By Eddie Wohlford
If you know me personally or if you take me and yourself too seriously, this book is fiction; a novel which uses fictitious characters, places, occurrences, and names. Any resemblance to real characters, places, occurrences, and names is purely by chance and not intentional. You can’t sue me. The ideas in this book of articles only exist where I am sitting, so, there is no need to argue or prove I am right or wrong. I mean no harm.
If you don’t know me, this is my true life story.
Chapter Two
So, what will I write about? What do I have to say that would interest a reader enough so that this book would be read and worth something? Maybe some background about me would help with the decision.
I was a musician all my life and I traveled mostly around the southeastern United States playing nightclubs along the Gulf coast, Atlantic coast, and New Orleans as well as fraternity and sorority parties at pretty much every major and minor College and University in the south.
I have been married six times and I have six children with four of my former wives. I believe, in my heart, that I have fathered other children, who I have never seen or known about, by women with whom I have had affairs; affairs that lasted twenty minutes and some that were ongoing. I don’t know how I could have been with so many different women so many times and not have had other children. I wish I could know all my children and I wish, if they truly exist, I could have helped them with their lives.
There are at least six pregnancies I have fathered that have ended in abortion. Knowing the children I have now and knowing the love that has come with each one of them, I hurt with the thought of the love and experiences I have missed with these other children who were sacrificed, by 'procedure', to selfishness, practicality, and fear of being found out.
I live with hope that I have learned enough from my mistakes not to repeat them.
I have been close to the ‘big time’ in the music business a few different times, I have traveled with an American Music Award’s favorite band, I have recorded in Elvis’s famous Sunn studios in Memphis as well as studios in New York, Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, Birmingham, and L.A., I have gone out with TV and movie stars, yachted with a billionaire, jet-skied off Catalina Island with Hollywood starlets, bought Rodney Peete’s Armani suit from his wife Holly Robinson at a Beverly Hills yard sale, shared meals with Ted Nugent, played at the ‘House Of Blues’ on Sunset Blvd., lived under the ‘H’ of the Hollywood sign, sung Beatles songs with a ‘Grease’ movie star, written songs with a multi-platinum recording artist, played in groups with one member who went on to win a Grammy and another who was nominated twice for songs written, been guest musician at the Beverly Hills Country Club Christmas Benefit for the ‘House of Ruth’, had a conversation with Kevin Costner about having lots of kids, co-written a song that was a ‘World Premier Video’ on MTV, met Gregory Peck, Cathy Bates, Ronald Reagan, Mira Sorvino, Magic Johnson, Bob Barker, Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, and other ‘Stars’ who have forgotten me, too.
I have taken many jobs in an effort to spend my time in some other place than in a nightclub. I was an active alcohol and drug abuser as well as a womanizer. Nightclubs are one of the best places to do these things so sometimes I found other jobs, blaming nightclubs for my problems. I sold shoes at Sears, drove charter buses for Trailways, stocked vending machines for Tom’s Peanut’s, framed pictures and paintings, mowed yards, sold cars, sold hamburgers at Hardee's, painted houses, wrecked houses, built houses, put price stickers on loaves of bread, and gave out rental shoes at a bowling alley. I wound up back in nightclubs every time until I became an interpreter for the Deaf, which is an honorable thing I can do. I have been without alcohol and other drugs for over fourteen years at this writing.
My mother is deaf and my father was a frustrated counselor, doctor, actor, and vocalist. He always thought he should be in a well-respected position of authority and, although he was loved and often good-humored, he was never in a situation where his talents were properly recognized and used. I have two sisters, one older and one younger, who are both professional interpreters for the deaf.
I have lived my life with an ongoing obsession for beautiful women. Along with this over-powering and time-consuming obsession I have always been possessed with a deep and real yearning for understanding God and spiritual things. I can tell you, success with either of these obsessions requires ones full and undivided attention so I have regularly failed at both. However, there are some things that my experiences and searching have found to be true and, so, of value. I hope that I am able in this writing to properly express these things so that my life might have been useful to those who might care to read on.
I was born in the tri-cities area of northeastern Tennessee and, as I grew, my mother was at home with me and my sisters while my father was at work. I would harass my younger sister, my older sister would try to make peace, and my mom would not spank me, but instead, would threaten to tell my dad when he got home. He was always tired when he got home and mom told him what trouble I caused and he would get mad at being tired, at his boss, and me and then take it all out on me with his belt. I thought he hated me, not just for making trouble at home, but later for not being a football star. I tried to be and I even scored nine touchdowns in one game once when I was ten or twelve. I was only able to do that because I was so scared of being hurt that I ran with the football in dread fear.
I spent most of my time with these three women (mother and two sisters) and, socially, at church. Girls thought I was cute as a child and so I was passed around among them being hugged and coddled. This is where I learned to love affection and the pleasurable closeness of femininity.
The first time I remember singing publicly I can see myself walking down the center aisle of a holiness church, way out in the country of north-central Ohio - with my sisters - and being well received. We still sound very good together singing ‘Make Me A Blessing’.
This is also the first time I remember committing a sin. I was in the kitchen of a neighbor’s home but no one was at home for some reason so I opened a drawer and looked into it. I decided to take some pencils and matches from the drawer and I ran with all my might to hide in a nearby tool shed or something like that. I could see through the boards of the shed and I stood shaking, knowing that I would be caught, while I waited for the police to come and arrest me and take me to prison. I guess I was only four or five but the guilt I felt was so over-powering that I still remember it vividly today. After what seemed like hours, I made a break for it to return to the neighbor’s house, which I had been watching – frozen with fear. Frantically and hysterically crying, I opened the drawer and put the pencils and matches back and I have never felt forgiven until now.
We are to confess our sins to each other so that they are not secrets that stay inside our hearts rotting. I didn’t learn how to do this until after I was forty years old when I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They say ‘we are only as sick as our secrets’. I believe them. When I was able to accept that I had faults and when I was able to trust someone enough to confess those faults, and the things I have done wrong, to them and God, my life changed for the better. It is still hard sometimes to continue to tell someone when I have done something wrong but, when I do, things always get better for me.
I mostly forgot about the pencils and matches until just then. It probably won’t bother me any more. That’s how it works.
My parents wanted me to start school early so I wouldn’t be at home to bother my sisters so they took me to see the principal and tried to convince him I was smart enough to go into the first grade at five years old. The principal said that it wasn’t their policy but my father told him that I could go through the alphabet in sign language - on both hands -faster than he could say it aloud. I did and started school soon after. My trouble with women started soon after that when I took a bag of candy from a girl in my class, she chased me around the room, I slipped and hit the corner of a desk, gave myself a black eye, and she asked me to marry her later that week.
My dad was transferred with a construction company to Montgomery, Alabama when I was six and we continued our middle-income life there where the State government is located along with way too many lawyers. Montgomery is also known for its civil rights problems and, although the black-white roles have equalized in many ways, prejudice and racism still make it a scary place to live. Many blacks are every bit as hateful to whites as a lot of whites use to be to blacks.
Having said these things as background, I will go on with whatever may be interesting or useful for telling.
Chapter Three
After five years at Capitol Heights Elementary School I didn’t burn it down, but it did burn down, so I was in the first Graduating Class of Flowers Elementary.
We were members of a Pentecostal church in downtown Montgomery during the riots and racial unrest of the late Fifties and early Sixties. I remember one Sunday night in church when, while the preaching was going on and I was counting the tiles on the ceiling, one of the deacons went to the pulpit and whispered something in the preacher’s ear. He turned white–er and told us that ‘they’ were rioting and burning buses just two blocks away from the church. The reason this was extra scary for this particular congregation was that there were some members of the church who were rumored to also be members of the Klu Klux Klan. Most notably, there had been a recent rumor that one of our virile young bigots had clubbed a black man with a baseball bat and threw him off a bridge.
