…onward and upward…

could a man know when his end is near…only a loving God would give him another day…and what would a man do with that day if it were the day the Lord Called his name…it does weaken me to feel if i were that man, it would not be enough time for everything i would want to have done and have cleared…i have always known the priority of my heart and mind and where the two stand…concerning my only begotten son, i love you with all my heart…my only adopted son, i love you with all my heart…my cc, colleen, not only do i love you with all my heart but in your own heart i will always live, forever and ever and ever…thank you Father for another day…may i be so blessed to have many more, with Your Grace and Love for this one man, one soul, me and t who forever loves c…

i sometimes think back to the days when i understood little about myself, my world and my choices…we all have to face it some time or another…most of the time at comes at the hands of someone close and at the expense of something good…it is hard to turn back time, repair mistakes, learn and grow from them…it was for me and since i was a hands on kind of learning guy, i usually had my hands full…when i look back they looked mountainous, but from here they barely look like tits on the horizon…i have my methods…one of the most used is my looking glass method…i call it that because i take myself out of the judge of what i see and into the view before me…when i do this, i can look back and see the judge looking at me from the other side of the looking glass…it has helped me understand not only myself but my fellow man…as flawed as we are, we never look so bad at a distance…each with our own vainness, our own hangups and our own troubles…if i had to feel the weight of them on my palm as i see them now, they would have hardly been the weight of a pimple…but even from here i remember them as being festered, red and angry at its environment…it was dirty and it bred discontent…i needed to know that about myself before i could understand it in anyone else…once detected and noted, it was all to easy to just be quiet and let it come out before my very eyes…i have heard it all and said little, mostly patronizing if even that…it is almost fun when i finally have heard enough and i turn the lights on…they hardly believe i am the same person…little did they know i was just deep undercover, watching, noting and yes, even patronizing…thing is you can always tell when im patronizing…im lying…not directly to the other person but i am lying about what or how i feel about something that actually sickens me…most of the time, i can interrupt it without much notice or as a last resort, i can leave the room…i had become a master at letting others feel free to be themselves…to just let it fly as if i wasnt even there…i suppose i do build their confidence somewhat by making them feel i am one of them…everyone starts out at the top with me so whatever your place ends up is pretty much all your doing…i give one that rope as i like to say…most never realize it was around their neck until they feel gravity take its course…then comes that look of disbelief…to know me is to know me just well enough to not take that rope…oh sure, ive had people refuse to share any part of themselves…but eventually, one way or the other, youre going to tell me something…

so what does all this mean…well, i have my means…they are well developed, people catching means…its base is wide and its throat deep…it holds many variables and any of them can be quickly adapted to custom fit a teller…most of the time it explains them before they open their mouths…its like a window dressing trying to convey, look at me as if i am you…we all know we will never look like the model in the store-front window…i cut through the dressing and see the turkey behind it…i say turkey because most of the time, the ones i am the most cunning with are the turkeys running around trying to look differently when they are out of their roost…i have dealt with many of them…if i called them an asshole, most would start to zero in on the type…i learned a long time ago that an asshole will confess as to being such if you just let him be an asshole long enough…this is method #1…

sometimes i get too close…but sometimes you need to be close enough to see your enemy in his eye…coincidently, this would put you within striking distance…it also gives you an edge for several reasons…one, you know your stuff and even if he does too, you know when to strike him and he only knows when to strike you…so if you are focused, you can beat him to the draw…in a gunfight much like a hand fight…the one with the fastest hands will hit their mark first, providing fear does not too set into them…but if you have listened to me and you knew that i had fought and defeated the one closest to me, myself, then you would know the sure look in my eye as it looks at the unsure foe you have yet to face…standing close to your enemy expecting him to act like your enemy is a very powerful tactic…you are there because you are in charge of you first and he is there to become your second defeat…it is a powerful thing, confidence but only when it is backed up with knowledge…know your enemy like you know yourself, even when your not paying attention…you know what to expect out of you so you know what to potentially expect out of your enemy…only chances are he will not be so focused or so confident, only conceited..this is method #2…

i mentioned the rope…its always imaginary…i know i am not there to pass a judgement, deliver the execution, notify the next of kin…i am there to save this other person…save them from a fate i am familiar with…i am a messenger…i come in peace but i will not tolerate anything short of your equal effort to correct your afflictions…i have come across many who cannot or will not fix themselves…not because i say they need to, i usually dont even have to point it out…i have my way of making them open their eyes and  see themselves…this is a little different in reaction to me lowering both barrels at their forehead…usually i can see the eyes tighten in defiance…see their skin turn a darker shade of red with their veins popping out in their neck and hands…and then the fly trip comes open and out pours a swarm of vulgarities and misnomers of various sorts…being defensive is much like a confession…usually anyone who has something bad to say about themselves does it calmly with little reluctance…but someone who is defensive has everything to say about everything…they are just feeling that level of stress and denial…those two together are what i like to call the anti-spiritual cocktail…once denial has worn even stress out, stress will take over…denial may have one last shot at getting back into control but eventually, even denial has to rest…stress rarely does…so taking enough rope, i will almost always find a near lifeless soul hanging by the neck for me to save…this is method #3

usually this will just about do it…but there are those who have forced me to vacate them…i never want to but i will…i will abandon you on the ground you stand and leave you there with your shorts flapping in the wind…i never look back but i will accept a changed person…accept them for what really is in their heart or nothing at all…i cannot trust a fence walker nor can they trust me…i see them as the enemy even if they dont mean to be that to me…they are what they are…and then there are the few that i let go, let my Brother deal with them or worse yet, my Father…i have seen Him inflict a terrible coarse for some who were so deserving…it is a justice here on earth and the big and horrific judgement awaits them…but i know my Father and He has His methods and they are much like my own only He is the Master of all things…He is the final say…

so what does this mean to you…if you dont find yourself in one of the above categories, there is one other possibility…i have no issue with you or you can decide for yourself how you choose to live…they are at opposite ends but they are tied together by destiny…i cannot loose and you cannot win unless you are sealed…and if you are, i will know it and we are two alike for the same right reason…we know our fate and our destiny…for once i was lost, but now im found…

