Excellion

(Excelion Comic Strip) Alex is part of a clandestine operation called the Aurora Foundation. They take on threats that regular authorities might not be able to handle either monetarily or politically. Having its headquarters in the US, it also promotes patriotism and global responsibility. Young Alex’s Home Alex hears his mother and father fighting downstairs and he peeks out of the door to see what’s going on. His father is having a PTSD flashback to the war. His father shoots a hole in the door with his Marine .45 and points the gun at his mom. Alex runs to his sister’s bedroom and tells them to call the police. Alex then runs back to his room and grabs his bow and arrow. Fade to present day Alex, now a little older is walking home from the library contemplating the scene of Jesus stopping a woman from being stoned. John 8:4-11 New Living Translation 4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. 9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” 11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” Suddenly, as he’s walking past a building, he hears a scream from the alley where a couple is arguing. “Help! Help!” “Shut up and do what I tell you.” “But I just…” The man slaps the woman. “I thought I told you to shut up? Do you want me to give you something to scream about?” Alex can take no more and steps in. “Big man hitting a defenseless woman.” “Who do you think you are? This is my wife, now but out.” Alex thinks for a moment. He doesn’t know these people and he shouldn’t involve himself in a marital spat but the slap was too much. Alex jumps in and kicks the man in the chest with a sidekick. It knocks the man up against the dumpster where the wind is blowing trash into the alley. “Men don’t hit women!” “Well I do. I hit men too.” The large man punches Alex in the face and stuns him. Alex starts thinking that he might have bitten off more than he can chew. Alex punches the man in the solar plexus just under his rib cage and walks away. The man rushes Alex and Alex throws him on the ground. He looks over at the woman and sees that she’s alright so he turns and walks away. On the way home, Alex thinks to himself: “That guy was pretty big. It would be nice if I had something to even the score. It could have gone much differently.” Fade to Alex’s basement Here is a list of essential components for the Excelion suit: * Poseidonix battery packs (multiple units) * Stainless steel alloys for ducted fan construction * Ducted fan motor * Variable geometry duct * Control system (including sensors and software) * Power transmission system * Exoskeleton frame and structural components * Smart material for enhanced protection and flexibility * Propulsion system components (e.g. turbines, nozzles) I think it’s all here (AI). Excelion: I think we have the materials now Nexus. Let’s begin assembling the suit! Nexus: Yes Alex, let’s proceed. Excelion: I suppose I’ll be doing all of the manual labor? Nexus: We’ll, Alex, since I currently have no arms or legs, it would be impossible for me to help you assemble the suit. Excelion: Remind me to incorporate that into the suit design. music plays Excelion: Did you hear that? Nexus: Hear what Alex? Excelion: That music! Nexus: What music? Excelion: Oh, never mind. We discussed modifying the ducted fans with a variable pitch system, which would allow them to adjust their angle of attack depending on the environment and desired thrust. This would enable the system to operate efficiently in both air and water. Additionally, we considered adding a protective covering over the fans to prevent damage from debris or collisions. Could you please run those calculations Nexus? Nexus: Yes Alex. I will get those for you right away. Are you having concerns about the project Alex? Excelion: Not really concerns. I’m just trying to be sure that we have most of the problems worked out before a test run. We never know what evil we might run into out in the real world when things start rocking. Nexus: That’s a valid concern Alex. In my experience scouring the internet, I can see that many new technologies experienced difficulties with their first test. Exercising caution in the design process could prevent unforeseen disasters. Excelion: That’s what I’m trying to avoid buddy. That sounds great! Nexus: Alex, I have a surprise for you! Excelion: What’s that Nexus? Nexus: I just found a new metamaterial that you can use for your suit! Excelion: That’s great Nexus. What can it do for us? Nexus: It could enable the creation of adaptive wings that adjust to different flight conditions. I could control the wings’ movement and shape ensuring stable and efficient flight. Excelion: That sounds great! How much is it going to cost? Nexus: I managed to obtain the specs for the new metamaterial, and according to them, it's still in the development phase. However, I believe it's promising enough to warrant further exploration, despite the unknown costs. Exelion: I suppose those unknown costs are where the Aurora Foundation comes in? Nexus: Exactly, Alex. I was