves to one another and with the creator of all things listening in. “I feel pretty good actually” was his answer. ” Is that it?” Pretty much I replied.
A very short time afterwards, Mary Lou called and told me that Chuck was going to be baptized.
A few weeks after Chuck’s, baptism, I saw him entering paradise while I was praying in a local church.! A clear reality, my eyes wide open. He was walking away from me and he turned and pointed his hand over his shoulder and said five words that I will never forget: “It’s better than you said!”
He vanished and there as a bit of excitement on my part. Mary Lou left a phone message at home. She said Chuck had died that morning. I called back and told her; “Thanks Mary Lou! I know he died this morning because I saw him go. I gave her the five words he said. It was and the best good news she could hear! Chuck had ‘crossed the bar’ and was home. I am interested in what I said to him! It will be fun finding out.
All that trauma, the war, the pills and the court marshal led up to salvation for Chuck. Many decades before this happened, I was addicted to heroin and also heard five words as I was going for more heroin in front of me. “Life or death, choose now” Five words, decades apart that were less than one day in the courts of the Lord. Paths to death turned mourning into dancing for joy. Another dying that led to life eternal ,for both of us.
So I surrendered my angst about my wedding ring of gold and realized that the journal with the details of five words were only found when we looked for the ring. It was till missing after five days. Gone for good, impossible to search through leaves and grass around the farm. Sad, but reluctantly surrendering the ring because I now knew I would not take it with to cross the bar.
I went for my usual lap swim at a high school pool about 20 miles away. Early morning, around six am. I began swimming in the lane next to the wall and on the third lap, looked over into the deepest part of the pool and saw a round object that was dark. It looked like an O ring that was black. Could it be! That is where I was doing the backstroke five days earlier.
I asked a young gal that was swimming in the next lane if she dives. She said “sure” and I asked her to please dive down 10 feet and bring up that round object. She did and popped up with my wedding ring! Not so shinny after five days in chlorine and bromine, but it was the ring. The inscription said so.
A wonderful release of the sad loss, I held on tight to the ring and did a short swim and texted a picture home of the ring. It was Impossible that it was still there in plain sight. pool Not vacuumed, not in the drain close by. How deep Lord? How deep do you want to go?
I still swim there and I still work it out to swim in that same wall lane. I always look down when I get to the end at the deep part. I saw a necklace a few days ago and told the lifeguard and maintenance man about it. It had beads on it and it looked like leather. Lost and found indeed. I never have seen that young girl that dove for my ring again.
My surrender after the discovery of that Chuck hospice journal was a lesson never forgotten. Surrender. Die to the world and embrace life. He gives and takes away indeed. Grieve and rejoice. The good news, It’s pretty good, Jack Gator / Norm Peterson
We have all done these things. New curtains and carpets, out with the old and in with the new as the saying goes. It was with more than trepidation that a task came to the forefront of our lives. The ‘tearing down and rebuilding task. Two forty yard roll off dumpsters sort of thing. Nails and ancient dimension lumber. Insulation above that appeared to be cotton candy coated with mice having their own free wheeling toilet and dining areas.
All of it, the windows, sill plates and trusses. 30 by 40 or so. Fifty years ago it was old when I bought this farm. I drove up with the rental van and walked in the rain to the barn that faced the house. April fools day, 1976. All I could think of was to play my fiddle on some old bales of hay and look at the house through the open barn doors. First house, my best friend about ½ mile away and a mortgage through the GI loan. A life style remodel, boot camp haircuts sorts of things.
Two years later, I was on the bathroom throne and collapsed on the floor getting up. I could not rise. Excruciating pain. A slipped disk pressing nerves to my legs. I was able to crawl. I occupied my mind by reading old newspapers off the floor. Zippy the pinhead comics were distracting and pleasurable read. That worked for a few days and I began to go into a bit of a decline.
I survived by crawling into the kitchen and drinking the cat water. The black wall phone was unreachable. It was die or get help. I emptied my dresser and made a ramp and rolled onto the bed, There was a princess phone on the wall side of the bed. (not pink)
An ambulance ride and extensive traction gave me mobility. Spike mauls and shovels were a not an option and I ran out of ‘injury’ pay and had to sue the railroad for money to live. The settlement was very low and it would pay the VA loan for a year.