Without further delay, we were instructed to sing and began singing, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Over and over we sang, sweated, and listened for attackers. But the rioters didn’t attack. I didn’t know of anyone there who acted, in real life, like they actually believed what they were singing, so, right about then, I began noting in my mind the things people in churches did that didn’t match up with what they said.
The next Sunday morning there was a commotion at the back of the church, where the front door was, and we all turned to see a decent-looking black couple who were being confronted by the ‘welcoming committee’. Some of the other deacons from the Front Row Deacon Control and Command Group went back there and joined in turning away the no-longer-precious-in-his-sight couple. I was just a kid but it was clear to me what was happening and this was an example of what I would later learn to define as hypocrisy.
In that church group I was involved with some fine and wonderful people who I knew to be sincere in their worship and desire to please God, but they weren’t the same people who were in control of the church. Control, generally speaking, doesn’t seem to be something with which sincere believers are concerned and I have found this to be regularly true.
As I got older I became more fearful of the Devil and Hell and I tried with all my heart and being to conform to church expectations. Then, at a revival meeting one night I ‘got the ghost’ - meaning that I got so caught up in the ‘spirit’ of the meeting that I fell down on the sawdust and began talking in ‘tongues’ and flopping around. Now, I am not saying that I wasn’t sincere but, as I think back on that night, I can be more honest about it than when it was happening. I wanted more than anything to ‘fit in’ with what I was being told and I wanted to please my dad. I imitated what I saw and I endeavored to be better at it than they were. I kept it up while most everybody left and, when they picked me up and put me in the car, I continued my flopping and talking what sounded like gibberish. I think I didn’t stop for so long because I didn’t know how to all of a sudden quit doing something that was so dramatic, important, and severe. You know what, I just wanted to be on the right side of God so much that I felt like I needed to go all the way out, so to speak, to do it right. I wasn’t sure how someone could be possessed by the Spirit of God without doing it all the way, without giving up my actions and tongue-talking speech so completely so that I knew I was being honest with God, who I knew, for sure, knew whether or not I was faking. Maybe it’s not necessary to do all that in front of a bunch of people just for the purpose of proving to them that I was willing, but I still think it is right to want to go all the way, completely and without reservation, and to give up my actions and my tongue, or speech, to God’s control.
While I was at that same church another momentous life-changing event happened; a new preacher came who had a son that all the girls thought was the best-looking hunk anywhere within a two-mile radius. He played trumpet in services and the word was spread that ‘trumpet players are the best kissers in the world’. Good enough for me!
I signed up for band at Goodwyn Junior High, on trumpet, and proceeded to spread the word about my kissing abilities in girl’s restrooms all over the campus.
Goodwyn is where I became pubescent and, therefore, tormented by mini-skirts, cheerleaders, and my history teacher, Miss Cauthen. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but girls and their possible uses and, for the next thirty years, I’m not sure I had any relationship at all with any woman (outside my family) that wasn’t physical and sexual. Even if it didn’t actually happen, it happened in my imagination. My grades began dropping and then one day after the Beatles became all-powerful I found I could sing the beautiful, strange melody of ‘Yesterday’. I remember singing the song walking down the stairs in school, acapella, and realizing that if girls loved the Beatles that much then maybe they would love me too if I were a singer.
I signed up for choral music, went on to Lee High School where I continued band and choral music, and looked for the right girl with which to fall in love.
Chapter Four
My first
priority, the focus of my life, the subject of my thoughts continued to be
girls. However, I ran into Johnny Long, who was an award winning band director,
and Ellyn Dudley, who was a dedicated choral director and they both got my
attention for long enough to effect my life in a very positive way. They both
taught me valuable lessons about music and life.
Johnny Long
would sometimes spend a whole class time getting everybody in tune; an hour and a half
tuning a hundred and twenty instruments. Later on in life, when I ran into
people who didn’t care if they were in tune or not, I understood why. Music
isn’t any good unless it’s in tune. We thought he was nuts and he was - in enough
interesting ways to keep my attention. He was a perfectionist and I think now
that that’s why I enjoyed being in his bands. I followed him to Troy State
University for over a year. I was going to be a band director because of him and
then I wanted to be a choral director or Minister of music.
Ellyn Dudley
was the first person of authority who thought I could sing well and she was a
great encouragement to me. She let me sing solos for the entire school at
assemblies and I became popular in some way. I was voted ‘wittiest’ my senior
year.
I played
trumpet in the school ‘dance band’, the ‘Southernaires’; a group of trumpets,
trombones, saxophones, organ, bass, and a couple of rhythm instruments. We also had a girl
singer who was a little bit older than us and she was sultry, shapely, and a
main character in my dreams. We had a great time in that band, it was the first
wild brotherly experience I had. We played country clubs and private parties all
over central Alabama.
When I was a
sophomore one of the senior sax players took me out one night to drink. It was
the only time until I was almost twenty that I drank. Correction: I just
remembered a time when I babysat that I found a bottle of Tequila and tried a
few swallows. Anyway, Woody was one of the
‘cool’ ones in the band and he talked a guy at a convenience store into getting
us a bottle of Red Dagger wine – cheap and nasty. We rode around drinking and
wound up at the Dairy Queen on Mount Meigs Road. It was the hang out and it was
packed. I was lit and began flirting with a girl sitting in a car by herself
until her flyboy boyfriend came back. I was obnoxious but I left before he hurt
me.
Woody took me
to the Bama Lanes snack bar to pour coffee down my throat until he got tired of
it then drove me back to my neighborhood. He actually made me get out of the car
and run behind his ’56 Bel Air for six blocks thinking I would get sober. He let
me get back in and dropped me off at my house where I fell face first over the
front doorstep, but, I made it safely to my room where I laid down to watch the
world spin. Five minutes later I was throwing up until I couldn’t anymore and I
stopped drinking for the first time in my life. I quit drinking a thousand other
times but I never had a taste for Red Dagger again.
I became
seriously interested in a majorette in the band at Lee; a tall brunette who
played trumpet. Oh, man. She was my first experience with a girl when the girl
was actually in the same place I was. My life changed dramatically. She was all
I thought about. My world had expanded to the size of a majorette. I had a ’60
VW bug with no reverse gear but we had a great time in that car and she would
help push whenever circumstances warranted.
I tell my children, now, that it is best not to become sexually involved with a
person with which they fall in love until they have gotten to know them well
without it. This could take years or several months depending on how old and how
mature the individuals are.
Now, to tell
the truth, I have to say that sexual involvement begins when interest begins, to
a certain degree and to a certain level, and physical sexual involvement begins
with a touch. Serious sexual involvement begins with a kiss. When a kid says ‘we
just kissed’, I am not fooled. If a kiss is ‘just a kiss’ then something is
wrong. The kiss with which I am familiar is not just putting faces together; it
is something that sends emotional and physical shock waves inside and out of
both people. Putting faces together is safe but a real kiss is the beginning of
real sexual relations and is anything but safe.
If one can
love another, truly, as a person, intellectually and emotionally, before
anything seriously physical takes place then those people have a much greater
chance of staying together for life and not having to go through the heartbreak
of separating. I know this is true even though I have never done it. I have
never had the ability to be with a desirable woman without seduction being
involved, at least in my mind, except that I know women in AA who I have treated
honorably. I’m thankful for that. It’s another valuable outcome of involvement
with Alcoholics Anonymous.
After
graduating high school, I went to Troy State University where I did no school
work and loved playing in the band. While in Troy, I got a position as Minister
of Music at Calvary Baptist Church, my girlfriend got pregnant, we were married
by the preacher in his office, spent our wedding night in Ozark, Alabama, and
then delivered my wife back to her father’s house until we had to tell him about
the pregnancy. My college career was over and I had to start working full time.
We were eighteen - nineteen when Robin was born.
