19 posts tagged “memories”
Famed folk singer Odetta passed away last night. Hers was the voice of my childhood. When I was 5 years old, my parents bought the Odetta album One Grain of Sand. I wore the grooves on that record out, replaying over and over again songs like Sail Away Ladies, Moses Moses, Midnight Special and She Moved Through the Fair, to name a few. Here is a You-Tube video which pays tribute to Odetta, to the music of Midnight Special.
I know, I know. I already posted something with "Thanksgiving" in the title. But that was just a hook to get folks to look at some websites that might direct money to charity. Generic stuff. True meaning of the holiday blah blah blah...
Then there was the whole cutesy Vox Hunt ironic crap post.
Which brings me to the real post, starting now:
Those of you who are my friends, or who have read my blog on a regular basis, know that I don't drink alcohol. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that I am an alcoholic. Alcohol is poison for me.
I think that it's important to say that I have no moral opinion about alcohol. After all, it is nothing more than fermented plant matter. Alcohol is not bad. And there are plenty of people who are able to enjoy a drink or two, or an occasional blow-out, without any serious impact on their lives. I am not one of those people. Now, when I started drinking, when I was in my early teens, I was. Not to say that I drank just a little bit. I always drank for effect, even when I was stealing bottles out of my dad's wine cellar and acting like a snob. I'm just saying that the way I drank did not appear to be having any serious negative impact on my life. I had good grades, I had lots of friends, I was athletic, I was involved in serious relationships, I was one of the Kool Kids. I also was basically decent, honest and compassionate. Just a normal Joe.
But it is difficult to describe to someone who hasn't had the feelings what it was like to drink the way I drank. There was nothing about alcohol that I didn't love. I loved the smell of it, the taste of it, the tingling feeling on the roof of my mouth, the numbing of my tongue, the heat as it passed down my throat, the warmth growing in my belly and spreading up to my head, the way I felt more relaxed and confident. And especially the way it made those voices in my head shut up. I spent most nights of high school downing hard liquor after my parents went to sleep, and listening to classical music. It was bliss.
And it opened me to new experiences. All of a sudden, I wasn't so shy. That girl who had seemed so unapproachable was there for the taking. I knew more and better than all of my friends. I was a raconteur, an intellectual, a bon vivant, a lothario.
That all passed over time. I didn't drink more; I had started out drinking a lot. What happened was that my world got smaller. By the end, it was me alone in the dark, with inner shakes and the sweats, sleeping with a kitchen knife under my pillow, because I thought the folks having a party next door were plotting to scale the tree outside my window, in order to climb in through the window and kill me.
But I didn't believe that I had a drinking problem. All evidence to the contrary, it didn't occur to me that the catalyst for my daily hell poured out of a bottle. I use the word "catalyst", because the booze wasn't what caused the hell. As a matter of fact, it was alcohol which had taken me out of my personal hell in the first place, in the beginning, when it quieted those voices whispering in my ears as a young teenager. But as the years had gone along, alcohol ceased to muffle those voices. As a matter of fact, it became an amplifier.
On a typical evening, I would get home from work intending to run to the supermarket, or maybe to the laundromat. But I would say to myself I'll just have one drink first. And all bets would be off. I would rinse out the same underwear and shirt and socks I had worn to work that day in the bathroom sink, and hang them to dry on the shower rod. I would work my way through the bottle, usually of whiskey. At some point in the evening, I would stagger into the bathroom, kneel down, and stick my finger down my throat, so that I could vomit to overcome my nausea, so I could drink some more. As I washed my hands and face in the sink, I would look at myself in the mirror, and think Who is this animal?
I'll save the story of how I came to realize that I had a drinking problem and decided to go to rehab, and my experience in rehab for another time. This is a Thanksgiving story. And how, might you ask, could what I have shared have anything to do with Thanksgiving? I left rehab on Thanksgiving morning, 1987.
It was a cold dank overcast morning in Wernersville, right outside Reading, Pennsylvania. I stood outside the main hall of the rehab waiting for the van to come. My group members, and some of the other patients I had become friendly with shook my hand, or hugged me, depending on their personality. The van came; I climbed in. The driver took me down to the local bus station and dropped me off.