It seemed a good idea to open a repair shop for foreign vehicles! I had experienced many years of repairing engines and with my electronics background, it was plausible. Hand lapping a failed rod bearing in Omaha while under my truck was my diploma for repairing engines. Emery cloth looped around the journal. 100 strokes, turn the engine 90 degrees, repeat, 180, 270 and back to the top. 2 or 3 hours or so, Mic the journal. When it got close, I switched to fine and polished it up pretty good. Perfect oil pressure and never gave me trouble again. It took about 3 days. (The people that helped me were the ones I met on Motorcycle Pilgrimage 1). Amazing people. Their friends had a repair shop and they loaned me everything I needed. Even got me a ten thousands under set of rod shells!
Foreign cars was my niche. After all, there were at least a dozen foreign cars in the county. A kind and clever snap on dealer had me rebuild his 280Z engine for the tools it would take to do it. Micrometer, cylinder gauge, ridge reamer, cylinder hones, ring compressor, torque wrenches. It ran quite well and I was off and running and walking and bending quite well. That tool dealer spread the word and slowly, my business was created. An LLC was obtained and I named it Fine Tuning Auto.
Sliding wood doors and no heat with a somewhat usable floor and foundation. 30 x 40 feet. I was 30 and could do anything, just like my son to come. The barn and chicken coop and old silo foundation were gone soon, along with the summer kitchen later. Oak 2×4 boards that held nails strong enough for mild tornadic winds. A time lapse film would appear interesting. A friend built a chimney in the shop and wood heat helped in the winter.
There was a remnant of a barn on the adjoining property to the north and it had some nice old ‘barn wood’ left (most likely a remnant of the original owner of my land owned that 10 acres) I took that wood and paneled my kitchen with it. (The owner of that property said take what you want.) He came over frequently and was a farmer with a good sense of humor. Claire Melin.
50 years later, our house was completely remodeled but that barn wood is still on the wall. Akin to an old Ford 8N parked by the driveway we have all seen here and there. Fond memories that trigger us to the past.
As I have referred to some of these events in missives, they remain in that section of my mind located 3 ½ inches between my ears. Influential, pleasant in formation and now known as the path and road to redemption.
“Why did this happen? Why would a loving God make me go through this agony? We ALL ask these questions. Puzzled, we attempt to understand and perhaps even control the events of our lives that we cannot anticipate nor control, Since my conception (or perhaps even before) I was made for purposes that make sense, to me.
Here I am, with beauty and fulfillment surrounding my life. I think I have arrived here because of my Resistance and spectrum gift. Gifts indeed. I have to finish as an Asberger child must. I have finished well. It is all due to Him who made me, just to be here with His face turned towards me and giving me joy.
I know now that God does not have a plan, He is plan. As one of my favorite quotes goes:
“Time itself wanted to die with You” Mark Batterson
Our sumptuous original home surrounded indeed by incredible and astounding life. Our home and delight everywhere. A garden of plenty and loved,
Then the garden began to grow other other things. Besides the rows of tasty vegetables, there was the tenderloins of wandering animals. It was refereed to as a garden of delight and a sign says Garden of Eatin’ right on a bench in the middle of the garden
But then unknown neighbors came drifting in, just visiting but extending their brief visits. There were thorny things that had the audacity to spring up with nice flowers with thorns that made them painful to face and even harder to show the gate to. Another tenacious weed family that overstayed their welcome. The worst was the Pampas family. They came so well dressed, nice and tall and promised to give beauty. A pretty family that never got taller than their kids and they stuck together, all year. We noticed they liked to huddle together and never let any other plants in.
Wow, on our land! Well dressed but smarmy. Little by little they began a commune and made a small settlement that was a circular lodge that was closed to outsiders. The circle got bigger every year and soon took over the back lawn.
We gave them a stern notice “no more” and removed the latest arrivals somewhat forcibly, it made no difference. Green tuxedos that our visitors commented of the beauty and summitry of. The Pampas family had no intentions of leaving moving. Somewhere, even into the woods nearby was strongly tried by us.
