Intimacy

Discarded

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I was in my twenties when I found an apartment that fitted my mood. Recently discharged from the military and I was going to art school! The apartment fit the inherited car from his Grandfather, an old, square shaped Buick sedan. It wasn’t like my first car, the British Racing Green MGA with the real knock-off spoke wheels and Pirelli Cinturados and a Derrington wood rim steering wheel. No, It was the car of my discarded Grandfather, now passed down to me. Discarded because the once strong fireman was not capable of driving or putting out fires anymore. It felt good to me to get that old Buick.

Grandpa had killed my cat when I was young, because it had to be as Grandpa could not have my cat in his home when Mom and her new husband went on their honeymoon to Sweden. I had no say as I was in grade school and felt discarded, set aside and not worthy of dialogue or even gentleness. Mom and her immigrant husband never went on that honeymoon either. One of those memories of the life of a person now dead but living within me. a.

It felt sort of similar too that my family sold my precious MGA when the draft came in with a whirlwind of death harvest for Vietnam. I signed up first before I could have gone west to the jungles. I went east to the Mediterranean sea instead.

So I sold Grandpas Buick right away, traded it for an Austin Healy Sprite. It felt good to be in a roadster again. Made up a bit for the Green MGA and the cat.

My apartment was a dump. Second floor above a Sherman Williams paint store on the wrong side of the tracks. Corner store, separate entrance. I had a neighbor who was down and out and bummed smokes from me. When I would ask him how things were going, the neighbor always said: “just take me to the dump” That memory reminds me of Marvin the paranoid android in Hitchhikers guide. “I’m not getting you down am I?”

It seems that the latest attitude we all have. “It’s at the end of it’s service life” or “that old thing? Too expensive to fix, toss it” “ You’re what! Pregnant! Git rid of it, You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!” and our favorite: “Heck, he’s over 80. Forget that cornea transplant. I mean really, how many years does he have left anyway?” “Put her in a home, she won’t notice anyway” And so forth. As side note, as I edit this post I just had eye surgery for cataracts and I am 81. Love it! I can drive without glasses now.

Feeling useless because the popular philosophy now is Existential in nature. One man in particular, a philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, went insane in the most beautiful country in the world, Switzerland. He came to the point of knowing the tension and despair for the loss of meaning in his life because of the loss of a personal God. His words are profound: “ But all pleasure seeks eternity-a deep and profound eternity”. Groucho Marks said: ” I want to live forever and I’ll die trying it” Truth from a great comedian.

Our country has found itself discarding our God of Creation perhaps because He is inconvenient and is sort of a kill joy because of all those rules he has. “I can’t follow all those rules in the Bible!” Of course we can’t, that’s the point of the rules. We need Him.

So we discard what we feel and know is not worthwhile to us. An old car, out of date food and personal relationships that are used up and don’t make us feel the way we want to. Or the way we feel we are entitled to perhaps. We have so much ‘stuff ‘ that it gets in our way when we don’t like it or need it. Broken things, old things past their expiration dates. Things that we don’t even remember acquiring. And so it goes on and on until it becomes easier to discard than repair. “That car, it was getting old and anyway, I was tired of driving it” How much different is it when it comes to this? “He was getting on my nerves. All this talk about going to a church marriage counselor! It was his fault, so I divorced him”

It seems prudent to us to just put it in a blue plastic container and park it down by the end of the driveway every Tuesday. ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water! Throw out the tub too!’ I can do what I want, that’s what the world says. Another philosopher, De Sade put it well: “If there is no standard, no real moral base, then that old woman walking down the road can either be helped or run over. No difference if there are no moral standards” Those standards have been firmly set by an eternal infinite loving God who knows us and desires us to love him with the same passion he loves us.

So, it’s our choices, the small ones that make a great impact on everyone. Should I discard this friend? This inconvenient baby? This old fashioned religious teaching? This God who never did anything I asked Him to do?