I stood outside with my ticket, looking at the other passengers, using my alcohol radar to guess who else might be an alcoholic. (This was a freshly acquired skill). I picked out one fellow as appearing a likely prospect. Wouldn't you know it? When it came time to board the bus, this guy decided randomly to sit next to me. I have found over the years that busses are some of the most likely conveyances in which to find oneself in unsolicited conversation. This time was no exception. It didn't take long for me to discover that my instincts had been right. My new friend was on his way to the New Jersey shore to have Thanksgiving with his brother. He had recently lost his job and his marriage. I didn't mention that I had just gotten out of rehab.
The bus pulled into Philadelphia, and I got off holding my shabby suitcase. The words of one of the counselors at one of the full rehab meetings resonated in my head. He said Look around you. Four out of five of the patients here will be drunk or high within a month of getting out of rehab. It's probably going to be you. Unless you take this seriously.
I was determined to be part of the 20%. I was also afraid to go back to that same apartment I drank in to be alone on Thanksgiving Day. So I grabbed a cab, and took it to a local AA "clubhouse", which I had discovered while in rehab was less than two blocks from my home. (I had passed the building nearly every morning on the way to the subway. I could never figure out if it was a fraternity or a drug house.) The taxi dropped me off outside, and I walked up the stairs, across the porch, and into the clubhouse. There was an AA meeting going on. I sat down in a chair, and listened through the rest of the meeting. When the meeting was over, I noticed that they had put out some food for Thanksgiving. So, I grabbed myself a plate, and loaded it up with turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and OBrien salad and pie. I ate my first sober Thanksgiving meal as an adult that day, sitting on a shaky folding chair among strangers.
After I finished eating, I started going around to the other folks, and started to ask for phone numbers. (The rehab had suggested this.) Most of them people I asked declined. Just one guy, who seemed pretty crazy, offered his number. I took it while promising myself that I would never call him. At the time, I thought that the reason nobody would give their number to me was because I was white, and they were black. I have come to understand that I wasn't the only one in pain that day, that perhaps the people who said no didn't feel they had anything to offer me. Alcoholic thinking can be like that. At the time, it led me to conclude that perhaps the clubhouse was not a place around which I should center my efforts to stay sober. But I felt OK. I had gotten through first day out sober, and had even eaten a Thanksgiving meal. I felt good enough to walk home and fall into a dreamless sleep.
The next day, I went to another AA meeting. Two guys came up to me after the meeting, and offered me their phone numbers. Both eventually became friends, and one of them became my AA "sponsor". I have not had a drink of alcohol since.
Because of the circumstances of that first Thanksgiving Day, the holiday always has centered around sobriety for me. The first couple of years, I went back to the rehab on Thanksgiving, and sat with the patients as they ate their holiday meal. Then I made it a point to go to detoxes where people were locked up for the holiday, and shared the joy of being freed from bondage to alcohol. As time went along, I got back into the "normal" pattern of sharing Thanksgiving with friends and family. Last year, I had fifteen people over, including my sister and my best friend. But no matter what, every year, I go to an AA meeting to share my gratitude.
Thanksgiving is the quintessential AA holiday. A secular (or at least non-denominational) holiday centered around gratitude. This year, my sister is going elsewhere, and I don't feel like cooking all day. So, I'm going down to a local AA group for breakfast and a meeting, and returning in the afternoon for Thanksgiving dinner and a meeting. I will see a lot of friends there. Certainly, all of my homeless friends will be there. (We make it a point to be sure that the local homeless community knows about the event.) We'll go through at least a dozen turkeys, along with side dishes by the truckload, and tons of desserts. And coffee, lots of coffee. The AA kind, that can also be used to strip walls. I can't wait.
On the off chance that any of you reading this will be doing the same thing, I will be with you in spirit if not in fact. And if anyone out there can identify with the pain I described earlier, knows what if feels like, and is willing to believe that my experience is not unique, that alcohol need not rule your universe any longer, drop me a line. I won't answer until Friday my time, at the earliest. But I will answer. You are not alone. You never have to feel the pain of drinking again. And I love you. No questions asked.