Desperate, we hired a daredevil pilot to fly his helicopter upside down over their settlement. What a mess to clean up! We also hired a relative, he is a rake at heart, but works hard when he comes out of the shack he lives in. We helped him focus and it seemed the Pampas tribe was gone for good.
You have met them or seen their settlements. A word of advice, be polite but firm and tell their weedy well dressed relatives they are not welcome, even as a visitor. DO not let them plant their roots in your space! No matter how well dressed and polite they are, show them the door.
Call us if things get bad and we will come by with our rakish uncle and upside down Pompous the Pilot (he is related and somewhat shows his greedy origins but knows the score. He’s not cheap, an under the table payoff is needed, but he, as stated, is always on the downside of history and not thought of well. Get rid of the pompous ones and their relatives from Sanhedrin.
contact their money man, Just Scardalot Good luck to you neighbor.
I wrote and copy-wrote a song decades ago when I thought the world was my burger to devour (with fries) and songwriting and performing were my destiny. Only the title of the song now makes perfect sense in the situations we have found ourselves in. Anxiety, fear and restlessness abound.
{Dancing alone.} The original column was written during the Covid19 scare and so called pandemic. Most of us remember the dystopian and totalitarian government actions during that time. The death tolls were not even close to the Spanish flu. None of the draconian measures worked. Masks, isolation, closing everything except for big box groceries and bars. The vaccine did not work either. What a disaster.
We were indeed dancing about. Whizzing down the road, against all declarations of our leaders.
Going somewhere, anywhere, just to once again be free to go somewhere. It didn’t work. Coming home to safety without the plague hitchhiking on us, we did the usual things. Make supper, get the parlor stove laid in and lit. Do the family business out in the shop, get ready for planting and go to one of the few shops down the road deemed necessary by the government. What? We can’t gather with our friends and worship the living God?
We can’t, we can’t, we should not. We are in danger, we are all in danger under a death threat as is the whole planet. Inconceivable! But we accede and say, As you wish. Those who resisted and kept their restaurants open were prosecuted and fined an absurd amount. Especially in Minnesota.
I felt so much disconnect with almost everyone on the planet except a handful or so. The imposed oddness, the imprisonment before imminent execution as we read about in scripture and history. The comfort of my cell, even driving in our car. A cell with bars, not bars of signal from Verizon
I felt the shrug of being rapidly passed. Don’t look at me, don’t get close to me. The hurtling shopping carts filled with toilet paper. Don’t don’t don’t. Please wear a disguise around your face for I know you fear me as I fear you. Social distancing which our head of CDC at the highest level told us was useless and just made up. Six feet apart. Six feet under. Make your choice while fully masked. The masks were ridiculous and actually caused carbon dioxide buildups and not prevent a 5 micron virus with the 24 micron mask materiel used. Fake news? Reality? The Matrix is a documentary, I just heard it on Fox News.
Shop till you drop dead and we’ll send the wooden cart for you. Wear the white or yellow or blue mask, it won’t help. Those helped you feel how I felt about you. Isolated and confused. Fearing the plague.
With due reverence, but very plainly, let it be said that God can do nothing for the man withshut hand and shut life. There must be an open hand and heart and life through which Godcan give what He longs to. An open life, an open hand, open upward, is the pipe line ofcommunication between the heart of God and this poor be-fooled old world.
…S.D. Gordon (1859-1936),
I am stretching out, looking fondly upon memories of freedom I fought for in the military. My leaders for this time are many and none of them make any sense to me. It is a dream forgotten as I stumble in the dark at 1 in the morning to the bathroom. Walk back to bed and actually try to remember the power and lack of it in my dream. It’s gone with a few remembered scenes. A mission of sorts, confusion and almost palpable in my real life.
The blue pill or the red pill. Got to remember at least to take my pills in the morning. I look upon my desk when I awaken later and cast my eyes upon books, journals and the book with all the answers if I would just open it and read. Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, we are weak but He is strong.
Indeed, I am not dancing alone. I am never alone and David knew this as he danced before the King of Kings thousands of years ago.