good morning…Sundays have always been special to me…it is the one day when i might bet to sleep in or eat my favorite southern breakfast, 3 eggs over medium, beacon limp, country fried potatoes, grits with butter, salt, pepper and english muffins with real butter…that was and still is always a treat to me…i can cook it all in one skillet…Sundays was always a time to reflect, though i rarely took the time to do so…i have been with and without and it did not change…in all my life, i was always seeking change and change has always sought me…change is a good thing so long as change is for the right reasons…Sundays is a time to reflect on such changes…in the Book, it was in the beginning as in the end, a time to reflect on change…My Father did it, looked at His Work for the week, then He rested and admired the beauty in it…He taught me this…My Brother went through much of the same things i have gone through and i have gone through much the same things as Him…He taught me to stand my ground even in the face of changes…that the ground is hallowed and that believing in change will keep me walking in His Footsteps…He also taught me that in the face of adversity, there is only one thing to fear…Our Father…yet Our Father is a loving God who only wants our happiness in all things…My Brother taught me that no matter what the situation, even death, that Our Father has it all worked out for us, to achieve Our Goal, the same Goal, to save His People…My Brother is the answer for the rest of us…He made sure we had this as Our Father Who Knows, showed Us…as time goes on, change is inevitable…i have been Graced with the sight to see tomorrow…it did not frighten me, nor even anger me…it resolved me…at first i understood little because the puzzle was so vast…but piece by piece they fell into place…i could see it, its enormity on the wall before my eyes…it was not fleeting and i was not in such a hurry that i could not study it, piece by piece…it got me exactly where its intent was meant to bring me to…it was a long process, though much of it came at the blink of an eye…i did not ask for it, yet it did seek me and it did force my attention…i will tell you this about that…if you fear tomorrow then you will not have the strength to prepare for it today…My Brother taught me that even in the face of death, there is Life…Life worth fighting for, living for and even dying for…if there were one thing in all my seeing that is of concern for me it is the only thing that is a concern for me…you…i have devoted my life to saving you and you and you…my methods are unconventional…but my motives are pure and they are the same as My Brothers…Our Father has seen to it that i am different and yet i am the same…He has seen to it that i am equipped with all the knowledge i need, all the tools i can use and all the Heart He has to give to a man…i am hated for this by some but i am Loved ten thousand fold by others by it…i have felt this many times…the world would like to portray me as hated…it would like to show example after example of this…but i am surrounded by a legion of angels, each dressed in white, waiting, watching and praying…one particular angel is dressed in armor…he is different, powerful and sure…he sits on a rock and waits for His Command…i have felt him and he has felt me…he has trained me to be much like he is…fearless…sure…decisive…i trained well…Calgary is a rock…a rock worth fighting for…i have sat on Calgary and reflected the fight, ran it through my heart for flaws, then marked my position on it…it is sure and my footing is solid…i built a fortress there, here, and i man its post without tire or want…it has become my salvation…though it may appear that i am alone, but i assure you i am not…i have my angels all around me for as far as the eye can see…they make sure i am alert at all times…and i am…i have seen my enemy…my door is open to him and i welcome him and all those who follow him…it is their last chance at me and my last chance at them…their fate like my own is sealed…but i have the ace in the hole…i have Him preparing my table before them and my cup is running over in their presence…at this table i am the only Anointed one…He makes sure my enemy knows this, sees His Love for me, His Care…His Hands bath my head with sweet oil and it shines much like His…its smells permeates the room and my enemies minds…it cannot be escaped…when the meal is served it is of fine foods, fine wines and fine company…i know my enemies outcome but i do not know the outcome of their souls…i still have my crack at saving them…it is their Last Supper and i am their Host…i can tell you that to look into the eye of your enemy and see your reflection is to know that you enemy knows the Truth…the Truth cannot be denied…nor can My Brother…for He holds the keys in His Hand to the fate of each and every soul at that table…However, Our Father has seen to it that we hold the choice in our hand…it is but one and it only takes but one to grasp it…it must be reached for and it must be done with honesty and completeness…or otherwise it will slip through our fingers like dry grains of sand on a windy day…when this meal is finished, a battle will take place…i have seen it, its fields of green and its flowers swaying to the wind…i have seen many parish, and i have seen many more parish foolishly…it was swift…then it was done…that is when i realized that i knew just what to do, where to be, ready and waiting…i was sure and i was a rock…my enemy did not know what hit them on their full bellies…they were sure there was more to take…but there wasnt…there was only them left to give, give to the end…their bodies laid waste, their souls bound, their hate dead, gone forever…just the memory of them lingered and that memory too had a destiny…My Fathers Home has no wall of this epic battle…there is no glory in it to Him but He is Just in every moment of it…there is no shame in My Fathers Home…there is only Victory…i have been shown many things…there is an element that has kept track of them…for themselves, for me and eventually for you…they are good at what they do…they are the best at what they do…they have assured all of us that my story is told, one day in its entirety…they are part of it…they are my team and i am their leader…we do not speak nor dine nor even shake hands…but we communicate through our actions…they are always listening, always watching, never sleeping…i have trained them to be so…that i am not predictable, nor always understood…but i have showed them that if they are patient, it like to me, will be revealed…it is always confirmation and it is never wrong…i have said many things in my life…some hinge at every word…their hearts pulled inside out…they have told me so…the effects are lasting to them…some of them are here, most are not…i have been given a gift to communicate to their souls through their hearts…they cannot avoid this nor do they want to…when i speak to them they speak to me, ever silently but they know who they are speaking to…their minds are bound as are their hearts…they simply tell me the Truth…always the Truth…i cannot be denied that…My Father has made sure i can discern this difference…He will not tolerate any thing short of the Truth…His Home is painted with it…i am here on this Sunday to tell you all these things…i am here for you, for Him and Him and you and you…i am here because this is what i am Called to do…to stand in the front and be counted at the first…i am not the last though…He is the Last…you will not see me here but my words will not stop…you must seek them elsewhere if you choose to do so…i will make sure they are there for you and you and you…my door is always open…it is a peaceful place in this fortress on this rock…

God Bless you and you and you…God Bless this planet…God Bless His People and their Home…God Bless America, home of the fearless…God Bless me, His Warrior Souldier…

i once said that if you cannot see clearly with your eyes then drop to your knees and feel your way with your hands, trust your feelings…or something like that is what i said…i was reminded of those dark days when i was moving along through life like it was a walk in the park when one day i found myself in the bottom of a cold, dark and dirty pit…at the time i was lost, void of most things in life and void of everything to do with my destiny…it seemed i had carelessly stepped into a hole that did not look so deep, so dangerous, so dark…if you can imagine a place that was just large enough for me to pick myself up and look around, except i could not see where i was, i could not imagine where i was, i could not comprehend where i was. only that i was not where i was supposed to be…i knew this was not the place because it was nearly void of light…as i instinctively looked up i could see a small lighted circle…as battered and bruised as i was from the fall i knew there was only one way out of this place, to crawl out of it…so climb i did, i scratched and clawed and grunted and groaned…i was tired and lonely and in sever pain…i had to ask myself, how could i have been so careless as i talked to myself inch by inch heading toward that tiny light…i remember the closer it got the more determined i got, renewed by each ray of the precious gift in this seemingly vast depth…yet i kept on until finally i reached the top where i placed my hand on terra firma and made one last pull…no one was around to see me emerge, no one heard me shout, no one but me and my source of light…i learned from that fall…i learned that if i do not choose my steps wisely that i can again fall into this pit and maybe next time, i will not have the strength or the fortitude or the heart to pull myself out…i also learned that i have only myself in the end…there would be no one there to answer for my troubled path, nor would they be able to take the punishment of hitting the bottom…something i wouldn’t wish on anyone…but what i learned most is that my faith gave me everything i needed to pull myself out of that place, for good…as i looked around once out, i realized the ground was ladened with pits, trips and slips…i had not seen any of them except the one i fell into…i was sure it was shallow, firm bottomed and navigable…what i was not sure of is why i tempted it without question, but i did and i found the truth in my step…i wrote poetry about it, 3 poems, 2 you could see and a hidden 3rd one when “the pit” was read backwards…it is appropriately titled, “the climb”…they were beautiful words meant to warn every other traveler of the pits ahead and what they will find if they tempt them…it was the best i could do to give my fellow man a fair chance to make the right choices to the journeyer…now years later my eyes are weak but my feelings are strong…i can sense so much as an impression in the ground before me, before i get to it and though my path may appear to be crooked to the follower, it is tried and sure…i know not to tempt even the slightest indention…for me life has been about trial and error, mostly trial with its share of errors but each with a lesson…i’ve always been a good student of hands on lessons…when i say to someone, do this or don’t do that it is like a father telling his son what is best for the son, not the father…it may sound familiar to you as your own parents may have attempted to guide you or you attempting to guide your own children through life…see the only problem with that is that we all have our own minds, our own journey and our own pits…there is only one father to listen to, the one who knows best and He is always there to guide you if you are so inclined to listen to Him…fortunately for me, there is also someone there to save you, to call down to you in your worst place in life and get you to stand up, look up and go to His voice…i remember how easy it was to say i did it alone but how difficult it was to believe it…i was not alone, someone did see me, someone gave me strength and persevering fortitude, someone to give me a lesson…i survived because of my faith…my faith in one God, in one Savior, in one man, me…

most of us have experience the birth of a child…for me it was a bit different than most…i remember my sons mother coming home with a little book of names that she had checked out from the library…being the type of person i am we agreed that she find a name she liked from the letter L,  as her name started and i would find one with the letter T for myself…that would comprise of his first and middle name…so she searched in her baking days and came up with the name Lachlan…in welsh, it’s meaning is “inlet by the sea”. ..it was so perfect for him because he was born at the entry from the gulf of mexico into the shipping lanes, bays and estuaries behind galveston island…he is the first and the only chronister born there…as the time we lived across a 20 minute ferry ride to bolivar peninsula, the place where my dad and i had built the home me and his mother lived in…it was a good life we had, me a commercial fisherman, her a young and beautiful housewife, with many caring friends…