Always, always our choice to build, repair, embrace and seek truth in the eyes of the Man who is more alive than any man who ever lived. Jesus, the master repairman of old and stressed lives. It’s pretty good.

Norm Peterson / Jack Gator For continuation of this story line see ‘Motorcycle Pilgrimage 1-5

a. Mark Batterson “please, thanks and sorry”

The Lost Ring and the Saved Soul

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

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

with thanks to Henri Nouwen for inspiration

Synopsis of a Fool on the road to Redemption

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

A recall of my life is now being revealed to me, bit by bit. Indeed all the mistakes, roads taken that had no outlet or were literally dead ends, were there to take me to a place I did not know I was going. This is the reason I was given the opportunity to write this book. I thought it was my idea!

The Author whose books anchor a sagging bookshelf in our library, has given me hope and excitement as he has done for so many. C.S. Lewis. The first name Jessie Seline and I decided on for my Fiddling Gator identity was Jack. {It was Clive Staples Lewis’ nickname.}

So many authors have that first name in fiction writing and Jessie and I decided it was perfect. Punchy like Jack Dempsey. Masculine and only four letters long. It stuck after being known as ‘Mr Gator’ for years. That story comes to light in this book. A simple newspaper article about my role as a judge in a fiddle contest with a cartoon of an alligator, rocking back on his tail. playing the fiddle.

I know, without any doubt, that our Lord Jesus has me on speed dial to my spirit. I did not even know I had a phone like that before others before that have those, taught me how to listen. I listened when I was a big fool and now I am a tool. Those two letters are close on keyboards and are pushed with the left forefinger. Pointing the way to Him.

My counselor, Mr. Beeves, told me he had never met a man with more trauma than I. He also told me it would always be in my mind and would have six tenths of a second to turn off the reaction of fight or flight to perceived new trauma. Recently, I have asked Jesus to have a USB port put into my head and a jump drive with a program to dive deep and encase those memories where they belong. The past. He has recently acquiesced to that request! Very recently. I did not know He could do that or that I could ask. Look for the port if we meet and I will split hairs with you and show it to you.

Go, Set and get ready. Go to Him set your heart before Him and with Him, and you are ready. Stay on that Highway to Holiness, for “the road to hell is an easy slope, soft underfoot with no warning signs” a. I have asked many friends that were near death to meet me as I ‘cross the bar’ to eternity. I saw one of them leave with five words as he disappeared: “It’s better than you said!” It is.

a. C.S. Lewis

Eleven Dollars Short

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I drove About 20 miles out of my way, but it was an undeniable mission. I wrote a column, Scrap yard or junkyard, and it was the scrap yard I was going to.

A few weeks before to this mission, the man that owns the yard worked on a part I needed.He extracted a seat belt assembly out of a 25 year old Ford truck. It was for our old Ford Ranger that needed one. This time it was the right one. First part did not fit at my first acquisition and the reel was locked up. Oh, got to go back and get one that fits and works!

The owner and I had a laugh the last time we were together, teasing a city man who was startled by a snake in the trunk of a vehicle he was ‘inspecting’ near where we were working. He even took a photo of it. A huge rat snake, a scary looking thing when you first meet one. Harmless to us, the smaller mammals don’t like them.

When we encountered the snake man back at the office, I made up a Latin name for the snake and the last word of my invented sentence was ‘Morte’ “It’s a two stepper..better stay clear and don’t throw anything at it again!” The owner, Harold, winked his right eye at me and we had a little smile together. Military bonding time. I paid 25 dollars for the first assembly.

I returned a few days later and told him the door sticker on the truck said 1999 built in November. The truck was actually a 2000 according to knowledgeable gear heads and I missed that small detail. Plus the reel on the first part I got from him did not work. The reel is at the bottom end of the seat belt assembly and that’s the part that allows the belt to be pulled up. If there is a crash, the reel locks up and keeps the belt tight.