I don't speak too much about it here. but I don't drink alcohol. Not because I don't like it or because I am allergic. But because I love it, so much so that it nearly destroyed my life. Last Thursday was the anniversary of the last day I had a drink of alcohol. The 21st anniversary. In other words, it has been nearly as long since I had a drink as some members of my neighborhood have been alive. (In case anyone is wondering, I don't care or mind if other people drink or not. I had a lot of fun drinking before it all spun out of control for me.)
I don't remember much about that day. I just know that the alcohol rehabilitation center I had agreed to enter told me that I had to be five days dry, if I didn't wish to go to detox first. And I wasn't going to detox. I wasn't that bad, or so I told myself. So I held on for dear life for five days. It was brutal. To make a long story short, it's gotten a lot easier.
Why am I mentioning this today? Because of a coincidence. Back in September of 2007, I wrote a short story on here called The Bridge, as an entry to the 5 Word Challenge group. It was a story about a soldier during the Korean War, and an experience he had. I didn't mention that the story was a fictionalized version of a true story. Told to me by a friend of mine, who was the soldier in the story. He was a friend of mine from a group I attend to keep me on the sober beam. My friend passed away in early 2005. I used his real name, since I figured nobody would know him on Vox, it was a fictionalized account, and I wanted to honor him that way.
Friday morning, the day after celebrating my 21st sober anniversary, I logged onto Vox to check what was new. And saw a comment on The Bridge. "That's odd", I thought, given that the story was over a year old. I clicked onto the comment, and the commenter mentioned that she had known Donal here in Philadelphia in the mid-to-late '80s, which was when I first met him. The commenter had just joined Vox, and her profile was private. And of course, only my closest friends on here know my real name. A voice in the back of my head told me to comment back, and I also sent a private message to the commenter. Guess what. The commenter is a very dear old friend, who left Philadelphia in 1989, with whom I have had no contact in the last 19 years.
Let's recap: On my 21st sober anniversary, a person I knew from that time, the person who introduced me to my friend Donal, who now lives on a different continent, and to whom I haven't spoken since she left here 19 years ago, decides to join Vox, and leave a comment on my blog to a post I wrote over a year ago, not knowing that it's me.
You bet your ass Happy Anniversary. Wow.
What's your favorite scent?
Street tar. It's the smell of early childhood for me. The street which went past my house was full of cracks. Every few months, the town street crew would show up, and retar those cracks which needed it. I used to love the smell of tar as they melted it in those big ugly machines. Even now, whenever I smell it, I am instantly transported back to Sausalito in the early '60s, I can almost feel the cold clammy air on my arms, and see the waves of fog rolling over the hills above the highway.
Show us a picture of someone you will never forget.
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The woman sitting in the theater seat is my friend Marybeth. This photo was taken in June of 2005. That's her husband Joe, and her daughter. She had just watched her daughter perform in a recital, and everyone was happy. Four months later, MB was gone. Dead from breast cancer at the age of 42. Her daughter Laura would now be 15, her son Joseph 13, and her youngest Katherine 10.
MB was first diagnosed with breast cancer in April of 2002. She fought it like a berserker. There was no give-up in her ever.
I knew MB originally from a forum on About.com on US Politics. After the 2000 election, the atmosphere got very toxic over there. MB decided to set up her own forum, so that folks she liked could talk and debate without rancor. I can't tell you exactly when I was invited to join her (invitation only) forum. But I do remember when MB became more than simply an on-line friend.
It was fall of 2003, and my wife and I were scheduled to travel to California, in order to help my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. As you might imagine, it was a pretty big deal. My wife started complaining that she didn't want to go. This was pretty much a non-starter in my mind. But I knew how negatively disruptive she could be when she was unhappy, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. So I told her I really wanted her to go, that it was very important to me. But I also told her that if she couldn't commit to going, and having a good time, rather than being a wet blanket, our son and I would go without her. She relented. We all went, and even though she wasn't perfect, my wife acted reasonably well, and I had a good time.
We were scheduled to spend the next week after the party. The next morning, my wife came to me, and said she wanted to leave. Immediately. I was crushed. I arranged a flight for her, and took her to the airport. I knew then that our marriage was over.
I had nobody to talk to outside my family. In despair, I went on the forum, and spilled my guts. MB was there for me, as were others, immediately. She railed against my wife, when I was too despairing to think that way. She told me how special I was, and how badly I was being treated. For months afterward, until that day in March when my wife finally moved out, she was there every step of the way for me. If I didn't post, she wrote me.