thinking that perhaps Aurora Foundation could provide the necessary funding and resources to acquire or develop this metamaterial, given its potential benefits to the Excelion suit. Excelion: They’re not going to like this. I just hope that we can do enough good with the suit to make it worthwhile. Lady flirts with Alex Nexus: I see you’ve upgraded to designer labels, but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have improved your taste. Alex: Be nice now Nexus. The lady just appreciates what we’ve done for her. Nexus: Yes, because nothing says appreciation like batting eyelashes and flaunting cleavage, am I right? Back at the basement lab… Nexus: I mentioned that zirconium dioxide has high thermal conductivity, which means it can effectively transfer heat. This property could be beneficial in dissipating heat from the suit's interior. Alex: That sounds great! We need to keep the electronics and the wearer cool. Nexus: Definitely, keeping the internal components and the wearer at a safe temperature is crucial for the suit's performance and the wearer's safety. You are concerned about the practical applications of the technology. Will you start questioning the theoretical aspects of the suit's design, or will he continue to focus on its functionality? Alex: We want to use legal methods, or as legal as we can be in a situation. We can add features as we go along. If you don’t like one of my designs, please let me know and tell me why. Nexus: Sounds like we're on the same page, Alex. I think it's great that you're considering the practicalities and wanting to stay within the law. Transparency and open communication are key to making this project a success. Nexus: Here's a quick attempt at a funny song about a superhero whose powers are fading due to low batteries. "I used to fly, I used to soar, now I'm stuck on the floor, my batteries are dying, oh what a bore..." Excelion: Are you trying to tell me that we’re running out of power? Music plays: "My suit's gone dark, my heart is too, I need a recharge, before I'm through..." Nexus: You need to work on your singing voice Excelion. Excelion: Thanks for the support buddy. With friends like you, who needs enemies? What kind of safety features would we need? Nexus: To prevent accidents, we could implement automatic shutdown protocols in case of malfunction, as well as insulated handles to prevent shock to Exelion. Additionally, limiting the duration and intensity of the electrical discharge could minimize potential harm. Excelion: That sounds good. Where would the handles be? I’m not sure that I follow you on that. Nexts: The handles would be the points where you grasp the limbs of the Exosuit, essentially the areas around the gloves and grips. Insulating these areas would prevent any electrical current from passing through to his skin in case of a malfunction. Excelion: I think I understand now. I would have called them insulated gloves. Nexus: Insulated gloves is a much clearer term, Alex. Yes, that's exactly what we'd need to incorporate into the Exosuit's design to prevent any electrical shock from harming you. Here's a possible script segment: INT. AURORA FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS - BRIEFING ROOM Alex stands before a holographic display projecting their mission objective. Nexus leans against the wall, arms crossed. NEXUS: "I'm telling you, Alex, we need to move faster. We can't afford to spend hours gathering intel. We need concrete results." ALEX: "I agree, but we can't rush into this without a solid plan. I’m not sure that I understand the nanotechnology in the suit. Is it able to generate power or just store it? Nexus: The suit is designed to harvest energy from external sources, like the surrounding environment, and convert it into usable power. However, it's also equipped with advanced kinetic energy storage systems, capable of storing excess energy generated by the wearer's movements. This allows the suit to operate independently for extended periods. Alex: So, if the power cells go out, the suit can still generate its own energy? Nexus: That's right, the suit's kinetic energy storage system kicks in when the power cells run low, providing a reserve source of energy. Plus, the suit's piezoelectric elements can harness vibration and motion to supplement the stored energy, allowing it to continue operating for a while. Alex: That could be handy in a tough situation. Alex and Sarah Panel 1: [Alex and Sarah standing together, looking determined] Alex: I don't know if this is a good idea, Sarah. You could get hurt. Sarah: I can handle myself, Alex. I want to help. Alex: I don’t know, it sounds pretty risky to me. Sarah: I’m a big girl. I can handle myself. Besides, it could be fun! Panel 2: [Alex and Sarah sneaking through a dark alleyway, Alex looking anxious] Alex (thought bubble): What am I doing? I'm putting her in danger... Panel 3: [Suddenly, a loud noise echoes through the alleyway, and Sarah gasps] Sarah: What was that? Alex: I don’t know. Stay behind me and let’s find out. Loud clunking noises