We moved back
to Montgomery and I began selling shoes at the Sears store on Court Street as
well as singing at the ‘Top of the Stars’ lounge overlooking downtown Montgomery
and the Alabama River. This is where my womanizing began and began flourishing.
I am ashamed. I was wrong to be an adulterer and liar and I’m sorry that I was.
There were even a couple of ‘older women’ (older as in 25 or 30) who would come
to hear the band, get a room in the Holiday Inn downstairs, and pay me to visit
them on my breaks. This is also where I learned to smoke marijuana regularly and
where I had the first drink of my alcoholism career which spanned twenty-one
years.
The pot
smoking was a form of camaraderie whereby my friends and I would go riding
through the parking lot of Cramton Bowl football stadium, over ‘the dip’ (which
was a dangerous flaw in the lot), out and around a few blocks while passing a
joint, and returning in a fog. Actually, we had a lot of fun, but it wasn’t very
smart. The Montgomery Police station was two blocks away.
One night,
when the band was playing a song without me, I stood in the back of the room
feeling alien. I felt out of place, uncomfortable, and I wondered why everybody
else seemed to be having more fun than me. I looked around and within arms reach
was a shelf full of miniature liquor bottles of every kind. After asking a
friendly waitress which kind of alcohol was good, I had a mini-bottle of gin
with 7-up or something and went back to the stage thinking I was Tom Jones or Elvis or the
Beatles (all of them). I was immediately loose, confident, happy, and popular – everything I
wanted to be. I became one of the fun people and as good an advertisement for
drinking as anyone ever was. I would sing and entertain without inhibition and
all because of drugs and alcohol. I could lie and cheat without inhibition too,
as long as I stayed high enough. If my conscious began to bother me, another
drink would fix it and I started living out my fantasy of having any woman I
wanted – without remorse. Without remorse, that is, until the next day. But,
another joint would sooth the remorse until nighttime when my self-serving
desires would take over with the help of as many drinks as it took. I thought I
was very cool but in my heart - or soul - I knew I was very wrong.
I don’t know
whether this is psychologically correct, but it seems to me now that my ego and
my self-esteem are opposed. If I feed my ego with ideas about how cool I am -
because of all the women and because everybody is treating me like a star, then
I don’t pay much attention to what is good or bad. As a result my soul suffers
and is ignored. Down deep inside of me I know I am doing wrong, so I know,
whether or not I admit it to myself, that I am a sorry, lying lowlife. I know I
am hurting people I love, whether or not they know it, and my true opinion of
myself spirals downward even while my outward opinion of myself inflates with
arrogance and drug and alcohol induced false confidence. What a life.
I have
noticed lately that the sweetest, finest people I know are the ones with small
or nonexistent egos; small children, some of the old folks, people with Down
Syndrome or some level of mental retardation, recovering or newly admitted
alcoholics, and quiet people who just live everyday lives loving whoever is
around them. These people know they are doing their best not to hurt anyone,
they don’t need to be made to feel like they’re cool or better than anybody
else, and they seem to be happy most all the time. They are usually not rich,
good-looking, or well known. They are humble, they don’t have as many problems
as the rest of us, and they have faith that is either natural, forced by circumstance,
or learned.
The ‘Top of
the Stars’ experience was memorable and life changing for me. Anytime big stars
would come to Montgomery, they would stay at the hotel and usually visit the
night club upstairs. Three Dog Night, Clarence Carter, Clarence Burton, Jimmy
Webb (ultra-successful songwriter; By the Time I Get to Phoenix; Up, Up, and
Away), and other stars came and ‘sat in’ with our band. The drummer with Three
Dog Night was so drunk he fell off of the drummer’s throne and stage. We were
drunkenly disgusted - he was much worse than we were.
Not long after this time of my life I became a full time musician and started
traveling around the southeast with my rock-and-roll friends.
Chapter Five
While playing at the Top of the Stars, I noticed that the owner of Spartan Foods (mother company to Hardee’s) kept visiting the club, so, one night I made up a protracted and ridiculous story about the owner in which I ended with the Hardee’s jingle; “Hurry on down to Hardee’s baby, where the burgers are charcoal broiled”. He liked it and booked us for the home office cookout in South Carolina. It was my first real road trip getting paid for playing and kind of a kickoff for the band ‘Hawg’.
The Hawg Band was the first band I had that traveled and with which I stayed for days at a time out of town. Our first full-time trip was to Mobile where we played at a place called the Stork Club. It was not a great place but we were so glad to be ‘on the road’ that we had a great time. The last night, last set we were all ready to get paid. Having checked out of the motel earlier in the day (to avoid the cost of another night), I went to the bar to get money for the week and the bartender said the manager went to the bank and would be right back. We played the last song and tore down the equipment and loaded it in the trailer. All five of us were riding in my ‘56 Olds ‘98 and pulling a huge trailer. The manager, Marvin Broadus, was still not back and we still had no money. It was 4 A.M. and we were very tired and wired. The bartender tried everything he could to get us to leave but we didn’t even have money for gas so we stayed and waited. He finally called the owner who turned out to be a member of the Mobile mafia. He came to the club at 5 A.M. with two big guys who were carrying guns and told us to get out. We were scared to death, except for Louis who never seemed to be scared of anything, but we refused to leave without the little bit we had coming after a week long bar tab. He finally gave us $400 and told us to get out. After paying for the motel for 4 nights and other expenses there was about $7 left for each of us. I should have taken that experience as a sign of how life would be on the road but it took another 5 years and an oil embargo to settle me down to a house gig at Bama Lanes’ Kegler’s Kove.
During this time I went from enjoying getting high, to wondering if I could stop if I wanted to, to realizing I didn’t want to stop. In other words, I was addicted to drinking, marijuana, and generally anything that would keep me from feeling the effects of the truth.
In 1972 our band was booked at a college hangout called the ‘Stone Toad’ in Hattiesburg, Mississippi for five nights. So that we could afford to have the weed and stuff for our fun, we would get one room at a hotel, take the mattresses off the bed, and put them on the floor so we could sleep separately; five hippie guys and all our stuff in one room that was designed for one or two. It was close living but we were close friends and we wanted good quality pot more than we wanted space for breathing.
Right now I have to address something that might have been a problem at one time. There was a time when I was a church going guy who was trying to appear respectable while at the same time justifying my continued marijuana use, drinking, or assorted drug use. I haven’t had any drugs or alcohol for over sixteen years, not because I had no choice, but because I finally do have a choice. When I was addicted to pot, and other stuff like that, I had no choice but to go through the misery of doing it, over and over, and hiding it. Now, thank God and the friends I have made in Alcoholics Anonymous, I can make a decision whether to drink and smoke pot or not and I have chosen not to - so far. All that stuff is just not at all necessary any more. When I was leading the double life of pretending respectability and actually using drugs I couldn’t tell these drug stories because I was still into them and I didn’t want people to know. Now these stories are inconsequential except as anecdotes that might show how stupid I don’t want to be anymore. It is a joy not having to hide my present life. Because I’m not still doing the same things, I don’t even have to act like I never did.
Anyway, my band had been playing long enough and we had enough regular bookings all over the southeast so that we were thinking about getting more amplifiers and sound gear. We decided one day to get up and go to New Orleans - to the big music stores down there - so we could shop for musical equipment.
Well, we had a pound of marijuana and a bottle of barbiturates that we didn’t want to take with us so we hid them under the extra blanket in the top of the hotel closet. I went and told the housekeeping service that I didn’t want the room cleaned and we left it, as is, including roaches (marijuana cigarette butts) and mattresses on the floor and the mess of five men in one room. We left relatively early so we could have time in N.O. and get back in time for showers to be ready for the nights gig. When we returned the nightmare began.