Marybeth and I planned to meet several times. She lived in Northern New Jersey, and I live in Philadelphia. But her cancer kept getting in the way. She would be in remission, and then would suffer a setback. Her last visit to her own forum was three weeks before her passing. Finally, it was too much for her.
When we finally got word that she had passed, I was logged in from home. I turned off the computer, and went outside. It was drizzling lightly. As I walked, the rain became more steady. I'm not sure how long I walked, or how far. But I know that I wept.
The forum she started, which she called The Front Stoop, still exists. There are not many of us left; indeed it was always a small outpost of sanity:
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My life began with a miracle. My mother has Rh-negative blood. Deborah, my sister, who was the first-born child, was a difficult pregnancy for my mother. My brother Brian was a blue baby, kept alive initially through the intervention of a ventilator. After his birth, my mother's doctor advised my parents not to attempt any more children. The pregnancy would be too arduous for my mother, and the likelihood of her carrying another fetus to full term was spider-thread thin.
Mom became pregnant again anyway. But as the June delivery date approached, her obstetrician was very concerned. After one final pre-delivery exam, the doctor called my parents into her office, and asked them to sit down. She advised them that the examination had confirmed her worst fear; their baby was stillborn. As my parents sat numbly, the obstetrician called and scheduled a Caesarian procedure, so that my mother's life would not be further endangered by this lump of inert matter festering inside of her.
When the obstetrician cut my mother open, there I was; not only alive, but perfectly healthy. I am told that doctors came from all over Northern California to gaze at me, wondering How? and Why?.
The first question's answer may lie at the heart of God's universe. Perhaps two lines of the time-space continuum somehow brushed against each other. One family exactly like mine happily expecting the best outcome was crushed under the tragedy of an unanticipated burden of grief. While my family's shadow tiptoed across dimensions, snatching away for themselves joy which had been intended for others.
On some level,the latter question lay at the very center of my being for many years. But the day finally came when God answered it.
Scott and Kay were getting married. I knew Scott through my membership in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I had first come into the fellowship, staggering with fear and desperation, Scott had gone out of his way to make me feel welcome. He was not alone in that, but Scott was part of a select group which folded me into their midst as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. Scott had met Kay as a result of being a member of AA. Not that he met Kay in a meeting. That does happen; the phrase one often hears is "Boy meets girl at AA campus". Kay was the administrator of a Lutheran church which rented a room to AA members in which to hold a meeting. One month, Scott had agreed to chair the meeting. As such, he took on the responsibility for coming early to set up. While doing so, he began chatting up Kay. One thing led to another, and soon they were dating. Not long after, Scott announced to his friends that he and Kay were going to drive across country together, camping along the way. I remember thinking to myself that they would return either mortal enemies or engaged. I was right.
So, here I was one night, after their wedding ceremony, dancing along with others around a bonfire, as my friend Chris chanted pagan hymns. Scott and Kay had elected to hold their wedding at a spiritual retreat center in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Unlike a typical wedding, the guests did not go home after the reception, which had been a pot luck meal prepared by family and friends. Some guests, including myself, had arranged for rooms in the retreat center. Other guests had set up tents in a large meadow a short dirt road away from the center, screened from it by a line of closely planted tall trees. It was in the center of that meadow that we few were dancing. (Most of the others had gone to sleep earlier, after a rousing round of music and singing.)
Although I am not pagan, my experience over the years in AA has left me with a sense of acceptance and tolerance for however another may choose to reach for that stream of pure light which is God. So it is perhaps not surprising that, having bade good night to my friends, as I walked back to the retreat center by myself, I felt a door opening in my soul.
My hint that this was a special night manifested itself through the presence of fireflies. I will not digress to my earlier history. Suffice it to say that there had been a time before when, as I walked in darkness along the banks of the Mississippi River, fireflies had heralded the presence of God to me. That night in the Poconos, fireflies surrounded me as I walked, and I resolved not to immediately return to my room. Instead, I continued on the road past the retreat center, and down a hill through a grove of trees.