Off he went to find an assembly that worked and he found one out in the yard. I heard him with the battery operated whiz wheel grinding away at the sheet metal on the door of the scrap truck. Tough extraction just from the auditory cues as I sat in his shop chair waiting for him. An old chair with stains and worn out. Obviously his chair. He returned and the reel worked. He handed it to me and declared: “twenty five bucks. I worked pretty hard”

I was hoping for a ‘warranty’ so all I had in my wallet was fourteen dollars. He looked at me and my well used truck with four ones and a ten on the seat. He accepted the money and put out his hand for a shake on the deal.

The owner of the scrap yard is older than I and he wears his age well. A Short man with runnels of wrinkles on his face and a focused gaze. He was just coming out of the side door of his home when I drove up today. A man driving a Jeep wrangler was leaning on the door jamb, chatting.

I tried to dismiss the notion it was important to return whenever I had the cash to give him what he deserved. It was one of those gentle and persistent communiques from God. It’s impossible to ignore God when He does tells these things to me. I pray you have these experiences too. I walked up and stood next to the leaning man and held out a ten and a one for the scrap yard owner.

He remembered me, he remembers everything. An astonishment and a smile was given. Another hand shake of our eyes. I told him “ you deserve it for your work” I knew this was right and true.

My drive back home was relaxing. The new pavement on County B was smooth and the detour ahead signs were still up waiting for the paint caravan to finish up.

It was pretty good Norm / Jack

The origin of Jack Gator

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

There was young Norm, I was moving through my life as though it was a normal one. I am a high functioning Asperger’s child and did not trust anyone with my love. No one. There was a secret place in me that is a go to place when my life feels scary and in need of protection. I found that comfort in various ways. I have body moves grounding me in a way with a touch on a silk blanket or just zoning out with movement patterns. A little sniffing on the back of my hand. You have seen the movie The Accountant. The main actor was affirming to me with his portrayal of a a survivor of Autism.

I made up stories and submerged myself in music. Still do. I learned piano early on, then guitar over in Italy. I graduated to mandolin and violin/viola later on with country western and square dance bands. That worked for a while until I was almost 70. By then, the made up stories were real ones and music was my dream world. Listening and playing.

Recently, I began writing about my life and observations of astounding events that only be classed as theologically overwhelming and usually joyful. I recently got some good advice on writing. “Try to be original and you will not succeed. Write your heart as best you can and you will be original” I got that advice in a dream as I sat at the feet on Earnest Hemingway as a boy. I’m sure someone else has been quoted but the dream worked for me.

I began writing day by day and I filled up a journal once a year. There is a stack of them on my desk shelf. I began reading them and saw all the stories and many people began to say to me; “you ought to write a book. I like your stories and the way you tell them” As a known raconteur, I told stories all the time. Writing them down helps me to remember them!

I had the nickname of Mr. Gator from a photo I put into the local paper. They needed one for an article on a fiddle contest I was judging. The picture was a little alligator rocking on his tail, playing a fiddle. It stuck, I even had Mr gator license plates too. Decades later, a close friend, Jessie, drew a picture for me of an alligator resting with a fishing pole and I use that as a header now and then. He said it was something he sketched out the night before. I was stunned with his talent and friendship. He also is a writer of action stories with gold coins and thieves and murder. (I can’t wait for the next chapter!)

After Jessie gave me the drawing we decided that the Gator needed a first name if I was going to write with that name as a byline. Jack Dempsy, Jack Ryan, Jack Clancy and C.S. Lewis’ nickname, Jack. It stuck. Masculine with punch.

I began publishing these stories at a local newspaper once a week as the editor liked them a lot. I give a lot of credit to Jesus in most of them and that was OK for a while but the new manager was uneasy with that. After 4 years of writing one a week I had well over 300 columns stored away on several drives. I resigned with grace and dignity from that paper. They deserved it. I still write for a great newspaper in Ashland, Wisconsin. The bottom Line News and Views.