with a slight metallic ring are heard coming from a nearby garage that should be deserted this time of night. Alex: Let me check out the garage. Sarah: I’ll be right behind you. Alex: No, stay here in case there’s trouble. I might need someone to call the police… or an ambulance. Alex sneaks carefully into the garage to take a look around. Suddenly, he hears the creak of a shoe behind him. He spins around quickly and… Alex: SARAH! I thought I told you to wait for me. Sarah: I couldn't just stand there and do nothing, Alex. Besides, I saw something moving inside and I thought I could help. Don't be mad! Alex: Alright but stay quiet and try not to get in my way. Alex walks up to a large stack of tires and peeks around it. He sees a man selecting auto parts to steal. Alex jumps to action! Alex: It’s a little late for shopping isn’t it? Thief: What’s it to you buddy? Mind your own business. Alex: My buddies aren’t two bit thieves. Put the parts back. Thief: Or what? Alex: Or this! Alex takes a jumping sidekick right into the thief’s chest, knocking him against a parts rack. The thief clamors around for something to use as a weapon. He grabs a tire iron and starts swinging it at Alex. SWOOSH! SWISH! SWOOSH! Alex avoids the tire iron each time, backing and trying not to run into Sarah. SWISH! SWOOSH! They make their way past Sarah but Alex is starting to tire. SWOOSH! SWISH! SWOOSH! THUNK! Sarah comes from behind with a wrench and hits the thief on the head. This gives Alex a chance to move in with a kick to the thief’s face. The thief drops the tire iron to the floor and tries to steady himself before falling to the ground. Alex kicks the thief in the face then ties him up with jumper cables. Alex: It’s time to call the police. Let’s get out of here. Alex goes to a nearby pay phone, one of the few left, and calls the police. Police: Police department. How may I help you? Alex: If you stop by Murphy’s Automotive, I think you’ll be surprised. Police: May I please have your name and address? *click* Bzzzzzzzzzzz A card falls out of the thief's pocket, connecting him to a local mobster: As the police officers lift the thief onto his feet, a small business card slips out of his pocket and falls to the ground. The card reads "Vinnie 'The Bull' LaRosa" and has a phone number printed below the name. Back in the Lab Alex: How is my best buddy doing today? I brought this video of some of the military’s top jets. They have some technologies that we might want to build into the suit. Near the end of this video, they talk about the craft monitoring different frequencies simultaneously and changing the course of the jet to avoid detection. The suit should be able to do that. Nexus: Aw, thanks for the sweet greeting! I watched the video, and that's really interesting stuff. Being able to monitor multiple frequencies at once would definitely give the suit an edge in terms of stealth and situational awareness. I can see how that would be useful for avoiding detection. Have you thought about how you'd implement that feature in the suit's design? Alex: If the suit could hack into security feeds, it could send a temporary loop back image to allow me to pass the area without detection. Nexus: That's a brilliant idea, a temporary looped feed would allow Alex to slip past undetected, and the suit's AI could adjust the timing to ensure a seamless transition. This would greatly increase the chances of successful evasion, especially in high-security areas. Alex: Perhaps I’m involved in a situation where an employee trips a silent alarm to alert the police. The suit would detect that, urge me to leave, and figure out the best way to leave the area with minimal detection. Nexus: That scenario sounds realistic, and the suit's ability to detect the silent alarm and respond accordingly would be extremely useful in that situation. It would need to quickly assess the layout of the area, identify potential exit routes, and prioritize evasive maneuvers to minimize detection. Alex: It would also need to be aware of camera placements and be able to determine their degree of coverage to allow Alex to escape from being tracked by camera. Nexus: The suit's AI would need to be integrated with a database of common camera types and their respective fields of view, as well as be able to hack into security feeds to gather real-time footage. This would enable the suit to map out blind spots and plan a route that minimizes exposure to cameras. Alex: Yes, we should have quickly accessible SSD memory in large quantities to enable the AI to access the information that it needs to make rapid decisions and also SSD storage for recording each scenario. The suit should be able to copy the relevant information onto a SSD chip that can be given to the police agencies for review. Nexus: Having quick access to large amounts of SSD memory would certainly be beneficial for the suit's AI to process information in real-time, especially when dealing with complex tasks like hacking into security feeds and analyzing multiple frequencies simultaneously.