When we opened the door to the room, it was all cleaned and straight except for the roaches that were piled neatly in the ash trays. We looked at each other with immediate paranoia and found that the drugs in the closest were still there. One of us went to the bathroom and found that the toilet wouldn’t flush. That meant that somebody didn’t want us to flush the ‘evidence’. My heart was beating out of my chest and the guitar player decided he would leave ostensibly to get a cold drink but actually to try to be away from a place that was about to be busted. As soon as he opened the door, a police revolver came through along with the detective who was holding it. We were busted. I still vividly remember the fear, shame, and dread of what might happen next.
We were arrested and taken to the Forrest County Jail and for three days I didn’t shower, eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. I was scared to death. I was skinny with long hair and I looked kind of like a girl, so I never turned my back. I played cards for three days.
At one point one of the jailers was required to tell us the charges for which we were arrested and it was read roughly as follows; Edwin Whalliferd, yer charged with possession of mary- - mary- - - whaner, amfunines, and paraphreenier. He couldn’t properly read marijuana, amphetamines, and paraphernalia but he had me locked up in a primitive, steel-walled, steel-floored, county jail bullpen with twelve or fifteen other lawbreakers. Felony possession of drugs is not a happy thing, especially in Mississippi.
Fortunately, the former D.A. was now a practicing attorney and he heard we were there and sent a ‘friend’ to let us know how to get bailed out. I called my wife, on my daughters 3rd birthday, to tell her I was in jail and we had to have $5,500 bail. Eighteen years later, on March 3rd of 1990 we celebrated her 21st birthday - on my 1st day of sobriety after having gone to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting earlier that day. Thank God!
We were bailed out by the owner of the ‘Stone Toad’ and played the last night in a scared fog, but we made it and left town.
Before we left, we met with the attorney, who later arranged for the barbiturates and paraphernalia to disappear (this disappearance happened at the same time we paid a few extra hundred dollars in ‘legal fees’) and he got the trial date delayed until the penalty for marijuana possession was changed to a misdemeanor.
When we finally left town, after being arrested, bailed out, released, and having my van returned from confiscation and search, we left Forrest County, Mississippi. However, before we even got out of the state, we pulled the van over so we could get out and scour the floors, cracks, and crevices for any leftover part of a joint, seed, or stem that we might be able to smoke. Don’t tell me marijuana is not addictive – even after this experience, I still couldn’t stop for another eighteen years.
Once when I had to visit the lawyer's office to take more money, I looked up on the wall and saw a picture of my lawyer - with the judge - on the lawyer’s boat which was named ‘The Shyster’.
On the day when I was finally to be sentenced, after having come up with several thousand dollars, I went back to Hattiesburg and sat in court not knowing whether I was to be taken away or not. While the judge was yet to be seen, a court official came to where I was sitting and informed me I was to follow him to a side door of the courtroom. I thought I was a goner. I thought they were going to handcuff me and take me to prison. I walked in to see my attorney sitting on the judge’s desk and the judge all laid back in his chair and then the attorney sent me across the street to a small drug store for a cigar. The judge wanted a smoke and I was buying; $500 fine and five years probation – stay out of Mississippi. They thought it was funny.
Even after all that, I couldn’t go a day without either getting high or being obsessed thinking about it.
Even with the obvious evidence of this obsession for drugs and alcohol, most of all, I was hooked on sexual attention and pleasure. When I began playing at the Kove, I knew of five pregnancies which I caused but there was only one child. I am continually regretful that I was part of these abortions and others and I just don’t know how many of my children might have been born and lived lives without knowing I was their father and without any help at all from me.
In late 1974 I found that there was another pregnancy for which I was responsible. I was married, but the girl wasn’t my wife. To ‘handle’ this pregnancy another abortion was scheduled. The night before this was to take place, when I was riding back from Dothan with Sonny Royal (the best saxophone player I’ve ever heard), after playing at a club called ‘Checkers’ on Highway 231, something happened that stopped the abortion. My girlfriend was asleep in the back seat while Sonny and I were talking about the scheduled abortion and he told me that I might lose her if she had the abortion. He had had a similar experience in which he lost a love. I was in love with this girl and it was at that time that I decided to get a divorce, marry her, and have the baby. I still loved my wife and I definitely loved our daughter, who was six at the time, but because I was always high or hung-over, I had no chance of making any kind of a right decision and there was no decision left which would not hurt a lot of people. Jason was born in June of 1975 and my second family moved in next door to my first family so I could still be close to my first child, Robin.
My first wife became good friends with my second wife and they even began baby-sitting for each other.
My bands at Kegler’s Kove began to be very popular and even though I loved my second wife very much I couldn’t resist the temptation of all the girls who came to see us play. I was untrue again and my weaknesses overcame any good sense I had left. I had no self-control. Anytime I had an attack of conscience I could get high or take another drink or three and forget what was right.
For three and a half years my bands played at the Kove and there were many great musicians who came and went. This place and this time was enough of an impact on my life so that I should spend some time on them. This was the most musical success I have had playing live.
It began when I went to the bowling alley, for some reason I have forgotten, and I wound up sitting in with the guys who were playing in the lounge. There was an acoustic piano sitting in the corner that was rolled over to the ‘stage’ area and I really enjoyed playing with them. It was THE DIXIE HAT BAND - Tim Jackson and Keith Brewer. It was fun, so they talked to Steve Lander, the owner, and asked me to come and play with them on New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, 1974, and my life changed. I played there for 3 and ½ years.
Tim and Keith were doing folk, country, and rock music without drums and electric guitars. This is what people came to call ‘unplugged’. I have great tapes of that band including February 1st, 1975 which was the day I married for the second time.
We had a great time. I remember a big, country talking, country dancing, good natured, big rig driving, big hearted black man named Calvin. One night there was a drunk guy dancing by himself right in front of the band, but no one was enjoying it, so I got up from the piano and asked him to sit down because people were trying to listen to the band. The man took a swing at me, but missed, and the next thing I knew Calvin had the guy under one arm and was walking out the door. The guys feet weren’t touching the floor. Calvin came back two minutes later but the drunk didn’t. No problem. Calvin died in a trucking accident later that year and it was a sad night at the Kove.
In the spring of that year Tommy Wyatt joined Tim and I at the Kove on bass and vocals. This was WYATT, WOHLFORD, AND JACKSON. Tim knew Tommy from Opp, Alabama and he was very talented but the best thing about Tommy was his attitude. He was always easy-going, grinning, and ready to play. He laughed easily and never needed attention. But, maybe he needed more attention than we knew, because he died, by his own choice, later that year. I was awfully self-centered during that time of my life (for about 20 years) and I didn’t even know he felt that hopeless. Tommy Wyatt is one of those people I would like to call after all these years to renew a friendship.
In the summer of 1975 Jason Wohlford was born and I heard Tommy Beavers play drums for the first time. I thought if I could get Jimbo Jones and Tommy Shaw to come play with me and Beavers that it would be an extra special band. Tommy lived in Chicago and played with a band called Smoke Ring (formerly M.S. funk) but when I told him Jimbo would join if he would move back to play, he did and he moved from Chicago back to Montgomery for good reason - it was a great band. When Steve Lander heard of this possibility he wanted us for the Kove and then there was HARVEST. It was an extra special band and there was some Montgomery music history made. People came from all over to hear this band and Shaw, Jones, and I had some extraordinary vocals. We even opened a concert with ‘KISS’ at Garrett Coliseum.
There is one particular night I won’t forget that involved a kid who worked in the bowling alley who came in to the bar to get my attention.
We used to do a song called ‘Jelly, Jelly, Jelly’. It was a blues tune about that thang. Anyway, on this particular night I started the song and soon after the beginning this kid who worked in the bowling alley came right up to the piano, where I was absolutely engaged in the noble process of entertaining, when I opened my eyes from the soulful singing to be startled by his close proximity. He was standing right in front of me with a startled and urgent look on his face. He started to say something, when, I, in my important I’m-singing-a-song way, indicated that he should wait until the end of the song to tell me whatever he had to say.