Again, “You ought to write a book.” I already have written a book, I just need to jump in the water and get it published. Of course then, I have to mention my book in conversations and carry several of them in my briefcase to sell. Easy sell if someone says they would be interested in reading it. And paying for it.

Meanwhile, I keep writing and publishing on my web site. Gatorsgracenotes.com No ads of any kind was my decision. I don’t like pop ups and no one I know likes them either. That money stream is out of the equation. The grace note thing is a double entendre. It’s a very fast note or notes played that are too rapid to write down on a score. And Grace is what Jesus gives me time and again.

I have faith that it will all work out. Faith, it’s the very gift of God.

Gator picture by Jessie Selin

It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Prayer in the Big City hospital

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

The intrigue of the new name, written on a white stone. The only name for you, one of a kind and a blossom in the garden of the Lord. From the beginning of time made to blossom.

As the pattern and majesty of the mighty oak is placed within the acorn, so is our life given as each one of us is created unique, a perfect fit for us and seen on this side of eternity.

The Brief glimpses of Jesus’ heart which can overwhelm and bring us to our knees. Sometimes to the floor. There is a gift given which is the most precious stone indeed. Only revealed on that day we see the beams of light coming from Him as he smiles and blesses us. As the light flows from His beauty, it penetrates our heart, our spirit. The revelation of Christ indeed.

There is a hospital, that a fellow writer I had recently met at the local library was recovering. In hospital as the odd phrase goes. Much akin to a sailor that says “what ship did you serve in?” Conveying a mutual experience. As most of us, being in hospital after a dangerous or a ‘procedure’ we become very aware of our frail body and also are anxious to be seen alive and belonging. my new friend, Eddie, was pleased to see me show up.

Ed had just come under the knife to save his life. A removal of a growing thing that did not belong inside of him. As he laid in the bed, I was allowed to come in and see him with deeper sight. Eddie also saw with new eyes. A caring visit from afar just for him. The visit that was as others that have been given to me too, Irresistible and also fulfilling in ways not yet known. Prayer for a powerful healing was given and well received by him.

(I see him now and then, sitting under a tree where he lives. I try not to stop and interrupt him. He is deep in thought and communion and I love to see him there. He is well.)

After the smiles and reassurances, it was time to leave the hospital with the promise of return firmly known. When I left that room, I noticed a tall young man walking slowly by in the hallway. One of those endless hallways with perspective ahead. Walls extending a long way. I was surprised at the instant inner voice to walk and pray with him. This young man had large hoop earrings. It was merely an affectation I thought. It have been a symbol or recognition. Didn’t matter to me at all.

Right away, I asked that man if it was OK to walk with him. Surprised and visibly pleased that a stranger would walk slowly beside him, the man nodded yes and they walked ahead. ” I walk pretty slowly” I replied to him that there was no hurry for me at all. They began to converse.

This man said that his doctor told him to walk in a large path every day around the floor that his room was on. Stairways were not on the menu. I slowed down and walked. I am getting used to doing these types of things, not denying that small voice within me. Too many times, I have balked at doing such a simple task asked by my best friend Jesus.

I asked a few polite questions and we began chatting about what was around them and then why they were there. Truth exchanged between two strangers by an arrangement of the Lord. Fear revealed and spoken of. It took a while to get to the turning of the corridor. I said I must go to the right and had to “find the place my car was parked.” (A small joke among people of the city that deal with five story tall cement parking ramps).

I then asked permission to put my hand on his shoulder and pray for him. A prayer of immediacy and details I have forgotten were given to this wounded young man. “Well, I must go” I blessed him and thanked Jesus with the last words of prayer.

Astonished, the man said: “Are you an Angel?”…. I smiled and said “No but I was told to pray for you”

I eventually found my car, and the joy of fulfilling two men’s need for prayer overcame me. A gift given to listen and then pray what I hear. Silence and then listening without thinking what to say.

It is a recent lesson I learned from reading in a brilliant book, “It is a restful heart that will attract those who are groping to find their way through life” a.