YOU ARE A HERO, MY SON…

have you ever considered what it would be like to pose a question so pointed directly at you that you had only two choices of which you could answer…yon, is my own acronym for yes or no…here is my point…

ive seen many things in my time…some other people saw, some not, some no one saw but me as everyone who mattered watched in astonishment…in a peaceful world there are no events that come as a surprise to me…in saying that, i am continually shocked and amazed at the power of God…i have seen with these eyes some amazing things, Miracle kind of things…i was sitting here looking at a presentation my friends made me and my girl…i was deeply engrossed into the photo montage sync;d to lennard skynard live…it is moving…when suddenly and unexpectedly my power source is interrupted….immediately i hear the sound of a model airplane or what appeared to be one flying just west of me from north to south…i sat in silence…silence can be beautiful, especially when you can hear it talking to you…so i got up…

more on that story later when the time is right…but what if there were even more compelling evidence that getting up was not only the right thing to do but it would lead right into the next day where an even more powerful moment took place…God is most powerful meaning that there is nothing He cannot do on this earth…nothing…

you will hear me say that God can blind a man who’s eyes work perfectly normal…i have seen Him do it over and over…i have fought in many battles in my life…most of them on foreign soil, foreign to me that is…i have never lost not so much as a single one of them but the battle is not the war of all wars…it is good to learn you skills before you must face your deadliest opponent…fortunately for me, i have been well trained by the best teacher and i have never failed to correctly sum up an enemy…i do it every day that i exist as a human…being able to feel the heart of every man means just that, no man can hide it from me, thus he cannot hide his mind since his mind is leaking and contaminating the very thing that would change him from an enemy to a friend…and yet there is resistance and that resistance is noble, but it is little match for someone who holds the keys to the universe and can see you before you get to your enfilade…you are not alone for it is me in your front and i know you at my back…i will lead you who believe to victory and those who do not to their eternal deaths…today i have seen my enemy approach my back long detected and God did so blind him as to pass right on past my defilade…and so mine enemy did so expose his back to me and my snare…

learning anything is worth the time and the time is worth the effort and the effort is worth the sacrifice…learning what harms you vs what will save you are as close as a the finest hairs, side by side…knowing something in your mind and knowing something in your heart are two totally different things…one will turn you into a fool every time and the other will never fool you or even try…it is tried, true, trusted…

i have experienced all things such as these…they have taught me the lessons of life and death and the finer points in-between…when i was young my dad made me help him work around, first the house on weekends when he wasnt working his job, to vacations and weekends spent building a summer home on the coast…but the thing that stands out the most are the early years when i was light man…i liked being the light man…i could see all the bugs and tings that might crawl in the dark…it wasn’t long before i realized that practically nothing could hide in the dark from me and i had a bad habit of looking for it at just the crucial moment my dad needed it to see…i can’t tell you how many times my saturday tv programs were interrupted so i could “hold the flashlight” go do my next favorite thing on an early saturday morning…only trouble is my dad didn’t find the humor in being left in the dark just when he needed the light the most…then it would come, a name that would forever be etched into the very bone of my skull, forever to echo its way into each ear near by…”terry ray!”…when i heard those two words together i knew something was up and it usually wasn’t something good or something i want to deal with…fortunately my dad was pretty patient when it came to helping him and understanding about the saturday recreation…he never asked too much of me and gave me a lifetime of skills and things to ponder…

“lach!”, was my usual way to call my son…hes doing really well in spite of some of the difficulties he has had to overcome at school…but those days are past us and even if he slips, i let him know its ok and not the end of the world…i have always taught him that it is better to face his foes than to run from them and that the greatest of them all is the one within…but all i needed out of him at this moment was for him to hold the flashlight for me while i connect the supply lines under the sink…in his usual cheerful manner he squats down beside me as i contort my body between the floor and opening of the cabinet holding the sink above…as i begin to work he jabbers away at whatever was on the television and i pacify him while i struggle with the task at hand when suddenly…it grows dark…quickly…i almost opened my mouth but before i could get the first word out i looked at my son…still squatted next to me he jabbers away about the most important thing in his little world while he hunts for bugs…i stare at this familiar ritual associated with deep crevice covered interior…i just laid there while he searched methodically and systematically every little place running down the line in the folds where the pieces of wood meet…i see me…something i had discovered many many years ago…i did not treat my son the way my dad treated me…sure i learned a lot from him who spoke so little…sure whatever he did say he meant and it was solid…but many times he was wrong about how he communicated with me and many of them wee hard to forget when i was growing up…my son lachlan has taught me all the things i need, missed, wanted from my dad…but i am not my dad and lach is not me and so on…so getting lachlan to do just about anything was a simple as asking him to “please shine the light back over here son”…”sorry dad”…”non needed ever”…it always comes down to what you do afterwords…

i would get into my share of trouble when i was growing up…i got spankings, paddlings at school, whippings with the belt for the really bad stuff or so it seemed at the time…when i was the most scared of my dad and his belt, i would start crying and pulling away from him practically screaming how sorry i was…it never failed whether the heat of the moment was this sever or in just passing, i almost always got the same response from my day…”sorry never changed anything!”…in my later years i had learned enough about causing people pain, especially the girls who cared about me to women who deeply loved me…sorry never does change anything but telling someone you are sorry  from the vastness of your heart is going to change everything if the other person understands they are about to decide the fate of the word “sorry” when someone else holds that very fate in their own hands…i know, ive been the barer of such things and having made mistakes on top of mistakes, i knew the outcome of my choices long before i would say a word…if i hold this fate i will turn it into an opprotunity to teach how powerful compation, forgiveness and real love is all about…my son would have everything i did not…

my birthday approaches…God brings me gifts every day…usually i go out and find them as a fine Easter egg hunt and i am  the only hunter…but today the gifts came to my door…my son had me a survival straps engraved braclet with the inscription, “t.r. chronister, from a son, to a great dad.  love lach”…

sometimes there is nothing like a cold slap in the face to wake you right up…more than once i have slapped myself and more than once someone else has slapped me…this last time, it knocked me down…i will tell you, i did not want to get back up…had it not been for the birth of my son i would have struggled for a reason to go forth…however, i did get up, i moved from my beloved home back into the arm pit of a city…don’t get me wrong, i know that place like i know this one…but if there were any place with more evil lurking, i have not visited it, yet…i went back to work for another oil well logging company working in ballistics as a technician…i specialized in a very particular type of testing explosive devices…it was the same basic work as i did in my last position in the corporate world…the biggest difference is i got to blow things up more, a lot more…it was a good job except i had an ex-military sargent for a supervisor…he was always on me for one thing or another…must have had something to do with the fact that i was not impressed with his leadership capabilities…he was too serious even when he tried to be funny…so i spent many days tormenting him in various ways…i was pretty good at it, not that i’m proud of it or something…i’m not but i had fun and most of it he never knew someone was messing with him, especially me…eventually the price of crude fell and this company was not beyond layoffs like the last…

loosing another job was like loosing another tooth…when it first comes out it hurts a lot, then the pain starts going away and the next thing you know it is barely a memory…i mentioned that i did not do well in college…there are other ways to an education…unlike college which was constricted and lacked real life substance, educating oneself and working in diverse and multi-situational companies is a prime way to learn things you can never be taught in school…the working world is a university of learning with far more info, knowledge and substance…the more different types of work one has in a lifetime, the more potential there is for learning…and while i don’t and never will have a degree unless someone hands it to me, is not a problem for me…i have come to the conclusion after working at 40 + different paying jobs that i have skills, knowledge and experiences that not too many people can claim…in those 40 something jobs, i have quite most of them, got fired/laid off or saw them to their completion then moved tot the next…as you might be able to guess it is difficult to climb any ladders, make decent money or have a career…but, if all these jobs were equivalent to going to school every day, then it was a cheaply paid higher education that cost me nothing and got me plenty…