My back was not so good from my Berkeley projectionist job as I had to also pick up the popcorn boxes under the seats and sweep up too. The earlier three thousand plus miles on the Enfield bike put wear on my lower back facets. A lot of bending working the theater, and my back ‘went out’ A doctor I visited told me to have a lot of bed rest, cold packs and of course, I lost the theater job. I did not know about workman’s comp and the owners were not telling me either.
After I began to heal, I was invited to go on plane rides with a pilot that had a room down the hall in the mansion. We flew into various places and it was a thrill to fly alongside an expert pilot. He flew with the German Luftwaffe in WWII. We flew sideways through Yellowstone once.
He was curious about my extensive radio background and asked me to build a portable radio that is used for ground to air communication and also ground to ground. I was paid good money just to do that in the desert for his smuggling operation. Perfectly safe and harmless marijuana from Mexico. It was almost legal in California and everyone smoked it. Why not?
I got to meet the ground crew on a practice run and they were older and liked to carry around wheel guns. They parked a miles away from the end of an inland landing strip with limited tower presence, and I went up to my designated hill.
A perfect contact to the plane and the ground crew. They didn’t know a thing about communications and just got frustrated and drove back to a rendezvous area. The plane landed spent a short time, did a 180 and roared away. I had an odd feeling about this, and so went out to where the plane made a U turn. The sand was packed and hard and when I puttered up I saw a lot of ‘sea bags’ in the moonlight.
Somehow I buried all of them but two and took those to the rendezvous area. Knocking on the camper door, I got a gun in my face. I proclaimed what I had done and I unloaded the two sea bags. Something illegal for certain. VW beetles are rather scarce in roominess. They do have good traction and that made traction in that sand easier. I made two more trips and the drill was over. “Well done” the pilot said back at the mansion. I wondered what the bags really had inside and was told it was smuggled pot from Mexico! The money man was a famous rock star, Sly Stone who lived right across the bay in San Francisco.
Not too much later, I was really getting used to the money with the pilot and his girlfriend, and whole business. Rent was not an issue and I was wanted as a team member. Just like being useful back on board ship. There was a lot of my back pain and the team got me comfy with a powdery pain reliever. Heroin.
The pilot that paid the rent was very kind to me and the heroin was very pleasant and I liked it, a lot. One day, in my room alone, I was eager for another snort of the powder and heard a clear voice behind me say: “Life or death—choose now” I quickly turned around and there was no one there. The door to the room was still closed. I stared at the pain reliever and remembered how good I felt using it. The pain of all the rejections in my life as well as my current back issue. I no longer lingered on my recent Minneapolis fiance that I met just after discharge that ran off with an actor from the Guthrie and my hard childhood trauma. It was more than pleasant to not be consumed with any pain.
After a short while, it was obvious what the voice meant and I said “life?” My addiction was gone instantly and there was no withdrawal either. Of course it was the Lord saving me for His plan. I bundled up the remaining heroin and took it down the hall to the pilot’s room. “I don’t need this” and the pilot was surprised with an odd expression on his face. Another friend introducing me to drugs. I never searched out those things, they found me. No income and shunned by the pilot and co-pilot (RAF vet)
Obviously, I saw homelessness coming and I bought an old International pickup truck and built a camper in the bed. It was finished and cozy with French doors on the tailgate area and those two rugs I thought I bought from the earlier resident in what was now my room. I slept on the narrow one. Wool Oriental. Class again. There was even a skylight of Plexiglas and windows on the French doors in the back. The couple that I replaced in the mansion lived down in the flats and helped me build the camper. A chop saw, jig saw, some hand tools and a Swiss army knife did the job in short order. Time to get mobile.
After being told to leave the mansion, a new job came into view. Playing guitar in front of the Safeway grocery store in Oakland for while and garnering enough change to buy a can of Dinty Moore beef stew, drive over the bay bridge and park at McClure’s beach. Enough money for Bridge tools and gas too.
Open those French doors, get out the little one burner stove and enjoy an ocean like one I so recently used to be on. I still have a can of it now and then a half century later. Looks and tastes the same. Julie is amazed I would eat the stuff but it IS nutritious and the potatoes stay firm in the sauce.