It was an enjoyable day of prayer. Just show up and listen. As the old Story of the desert fathers is written; “The Messiah lied to me, he said He was coming today and He has not shown up. Ah! replied Father Anthony. “He didn’t say He was coming, He said listen”

It’s pretty good, Norm Peterson / aka Jack Gator

a. The way of the heart Henri Nouwen 1981

Up the Coast to The old Lake Shore

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was a trip that many of us have taken. Perhaps quite a few times for some. Julie and I decided to go North and become relaxed by the worlds containment of a third of all the fresh water on the planet. Lake Superior.

We made a brief stop at the entryway to the North Shore, Canal Park in Duluth. It was a Thursday morning and there was hardly anyone around and parking was a breeze.

An automated parking meter had issues and would not finish its given task. We tried to talk sense into it but the last thing we tried worked. Like a vagrant with an attitude, it wanted money, folding money and not plastic money. I understood that as I was a street busker in ‘The City’. Before credit cards. Only cash or groceries were placed into my guitar case. If you have been to that California city you know where that is.

Square card processing is not a possible sometimes when you are sitting on a sidewalk in front of a parking meter.

There was limited entertainment from the meter and it was adamant about cash. It pulled in our dollar bills and was satisfied and permitted our car to be parked next to it for 4 hours. We went into the basement coffee shop and got coffees and scones and went up to the second floor to the violin shop.

Old friends own it and they repair and sell bow played stringed instruments. A tale was told by Chris, the owner, about the guitar shop on the same floor. An interesting character was there buying a 1920 Martin D28 guitar. He paid cash and stood out side the violin shop with the guitar in his left hand, leaning on the stair case balustrade with his right. No one paid any attention to him as Duluth is rife with odd men. Chris knew It was Willy Nelson who was in town for a gig and was unrecognized and not fawned over either. Willy finally just strolled down the stairs and out the building. Another busker in from the cold seeking treasure. We had no idea what he paid for that Rosewood Martin.

We left for highway 61 to go north. Another famous guitar player wrote a song about that highway. My mind was now peculating along with the lyrics that Bob Dylan wrote back a few years ago about Abraham and his son Isaac.

It was easy to find the cabin they would have for the better part of a week. The really good ones are on the east side of the road where the lake shore is.Forget about the three story mansions and hotels with widows walks and turrets and fantastic views. The quest we were on did not consider those things. It was easy to find the cabin’s gravel road and small sign after acquiring a smoked whitefish from Kendalls just up the road.

The cabin was as close to the shoreline as physically possible. About 25 feet or so and the same above. It was perfect. One room with everything you would need. Toaster, sink, king size bed, table. The civilized things.

Stunned by the almost exotic view, they got everything out of the trunk and made it home there. I made some toast and coffee right away and Julie went down the boulders to the shore. There was some wind and left over waves from somewhere and the crashing waves and foam worked their welcome. She build a campfire and I worked my way down on the big rocks,and with her guidance we settled in. There was a stairway we found later.

We slept with the window cracked and the heater cranked. Two quilts and a wool blanket and we were sound asleep as pillow rearranging was done. The crashing of the waves was a familiar sound to me from my Navy days. The oil on board below the ships compartments made rushing noises as the ship rolled at about 12 knots steaming. It is akin to an ocean beach sound but the regularity is the key. I was rocked to sleep on aboard the old WW II tanker with eight million gallons of bunker oil that was heated by the steam pipes just below deck. it made the compartments nice and warm in Decembers at sea. It was all there in my deep memory and I was asleep quickly. The waves never stopped all night and through the next morning. Storm surf.

A hot cup of coffee and the fingers of foam rising up from the black rocks below was mesmerizing and the anxiety of civilizations rush began to fade fast. Nothing to concern our self with as Eternities Eternal song called us away, calling us home.

Waves for thousands of years on those chiseled rocks. The centuries of time, rolling on and on. Wearing away our world one channel of rock in it’s own ways. It roars and leaps and then there is a passive swirling as the next impact swells up and in seconds, crashes again. Timeless and the soothing power of creation.