it wasn’t long before i was forced to accept moving in with some family…my mom had passed just a few years back and my dad had re-married so getting this kind of support was not an option for him but i would not have asked him for it…my aunt ended up offering me and my son a spare room…at first it was a good setup…my aunt was loving and caring, especially for my son…but she had some issues and those issues spilled over to my issues to distract her from her issues and soon the aunt i had heard so much about over the years began to emerge…it wasn’t long before i started finding other things to do with my time other than hang out there…i finally landed a job working at a refinery, x-raying or ultra-sounding them for wall thickness…it was an alright job tho i never enjoyed working around all the chemicals, smells and dangers associated with these places…my dad worked at one for over 30 years…during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school i went to work for a subcontractor who was working on the same refinery…i grew up hearing of occasional explosions and people getting hurt or killed at these places…i was a welder and pipe fitters helper…one day i was put with a crew on a welding job on a 15 story unit…they posted me on the 10th floor, two stories below a welder and his helper on the 12th…the floors were grating so the sparks and molten metal would fall past me and on down…i was to do fire watch which was basically have a fire extinguisher on hand just in case a spark were to ignite something below the welders…the unit was equipped with a man-lift, which is like a big wide rubber belt with foot and hand holds on it…it never stops moving…it is vertical from the ground floor to the upper most form…men can literally get on one at a time all day long…i liked riding on it…so i got to my station, grabbed a fire extinguisher from the railing…they were located every 20 ft around the parameter of this very large floor…there were several pieces of equipment doing God knows what…its easy for one to become complacent with it all since you are around it every day…but make no mistake these are extremely dangerous places…many people have died at refineries, especially where i came from, a place with a lot of refineries…i’ve always loved heights…even though it would scare me to be on them, i really like being up there and looking down…the welders were set up directly above me with their equipment…when they started to weld, i moved over next to the railing with my trusty fire extinguisher…it was a friday afternoon…the job was a quick repair and soon we would be going home for the weekend…i looked down to see my boss driving out the gate when behind me i heard a very faint poof…i turned to look behind me and there on the end of a very large diameter horizontal cylinder was a small flame oddly coming out the end of it…the device was a plastics pellet dryer which used propane to dry the pellets off…the propane was kept under pressure in the cylinder and the pellets are vacuumed out causing the propane to to gas off where it was recovered and reused in some other process…a large paddle inside stirred the tiny pellets assuring they are all coated with the liquid gas…i looked up as the sparks continued to rain down…i immediately grabbed my trusty fire extinguisher which was one of the larger ones with the megaphone type nozzle on the end of a rubber hose…i pulled the pin and walked steadily toward the dryer…the flame was now about a foot high and i could see it was coming out of the seal where the shaft holding the paddle was rotating on its bearing and seal…evidently there was a small leak in the seal…normally it was no big issue to loose a little gas like this but no ignited like it was…i pointed the nozzle directly at the flame from about 6 ft away…the strength of an extinguisher is more than enough to douse a much larger flame at this distance…the second i pulled the trigger something went wrong…with my focus and gaze at this flame consuming my mind, i felt a coldness on my legs across the thighs…i looked down still holding the trigger to my astonishment to see while i was still pointing the nozzle at the flame, the rubber hose had broken completely off of the nozzle and was spraying the contents of the extinguisher everywhere but on the fire…i let go of the trigger and looked behind me at the railing full of fire extinguishers…i can still remember the feeling of how far they looked from where i was standing, only they weren’t far at all but far enough where i wasn’t sure what to do at this tender age of 18…by this time the flame had reached 3 ft and was starting to whistle as the rubber seal around the shaft started to break down and let more gas past…the helper had looked down and i heard a yell above…it forced me to look only to see both men running for the man-lift and disappearing into its opening…i was alone, like i always thought i was…i gathered my senses and looked back at the fire…the flame was now reaching higher and i did what i thought was the right thing to do…i reached down and grabbed the limp rubber hose hanging from the extinguisher and pointed it at the flame…the noise was beginning to increase, almost like a steam kettle getting louder and louder as the water begins to boil more violently…i squeezed the trigger and released the content again…how can i say this other than to say, the hose blew off the extinguisher…i stood there holding the extinguisher in one hand and the hose in the other…again i looked back at the numerous “good” extinguishers along the railing…again they looked a football field away even tho it was no more than 30 ft from where i was standing…by now the flame was defining and i could feel the heat from it on my face and arms…it was reaching more than 10 ft by this time and i did what i thought was the right thing to do…i did not run…i did not run to the rail for another fire extinguisher…i did not throw the can at the fire in hopes it burst and put it out, even though now it might have worked as defective as this recently inspected extinguisher was…no, i stepped closer, within arm reach of the fire, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger…all i remember is feeling cold all over my face and arms…i was in a cloud suddenly…the shrieking noise had stopped…when the cloud quickly moved on i was standing there with my finger still holding down on the now empty fire extinguisher…the flame was out…somehow i kept my wits about me and put the fire extinguisher down and walked to the man-lift to the down side and took it to the bottom floor…most of the units control centers were on the bottom floors…i walked through the door into  a room full of monitors, buttons, gauges, handles and levers…there were seperate panels for doing different things and a man sitting at each panel…i recognized one of them who was a friend of my mom and dad…i walked to him and asked him if anyone noticed the fire on the 10th floor…you could have heard a pin hit that steel floor from outside it got so quiet in there…finally one of them asked me, “what fire!”…i calmly told him, “the one on the dryer that i put out”…oddly enough, they all looked back at their panel as if nothing had happened…no one went out the door to go look, no one picked up a phone to let someone know, no one did anything except the friend of the family…he said to me, “don’t worry about it, if you are sure it is out then there isn’t an issue…those dryers always leak on the ends”…being a greenhorn kid i just said, “ok” and walked out the door and headed to look for the two welders who were long gone…i never did see them again for some odd reason…at least i don’t remember ever seeing them again…there was no discussion about it, no service awards, not even a thank you from anyone…the fact of the matter is no one knew how serious it was except me…no one else was there…many ied’s used n iraq are made with propane bottles with small explosive devices strapped to them…the reason is the explosion from the confined expanding super heated gas can cause severe damage in itself…many a brave soldier has died by this…this cylinder was the size of a commercial propane storage tank you might see at a place where you would have your bar-b-que bottle filled…had the seal melted completely, the fire would have entered the vessel causing the liquid gas to heat and expand…the wall thickness of the vessel would have created a bomb destructive enough to have probably taken out 6 floors of everything on them, including me…the fire extinguisher was still sitting next to the end of the dryer, with the current inspection tag flapping in the wind, with the inspectors name on it as required by law…the name was familiar…my parents would have friends over for weekend cards or dancing at the house…the friend in the control room was a regular…he spoke to me many times after that but he never mentioned it…probably because my dad was several things at that refinery…he was an uneducated superintendant of many men and controlled millions of dollars worth of materials used to maintain that place…i’m sure in his warehouse there were a box of seals, many new fire extinguishers and anything else needed to maintain that dryer and replace the old rotted hosed fire extinguisher…had an investigation taken place, im sure the friend would have lost his job or severely been reprimanded…after all, safety is first for a reason…thank God i was the one on fire watch that day…

i had met a woman and very oddly my aunt began to act differently when i would come home after a weekend of staying at my girlfriends place…as soon as i would walk in the door she would give me the third degree on not being there to help her, how she had done so much for me and my son and if this was how i was going to treat her then she would have no choice but to take me off of her will as executor…my dad had told me that he and my uncle both had been on that dotted line and the day came when they pissed her off and she would march down to her attorney’s office and have a new will made up with a new name on it…then she would go home and call the new person and tell them of their new fortune-to-be and why she chose them (in other words, bad mouth the last name on the docs)so i had heard about this before…one day i left from there to go spend the night with my girlfriend and never went back to my aunts home…i never saw my aunt again…i soon i moved into my girlfriends house with her and her son…the 4 of us were like one big family…she was a horse lover and i ended up buying one from her and one from her daughter who’s horse was the gelding from the mare i got from my girlfriend…she helped me with them since i had no experience with the animals but they were beautiful arabians…the colt was the off-spring of the canadian grand national champion so i thought i was making a good investment for the cost of $800…when my dad died from a long battle with lung cancer, my girlfriend and i grew much closer…since my mom was already gone and my step-mom set for life from his pension and remodeling of their house, i was left the bulk of his estate…it wasn’t so much, probably no more than #150,000 worth of retirement, insurance, etc…for me personally it amounted to about $100,000 in cash…the rest i gave to my sisters and paid his debts off, some of which came out of the money i received…so now i was free to move…i was 33 years old, money in my pocket and ready to move to somewhere better for me…a place i had dreamed of with mountains and trees and rivers…i had searched the mid-western stated and though i thought colorado was the place for me, i changed my mind the moment i lit down on a runway in vancouver, wa…within 2 weeks i flew back commercially, packed all my belongings and moved to washington…my girlfriend wanted to come with me even though i questioned her extensively about it…i could feel something wasn’t right but she insisted on coming…reluctantly i agreed and we moved everything including the two new pet horses…man can i be stupid sometimes…