I should explain that the epic and meaningful song ‘Jelly’ began with two or three verses of slow blues verses followed by a lengthy guitar solo, followed by another verse or two, followed by an acapella guitar lead which sometimes lasted as long as seven minutes, followed by a lengthy trip down to - and back from - drum soloville, and ending with a minimum of two minutes of freestyle everybody-play-and-sing-every-note-you-know while pretending-to-end-the-song-so-the-crowd-claps-over-and-over with a big unison bonk for a last note.
The kid with something to say was still standing two feet from the piano with the same look on his face when we finally bonked the ending note. Everybody in the room had seen him come in and watched amused as he stood there never taking his eyes off of me looking like he was in a hurry. I finally acknowledged his presence on the earth, in my magnanimous leader-of-the-band way, and asked, “What is it, Billy?” He answered calmly, “Your car is on fire”. And it was.
Tommy Beavers showed himself to be extraordinary all by himself and we gave him a good place to showcase his talent. I know of at least two excellent drummers who were inspired to be drummers by watching Tommy Beavers at the Kove. Tommy went on to be awarded a Grammy for his work with a Texas Swing band called ‘Asleep At The Wheel’. He has since been all over the world knocking out other musicians with his talent.
After HARVEST had created a lot of attention for about 6 months, Tommy Shaw got a call from the ‘Big Time’. When he lived in Chicago, while playing at a club called ‘The Rush’, Tommy was seen by the manager of a nationally known group named STYX who had had a big hit, Lady. HARVEST had been together about six months when Styx was about to go on tour. It was December of 1975. One of their guitar players quit suddenly and the manager remembered Tommy from Smoke Ring. As I understand it they finally hunted him down after hearing that he was playing at a bowling alley in Montgomery, Alabama. There was only one at the time and they found him and stole him from us. Tommy’s history with Styx, Solo projects (more on this later), Damn Yankees (with Ted Nugent and Jack Blades), the Shaw Blades Band (with Jack Blades of Night Ranger), back with Damn Yankees, back with a modified Styx - is well known. ‘Styx’ earned several Gold and Platinum Awards for record sales as well as a People’s Choice Award for favorite band in 1979 (I think).
HARVEST was hurt by Tommy Shaw’s departure, however, we had been regularly loving Beth Nielsen’s voice for months when she would come to the Kove and sit in singing songs she wrote. Beth would literally quiet the place down when she sang and I would even stay inside during breaks to hear her. We asked her to join and it was during that time that we won a battle of the bands at the Coliseum. We changed the name of the band to ‘HARMONY’ because, with Beth’s voice and without Tommy’s electric lead guitar, the harmony vocals were now our strongest point. Soon, we also asked Bill Hinds, the left-handed guitar-monster to join. It took two fine musicians to take Tommy’s place but Bill is a great guitar player so we weren’t hurting there and he helped with the singing, too. Beth is a show of the finest quality all by herself, so, more Montgomery music history was made. We packed the place for two and a half more years and made some outstanding music.
Beth Nielsen has gone on to make some fine
solo albums in the adult contemporary market as well as writing a load of hit
songs in the country markets. She has been nominated for Grammy Awards twice for
some of her song writing ("This Kiss" by Faith Hill and "Strong Enough To Bend"
by Tanya Tucker) and her name now is Beth Nielsen Chapman.
Chapter Six
The Dead Gambler Story
In all of the
three and a half years of five or six nights a week playing music in the smoky
corner of a bowling alley bar, one of the worst things that has ever happened to
me began at the end of one of those nights - with the frustration and
realization that I was just a stoned, drunk, self-centered liar. The night was
over but I wasn’t finished.
I decided to drive my bean green, two door ’51 Chevy out Vaughn Road and find somewhere I could blow off some steam by shooting my .38 at a sign or some trees or something. I kept driving around side roads, and further out of town, until I found what looked to be an isolated country crossroads bordered by trees. So, I stopped and got my gun and walked away from the car to find some arbitrary target at which I could shoot while imagining it was my self.
Just before I fired my first shot I thought I heard voices, so I tried to figure out if I was hallucinating or where the sound was coming from. Just through the trees and right around the corner from where I had stopped my car I could vaguely see what looked like two men. One of them was holding a flashlight on the other so I could see the one without the light pretty well; he was about thirty-five and had a full head of wavy black hair. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could tell they were upset or scared or mad about something. I was crazy enough and curious enough that I was willing to move a little closer to figure things out, and besides that, I had a gun, so they weren’t going to hurt me.
When I got close enough to hear their voices I realized the one with the flashlight was doing all the talking and he was mad; as if he were scared and very mad at the same time. He was saying stuff about not owing the other guy a dime because he was a crook anyway. I heard him say something like, “you’ll never screw up anybody else’s life again”. That’s when I realized he was holding a gun in his other hand.
Now, anybody that knows me knows I’m a talker. If they really know me they know I don’t want to feel any pain and I will do any amount of talking to get out of trouble or to keep from getting caught doing something for which I really should be hurt. The reason I am bringing this up is that, that night, I was just high enough and confident enough in my talking ability, or bullshit, to think I could interrupt the scene I had come up on and affect the outcome. That was nuts.
I had put my pistol in the back of my pants and I decided to introduce myself. I was kind of behind a small tree, so I felt safe enough to say, “Excuse me”. That proved to be stupid because the guy with the flashlight and gun jumped about three feet, dropped the light, and fired the gun in the direction of my voice. I think he actually shot the ground somewhere between me and the guy with the hair. But really, for some reason, I don’t think he meant to pull the trigger at all.
The next few seconds became a blur, especially to me; high as I could be, in the twilight zone, behind a small tree in the woods, thinking I would be a welcome addition to an extreme and bizarre situation.
There was enough light from the flashlight on the ground to see; the guy with hair take off, the guy with the gun shooting alternately at him and my tree, and I could also see that I could die right there right then. I pulled the pistol from the back of my pants and shot it at the ground somewhere toward the other shooter hoping that he would just stop. It didn’t work. He kept firing toward me until I heard him run out of bullets, but just before he ran out I fired my .38 again. He was closer than I thought. All of a sudden it was quieter than woods should be and I realized I had no idea what had just happened, except that the other guy with the gun was on the ground in front of his flashlight and he wasn’t moving.
Nothing moved.
It was as though I was somewhere else watching; like I wasn’t there, like the hair guy had never been there, and like the man on the ground had been there, lit up by the flashlight – for years.
After what seemed like a long time, and the whole time without any sound, I heard a voice from somewhere out in the woods say, “Who are you?” I didn’t really want to say, so I didn’t say anything at all. I couldn’t really make sense of where I was and what was happening.
I began to try to sneak back to my car, hoping I could just leave and maybe completely forget the whole ordeal, but it didn’t quite happen that way.
I did make it back to my car, but when I got there – shaking badly and in a dream – the hair guy was standing there waiting for me. He didn’t look afraid, even though I knew he knew I had a gun, so I was really puzzled and scared again. Hair guy said, “I know who you are”. This was not good news on top of the growing realization that it seemed I had just shot somebody.
I was no longer high – I was totally straight.
I can’t tell you how many times I have gone over in my mind the circumstances and occurrences of that night; the way I got there, the stupidity of sneaking up on those two guys, the suddenness of the shooting, and the never-ending cloud over my head of the possibility that someone would know. But, wait until you hear the rest of what happened.
This guy that was standing at my car turned out to be involved with, or the owner of, this gambling place (legal or not, it doesn’t matter anymore) and he knew me because he liked my band and he came to see us play sometimes. Well, my mind was blown enough already, but then he told me we had to go back into the woods to see about the flashlight guy.