My first stop was inside a wooden reconstruction of an early Irish Christian church. I stepped in, closed the door, and sat down on a bench rough-hewn from a log. In utter darkness and silence, I asked God to speak to me. Then I stood up, left the church, and continued down the hill. There was a circle of stones at the bottom of the hill. The owners of the retreat center had constructed a miniature henge. I stepped between the stones, and strode to the standing rock in the center. Placing my back against the cool dampness of the rock, I looked up at the sky.
Up there in the mountains far from any town, the heavens were teeming with stars. God, I prayed, if what I feel is truly your presence, show me. I concentrated on a particular section of the sky, and waited. Within seconds, a shooting star flashed precisely where I was looking. I walked back up the hill, and lay down in a grass field right next to the retreat house. I looked back up at the stars. God, tell me what to do, I said. Do you want me to change careers? Should I make a commitment to a religion? Should I just love other people? As that last word escaped my lips, a shooting star larger and brighter than any I had seen before or have seen since streaked across the whole of the night sky. Stunned into silence, I stood up, walked into the retreat center and to my room. I got into bed, closed my eyes, and fell into perfect slumber.
The next morning, when I arose, questions crowded my mind. How could I tell if I was loving properly? What if what I thought was love was really codependence? Such is the mind of Man.
Ever since that night, I have endeavored to follow God's instruction for me. When I get bogged down in Why? or How?, it becomes more difficult. Sometime I forget altogether what my purpose is. But then God places another of his precious children, writhing in pain from the bondage of self, squarely in front of me. I put down my own mirror, and drawing on that infinitely pure and powerful light, a tiny speck of which resides in all of us, I love God's child. And in that moment, I know this thing we call Life is merely one step along that shimmering path we all traverse. Never lost, never abandoned, never alone. In the words of my childhood faith, And Love is reflected in love.
Perhaps some of you reading what I have written are finding that hard to believe right now. Don't worry. When you are ready once again, you will find that connection to the pure light which you have temporarily misplaced. In the meantime, know that I love you. Truly. It's my job.
Where is the most inspirational place you have been?
Submitted by Seventh Rain
For much of my life, I had dreamed of going to Ireland. My mother's father's family was Irish, and my great-great grandfather Terrence always seemed the most interesting ancestor of the tree of which I am a mere twig. Travelled to America with his younger brother, at the age of nine, fleeing the famine which killed the rest of their family. Fought in the Civil War. Invented weapons used in the war. Became that Irish rancher you always see in those Westerns, with the largest spread in southeastern Arizona. Founded the bank which became the largest bank in the state of Arizona. Flew in a biplane in his seventies. And committed suicide, suffering from illness, at a campground of a Southern California religious cult, setting off a wave of devastation from which that family branch never truly recovered (but that's another story).
The problem with my ambition was that I could never get off the bar stool long enough to make it to a travel agent to buy tickets for a trip. (For my younger readers, a "travel agent" is an actual person who facilitates the planning of structured journeys from home.) Truth be told, I never got off the bar stool long enough to do much more than to stumble to the bathroom. But in 1987, I stopped drinking. And after a few years of learning how to, once again, become a moderately functional human being, I finally plucked up the courage to plan a vacation to the land of my family's tears.
I arrived in Dublin in the middle of May, having planned the trip to avoid the summer crowds, but to still have reasonable weather. After one night there, I picked up my rental car, and hit the road. My family was from Donegal, the northwesternmost of Ireland's counties, part of the Republic, but still traditionally considered Ulster. My plan was to go north, along the coast and through Northern Ireland, and ultimately to Donegal. In those days, the "Troubles" were still very much a part of the fabric of the island. But it was the quickest way to get to Donegal.
The first day, I drove as far as Omeath, a small town just south of the border, located on the Cooley Peninsula, famous from the Red Branch myths as the site of the greatest deeds of the Achilles of Irish lore, Cuchulain.
Thence over the border into the North, accidentally crossing on an obscure quiet country lane unmarked by a checking point.
After having been followed at least twice by strangers, and shot a murderous look by a garbageman at a town intersection (due to my Republican license plate, no doubt), I ended up in the small town of Donaghadee, a small fishing village in the heart of extremist Protestant territory. I actually had an opportunity to spend some time with some of the locals. They asked me how I was enjoying my vacation. I replied that I loved Ireland, at which point one of the fellows welcomed me to the United Kingdom. His friend to my left nodded in agreement, as I noticed something that his skinhead had distracted me from, namely a large tattoo on his right arm which pronounced United Kingdom or Death! I resolved to me more careful in my conversations.