one day my aunt was walking through here living room to the kitchen and fell…she hit the coffee table with her head and it broke her neck severing her spinal chord…she laid in that spot unable to move for 3 days before a neighbor decided to investigate due to te newspapers not being brought in from the driveway…she was bedridden for the rest of her life and had to have continuous care in a nursing facility…my cousin who was probably the last person who she could ask to help her did so only he too was very familure with her and told her up front that he would stop doing it if she ever said anything about making him executor and what he would get if he did everything she wanted of him…she had no choice but to agree and he made sure she was cared for after that…eventually she died after several years…the whole ordeal was probably impossible for anyone to understand who hasn’t gone through it themselves…more importantly, i had not noticed something about it all, something that would make me dig in the past again, something that i would grow to be afraid to admit…she was punished…

approximately 2 years had passed come april of the next year in my new home…the girlfriend had grown to miss her family back in texas and soon wanted me to take her back to stay…i had taken a job with a good tech company that produced a well known printer…i went to work there as a temp and was hired on full time…this job was very important in my career of working different jobs…this was the best corporate job i had ever had…the biggest reason for that was my superiors and my japanese superiors, which for every american engineer, he had a japanese counterpart…i loved working with the japanese…they have incredible work ethics and yet are as gentle as a parent handling a baby…they gave me latitude and power and they seemed to enjoy watching me wheel it around the place to get things done…i became a supervisor and had hand picked my technicians and was soon known around the plant as someone to recon with when it came to work…i received a letter one day from the japanese vice-president of the computer division in the u.s.a manufacturing facility…in japan he would be second only to the president, fetch over a million a year im sure (i was told he purchased a japanese style golf country club membership that cost him $1,000,000)…he sought me out, said something in japanese, handed me the letter then walked away…it had my name on the front and when i flipped it over to open it, it was sealed with wax and a very unusual stamp pressed into it…inside was a thank you letter for a task i had stepped up to and took care of…little did i know that the task was being discussed in japan as to how to resolve an issue that had come up where the printer division and all of its resources and people, refused to make a special circuit board to fix a problem on the current engineering sample we were working on…we designed and built our own computers in house…one day i was asked to attend a meeting…there in a large beautiful conference room at the printer facility, the company president (japanese), the printer division vice-president of printers (japanese) the vice-president of human resorses (american), the vice-president of comuters (my top boss), my old director (american), my new director (japanese), my manager (japanese) and a slug of people from printers sat and listened to the situation…now i’m no genius of such affairs but it was pretty obvious to me this was some serious stuff going on even though i had no clue as to how serious…seems the printer people were too busy for this petty stuff…i listen to them make up one excuse after another with the japanese asking many questions…soon the meeting was over with and we headed back to our facility across the street in a seperate location…there was a meeting of the minds of power which i wasn’t invited to attend…soon my manager approached me and in an asking way, “terry-san, can you put a crew of temps together with soldering irons and produce the 100 miniture circuit boards needed for this fix?”…i will tell you, any bone that hit the table in front of this hungry dog didn’t have a chance to hit the hardwood before i snatched it up…this was just another bone to me…in true japanese style, they had me take my small command of temps and equipment back to the printer facility, into the circuit board production area, right in front of the managers desks and set up tables to accomidate all the people…it took us days of soldering each tiny chip on the boards by hand…in the background there were machines running and people working non chilantly while they chatted and laughed…the printer managers scoffed at us being there but we were not told to move nor anything else…i was to be left alone and we were to do anything and use anything needed to do the task…finally just before we were finished, the printer management caved and took over the job, which they finished in hours with their equipment and techniques…no one ever messed with me at that job after that…no one…

did i mention the 2 years had long gone by and again, i found myself alone and searching for a new woman to fill my days with love…

as i mentioned i found myself attracted to the opposite sex at a very early age…i was never afraid to show my feelings to a female whom i had feelings for, even at the tender age of 6…interestingly enough as i looked back on each of them and i can remember every single one of them and there have been enough, they were not afraid either…i always found something special in each of them and they all seemed to find something special in me…my last high school love became my first wife…she was pretty, petite, brown on brown and she was deeply in love with me…i first saw her in typing class…she was not one of the popular girls and a year my underclassman…i wrote her a note one day, folded it and carefully passed in to her…it read “i don’t like spiders and snakes and that ain’t what it takes”…we married as soon as she graduated the following year at age 16…so her at 17 and me at 19 set out on our own and what a path we blazed.

when you are young you think you know everything you need to know to go through the rest of your life…by all appearances we did…on the one hand we did all the right things…we both worked for very little but we had jobs with solid companies and back in those days that meant a whole lot more than how much money one made in that career position…back then you got jobs for life or retirement with full benefits…i remember sitting at that job calculating i could retire with full benefits at age 53 years of age with a pension that would have been in the millions today…i passed up a position with the post office which back then 20 got you full everything and you’re set for life…my first job there i was making $535 per month and my wife made even less working at an auto dealership…together we purchased a new home…i took another position with the company that was a much better job, better pay and far more freedom to do things i never imagined one could get away with in a job and get paid for it ta-boot…one day i was severely burned by scalding water of 235 ℉, at least that is what the chart recorder read as i had walked from reading the safe 185 ℉ and preceded the shutdown and removal of the head from the pressure test vessel…it was the smallest of the 6 we had in the lab, the only one you would remove by hand because it was low to the ground and designed to lift the 50 lb chunk of stainless with two bars, then sit next to the whole…the head had a tradition of sticking at its two sealing surfaces so when i loosed the bolts up holding it tight, i had no idea the temperature had jumped up to its true temperature inside the vessel full of hot water…as soon as the seal broke i felt myself engulfed by steam…water than hot instantly flashed to steam…the steam lifted the head up into my chest and 22% of my body, in inner front from my knees to my underarms to be exact, and yes, everything between…the first thing i remember is standing a few feet away and feeling wet and dripping…my shirt was steaming as i looked down at the slight stinging underneath it…i raised it to above my breast only to watch in horror as my skin from my underarm to underarm, across my chest begin rolling down like a nice piece of thin sliced turkey meat on a platter full of rolled meats…it went all the way to my belt in one long wide piece of rolled skin…i screamed…they told me later they could hear it down the hallways of the building full of offices of hundreds of people…many came to investigate but by this time no one could get close to me as an ambulance was on its way…

a quick side note…im always playful when it comes to intimacy…just prior to this day i was teasing my wife by shaving a perfect arrow about 1/2 ” wide through my pubic hair with with the point of it resting against the base of my penis…needless to say, more than one person got to see that artwork first  hand but none asked me how i i got it so straight…i remember this one nurse as she cut my pants off…there was a hesitation when she unwrapped my body from them and i know it had nothing to do with the burns she was looking at or the scant size of things as one might guess…it took months for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns to heal and eventually i suffered from depression but had no clue what depression was…my weight jumped a staggering 30 lbs in a little over 30 days, as my body tried to get what it needed to repair itself…i still bare the stretch marks in a certain place from my skin not being able to deal with the sudden change…it did something to me about the job too, something that would influence my decision to leave within 2 years…