Now, I had a gun, but this guy knew I wouldn’t use it on him or any person – if I was thinking right. He knew who I was and he knew I shot the man who had the gun on him and he knew he kind of had me in an unusual spot. SO, we went back to where the flashlight was still shining and we saw that the fellow on the ground was dead. Dead.
Listen, I was just a singer and piano player, who had two kids, who should have been home and I was standing in the woods, somewhere off Vaughn Road toward Macon County, with a guy who was calmly telling me what to do while standing over a man I had recently shot to death. This guy was not a good man and I didn’t like him at all. His hair was greasy, his eyes were beady and mean, and he just acted evil; as if he were accustomed to taking advantage of people in trouble, or like he didn’t care about me, the dead guy, or anybody else.
I think he figured he had control of the situation and this is what he told me to do. He told me to go get in my car, remember the way back there while I was going home, and he told me that the next day I would get a shovel, come back out there and dig a hole to put that man in. He told me that, if I ever saw him, I would act like I didn’t know him.
I actually did what he said. It was horrible. I rolled the body of a man who I shot – whose identity I didn’t know - into a hole in the ground, I covered his body with dirt, and I stamped the dirt down tight over him. It made me throw up – more than once. The way a dead body moves is something you don’t forget. It feels like it is supposed to be alive. It feels like it should be able to move by itself, but it doesn’t. I could think of no other way to not have to face shooting that man but to do what I was doing.
There is more.
About a year and a half after this happened, greasy hair showed up at the restaurant piano bar where I was playing. After the initial heart-pounding reaction of seeing him in the first place, I didn’t even look his way. But - he kept coming around regularly and he seemed to enjoy that he knew that I knew that he knew. I found out that he was a rich big shot who was well known all over the state, and that most people didn’t like him. He was one of those people that tipped big but who thought that it gave him the right to treat a waitress or anybody else like he owned them. He was a creep.
I knew he was more than just a creep. I knew he really was a man who was evil – someone who had no conscience and enjoyed it. I started trying to think of some way I could use his involvement in what had happened to keep him from lording it over me or the others he seemed to abuse, but I could think of no way without the possibility of being found out myself. I guess there was really no way for me to get blamed anyway, because I had long ago thrown that .38 into some deep water, but it just seemed he had the advantage of having no conscience. It’s like in the old movies about ‘honorable dueling’; the bad guy could always turn around a step early and shoot, but the good guy couldn’t if he were to remain honorable. Not that I was particularly honorable, but he was, for sure, not above doing anything at all to get his way.
Okay, so he kept coming to hear me play, tipping big, and grinning this creepy grin out of the corner of his eye, and then, all of a sudden, he stopped coming around. But then, a few months later he came in one night by himself and walked right up to the piano and put a piece of paper on it. I was still a drinker and I remember he put it right on the napkin next to my Absolut and tonic (with three squeezed lime wedges). He turned around and walked back out and I could see him out front, from the piano, through the window blinds when he got in the driver’s seat of a black Lincoln.
I went on break after I finished the song and took the note outside to read it. It was just a phone number. I didn’t call it.
Two or three nights later, while I was playing, I saw the Lincoln drive up to the front door. Then, a once-pretty-woman-with-a-lot-of-makeup walked up to the piano and put a piece of paper on the piano. When I finished the song, I opened the paper and it said, ‘tonight’.
I wanted no contact at all with this sleaze,
but I didn’t know what to do so I called.
I wish I hadn’t. After I’ve thought about it for years, he would never have told
anyone what happened, but, at the time, I was stupid, guilty, and afraid of
being caught.
So, when I called, he told me to go to this crummy little bar up off of the interstate toward Auburn, almost to Tuskegee. I was to go in and find a guy with an Auburn cap on and just start talking to him. He would be looking for me.
I went, the guy was there, and he told me we were supposed to go together to meet somebody, a few miles back toward Montgomery, in my car. I didn’t like it, and although it might sound like some mysterious adventure, there was nothing exciting about it and I couldn’t see any way it could turn out good for me. I was just afraid and there all kinds of ways I could think of that bad things could’ve happened to me.
It turned out much less complicated than I imagined. We drove to that same place where I first saw the sleaze creep – where I had buried a man, the guy with the Auburn hat got out, I drove away and I never knew what happened there.
I haven’t heard from the greasy hair rich
guy again, but he is still well known and richer than ever. Also, I never heard,
or read in the newspaper, anything about any missing man from around there and I
never heard of a body being found.
I guess that’s
also good evidence that it never really happened.
Chapter Seven
The Philosophical Parent
My children are being bombarded by life. It is not unusual for this to happen, but it is unusual, after my life of lies, alcohol and drug abuse, and self-centeredness, for them to think I might know what to do about it. Honestly, it is a miracle, for which I am very thankful, for them to think I have anything at all useful to say. And, it is a miracle my brain still works.
So, I tell them that even though: (a) this is the best thing that has ever happened, or (b) this is the worst crisis of all the other crises that have ever happened before - it is just another step of just another day and it will change. This wonderful thing that is happening at the moment won’t always be like it is right now. The good news is that the same thing is true about these traumatic crises that are overtaking your present life; they won’t last. Nothing visible stays the same.
Every major change or decision, and every small event that happens, is just another step toward what will happen next. And, we don’t know what that will be.
It could be that the thoughts, planning, and hopes which determine this next move will be realized, or it might all be negated by an unseen force that seems to affect everything and the rest of our lives without our input and without our permission.
Someone whom we never knew existed could walk in and all our future might change because of that person.
Eight years and two hundred thousand dollars worth of college could be negated in a moment by someone running a red light.
Still, it is just the next step which is leading to the next part of our lives and it is my guess that the best step is the last one. All that has happened, trivial or traumatic, leads us to death at which time we will find out that all of life was leading us to this event; an event which we spent our whole lives wondering about, or obsessing about, and regularly fearing.
Finally we find out what our lives have been lived for, and I believe the events and relationships all come down to – how did we act; how did we think of others, with what attitude did we give up what we wanted for the benefit of someone else, what did we say when we had the ‘right’ to hate someone, did we act with bitterness or benevolence, have we looked at unlovable people with compassion - or disgust, did we return bitterness when we were treated bitterly, what did we do when we could ‘take’ or act without being seen, did we ‘give’ without having to be seen giving, how did we use the power we had over someone else, were we truthful, did we care, were we lazy?
At last, because of the understanding and forgiveness of our creator, if we truly tried to do the right thing, we find peace. At death we find the peace for which we searched all our lives. In all our strivings, the peace we could only achieve for brief moments in time, turns out to be a matter of surrender to that which we could not control - God and Nature. It turns out that this same surrender is what gave us peace while we lived.
Peace seems to come, in this life, with acceptance of that which we cannot see. Then, with death, we will know peace and we will know all of the things about which we wondered during life.
“How do you know?” you might ask. I guess I don’t. But, these are things that give me hope and I have to share the hope I can find with the people I love.
Chapter Eight
from the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe
He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for
leaving father's house and my native country, where I might be well introduced,
and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a
life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on one
hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon
adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of
a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above
me or too far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called
the upper station of low life, which he had found, by long experience, was the
best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the
miseries and hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanic part of
mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the
upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state
by this one thing - viz. that this was the state of life which all other people
envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequence of being
born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two
extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony
to this, as the standard of felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor
riches. (from chapter 1)
Now I began to construe the words mentioned above (in the book),
"Call on Me, and I will deliver thee," in a different sense from what I had ever
done before; for then I had no notion of anything being called deliverance, but
my being delivered from the captivity I was in; for though I was indeed at large
in the place, yet the island was certainly a prison to me, and that in the worse
sense in the world. But now I learned to take it in another sense: now I looked
back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that
my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore
down all my comfort. As for my solitary life, it was nothing. I did not so much
as pray to be delivered from it or think of it; it was all of no consideration
in comparison to this. And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read
it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things, they will find
deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than deliverance from affliction.