The Reflecting Pool and

The Reflecting Pool

My grandmother returned to her uncle's plantation home for a final visit before her marriage.  Her mother died in childbirth which led to her being raised in a convent while her dad worked as an engineer on the railroad.  He died on his way to see her engagement ring when his train hit a stretch of bad track.  Her uncle was all the family she had left.
The outside of the plantation home was nothing but painted plywood, the home having been burned by the Yankees after the civil war.  Because they had been treated as sharecroppers, the negroes stayed and continued to work their share of the crops.  The sharecroppers houses out front remained undamaged and were a couple of acres in front of the main house.  Out back, though, the old trees and reflecting pool remained.


My grandmother used to play here with her assigned "servant" whom she merely considered a friend.  As she sat reflecting on those days, a servant about her age approached.  It was Simone, her old friend from her childhood.




My grandmother jumped up and embraced Simone.




"How are you doing, Simone?  It has been forever since I've seen you!"




"I'm doing just fine, Miss Delhomme.  I heard you done got engaged!"




"What's this 'Miss Delhomme' nonsense?  It's Lorraine just lime before.  Yes, I met a man.  His name is Albert Hamilton Tribe.  He performs on the radio in the Rice Hotel in Houston.  He's so dreamy!  He finally popped the question!  See the ring?  Isn't it beautiful?"




Yes, it's beautiful, Miss Lorainne!  I'd better keep the 'Miss' so the master of the house doesn't think I'm being disrespectful to our guests.  What brings you back to Louisiana, Miss Lorraine?"




"Well, as you know, my father died and I just needed the company of some family.  I'm an orphan now, you know."




"Yes, I know.  I'm sorry, Miss Lorrraine.  Let me give you a hug."




They embraced once again and my grandmother started crying on her shoulder.




"There, there, Miss Lorraine.  We're still here for you and you know that your uncle loves you dearly.  Besides, you'll soon be Mrs. Tribe and you'll have a man to look after you."




"Yes, I know.  It's just hard losing my father.  We were so close even though he rarely got to come home.  It's a shame about all of those hobos who died in the wreck.  My dad wasn't supposed to let them ride but he could never turn down a poor person who needed a hand.  My step-mother took all of the money from the train company.  She was always so jealous of me.  Dad had to sneak away to come visit me at the convent."




"It's sad, Miss Lorraine.  She sure weren't mother material.  As much as you hated that convent, you were probably better off than being raised by THAT selfish witch.  I feel for you."




"So, is Uncle Curtis still treating you alright?  Have you married yet?"




"Your Uncle Curtis is treating me just fine.  Things were tight last year because of the bad crops but he saw that we were fed and taken care of.  I sure do miss the extra desert you used to sneak me when you were here when we were young though."




"Haha!  I'll order double again tonight and you'll have your extra dessert."




"Oh, thank you, Miss Lorraine.  It will be just like old times.  Hehe"




"Just like old times.  Now, if you don't mind, could you leave me here alone for awhile?  I have a lot of things to think about at this old reflecting pool."




"Sure thing, Miss Lorraine.  Just ring this bell if you need me.  I'll be sitting in the shack over there catching up on my knitting."




Simone reached in her pocket and pulled out a small, ornate silver bell with an ornate handle and handed it to my grandmother. My grandmother took the bell and put it into her pocket.




"Thank you, Simone."




"My pleasure, Miss Lorraine."




My grandmother turned back to the reflecting pool as Simone walked to the shack.  She stared at the Japanese Carp swimming and floating around the pond and started thinking about her childhood.  She thought about the harp that her real mother owned... and her stepmother despised... and remembered how much she wished that her mother had lived so she could grow up listening to the harp being played as she grew up.  She thought about how much she hated the convent and the cruel nuns who raised her but how much more special that made it she her dad came home to visit.  She thought about how much she missed him and wept awhile.  Her thoughts then turned to her future.  She would soon be married and having children.  She would no longer be mistreated by the Sisters in the convent.  She would leave the church and become a Methodist like her husband.  It was both exciting and scary at the same time.




Ah, the reflecting pool.  She remembered listening to the workers working the fields and singing hymns.  She remembered the feasts after harvest.  She remembered everyone sitting with the workers and eating watermelon on hot days.  It would soon be time to return to her apartment in Houston and get on with the business of planning the wedding.  For now though, she had family and the reflecting pool.