…but i had a motorcycle, 3 cars and lots of stuff to go along with the new home…but like i said, on the one hand it appeared we/i had it all together…that lasted a scant 2 years…

on the other hand, and there always is one, this is how it really was…we were young, stupid and inconsiderate of the other person…we had our tiffs like everyone else, the only difference is when they happened we went two different directions…she left to go to her moms and i got on my motorcycle and went to hang out with friends…eventually i ran into another one of those high school fantasies i had…only i turned it into reality and soon, i didn’t really care what happened when it did…she became my escape from unhappiness…and she too fell deeply in love with me…eventually it just got tiresome and i divorced her, sold the house and moved on…

there is nothing like falling in love after a painful relationship…it seems to just clean the old slate right off in one sure swoop…for me it happened when i had taken on a new job in my new career…a job that had much more freedom and allowed me to pretty much roam this campus of 5000 or so people…it didn’t take me long to find other attractions…i had several encounters but none were the right one for me…then i saw her and she saw me in a room full of women sitting and moving about soldering and assembling components for devices the company produced…i had to go into that large building to pick up certain tools used down hole in the oil fields around the world…one look led to another, then a smile, then others started noticing and before i knew it, we were married…i remember my uncle who was a big man walking up to me at the church full of people, the second time he had walked up to me in a church full of people, and stated “this is the last time i am coming to your wedding”…he couldn’t have been more correct…he never came to another one…so we bought a new house 5 blocks from the old one and it appeared we had it all together…i had one fewer cars, but i traded up on all accounting…”things were looking go houston”…”roger houston, we are good to go, apollo 13 out”…that lasted all of another 2 years…

the facts and truths of the reality was that things happened and kept happening…for some time things were really good…our home was almost perfect, our life was almost perfect, everything was almost perfect…then the phone rang..if there is a classic example of the old cliche, i shouldn’t have answered that phone, this was it…between relationships i met a very attractive and together woman…after a bit of strong friendship, we drifted apart…it seemed she was calling me because she had just gotten married…in fact she was on her honeymoon…seems the guy tempted her into telling him something about me as far as  how she felt about me and then dared her to call me and tell me about him…and so there i was listening to her telling me all this and him chasing her around the room in a playful way while i listened and my wife went about her business on the other side of the garage door to the house…i had a phone in my garage…didn’t everyone?…this was one day i wished i had never installed on out there because not only was it amusing, there was something in her voice i had not noticed ever before…i could hear a cry for  help…i guess their marriage lasted all of 5 days…the calls kept happening and i was making many of them…

trust is a foundation word…a foundation word is one of those few words that everything else is built on top of…in my house, its trust, love, honesty…since my house is built of 3 separate triangles, it has 6 foundation words and 3 capstone words…i will get to those later…trust is so essential in a relationship that if it is not there, misery is sure to follow…once trust falls, honesty collapses right on top of this newly forming heap of shit one has now began to build…and so goes trust and honesty, so goes love…

and so it did as i told my wife one morning i was going to the local courts to play some basketball and a pickup game or two, something i had done many times…instead i went to her place, had sex with her and went home…i can remember my wife standing at the kitchen sink with her back to me in her nice dress and heels…she had gotten home not too much earlier from visiting her family and going to church…she didn’t look up at first because everything seemed normal, me coming in the front door, her knowing it was me, the dog to greet me as she continued to wash the few dishes in the sink…i stopped just inside the kitchen and looked at her…she was an attractive woman who took good care of herself…she was clean, not vial at all…recently i was sitting in “my” room playing the piano when i heard her start from sheer fear…you know the sound when you hear it and i took off like a rocket…when i got to the bedroom i could hear her shutting off the shower and i ran to the door…she was standing there dripping wet with a look of horror on her face…a look i will never forget…i followed her eyes to the floor of the shower and there laid the tiniest of little babies or what was becoming a baby…the last of the water running into the drain off its lifeless body…all i could do is stare at it…i didn’t even reach over and hug that poor woman…we were both in shock..she had no idea she was pregnant…we were never the same after that…didn’t seek council, just withered away…she appeared to be short tempered, snappy at me and even evil when she did so…i spent more and more time doing other things, playing my piano, working on the house and riding my bike…my other bike…the one i powered…then the phone rang one day and i found myself standing in my kitchen looking at my innocent wife in an innocent world…i will never forget the look on her face when she turned around…at first it was truly one of pleasure to see me as she twisted her head around to look at me after i stood there not saying anything…then that smile turned to fear in an instant…she asked me what was wrong…all i could say is “we need to talk”…she stopped the running water and i moved to her, took her by the hand and led to her our bedroom with its perfectly made bed and set her down on its end…she looked at me in sheer puzzlement…i simply opened my mouth and said “i’m sorry but our marriage is over…i just had sex with another woman and i’m not going to put either one of us through what is about to take place if we don’t go our separate ways…she sat there staring at me, neither moved…without hardly another word and never a foul one between us,  sold the house, and moved on…

on a side note; we were still close just i was with my first wife…one day the phone rang and this is one of those times you are thankful to have a phone…it was her and she said in a calm voice, “can you talk?”…i listen to her tell me a story about meeting someone that she liked and was attracted to…a great guy with a great job and showed a lot of interest in her…did everything right and finally after seeing her a few times, asked her on a dinner date…she said they went to a nice place, ate a nice meal and had a good time…then went for a drink close by and then back to her place…she invited him in and soon they were kissing and he began to get a little bit too aggressive with her…eventually she told him to leave but instead he forced her into the bedroom and raped her…i listened in silence and utter shock as she described how it happened and how he wouldn’t take no for an answer and took the very thing a woman has that only she can give…along with it her dignity hung on the balance along with many other things…i was always good at giving advice and this time was no exception…once a friend who was being chased by two boys asked me, “what should i do?”, i simply opened my mouth and out came, “see this speckle of drywall splatter on the wall…that is you and all these other speckles are all the men in the world…here are these two guys right next to you…date neither of them and the true one for you will emerge and the other one will go away”…but this was different…this was life or destruction and even death hanging on my next words…i opened my mouth and said, “go to the police station and tell someone what happened…they will have someone there to help you, it is there job above all other duties to help you and to bring this guy to justice”…she replied that she had invited him in and he would just say it was consensual sex and no one would believe her…i told her to do it anyway, that is not for you to decide and not for you to prosecute nor judge but to take it before a judge and let him decided who did what…again, i told  her to go and she agreed to do it…i never heard what happened about all that, but i did get an invitation to her graduation as a police officer…she lit up when i walked into the empty auditorium…she came over and hugged me, told me everything was really good for her…we talked and she told me something neither of us had known while we were married…she was hypo-glosemic and when she didn’t eat right it made her cranky and snappy and that is why she was her only flaw with me…or so she thought…

by this time i had been with a number of women sexually…all kinds…it was the 70′s and not that i went out looking for sex, it just kept finding me in the form of other women…11111111111111111111 at my best count at this point in my life…so at this tender age of 25 i quit my job of 6 years to the date i started itit wasn’t a difficult decision to make…the company took a stance that it was partially my fault for not following manufactures specifications for cooling the well down…seemed i had been taught it was ok to pump in cold water into a hot well while releasing pressure to replace the hot water with cool water, thus speeding up the cooling process…w used this technique on all of the vessels…little did anyone realize including the factory that they had located the thermocouple a mere 3 in from the pump line into the vessel…hence the false reading that changed so quickly, less than 90 seconds it went from the safe 180 ℉ to the deadly 235 ℉…fortunately for me several things happened that kept me from getting hurt more than i was or killed…the head actually acted like a shield, keeping the steam directly off my neck and face…because i was directly over it, when it blasted off the top of the well, my arms folded into my chest thus preventing the head from going any higher and possibly landing on top of my head and surely killing me…it also help me set the head down right where i always did next to the hole on top of the well…as i was being escorted away initially i glanced over at the well and the head was sitting there perfectly with the two bars still protruding from each side…when i had turned in my resignation letter to my director on the last of my career job, stated “ive enjoyed my time here…it had been very good to me but it was time for me to go but if anyone should need to get in touch with me, please do it in the mail because i would be out fishing and would miss the call”…he looked at me and said, “i envy you, you don’t know how i wish i could just do what it is you are doing like it was nothing”…little did he know i didn’t have a phone so i was just making a point, i didn’t fish every day, just most days, when i wasn’t at the beach, scouting around for women or doing whatever it is i well pleased…the statement struck me so odd looking at this young educated man sitting in a nice big office at a nice big beautiful desk in his suit shirt and tie…