We will probably return to Bobs cabins when we hear the Lords gentle voice calling us to the North Shore of Superior for refreshment and reassurance again We rely on the Him for His wisdom and provision for these things. Indeed that time is a gift and a treasure locked in our memories. Forever.

It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson /Jack Gator

Letter Writing and Reading

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There is a loss in our communities that seems like a gain! The texting phenomenon has made writing letters obsolete and to many, cheaper and faster. Pen and Ink started to loose ground when the typewriter was introduced. The expense of ink wells, and ink stains was replaced with typewriter ribbons and skill.

I learned to touch type in the military and I got fast. Electric typewriters and carbon paper worked well. With top secret letters there were no carbon copies allowed. Now there is a new skill, typing on the screen of a cell phone. I have not embraced typing with both thumbs while holding a phone. I am fascinated and irritated at our civilization that has become hunched over while walking or standing, holding ‘the phone’ and writing and reading letters of sorts. Texting along with fun emojis and video clips. How about a three pound Bakelite model? I remember our bag phone and of course, my hand held Amateur radio. The ham radio did not need a phone number to talk to someone. A call sign worked but many times the beginning message was; CQ anyone there?

What I am getting around to is the act of writing and reading. Sitting down quietly while doing so.

I love to write and these columns are much easier to type with Word Press as it checks my spelling and syntax as I type. I have a short term memory issue, often real short time when I am physically writing a word and leave off a letter and skip on to the next one. Leaving off a vowel for instance. I can see my mistake and the software catches it and shows it to me. But that is a byline for this column, I revere actual writing with pen or pencil and using a stamp and an envelope to have USPS deliver my letter.

The major point is keeping in touch, not speedily but with intent beyond the rush of our current lives. “Rushing in not from the devil, it Is the devil” I believe that impatience is included. C.S. Lewis

I have sent a few letters lately to some friends. Some of which I have not seen nor heard from in decades. Several of them have never been answered although I know they were received because they were not returned with address unknown or such postal information. Phone calls work too but we are usually in a rush and an unexpected phone call from a friend of years past is surprising and hard to respond to if you are driving or setting down to lunch in a cafe. I like re-reading and even have a manila envelope for personal letters. It’s good. Phone numbers are passe. There used to be a book called a phone directory. They were hanging by a chain in phone booths. The is no cell phone directory hanging there.

Is there someone you send letters to and wonder if they will ever answer? There is also a very important type of letter that is spoken in private! These letters are referred to as prayer. It’s just me and the Lord alone and I tell Him how things are going and ask questions and have requests too. If my heart is calm and I am speaking in truth and love, I know my prayer is being heard. Peaceful and knowing and feeling His presence.

Often it seems my prayers have not been answered. The way I wanted them to be. Healing, provision for me or someone else. There is also the conversion to faith of someone that I have known a long time or just met. Evangelism. God hears these requests and stretches out his mighty arm and strong right hand and fulfills that prayer. Instantly in many ways we do not see and is always a perfect response from Him. Prayer is essential for all of us. Letters to the lover of our souls.

Someone obviously prayed for me to reach out to Christ, years ago, decades. It happened just the way it was supposed to happen. Why did it take so long? I have no idea and there is no answer until I read the book about me that no one this side of eternity can read. As C.S. Lewis says: “Every chapter is better than the last one you read”

“What is truth?” An old question that goes back to Mars Hill in Greece. Also the original question in the garden. “Did god really say?” Also the question that Pilate asked Jesus a few thousand years back. Jesus did not answer as the Truth was standing right in front of Pilate.

He knew this question of all philosophers as an educated citizen of Rome. Pilate spoke and wrote in Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He wrote the sign above Jesus on the cross. In those 3 languages.A letter posted for all to see throughout history. ‘Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews’ . Some of the locals disagreed and Pilate said what I have written stands.