(from Chapter 6 or 10, July 4th of Journal)
Let no man despise the secret hints and notices of danger which sometimes are
given him when he may think there is no possibility of its being real. That such
hints and notices are given us I believe few that have made any observation of
things can deny; that they are certain discoveries of an invisible world, and a
converse of spirits, we cannot doubt; and if the tendency of them seems to be to
warn us of danger, why should we not suppose they are from some friendly agent
(whether supreme, or inferior and subordinate, is not the question), and that
they are given for our good? (from Chapter 17?)
So little do we see before us in the world, and so much reason have we to depend
cheerfully upon the great Maker of the world, that He does not leave His
creatures so absolutely destitute, but that in the worst circumstances they have
always something to be thankful for, and sometimes are nearer deliverance than
they imagine; nay, are even brought to their deliverance by the means by which
they seem to be brought to their destruction. (Chapter 17?)
Chapter Nine
What is right and what is wrong? Is it different for different people? If it is, is it because different people have been taught to believe different things about what is right and wrong in their lives? Or, is right and wrong programmed in our brains before we are born?
Some people in India believe that cows are sacred animals and we, in America, eat them (the cows). Some people, who are Muslim, believe that anyone who is not Islamic is to be killed or enslaved. Some people, who are capitalists, believe that just about anything done in the name of making more money is 'just business'. There are some differences in capitalist thinking related to what is right and wrong, for instance; some think that charging more than 1% over the prime interest rate (as set by the Federal Reserve Board) is too much and some think charging what amounts to 125% of the cost of the home itself for the mortgage (over 25 years) is 'just business'. Christian religions are responsible, during the crusades, the dark ages, and inquisitions for killing more men, women, and children than Adolph Hitler's elimination of Jews during and around WWII.
I know a guy who has worked his way through college making about 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year playing poker on the internet. I can't put $1 in a slot machine without feeling guilty. Do I feel guilty because I was taught that gambling is wrong? Does a gambler think it is a bad thing to do, or is he liberated from the guilt by intellectually deciding it is okay? Am I just less in control of my brain, or is the gambling man just kidding himself? I don't know.
I think everyone, in the end, is left to decide for themselves and then we are responsible for facing the consequences - whether or not we believe there are consequences.
Our upbringing is a factor and, if I am hearing it right, the chemicals in our brain also affect our guilt level. For instance, a serial killer can be put in a mental hospital if his mental processes, caused by imbalanced chemicals in his brain, keep him from thinking it was wrong to have killed. However, if chemical dependency on marijuana causes someone to resort to the illegal act of having it in their possession, they can be imprisoned with rapists, child abusers, and gangs of killers. If a person does irresponsible, immoral, or harmful things while he is drinking - which he wouldn't do if he were sober - is it wrong and evil or is it just a chemical imbalance; the chemical being alcohol and the imbalance being attributed to having more than the legal limit.
It is possible, in my mind, that what they call criminally insane is the same thing as what they used to call 'possessed by demons'. The difference now seems to be that they can label an imbalance or locate where, in the psychopath's brain, he is affected. Whether we call it demon possessed or chemically imbalanced the result is still the same; horrible cruelty and wasted life. I guess one's reaction to the person who has caused horrible cruelty depends on what you think caused him to have committed the act; if it is chemical imbalance, you treat him with other chemicals and if it is evil, you treat his soul. Some are treated with both methods.
In relation to the problem of alcoholism, which causes about as much trouble as anything in the world, Pharmacologists are trying to find a drug with which, when the alcoholic drinks, would allow him to 'know when to stop'.
Alcoholic drinking has been - and is currently being - successfully treated in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) by treating the soul. The supporting thought, they say, is that the 'over-drinking' is a symptom of a spiritual problem and not a physical one. There is a lot of proof that this idea is correct. The proof is in the thousands of formerly abusive drinkers who are no longer drinking. They led wasted lives of meanness, sickness, laziness, poverty, guilt, desperation, prison time, etc. After active participation in AA they become useful to the communities where they live, their families, and themselves. The prescription to an alcoholics sickness has proved itself to be a combination of these things: 1) learning that there are those who care for them without any material benefit to themselves, 2) learning that, when they begin caring for others in the same way, their lives are positively and dramatically changed, 3) learning that there are groups of people who absolutely enjoy their lives without drinking being involved, 4) truthfully admitting to themselves that they have had problems related to their drinking, 5) learning, or at least admitting to themselves what they already know, that there is a spiritual power who can help them, 6) giving up their decision making to that spiritual power of life and love, 7) staying in conscious contact with that source of unseen power, 8) continuing the learned and changed lifestyle to the benefit of everyone to whom they are in contact. My list is partial, however, there is a full and complete list in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I believe that the same treatment is the same healing prescription for just about any mental illness. Whether we refer to these chemical imbalances as mental illness, demons, weakness, perversion, diversity, sin, enlightenment, or individuality, the results are the same; unhappiness, self-centeredness, despair, hopelessness, pain, and suffering.
To be clear, I believe the treatment for most problems in our lives must begin with losing our obsession with our own lives and opening our lives to the care for - and the care of - others.
I get annoyed with folks who tell me what they think I ought to do, so, I will attempt to just simply explain my own situation in relation to this subject. I don't want to tell anyone else what to do. If it applies to any one else's life it will be obvious without preaching and without patronizing condescension, neither of which has ever helped me.
My life was one of attempting to satisfy myself with physical pleasure. Everything and everyone else became more and more unimportant in comparison with what I thought would make me happy - ease of life and self satisfaction. The problem with these goals is that there is never enough of pleasurable things. What I mean is that there is never enough cocaine, alcohol, sex, sleep, speed, barbiturates, hallucinogens, or any other material thing to maintain happiness. It seems that every thing is limited and I could never get enough. When the pleasure was over I thought that in order to be happy I had to get more.
Now I find the things that make me happy and satisfied are; work, which makes me worthy of rest, and sharing the gifts I am given by God. From what I can tell, the major gifts I have been given are humor, a thirst for wisdom, musical talent, compassion, and the love of good people. Like material things, there are never enough opportunities to work and never enough people to care for and love. Unlike material things, there is an unlimited supply of people who need humor, music, compassion, and someone to love.
At times when I feel like I'm being drug down into thinking which is bad for me, or wrong, the best action is for me to find someone who loves me freely and spend time with them. In my life these people are; my family (especially the little kids), my friends, just about anybody in AA, and sometimes I am surprised by a total stranger who is kind. Basically, good mental health goes along with being in the presence of good people and learning how to be one of them. That is also where I find the presence of God. There and in natural beauty.
If someone were to ask me where to find happiness, I think the short answer is that happiness is wherever someone will let me share my part of it. And that is what I find to relate to good mental health. When I, in turn, give to others - freely - what I have freely been given by life, I have good mental health. I am happy. Conversely, when my decisions are made with a motive of taking what others have been given, I am guilty, unhappy, manipulative, and my mental health is dark and sad.
Chapter Ten
Time
I am finding out more and more that time is one of the most valuable things I have been given. When people have given me their free time - when they weren't expecting to somehow profit from it - it has been immensely beneficial to me. When I have given my free time to other people, it has also been immensely beneficial.
This is one of the things I learned from Alcoholics Anonymous.
I went to an AA meeting and the people there gave me their attention for long enough for me to accept that they weren't wanting anything from me (like money). They listened to my immature ravings without trying to change me and without judging me as the weak, desperate person I knew myself to be. It is a very powerful act of love to listen to someone talk when there is no selfish motive for listening and it was so powerful that it overpowered my own ego and made me want to listen to them. It is what I want most to emulate in my life - unselfishness.