The chow was OK. Plain but it satisfied. Out of the mansion and into homelessness. Not by choice, but it worked. Sometimes people would put groceries in the open guitar case. A banana or two, things like that.
The smugglers acquaintances found out where my new venue was. They offered me sympathy for the loss of my ‘job’ and said they had a place for me to stay and clean up a in ‘the city’. The tenant was gone for a few weeks and I enjoyed the luxury of a real house. A few days later, there was a knock on the door and I opened it up to a well dressed man with a pistol in my face and a badge to back it up. Just like the movies with cars parked diagonally and other guys in suits next to them.
The official from Federal immigration told me “Hold it right there. He called me by the pilot’s name from the mansion job. After a ‘pleasant’ conversation in the living room, I convinced the government men with the badges that the pilot had left the country with my girl. I was a very controlled angry man and it was a good improvised act and they left. One of the other agents was fiddling with the telephone in the living room. The fellow that that was obviously in charge told him to ‘knock it off’. One of the agents came dashing in the door stating: “It never was red!” I realized they were confused searching for a red truck. My truck was green. I had painted it with a brush under the eucalyptus trees up in Tilden park. It started out primer black. Pretty good job painting an old pickup with a brush. The painting was thorough but thick here and there. Brush was a toss.
The pilot’s truck was in Mexico by then. Later, after all the afternoon excitement, I was interested’ in leaving and looking for a broom to clean up for my unknown host, I found some book sized plastic bags stacked in the closet about waist high. I then knew what was in the sea bags! I grabbed my meager belongings and my guitar and decided to hit the road with my homemade camper. Quickly.
It seemed that I had been set up to make sure disappeared for a while. The shower had hot water and the pressure was good too. But It seemed prudent to leave. The broom went quickly back into the closet and it was time to head back across the bay bridge. Safeway was waiting for my Martin D-28 rosewood guitar. It still has a good tone.
I lived in the camper for a while, and played at the food market. A bully from Oakland approached me as I was playing an old country blues song. He said; “whatcho gonna do if I take dat guitar?” Big guy. With conviction and eye contact, I told that man: “I’ll just fight you for it till one of us dies” After a stare down, the man turned away and said “That’s cool” Oh well, work place harassment. That Martin was the only thing that allowed me to make it for the can of stew, gas, and bridge tolls. Death and taxes. One or the other, nothing new. Bluffing worked in Kansas and I am good at it. Poker face. Actually, I meant it and he saw that in my calm demeanor.
An old friend of Bruce’s found me at the Oakland Safeway sidewalk and he had a big sack of rice with him. Change of menu. He said: “Want to get out of here and go with me to a commune in Oregon?” Sure! We put the bag of rice in the back of the camper and headed off to Eugene.
Another adventure ensued and that was the end of that part of the motorcycle pilgrimage. Off to live with the hippies up north in Eugene. A typical commune of the sixties story. 30 people in one house and with one bathroom. Shortly back to Minneapolis via Omaha. Next stop, West bank. Check out ’40 acres of musicians’ It’s pretty good. Jack Gator
Sitting at their campsite, Bruce and I talked the day over. “we agreed no weapons with” We wondered what we would do if the local boys came as told they would. “We’ve got the tent poles that we aren’t using tonight!” I believed this was Bruce’s solution. “We can carry those poles under our right arms so that only the metal Farrell’s show! They will think we have shotguns” We wondered if this was possible. “Is that the best idea you’ve got?” It was settled and the we settled in our sleeping bags under the stars on this moonlit night.
Sure enough, around midnight, the sound of slamming pickup doors was heard from the parking lot of the campground. “Well, here we go” We started walking towards the young toughs side by side on the pathway. Our tent poles pointed at the ground and the moonlight reflecting off of metal exposed. The metal that was just meant to join one pole to another. “ Don’t shoot till we’re a little closer” Bruce said in a very loud whisper. Those small town punks took one look at us and those pickup doors slammed shut again. There was a roar of a small block engine, and the townies were gone.
Not long afterward, the town cop showed up with his squad and somewhat surprised asked: “You boys OK?” Sure, quiet night officer we answered. Puzzled and baffled that weren’t a couple of bodies lying about, the town cop nodded his head and drove off. Tipped off by the townies, just checking for the carnage. we decided to break camp early and slipped away at midnight. Headed for the Oklahoma panhandle and close to the famous route 66. Seemed a safe and promising thing to do.