The following morning, I made haste to take to the road, hitting Belfast in the late morning. It was the first time I saw soldiers in any great number. They were in armored personnel carriers, stopped right in the middle of the highway, with their machine guns idly pointed downwards, eyeing each car as it passed. By the middle of the afternoon, I was at the Giant's Causeway, one of the great natural wonders of the world.
I took dozens of photos, and it was nearly dusk by the time I was ready to return to the parking lot. I strode off on the path to the left, which I assumed would bring me back to the parking lot. No such luck. I found myself on the top of the bluff, with a small trail running along its lip, and a fence separating me from sheep idly eyeing me. It took me about half an hour to make it back to the car, and I resolved to pull into the first hotel in the first town I ran across. When I reached the hotel, it was nearly dark. I had dinner in the hotel restaurant, then slipped off to bed, revelling in the irony that I had come to Ireland a free and sober man, to find myself spending the night in the town of Bushmills.
For those who have never gone to Northern Ireland, allow me to tell you that it is a lush green fertile land. It is no wonder that Cromwell's forces claimed it for their own. I finally came to the border between the divided counties of Ulster, guarded by more young men with steely eyes and large guns. The line of cars inched forward, until I handed my passport to a officer barely old enough to shave who, seeing the American eagle, engaged me in friendly conversation. I smiled as we chatted, while silently praying that he would not hold me so long as to make any Republicans too interested in me.
Finally, he waved me past the post, and I entered Donegal.
I stopped at a shop at the intersection with the road to Inishowen, the peninsula northernmost on the island, simply to ask for directions. (Londonderry had become Derry, and the signs were suddenly in Gaelic.) As often happened to me on this trip, a quick stop became a two hour conversation, as the shopkeeper engaged me with questions and stories of local doings. One of the local doings was a recent event where the IRA had forced a Catholic truckdriver commuting to (London)Derry to carry explosives in his cargo, with mortal threats against his family. They had blown the explosives at the checkpoint I had just passed, killing a number of soldiers, not to mention the truckdriver.
With that cheerful tale running through my head, I turned up the road, and into Inishownen. The land was savage and rocky. No longer the bucolic world I had seen in the North.
I drove for quite a time, and finally came to my hotel in Malin. After checking in, I drove north to the point of the peninsula. Malin Head. The point from which Terrance and his brother left the island of their ancestors on a coffin ship, leaving everyone else behind either dead or dying, never to return.
I looked out over the waters, as the sun came down. Here I finally was, standing where those left behind had stood, watching as their future disappeared over the horizon. Hope in a world of chaos and darkness.
I went back to the hotel, and stopped in the "ladies bar" for a lemonade, and to write in my journal. I did not wish to ruin my mood by walking through the door into the pub, raucous with laughter. I got a few glances, but continued to write for about an hour, then went upstairs and fell into a deep slumber, filled with music and the sound of waves.
Terrence and Edward landed in Philadelphia. I know this because I have seen their names in a logbook kept for arrivals, which I found in the University library. They were adopted, and moved at some point, to Iowa. There they joined the Union forces, Terrence in the Navy, and Edward in the Iron Brigade of Colonel Shaw which fought in the middle of the Hornet's Nest at the battle of Shiloh. He was killed at the Battle of Pleasant Hill, during the disaster known as the Red River campaign, He fell in the vanguard, protecting the army from an attack launched on the heels of a Union defeat the previous day. Edward is buried somewhere in Louisiana in an unmarked mass grave. Even though the Union army survived that day, they retreated to the river after the battle, abandoning the campaign, and leaving their dead and wounded on the field. I, as the first member of my family east of the Rocky Mountains since the end of the Civil War, have now stood where Terrance and Edward landed, and whence they came.
What is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
Submitted by tammy
My life has been filled with the kindness of others, large and small. To choose one over another seems petty. But here's a small handful off the top of my head, related to one year of my life:
1. I had left college, and gone back to live with my parents. This was the third time I had dropped out, although just the first time I had gone home. I was doing temp work, and trying to figure out what to do with my life. Jim, an older man who rode the same ferry into the city as I did, was part of a group of older adults who let me into their bridge game. One day, out of the blue, Jim looked at me and said "You know Lorin, when I hire someone, they have to have a college degree. I don't care if it's in basket weaving. But I need to know that they have completed something." I thought about what he said. And steeled up the courage to cross the country, and go back to finish school.