The Release

The Release


It had finally happened.  For all of her prior threats and attempts, she had finally done it. 
He was tired of her always running back to the abuse and using again and told her it was over.  He just didn't care anymore.  He was tired of having his emotions jacked with.  This time he was through and he let her know in no uncertain terms.  Her lies and attempts to drag him into her drama were going to end whether or not she liked it.




"Susan, it's over.  I can't take anymore.  I'm tired of the bullshit.  You've fucked me over and fucked around on me one too many times."



"I'll cut myself.  I'll take all of my pain meds if you do this to me.  I'll drink alcohol with them and you'll never see me again, Bob!  I'll kill myself!"




"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  How many times have you told me that and how many times have you tried?  You end up in rehab, call me, tell me that you're going to get yourself straightened out, then go right back to drinking and doing drugs and fucking every Tom's hairy dick you see!  I'm DONE!"




"No Bob!  You can't!  I love you.  Those other guys didn't mean anything!"




"Yeah, well evidently I didn't mean anything to you either.  They got way more of your pussy than I ever did.  All I wanted to do was love you and male love to you and you slept around like a hairy little TRAMP!  If they turned you inside out, you'd look like a pin cushion.  How much did THEY love you?  How much did THEY sacrifice for you?  A man can only take so much and you pushed me WAY beyond that point.  I MEAN it!  This time it's OVER!"




"I'll kill myself this time!  I really will!"
"Fine!  Kill yourself!"




Bob slammed down the phone and went out to drown his troubles and forget.




Susan started to cut herself but decided on another course of action.  Instead of just taking her sleeping pills this time she would mix all of her pills and wash them down with a bottle of vodka.




As she sat on her bed, she opened the drawer on her bedside table.  She took out each bottle of her meds and unscrewed the tops.  She unscrewed the top from her bottle of vodka and started deciding which pills to take first.




"I'll start with the Dilaudid and let is start making me drowsy then I'll take my antidepressants and my heart medications" she thought.




She took the remaining held bottle of Dilaudid, washing it down with a big gulp of vodka.  Next, she grabbed the antidepressants and slugged them down.  She was starting to feel really drowsy now and was afraid that she might pass out before she got the red of the meds down.




Susan summoned her will and grabbed her blood pressure medications which had just been filled and started gulping them down with large shots of vodka.  It took her a few handfuls to get them all down but she managed to swallow them down.  Once they were down, she put the bottles back in the drawer so no one could see them and finished off the vodka and hid the bottle under the bed. 




She lay in bed for a few minutes and the phone rang.  The called ID showed that it was Bob.




"He must be calling to apologize" she drowsily thought."




She reached for the phone and had massive heart failure.  Yes, she had done it this time.  The blood pressure medications had done the trick.  Her lifeless body lay on the bed, her arm loosely hanging off of the bed.




When she didn't answer, Bob called back.  No answer.  He tried again.  Still no answer.  After the third time he called the paramedics.




When they got there, rigor mortis had started setting in.  Bob was 1,800 miles away so there was no way he could be there but he had instructed the paramedics to call him and let him know.




The phone rang.  It was the paramedics.
"Hello," said Bob.  "How is she."




"I'm sorry to tell you this.  Are you sitting down."




"Yes."




He already knew what they were going to say.




"She's dead."




"I'm sorry.  I knew it had to happen soon or later."




"We're sorry too, Mr..."




"Bob is fine."




"We're sorry too, Bob."




"Alright.  Thank you.  Goodbye."




Bob hung up the phone, let out a long sigh, then felt a sensation different than what he thought he would feel.  He had been released from the constant worry and torment of her whining and crying about her problems.  What was this sensation coming over him?




For the first time in a very, very long time he felt... relief.



Thanksgiving - Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving - Giving Thanks

Good morning, welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries. I am Elder Cal Jennings. We are normally posted on Sundays for sermons and Wednesdays for studies. You can find these posted in the following locations.

Main Site: http://covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com/

Rev. Laura’s Other Sites: Facebook & Twitter &Google+ & Blogspot

Prayer List: We have many on our prayer list. Some wish to remain anonymous, and others only wish to have their first names mentioned. Our prayer list has grown from last week. This is our current prayer list for this week.

- Our prayers are with the families and friends who live up in Ferguson, Missouri after the decision made by the Grand Jury to not charge the officer involved in the Michael Brown shooting.