I have the most worth to myself and anyone around me when I give my time by listening and just being with another person. It is what older people want when they are in a retirement home - they want someone to be with them and they also want to give their time because many of them know that if their time is valuable to someone else, they want to go on living.
Children are the same. The most we can do for our children is to give them the love that is shown when we give them time with us. When we listen to them, sometimes they will listen to us. If we show them they are valuable by being with them, then they might value what we have to say that could help them in their lives. Also, if we, as adults, hang around them, they remind us how to play and enjoy life simply. It brings more good mental health. Being in the same place as a kid is not the same thing as being with them. I can be in the same house watching a TV while they are watching another TV and we are very much not together. Same thing at the movies, however we can have a moment of being together in the car to and from the movie if they are not just watching another movie on the in-vehicle DVD player. We can go on a 'family cruise' but never spend any time with our kids while we are on the ship.
"I love you", means nothing without acting it out. Love is an action, not a statement. Their are many ways to show love, but one of the strongest actions of love I have ever been in the presence of is when time is shared. We want to spend most of our time with those we love.
The most common penalty for breaking the law is that they take away your time. You no longer have freedom to use your time as you want and you can't spend your time with those you love. You are locked away from the places and people with whom you would spend your time, although there are those who have found out the value of time when they get locked up. In that case they sometimes learn that, no matter where we are, time itself is a gift and time can be shared with whomever we find in the same place we are.
Death is feared by most people as being the very worst thing that can happen. Death is the ultimate punishment in our world. It is inflicted on those we fear or hate because we don't want them to have time to hurt us or kill us. For all we know, death is when time stops. I know we can have faith that life goes on when we die, but, no matter what we believe happens at the point of death, no one that has completely died is here on earth to assure us of what happens. Even those who have had near-death experiences have not yet gone on to the experience of no longer being alive. If I am alive, I still have TIME and, if someone has died, they no longer are bound by, or enjoy, time in the same way as we who are alive know it.
Time is a gift of life and to freely share ones time with another person is a gift of love which can heal and improve the lives of all involved.
Chapter Eleven
Evil
Evil seems to be existent only in humans. I fear something evil will happen to my family, but what I should really fear is the source of it. I used to think that evil came from the devil or Satan, so I tried to reason how the devil came to be in control of it. I found out through conventional search in the Bible that; God made the angels, one of the angels became prideful (as if he looked in a mirror and saw himself as something beautiful and separate from God rather than because of God), this act of pride was seen by God as bad, God sent that angel - and the others that believed him - out of Heaven to Earth, without being in the presence of God the angels became horrible and evil demons - led by Satan, God gave them the power to infect and influence us humans, and we humans are where evil shows itself.
But where did evil originate? The only reasonable answer is that it came from God. The initial knee-jerk reaction to that statement is, "Blasphemy! Heresy! You are a Satan worshiper! You're wrong! You're crazy!" etc. But, then, I found this verse in the Bible: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7
Well then what do I do now? I have decided not to fear evil or Satan and demons. I have decided to believe another verse I found which says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10) God is so much more than we can understand that it sometimes seems unreasonable to even consider we can know much at all. Whether the Bible story about Satan is literal or figurative, I feel sure it is the source of good and evil that should be feared and not evil itself.
Chapter Twelve
The Fear of God
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10)
Ecclesiastes 12:13 says, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
Now before you cut and run because you think I'm going to start preaching here, please don't - because I'm not. Preaching has become so repetitive and predictable that it no longer has much value to people who really need God's help and I am one of those. I am trying to find things which go beyond Sunday School which are real and might help the people I care about. In my view, most of what God wants us to know is already inside us and he just wants us to be more aware of it. God doesn't want us to be dependent on preachers, government, isolated Bible writings, and, when we become dependent on those things, we seem to lose sight of the natural knowledge we are given at birth. This knowledge is childlike and instinctual and the longer we listen to people who want us to think they have the inside line the further we get from easily knowing right decisions. We are taught - sometimes with the best intentions - that we cannot trust ourselves to know what is right and we learn to depend on words from people who were taught to use words to feed and propagate the entities they represent. As a result governments, religions, education systems, and their representatives are made more powerful and we who feed them are taken farther from what is ingrained in us as children. The final result is diluted belief and trust in our maker which leads to deception and evil. Anyway, I don't want to preach or persuade you to believe, join, or send a 'suggested donation'.
SO, if wisdom is something good which will benefit the people I love, then I want wisdom very much. According to the above Bible verse, the fear of the Lord is just the beginning of wisdom. How do I fear the Lord properly? There are dozens of verses in the Bible which say it is valuable to fear God. However, I have to keep ideas kind of simple in my brain so that I can use them easily and this is how I have come to understand why I fear God; 1) God can and does anything that furthers his overall goals (which are mostly not known in advance by us), 2) entire continents, islands, and races of people are disposable or replaceable, 3) individuals, including me, can be used by God in any way to prove a point or teach a lesson, 4) prayer for 'my will be done', as popularly used, is usually not fulfilled, or obeyed, by God in the manner we would choose, 5) God is not like James Dobson, an old kindly Pope, Billy Graham, or Santa Clause, 6) if I pray for God's will in my life, he will allow me to humiliate myself to whatever degree I choose until I am humbled - his will for me seems to be humility, 7) there are absolute truths and rules of life which are in effect whether I believe it - and act like it - or not, 8) I am so small, and the universe and it's creator is so big, that I better back off and be a part of it instead of acting like I'm the middle of it.
The last part of that 1st verse I quoted is, again, " . . and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” First of all, holy means 'set apart by God', so the knowledge of what is special to God is 'understanding'. Looking at this idea simply, it seems that; understanding, itself, is the knowledge of what is set apart as important to God. I ask myself, 'understand what?' It appears to be two sided - human understanding and understanding my relationship to God. I believe it is the understanding that I can't understand God that is beneficial. There is a famous prayer that says this; " . . it is better to understand than to be understood." And, I have proven this to be true for my own life and in the lives of my friends and family who attempt to 'understand' rather than to try to make other people understand. When there is bitterness, resentment, anger, misunderstanding, or disagreement between people, the best resolution happens when I am able to understand others so that, almost always, it is better to have peace through understanding than it is to be proven right.
In personal relationships, understanding the other person helps me the most. In relationship to God, understanding that I am unable to understand is very helpful to me. In that case I am left to revert to the childlike trust that I am reminded of mostly when I am around children or when I am active in nature.
. . . to be continued
Chapter Thirteen
writing about sex inspired by Broke Back Mountain
Actually, this article is not so much about the movie as it is about two things; movies, in general, and sex, in general.
I read a review about Broke-Back Mountain and have heard comments on radio and TV which inspired me to write this article on a subject about which I have thought many times.
After having read great reviews about different movies I have been greatly disappointed and have even walked out of some award winning, highly successful films. On the other hand, I have seen some really enjoyable and good quality movies which were dissed by professional reviewers.
There seems to be an idea that if a movie is well made, that it is a 'good movie'. As if, 'good movie' means that it might be thought of as a movie with a good combination of the following characteristics: direction, acting, action scenes, a pertinent moral statement, state-of-the-art animation, music, cinematography, scenery, deep meaning, suspense, drama, comedy, thrills, etc. In order for me to accept a movie as being good I would add a quality that doesn't seem to be given much value in movie making circles; that the movie would benefit the life of the movie watcher. This quality appears to be minor to the movie industry. Or, and I write this without sarcasm, it may actually be that they think any diversion from real life is a benefit. Personally, I think the main benefit of making a movie - to most movie makers - is twofold; they get rich and they legitimize their own morals and ideas. The flip side and one of the harmful effects is that we have financed it and that our own foul morals and desire to escape real life have joined with theirs. The result of the greed and liberalism is that America is the center for 'justified' perversion of nature, pornography, greed, diversion from spiritual reality, dilution of close families, and false, materialistic religions. <