The very gift of God will be all we need to keep sending those prayers/letters to him. I know so little of these things but I rely on that gift that gives me peace and confidence that my prayers are heard. Faith.

Do you ever wonder what happens when someone you know or someone you just met, says “I’ll pray about it” Do we follow through? I used to fudge it and forget the promise within a short period of time. Those four words were a dismissive phrase for me. Not anymore. I am growing up and taking responsibility for my life and the things I say and do. There is so little time left for me, and for you.

I was on an official Prayer team at a very large church that seats over 2000 people and we were told to stand in front of them just as the service had ended and with lanyards that said prayer, be available to anyone that came ahead. I loved it. Many times no one came, but the few that did are sharp in memory.

I had to be vetted and interviewed to be on that team and that is very correct to do so. You can surmise the interviews that took place. The teams prayed a lot and I learned how to do so from them.

I am now in production at that church, media, and I also love that. Presenting the songs to the room as messages of praise to the Lord right then and there. The professional musicians know that it is much more than having a good time or playing a good song. We all sing with them and we get to touch eternity.

It’s pretty good. Norm/ Jack

The Cocoon and Rebirth

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It seems so long ago that the Re-birth occurred for me. An epiphany is a good description or a sudden awareness of being (that one sounds new age) This event was sudden but had many events and a ‘cocoon’ before it occurred. I wrote about it in the column, ‘Consuming Fire Fan into Flame”.

The back story was an escape from hibernation, a cocoon that I did not see nor notice. I was swaddled up comfy in my life of sorts before the re-birth. You have read some of those stories as well. They are all true. There is one thing about a cocoon that is necessary, growth and strength acquisition. It is common and I saw one last spring, it was hanging beneath a milk weed leaf. A place where a Monarch butterfly was taking shape.

Dangling from that leaf, built by a worm that crawled up and used it’s spit to anchor itself. It spun the chrysalis (another name for cocoon) somehow. It’s called metamorphosis and the study can be described as such. A good word would be a scientific focused study on the metamorphic process’? One such study answered the question: “Is it painful for the butterfly?” Through extensive electric wave analysis on an oscilloscope, it was determined that it was not painful. Go ahead and chuckle at that one.

The same folks that track the emotions of carrots that know you are coming to yank it out of the ground. I don’t even want to know what that would see in me. More later on that. my growth was very painful but also necessary. You don’t need an oscilloscope to see that.

To get on with the epiphany I experienced, just thinking about that monarch’s life was stunning enough.

Why was it designed that way? And the pivotal evidence seen, was the gold ring around the very top of the chrysalis. Small gold dots, perfectly spaced and a very strong message indeed is there, if we choose to look at it.

First off, what do we usually associate with gold rings? Marriage and crowns for honor. A king or a Queen. Soon enough, the chrysalis splits open and the Monarch begins to emerge. Can you even imagine what process this is? The wings fully developed and folded up like a plane in the hanger of an aircraft carrier, just waiting for the freedom of flight.

How does this miracle of transformation apply to us? I have found myself just trying out those wings I was given not too long ago. Wings that not only speak freedom but purpose and direction. A flight path, a sudden internal gyro that stabilizes my glide path or flapping through this short life I have been given. It seems short when many decades cruise by with the longing for something more.

We have been built and created for something more. We hunger for it. We do everything in our power and wisdom to live as long as possible, but it is only vanity to grasp the wind. As we grasp at the wind, the astonishing thing is an answer to that hunger for more. A meaning and purpose and beauty that we, in our chrysalis have been waiting for. Eternity to wear that gold crown and hang out with the creator of all and gaze upon His glorious splendor as he grasps us and gives us the crown, as we gaze upon the beauty of real treasure, Him.

The story and promise of crowned beauty beyond description. If we wish this transformation with all our heart, soul, and spirit, the treasure will be ours forever. It’s pretty good. Norm aka Jack Gator

Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 4

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment




Bruce left a week or so after we arrived in Berkeley. He had enough adventure after our ride out. I am not certain how he got back. He stayed over in town at Earl Crabb’s (Humbeads Map of the world creator) place for a while and in Hollywood at John Braheny’s. After that, we lost touch. I stayed on at the mansion on Shasta Road in Berkeley.