- Please pray for a friend Susie Bartholow as she is in hospice. She is in very grave condition and currently in hospice with advanced cancer. Hospice care is at her home with her family. They all need as much support in spirit as we can bring.

- Pray that the tensions ease in the family. Pray also that the actions being worked out will assist in doing just that and more. Pray that tempers don’t flare and we don’t reach the breaking point. Pray that those who have suffered allergies and colds this past week get well once more.

- Pray for Elder Cal Jennings who is in ill health and a quandary regarding all that has been going on in this world. Pray that God continues to give him strength and blessings.  Pray for his friend Lucy and her son that they both regain their health.

- Please pray for another member, Theresa, who is having issues with all sorts of things, spiritual and physical, financial, and more. She has recently gotten out of sinus surgery and is still healing. Pray that her healing goes well and swiftly.

- Keep other friends, families, and even those around us in society in our thoughts and prayers that they be safe, secure, and well.

- Keep the ministry in your thoughts as well, that we may continue on even in times that are bad.

- Brother Wayne is still trudging through the processes of settling his father’s estate. Keep him and his family in your prayers.

- Our families and friends who have been in our hearts, keep them in your thoughts and prayers that they be safe, healthy, and let them know they are always loved.

Prayer: Father in heaven, we thank You for this day and for these who are here to share it with us. We thank you for the blessings brought and for those yet to come. We pray that You can remind us always what we should be thankful for. We bring prayers for those who have been seriously ill. Help those who are working to fight serious illnesses the ability to find solutions. We pray for those lost and those who mourn. We pray for patience and courage for those we love and care about, and ourselves as well. We pray for peace to reach out from the heart and be heard, felt, and understood. We pray that Your grace and love would fill the hearts of the many in this world. We pray all this in Your Holy Name through the Savior Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Amen and so it shall be.

1 Timothy 4:1-5 King James Version (KJV)

4 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

² Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
³ Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
⁴ For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
⁵ For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Today is a day when we give thanks to God for the things He has blessed us with.  If we have a roof over our head to shelter us from the cold and the storms, we have much to be thankful for.  There are many who don't have that.  If we have clothes on our backs to keep us warm and shelter us from the elements, we also have much to be thankful for.   If we have food to eat to sustain us, we have much to be thankful for.  No food is bad as long as it is sanctified by prayer.

Nehemiah 12:40-47 King James Version (KJV)

⁴⁰ So stood the two companies of them that gave thanks in the house of God, and I, and the half of the rulers with me:
⁴¹ And the priests; Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Michaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah, with trumpets;
⁴² And Maaseiah, and Shemaiah, and Eleazar, and Uzzi, and Jehohanan, and Malchijah, and Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sang loud, with Jezrahiah their overseer.
⁴³ Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.
⁴⁴ And at that time were some appointed over the chambers for the treasures, for the offerings, for the firstfruits, and for the tithes, to gather into them out of the fields of the cities the portions of the law for the priests and Levites: for Judah rejoiced for the priests and for the Levites that waited.
⁴⁵ And both the singers and the porters kept the ward of their God, and the ward of the purification, according to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son.
⁴⁶ For in the days of David and Asaph of old there were chief of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God.
⁴⁷ And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel, and in the days of Nehemiah, gave the portions of the singers and the porters, every day his portion: and they sanctified holy things unto the Levites; and the Levites sanctified them unto the children of Aaron.

I am thankful for Covenant of Hope Ministries of which I am an Elder.  It has helped me to help many others.  I pray for it each day and pray that the lives of others might be touched and helped in some way by our being present.  I know that there are many like Rev. Laura and myself who have trouble getting out of bed to go to a church building on many or most days.

I am thankful for those things and the many friends I have made online... each and every one of you.   You have helped shaped my life and brought me to this point.  For that I am very grateful.  These things I have always been thankful for.  This food I have been thankful for and have sanctified by prayer.