so i took my dogs and went to the cabin…the cabin as it was affectionately known as by my mom, was a bay home on bolivar peninsula, just across the ferry from galveston…i had spent most of my teen years helping my dad do every facet of building this 900 ft²…my dad was always building something…as a little boy with a spider bite on my foot, i remember squatting down in the driveway of my birth home watching my dad and his best friend put boards my mother had wrapped with hot steaming towels she brought out from the hot water heater, on the bow a mohagany cabin cruiser…the finished boat was top notch when it was done…my dad had skills and soon i learned them and learned them well…so here i was in this furnished house on pylons sitting on the edge of a man-made canal…there was no phone, no tv, no radio, no problems…by now i had a new motorcycle, traded up again…along with some other toys i was set…the year before a storm coming in from the gulf of mexico forced me to mover our airplane to safer grounds…yes my dad and i owned an airplane, we both flew it, i had extensive time in it and even flew it right through the bermuda triangle and back…i ended up in this little town on the mexican border called lajitas…i had a really good time there as the people who ran a lonely hotel took me in…it just so happens that a millionaire developer out of houston build all of because he liked the desert climate and wanted a place to go and get away from all the stresses in his life…so hence the single runway, hotel and a few homes in the bend in the road…i even climbed lajitas bluff and made my initials with dead cacti so i could get in my phone, fly over it and photograph it…i loved doing that and was pretty good at it…i was a pretty good photographer having grew up with cameras, all of which i ended up with as my dad traded up…i spent a lot of time riding my motorcycle…between marriages i packed up the second one i hadn’t mentioned and headed west…i was going out to the big honda gold wing rally in ruidoso new mexico…i had always wanted to take a long bike trip west and this seemed the perfect time…all my dogs were gone, marriages gone, job gone and i was gone…the ride was sensational…

i spent 14 years riding motorcycles…most of the time i didn’t own a car and didn’t want one…my dad was always giving them to me because he said, “you can’t go out on a date on that thing”…man was he ever wrong…about a lot of things…i used to take the girl friend i had during my first marriage and ride…we would just cruise neighborhoods nice and slow and easy and she would wrap her loving arms around me, squeeze me with her inner thighs and pull herself tight against me…i loved cruising like this…one evening right at dusk, we were doing just that thing…my wife and i had argued over her kicking her shoes off in the middle of the floor for me to step on and risk injury because she was too inconsiderate to kick them off in the closet or too lazy to pick them up and carry them there…so after a hard day at work, i wold bend over, pick them and put them into the closet…i have this thing about shoes on the floor because i never look down when i walk in a house…it comes from moving around my own for so many years in the dark, quietly and deliberately as to not make any noise because my dad was a feather light sleeper…so off she went and off i went and this fated evening found me with another woman’s arms wrapped around me while i cruise the streets with one hand on the handlebars and one hand squeezing hers so tightly pressed against my chest…suddenly a full size muffler appears only a few feet in front of me…it is laying directly in my path…it is end to end to me as i can clearly see the end with the short piece of pipe pointing right at me…i didn’t even have enough time to put my other hand on the handlebars…there was a violent jolt as the front tire hit it…then another jolt as the back tire hit it…i had not noticed a small jolt between the two larger ones but i did feel the final jolt as her fingers dug deep into my soft tissue…i had driven completely over it, perfectly down its center as to not so much as rock it one single millimeter to one side or the other…my front tire hit it, went upon top of it, rolled down its center and then off, hence the minor jolt…the back tire followed the exact same path with the exact same results…even tho the jolts were violent, the handlebars did not move under my one hand that was squeezing the living daylights out of the throttle grip…i had not even let off the gas…i looked in the mirror as i saw it fading into the darkness in which it arose…not moving at all…before this day, 3 times something similar had happened while i rode my bike…i hit a pothole in the middle of a construction exchange on interstate 45 which i took to work near downtown from my suburban home…i hit it in traffic doing 50 miles per hour…it appeared from underneath the car in front of me…i hit it so hard that it bent the rim of my front tire on one side…i never got it fixed…another time i hit a chunk of concrete that had fallen out of a dump truck on the feeder road of the interstate…again i was riding with one hand when out from underneath the car in front of me was a huge chunk o rock…i was heading right for it and again had no time to avoid it…the collision was so violent that it lunged me forward, chest against the tank and then as the back tire hit it, lifted me off the seat…it was so violent that it knocked the transmission between two gears…again i immediately looked in the mirror and the chuck of concrete that stood a good 8 inches tall and at least that square, sat motionless…another time very near this same spot i was in a hurry and running late for work as usual, i entered a cloverleaf section to get on the feeder road and then the interstate when just as im leaning into the asphalt curve i see a new patch just laid the evening before and cars driving over it had loosened up pieces of gravel used in the mix…as soon as my wheels hit it i cold feel them sliding and the bike going down…these were big bikes i rode…when the foot peg hit it folded just like it was designed to do…these engines were like a subaru engine, a horizontally opposed, boxer type 4 cylinder with the exhaust under it…i always kept my bikes looking sharp so there was hardly a scratch on it…then i felt my foot catch the pavement and fly toward the back of the bike…soon i found myself heading toward this elevated edge and the large grassy area beyond…there was no curbing so i knew i was going into the grass and dirt…the funny thing is, as in all the other cases ive mentioned, i never had a second of fear or panic or confusion…i just held on…no sooner than the bike went down did it pop right back up and before i reached that edge i was in full control of the bike but heading off into the grass…recovery was easy and on to work i went…then there was the time i hit crossing train tracks on a wet winter day on galveston islands wharf area…this motorcycle, the last of them weighed a whooping 700 plus pounds without me or anything else in it or on it…that bike went down so fast i could only go for the ride…then the final time and just prior to my meeting the next woman, i entered a cloverleaf too fast one night…it had been raining earlier but the concrete road was dry…i started out good in the curve when in my headlight i could see a row of mud along the inside curve extending out about a foot from it and i could see it was a couple of inches thick against the curb…i could not avoid it as i moved over closer and closer until my front tire hit the edge of it, soon to be followed by the back and the two in unison started sliding toward the curb…i could feel that now familiar feeling of the bike on its way down to the ground since the last one had resulted in just that…fortunately there i was traveling real slow which contributed to the minor crash…this time it looked bleak from my seat…the bike continued to slide until i felt the wheels hit the curb in unison…it was not violent even though i was traveling much faster than all the previous times…it was like it was gently placed right in the crease between the concrete road and the concrete curb…then this 900 or so pound motorcycle tracked around that curb through a good 20 yards of mud, curving precisely with it, on an angle with me holding on for dear life…no fear, no panic or panic or confusion, just a gentle ride through the mud and as the curb followed the road in the opposite direction, the motorcycle came right back up into an upright position and i regained control and went home to my amazement…i am telling you these things because all throughout my life i should have been injured, maimed or dead…i had friends who ended up as all three of those…i should have all three of those…i’ve known people who got killed from things a lot less apparent than these i have described…soon i would come to understand…

one night i was laying back on my bike late at night waiting for the ferry…at that hour it ran on the hour and i would often pull up to the front of the line, put my motorcycle on the center stand then climb on and lay back…it was very comfortable and sometimes i would fall asleep…the ferry docking would always wake me…but this particular time i decided to just park off to the side at the end of the line…eventually other cars pulled behind me…i would sometimes keep my helmet on so i would stay warm, shade my eyes and protect my head in case i rolled off to one side and smacked it on the ground…as i laid there i could feel someone moving around the back and then the side of me…she moved around the front all the way to the other side, looking or trying to look under the dark shield that was attached to it…then she started back the way she came and i could see it was my younger sister trying to look if it was me…i didn’t move as i watched here flinch in agony as to disturb me or not and possibly wake a stranger to ask such a stupid question as, “terry”…i guess she could see my big white teeth in the darkness with the parking area lights shining off of them…come to find out she brought a friend with her and her husband, that she worked with at an airport hotel lounge…she was young, 19 at the time, very cute, petite yet muscular and a very likable personality…they followed me to the cabin and we spent all night partying…then i took this young woman to bed and made beautiful love to her…i knew right then, she was not leaving when the others woke up…i’d like to report that this woman who became everything to me, became the mother of my only son, lover of my dreams, never left…and she didn’t for quite some time…i purchased a shrimp boat and took off to make a living at my new career…we eventually got married and on the one hand it looked as if everything was going well…