The next town was indeed in Oklahoma and it was a bright Sunday morning when Bruce pulled over to the side of the road with his engine racing up and down. “What’s going on Bruce?” It seemed the BMW did not want to connect the engine with the desired ahead motion. Sitting next to one another on the ground of the well groomed grass, we began to disassemble the drive train of the bike. We were getting pretty good at those sorts of things. A short time later Bruce announced: “It’s the woodruff key on the driveshaft, it’s sheared off!”
Looking at the Sunday afternoon one horse town was not encouraging. There seemed to be tumble weeds blowing down the short main street angled off the highway, no one was in sight and there was no traffic heard nor in sight. Great. Suddenly, A tall young man was in back of them asking “What’s the matter boys?” They looked at the young man and said rather sadly, “sheared a woodruff key on the driveshaft.” That man didn’t even blink about a motorcycle having a driveshaft and in a calm voice said: “My father owns the hardware store and I’ve got the keys, lets go see what we can do”
Astonished, they followed him and his keys as he walked down an alley to a door and opened it. Turning to them, he said: “go to that Graymills cabinet over there and pull open that top drawer. There, back in the third compartment, 8 millimeter.?.take a few” They took about three of them. Back to the bikes Bruce put the key in the driveshaft and fit with a perfect ‘snick’ We turned to eagerly thank the tall young man and he was nowhere in sight. It came out as: “Hey Bruce…were did he go?” It wasn’t until decades later I laughed and finally got the line “My father owns the hardware store and I’ve got the keys” Of course, the Lord, our Father owns everything!
Mine has been an interesting life. So I have been told by people who read what I write.
It seemed normal life to me, what did I know about life? A weirdo and a geek and I have written a few columns about myself. Inward when outward isn’t working. Reasonable when most people are not.
Brilliant and surprising and not understood why. Asperger syndrome, a variation of Autism, a precursor. Advanced in mathematics asking grade school teachers about soil stratification. Then obtaining my novice class amateur radio license in grade school. General class a year later
Dad knew I was different and catered to my interests. The rest of my family stayed at arms length when I acted normally by my thoughts. Knowing the joke about Santa Claus as I waited obediently in my room for my father to knock on the front door and great the great Satan in his red suit with warmth to fool us. I knew Santa clause was evil for his behavior and indifferent attitudes towards people with anti social tendencies. I was used to it after all. Truth is truth.
I would have welcomed coal as we burned it in our basement stove with all it’s steam punk gauges and clinking doors.
As I age, my brilliance has faded somewhat but the wariness remains. Conversation and acceptance always seem to go hand in hand. I like genuine smiles and try to do so. I engage people in places that are not usual for most and use ruses of my own to do so. I complement a vehicle that I see and engage the owner with a complement on it. Conversations fascinate me and I always learn something. Mechanical or even better. I have learned to ask names and even origin of different ones. I guess at the country of origin of their name and this begins the game I reveal to them. It softens the spirit of strangers and lets them know they are seen.
“you’re so friendly and easy to be with!” That is what I have been developing over decades and the wish to bridge the chasm between me and the world. As the improbability device on the Pot of Gold in the hitchhiker movie says: “now approaching normality 2 to 1 and falling”
I am at a loss for words often to express myself and that is why I write and edit over and over till it makes sense to readers. I put the blame on the world and then exalt the cure for us all by mentioning Jesus who is healing me of many things. Mental and physical, I love to pray on the spot for anyone that needs and wants it. It’s a gift from God who has gifted me to do so.
After all, the first thing of communication is to seek it. The early days of my amateur radio were obvious to me. In Morse code the first call tapped out to speak with someone you do not know are the letters, CQ. Seek You. Makes sense to someone looking to communicate with the world. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe to K0JMV.
It was a child’s romance. A romance brought into full bloom by trauma and the need to escape it somehow. Fresh from the military that literally tortured me, my path beckoned me strongly to dissolve myself in marriage, somehow.