I got a good job at the local art theater as a projectionist. We showed odd films like ‘The Apu Trilogy’ and it was fun. I knew carbon Arc’s as that was what we used on our ships to signal night or day. They were bigger than the movie projectors. Bright.

I Showed a picture about a crazed sniper that had a scene where he was shooting a movie projectionist just as he was peeking through a small window to see the next switchover to the second projector. It’s old tech. There are small white dots in the upper frame of the movie, on the third dot I would pull the lever to turn one on and the other one off. In the movie, the sniper was drawing his bead at that changeover time. Exactly. I started crouching down and getting weirded out. Post production staff humor.

    I had to clean up all the popcorn boxes after the show and it took a toll on my back. I was most in a front bend from all the riding and bouncing about as well. I got some doctoring and workman’s comp for a while. I had to lie on a window seat bench at the mansion until Charlie moved out. I got his room and things were doing OK. An interesting German pilot was in another room down the hall and he had a fireplace.

    There were other tenants. An English professor that taught at the college and an odd girl that had emotional fits now and then. She would throw herself down the stairway on occasion and sob at the bottom. I went over and held her until she calmed down once or twice. I knew what she needed as I can be like that. Self esteem and frustration in communication for sure. The other tenements were lase and used to it. I was used to the feeling from childhood. I am worthless, unloved.

    The owners were overseas acquiring art work of some sort and life there was working out for me. It seemed to fit as I was another art fixture in the house as were we all. Musicians, Professors, An ex Fighter pilot from WWII and the like. Nice place, fireplaces everywhere and you could see the San Francisco bay from the western windows. 5 Million dollars plus even then. Rent was affordable!

    I fell in with a crowd of Jaguar owners at the local coffee shop (Mr. Peets first one on the Northside) and they, of course, were as crazy as the rest of the Bay Area people were. Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the holding company, Grace Slick and Jimi Hendrix. Sly stone was somehow connected with the fighter pilot.

    It was gloriously crazy in 1968 and I was finally where I wanted to be. Living with people that were on the same path of Timothy Leary’s dreams of “Smash your brains, Crack Em’” LSD, pot and other drugs flowed down Lombard street to Haight Ashbury and then across the bay bridge to Berkeley. Mario Stavio and the free speech movement and my new friend that played Boogie Woogie piano, crazy Mike. A Chinese Jag mechanic in the mix and I fit right in with my Martin D-28.

    Joan Baez played a parlor Martin and she was . Bob Zimmerman was still back in Minneapolis at the 10 o’clock scholar getting warmed up for world fame. It was pretty good.

    One night, crazy mike had us jumping with his piano. It was an upstairs apartment and there came a knock on his door. It was the police. They told him after 10 he had to stop making ‘noise’ as the neighborhood was not on board with bold rhythm. Oscar Peterson stuff with swing extraordinary skill.

    The next night, at precisely ten o’clock, mike blasted out the window with a big battery bullhorn. “You may have noticed that I have stopped playing” He did and we loved it.

    Joan Baez played a parlor Martin and she was the musical ballerina of folk. Bob Zimmerman (Dylan) was still back in Minneapolis at the 10 o’clock scholar getting warmed up for world fame with Joan and other class acts. They all had National Enquirer possibilities but Rolling Stone was rolling of off the press along with Mad Magazine. Hipsters and hucksters abounded in the bay area and I got entwined with Sly Stone after a little more adventure. Any musician that was riding the surf roaring under the golden gate was there.

    Music was on the move in the bay area and we were riding that wave. We thought we were pretty neat and inside the sine wave of progress and coolness. Rebels with a cause. Obnoxious with charisma.

    It was pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

    photo of Bruce Berglund and his guitar.