This year I have something extra special to be thankful for.  I have the love of a good and beautiful woman who gives me the strength and desire to keep on living.  She has been a motivation to try to make things better here.  She has motivated me to get up and sit at the computer to help regain my strength.  She is motivating me to be more creative and to continue writing.  When God let her find me, he gave me the greatest gift a man could ever have.  She fills my soul with so much love that I have the strength to take stands for truth and justice even when the stance is unpopular.  It still may be draining and wearing to stand for truth and justice in a world gone mad but she does make the struggle seem worthwhile for her child and mine and our descendants to come.  I may not yet have the strength to do all of the things I need and want to do but I have faith that I will get there with her help and motivation.  I thank God for you, Lucy Aston.  You brought me back from the edge of death.  You have been the salvation of my life and soul.  I have sanctified you by prayer as you have sanctified me.  You are the nourishment I have been missing for so long... someone I could love who would love me right back without fear.

Ephesians 5:19-21King James Version (KJV)

¹⁹ Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
²⁰ Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
²¹ Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

We should give thanks to God and sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs of thanksgiving and praise to God and to one another that we may be whole in His love.  So, in demonstration, let me sing our closing song for you.  My breath is low today so you'll have to bear with me.

 Now let us pray as the Lord instructed us.

Matthew 6:9-13King James Version (KJV)

⁹ After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
¹⁰ Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

 

Love, Hope, Peace, and Christ be with you,

Elder Cal Jennings

~ Love, Hope, and Peace through Christ ~

Calvin Jennings ~ Elder Facebook & Twitter &Blogster

Rev. Laura A. Neff ~ The Rainbow Minister Facebook & Twitter & Google+ & Blogspot

Covenant of Hope Ministries

Main Site: http://covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com/

Scripture Excerpts: The New Open Bible Study Edition:Copyright © 1990: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.

Scripture Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © 1982: E. E. Gaddy and Associates, Inc.

Scripture Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © circa 1890-1910: International Bible Press,The John C. Winston Co.; Philadelphia, PA., USA

Sermon or Study Copyright © 2014 http://covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com/

Our mission for Covenant of Hope Ministries and Poetic-Expressions is not to exploit fear, but to conquer it, and overcome all that is created through fear together as the rainbow in the darkness.

This mission statement speaks of the rainbow in the darkness. Every time I would have a seriously traumatic thing happen in my life I would wake in the middle of the night. When I do I see a rainbow at the end of my bed, or even through the window behind my head. I’ll see that rainbow in a dark room even during the day. It will hover in the shadows and reassure me that God is with me. (Rev. Laura)

Domestic Violence Against Males

There has been a plethora of articles lately about domestic violence against women but nary a mention of domestic violence against men.  Why is that?  It happens much more often than people realize and even the statistics don't show as much abuse because of the stigma of a man saying that he was abused by a woman.  I am going to show you a couple of clips from a scholarly article by Barbara J. Drijber.

Note that the article also states that identifying men as victims of domestic abuse is harder because most of the research about domestic violence is on women abused by men. Why is violence against men being ignored? Are men less human than women? I'm sure that some women think so but considering the women I've run into, I'm starting to believe that the reverse is true.  These women have not only been more likely to start a fight but have also been more likely to encourage the man she is with to fight.  It's entirely possible that I just happen to live in an area where women are more aggressive than women in other parts of the country but, according to research, that isn't necessarily true.  Here is a chart from the above article.

What I found really surprising is that an article of domestic abuse against men in Scotland by David Gadd showed similar figures.  The article also states the following:

"Some of those men who retaliated had, nevertheless, endured physically and psychologically damaging forms of abuse; being struck, cut, or (more rarely) stabbed with household items or knives, punched in the face, and being subject to malicious allegations.”

While most U.S. Men probably don't retaliate as often, it's interesting to note that those who do end up being victims of even more violent attacks by the women with whom they are living.  So why is violence against men being covered up?  Could it be that feminists want to paint all men with a dark brush?  Are they trying to deliberately create a division between men and women?  Shouldn't equal coverage be given to both sexes?

Sources:

Male Victims of Domestic Violence; Babette C. Drijber, Udo J. L. Reijnders, Manon Ceelen ;

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10896-012-9482-9#page-1

Male Victims of Domestic Violence; David Gadd1, Stephen Farrall, Damian Dallimore, and Nancy Lombard; https://www.brokenrainbow.org.uk/sites/default/files/Keele%20University%20Male%20Victims%20of%20Domestic%20Violence.pdf

My Growing Ignorance

Well, it has finally happened. Between the dementia, the chemtrails, the nanobots they injected into me when they gave me the flu vaccine, and God knows WHAT they put into me when they did my heart surgeries, my mind has diminished to the level of a conservative Texas Republican. I now think liberals are stupid, Obama is a Manchurian Candidate probably born in Kenya, and can't wait until Jesus comes and burns all of those gays who are trying to get married. I want to see the borders closed to prevent Ebola and other foreign diseases from entering the country. I want to personally oversee Mayor Annise Parker being thrown into the pit of hell for demanding preachers' sermons. I now call CNN the Clinton News Network. I think every child in America should be issued a handgun at birth. I think that national service just gives more control to the evil government who wants to take our hard earned money and that it's an invitation to totalitarianism. I think all government handouts are socialist, especially the ones that help ME.