2. At the time, my parents had no money to pay for my college, not tuition, room, or board. And, given that I was then six years into my undergraduate career, I wouldn't have expected them to pay even if they did. So I went back to Philadelphia, cross-country on a Greyhound bus, and knocked on the door of my old college friend Leonard. He offered to let me sleep on the floor and feed me until I could find a job and get my own place.
3. I went to the Academic Advising office, and sat down in front of the desk of the Director. I said to her, "I have no money. Is there any way that I can take classes anyway? I want to get my degree." The director did not have a reputation as a soft touch. And the University was very expensive. Not to mention that my track record was, at best, spotty. She looked at me for a while. The she said "I'll tell you what. We'll let your register for and take classes. We will count your grades as official. But even if you finish everything you require for your degree, you won't get your diploma until you pay off the tuition." I have never before or since met any person who was allowed that type of arrangement. (It took me almost two years to pay off the school. At the end of which I got a beautiful Latin diploma, with the small typeset phrase in English on the bottom: Retroactive to ---------).
4. I don't know why, but I have terrible trouble with other languages than my native language, especially in understanding spoken language. Four years of Latin translation in high school, no problem. Spanish class in college, major problem. I had only one year of Spanish, and needed at least two years in order to graduate. So I enrolled for 3rd Semester Spanish, and chose to take the class Pass/Fail. I failed. I knew that I had to pass 4th Semester Spanish in order to fulfill my language requirement, or I would never get my diploma, and opted to skip to that class, even though I had failed the other class. I was working during the day, and going to school at night. Every free moment I could find, I would go to the language lab to study. When the final test came, I looked at it and panicked. Even though I had worked hard, I wasn't sure I had passed. A week after the test, I ran into my Spanish professor on campus. The grades had not yet been posted. I asked him what my grade was. He said "Lorin, you passed." A wave of relief washed over me. Then, something compelled me to ask him another question. "Professor, just out of curiousity; what would my grade have been if I had not taken the class Pass/Fail?" He glanced at me with a small smile, and said "D minus minus minus". I then knew that he had given me the gift of rewarding my effort rather than my result.
I don't know if any of these folks are still alive today. Except perhaps for Leonard, I am sure that I could pass them on the street without recognizing them. But I owe each of them, and so many others a debt of gratitude I can never repay. So I do my best to Pay it Forward. Each time I offer someone a hand, or a kind word, or a boost of encouragement, it is not because I am somehow special or better than anyone. It is because I owe it to all those people who have helped me more than they will ever know.
What are five things that make you unique?
Submitted by RA<3TA.
1. I am the only man with my first and last name in Google. There is a nineteen year old surfer girl on the Gold Coast of Australia with my first and last name. But I'm pretty sure her middle name isn't Edward.
2. I am the only D&D paladin to have had their only daughter die in front of them in a dank cavern. That I know of.
3. My rehab counselor was an ex-Marine Vietnam Vet chaplain, who went to his first rock concert, at which a former patient was performing, while I was in rehab. No, I won't tell you who the former patient was.
4. As alluded to earlier this week, I used to kiss my kindergarten bus driver every day when I got off the bus. That is, until I gave him the mumps.
5. My brother once gave me a fork out of the kitchen utensil drawer as a birthday present. I gave him a spoon the following Christmas.
How many houses have you lived in? How is where you live now different from where you grew up?
This is the house I lived in until I was eight years old.
These are the dorms I lived in my freshman and sophomore year.
Meanwhile, my parents moved here. I spent some summers here, and the one year I dropped out as well.
I got a house one year with my friends in college.
The year I returned to college to finish, I lived in a boarding house here for the year.
I fell in love with one of the other boarders. We moved here together after we both graduated.
We bought a condo, and moved in a week before our boy was born.
I won't give you my current address, just for security's sake. But this is a photo of the block:
My Groups
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Shades of Poetry Updated: 38 minutes ago
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Love where you live Updated: 3 hours ago