that lasted, you guessed it, two years…so i divorced her since she wanted to move on but i would not let her take our son with her…she agreed and gave me sole custody of him…i can remember just prior to this taking him off the seat of my motorcycle as i would take im for short rides in front of me…i remember thinking to myself, “i’ve ridden these for 14 years  and ive been fortunate…i have something worth living for now”…

so off we went, no dogs, no motorcycle and no nothing, job, money, home…i was devastated personally…

i mentioned these “things” that would frequently happen to me concerning knowing things in advance…like most people, in the beginning i dismissed them or was surprised and even revelled in the fact that such a thing could happen to me…by the time i reached my teens, i felt different from the other people i knew and went to school with…for some reason i got treated somewhat different…mostly i got left alone…not that i didn’t have my share of bullies or people who didn’t like me…but to me, that mattered little…all i was interested in were those who did like me and those who did want to hang out with me…and of coarse, there were the women…i don’t really know how to say this about myself other than to just say it…women love me…many have deeply…a few will eternally…

i remember walking through the mall with one of my girlfriends…don’t get me wrong, most of the time i only had one and i would devote everything to her, my time, my attention and my love…i always found a comfort in a woman that i couldn’t get anywhere else…the instinct to bond with a woman is sort of like a son bonding with his mother…this was almost always present in my relationships…it made them intense to say the least…but i remember this one particular day when we were in a department store looking at female clothing…as we passed someone, they glanced up and looked me in the eye, then back to what they were doing…then as it had happened so many times, they immediately looked back directly into my eyes as i passed them…our eyes would follow each others and the look on their face was that of a person who felt they knew me but just couldn’t place where…for me, at first it was annoying…i remember nudging my girlfriend and asking her if there was something on my face or mouth because people keep giving me double-takes…it would have been much easier to explain away if there had been egg on my face…

it wasn’t just the women…there were male friends along the way that would come and go…those that i considered friends, enjoyed being around me and me them…i had a diversity of friends…all were white…as hard as it may seem to believe today, back then there were no blacks and a very, very few  hispanics, orientals or any other race in my schools…i never went to school with a black person until i entered college…whats even harder to believe is that i lived a mere 10 miles from downtown houston…now days, that area of town is probably one of the most diverse in the city…it has spread far more than i ever imagined it capable and the high school is now a lower learning school and a new much larger high school was built…it seems now a drive out of town involves around 30 miles in any direction what used to be small towns and communities are now just part of one big spread…after all, it is the 4th largest city in the states…more on that place later…

i h ad my few core friends…most lived on my block in the neighborhood…we were normal by most accounts…i no longer did stupid stuff alone, or at least most of the time i wasn’t alone when i did stupid stuff…there were 6 of us, close, related, neighbors and friends who constantly hung out together, usually on our block…now there are only 3 of us…me and two brothers…my cousin drowned, according to  his wife who was with him, due to too many quaaludes…i asked her after his funeral if he was stoned when he drowned…she said no, but it was from taking one too many drugs in the prior years that killed him…something about it at the time just didn’t make sense to me…as judge judy says, “if it doesn’t make sense then it is not true”…that woman knows her stuff ok because one year later on the exact same day, my cousins best friend from further down the block, one of the 6, drowned on the exact same river, at the exact same spot, under the exact same conditions…and she was there to witness that death as well…and like before, since no one else was there with them at the time of the drowning, her story is the only one heard…many years later, one day talking to one of the brothers who was there both times, told me, she provided the drugs in both cases, suggested they go for a swim at their favorite place on the river in both cases, then returned alone to the camp in both cases saying the other person had disappeared while swimming alone…the investigation concluded an accident and no charges were ever brought… the autopsy states the cause of death as drowning due to drug inducement…as for the wife, she couldn’t lie to me without me knowing, no one can, she told me what she wanted me to believe but she told me what i needed to hear…i heard a lie…i just didn’t understand it at the time…

there were many things i did not understand during the younger years…things made sense but i did not always know what they meant to me…i could see at them, touch them, smell them, taste them, hear to them and i could feel them…oh yes i could feel them…the feelings didn’t always appear to be what i thought they were…in the beginning i struggled with this trying to decide which was from my mind and which was from this other place, a place i had yet discovered…when i finally did understand one day, i stopped thinking about everything…

let me say something you will remember as you read on…i refrain from and rarely use words with extreme or open ended meanings…i do this because it is all too easy for us as humans to use them all the time…words like always, never, now etc…these words should be used sparingly because they are what you believe…every word that comes out or your mouth you own…so if you use words of extremity then you are destine to fail by your word unless those words come from your heart and you believe without any doubt that God Himself is forcing those words from your heart and out your mouth…i get to hear them just like the rest of my audience hears them…when and if you are ever able to do this then you will have been elevated above most others by the Hand of God…so for me to use the word “everything” in the above sentence is purposfully placed there…

because i did stop using my mind to speak for me, inturpute for me and guide me, i have been able to use my mind as a processor, storage facility and memory bank…it is now only full of information, uncluttered and organized for my use instead of the world that is so demanding and busy around me…i am oblivious to it all now because of these reasons…my speech has gone from near muteness and confusion, clutter and inaccuracies to clearity, organization and knowledge, truthful knowledge…so even though i always knew right from wrong, i did not always have everything i needed to utilize my possessions to do what it is i am here to do…how could i or why would i want to deal with things so important without all the info, training and faith i needed to be successful… it  was not time yet to do anything other than what i had, was or was about to do…

i can remember when i was young, a few key things…at some delicate age, i reached into my closet one morning, pulled out my brown leather shoes and slipped them on and went looking for someone to tie them for me…i  stepped out the side door of the house when i felt a stinging on my foot…i pulled the shoe off and out poured a scrunched up spider…to me it looked huge and it left an everlasting impression…after all these years i still adhere to the same actions i took from that day forward when it came to putting on shoes…don’t worry about something that rarely happens and then only worry about it if it has an adverse effect on you and then only when you think you can’t handle it any longer; then maybe its time to cut off your own foot…a bit drastic for a little spider bite from a scrunched up spider that just wanted out of my old brown leather shoe and away from my scented foot…

i can remember the first time i successfully tied my own shoe…it was interesting because my sister was always trying to teach me to do it…but it never made sense to me no matter how she did it…on that fated day, i was on my own and bam!…as plain as the day it was done and it made perfect sense…now i can tie my shoes 27 different ways…if i drink enough alcohol…if i do drink too much the shoe will be the least of my problems…

i can remember my first kiss…i was 9 years old and one of my older sisters friends was visiting as usual…they would always end up in my parents bedroom because my mother had the big mirror…so i would hide…and listen…i never really knew what or who they were talking about but it was just the idea i could lay under their feet and they would never know i was there…on this particular day i either got caught or i just walked in on them…either way, my sister walked out of the room and her friend told me she was going to show me how to kiss…and so she did…

i cant remember a whole lot about school except i didn’t seem to take to it that well…i seemed to be more interested in the girls and getting to go home than anything the teacher would be demanding i do…seems most were always demanding i do something…in my high school years it got much easier, oh what a light at the end of a long, twisty, dark tunnel will do for your motivation…i tried college and there they didn’t care whether or not i did anything…since i wasn’t partial to the scholastics,  i opted out and into the working world…

i can remember learning things quickly when i used my hands on them…through the years it has helped me be able to do many things…it was not always about whether i was the best at something, fastest at it or smartest but that i tried…sometimes it was only about getting a job done and utilizing what you had learned so far to accomplish the task at hand…now there is nothing i can not do…

that’s what i have learned…

so far…