The only job I had when I got home after discharge was performing songs learned from warm and scratchy vinyl recordings. Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, Carolyn Hester. The job at the YMCA for youth was better right away than the red line brig in Spain and got me the attention I craved. A brand new Martin D-28 Helped it happen.
At that time the Brazilian rosewood model was an even $400. I bought it right off the exhibition wall at Schmidt music instantly when I came home. I had one shipped overseas a year before and it never showed up and no one knew where it had gone. I had paid the cost and Schmidt’s had the invoice. No charge with hard-shell case ready to play. They even tossed in some strings. I still own it.
I met my fiancé at the YMCA gig and she ditched her date and I drove her home that night. I began to meet her family and she and I became young lovers. I was living in my Mother’s basement and we spent times down there accompanied by the washing machines loud symphonies. An old habit of hers surfaced and she ditched me.
My beloved disappeared. I frantically swam through all the places she should be, and finally, a good friend told me years later that she had run off with an actor from the famous Guthrie. She was a ticket taker at the theater and easy sexual prey to be taken by a Lothario of the stage. After all, better prospects than a recently discharged service man living in his mother’s basement.
Stunned again by sudden betrayal, I went deep into the rabbit hole and gave up the promised good life and got involved with another vet who hooked me up with some heroin smugglers in California.
(check out Motorcycle pilgrimages on gatorsgracenotes.com)
Money, a mansion in the hills of Berkeley and using my Military skill set, I became a member of the air force of drug smugglers. I was an experienced radio operator and built a portable air to ground Ground to ground radio. Flight plans were Mexico to the California desert.
We had a steady customer in The City, Sly stone and the musicians that lived there. My pilot gave me the magic white powder that the whole team was using. I thought, wow what a gift.
Heroin gave me relief from all the pain of life. The poppy blooming in my core became the path to victory. No back pain, no mental anguish, no fears. Just nirvana and total oblivion. Betrayal covered by powder on glass.
Deep into addiction, a voice entered my room in the mansion just as I was getting ready to snort a line of the drug. The voice said Five simple words: “Life ordeath, choose now” Stupefied and thinking hard about voices from the thin air, I chose life and was instantaneously delivered from my death path. No withdrawal. No craving.
Of course, the swell new job was over and the usual reaction was another betrayal and a narrow escape. I left the flying circus of Berkeley close to the ocean trade, alive and another life came upon me. I lived in my home made camper truck for a while and played that Martin front of Safeway stores. I got rescued again by a friend and finally made it back to Minneapolis.
Back home to a drug free city government gang that drove cabs. I was a Hippie restaurant singer and dishwasher and then got a good job as a steel track worker that finally paid well. The city gang was left for the railroad gang, but Something was awry and had to be done for freedom from the inside pain upon me again. Never trust your heart to another. That was entrenched into my very being, traumas of the past.
Through that old city friend, I found my ex’fiancé’ locked in a mental ward downtown and bluffed my way in posing as a youth pastor to see her. Her father was the senior pastor at Central Lutheran and I knew him from the visits, and meals when I was engaged.
My old lover was heavily drugged and overweight, groggy but she came into focus for a short time and asked me “why are you here?” ‘Because I love you!’ came quicker than thought and the pain of that rejection was over. There is still other trauma within me but I am learning how to quickly recognize it and shut off old learned instincts of survival and to run away from perceived trauma.
The heroin that never lasted and blinded me to the fact that the miracle of deliverance was love. This was Jesus seeing and telling me truth about what I really was. The the light grows slowly but surely. There are plans being revealed to me to take me to places I can’t imagine. Places of trust. Real fulfillment. Reality. Now I am writing columns to others to share that love.
‘Never betray the sword, never betray beauty, and never betray a friend’. It’s a good way to see the life we live as men and warriors of the Word. Freedom from fear and self hatred is a special gift that can only come from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
“I sacrifice the land unto you, all who I love there, and who loved me: I sacrifice this land unto you, and all who I love there, and who loved me; when I have put our seas between them and me, Put Your seas between my sins and thee.
As the trees sap do seek the root belowIn winter now I go where none but you, the Eternal root of true love I may know.” John Donne ‘Hymn to Christ’
Jack gators grace notes 