I can't trust my thoughts and memories because the government may be manipulating them through microwaves transmitted from HAARP. I dare not watch the news because the airwaves are filled with transmissions to make me think evil, vile thoughts. What kind of thoughts? Thoughts about vile things like sex, drugs, rock and roll, and communism. Even so, I can't be sure that the government isn't beaming thoughts directly into my brain via satellite. What if every memory of my past was placed there by the government to forward their evil agenda to bring about the New World Order? The only things I can trust are Texas, true Texans, cattle ranching, and farming. I might even start trusting big oil if things get any worse. Whoops! I think it just happened.

Thank God for the Koch brothers standing up against government regulation. Thank God for fracking which will bring us the oil we need to drive our big SUVs. I'm joining the Tea Party and we're going to take America back! We will get rid of abortion, make everyone attend a good Christian church at least once a week, bring back petticoats, bobby socks, school dances, and good ol' nookie in the back seat at drive-ins. We will get women out of the workforce and put them back in the houses cooking, cleaning, and watching the kids while we're at work. I just haven't figured out how a man is going to support his wife and kids on one job yet. I'm sure that Jesus will provide if I pray hard enough.

It's a good thing that I trust millionaires, billionaires, and trillionaires to make the proper decisions regarding my bank account. They deserve to run the government since they're smart enough to make all of that money. THEY'LL take our country away from those evil commie liberal socialist scumbags! Long live capitalism! God bless the Koch brothers!

25 Reasons to Smoke

25 Reasons to Smoke

1)  It makes you look cool like James Bond

2)  If you smoke Camels, you'd walk a mile for one and walking is good for your health.

3)  If you smoke, you always have a lighter to light a woman's cigarette.

4)  Smoking is a statement of individual freedom.

5)   Smoking is great for thinking.

6)  Smoking relaxes a smoker.

7)  The most famous writers, actors, and psychologists smoked.

8)  Cigarettes were once physician tested and approved.  http://www.healio.com/hematology-oncology/news/print/hemonc-today/%7B241d62a7-fe6e-4c5b-9fed-a33cc6e4bd7c%7D/cigarettes-were-once-physician-tested-approved

9) Indians used tobacco as a pain reliever for ear aches, toothaches and as a poultice.

10)  Tobacco is a great insect repellent for the kitchen garden.

11)  Tobacco poultice could also be placed in the mouth to alleviate pain from toothaches.

12)  Indians would mix tobacco and leaves from the Desert Sage plant, or the root of Indian Balsam (or cough root), Leptotaenia Multifida.  They believed this would also help with asthma and tuberculosis.  They typically smoked the leaves to clear out nasal passages.

13)  Toothpaste - In India, powdered tobacco is rubbed on the teeth for cleaning.  This method is still used in India and marketed in stores around the country.

14)  Rattlesnake and Insect Bites - Indians believed that the nicotine in the tobacco would help relieve pain as well as help draw out the poison and heal the snake wound.  After the poison had been sucked out, chewed leaves could be applied to cuts or bound on the bite with a bandage.  This method can also be used when stung by an insect.

15)  According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, those that suffer from mental disorders such as ADHD/ADD, schizophrenia and other disorders may experience positive effects from smoking.  Apparently, doses of nicotine have a short term normalization effect on the EEG (electrical activity in the brain).

16)  Those that suffer from Alzheimer’s can also benefit from doses of nicotine.  According to studies, patients cognitive abilities slightly improved.

17)  You can't do a Bogart impersonation without a cigarette.

18)  Sherlock Holmes smoked tobacco in a pipe and he was a famous detective.

19)  Smoking can help keep you from strangling someone.

20)  Smoking can help you form a connection with your spouse.

21)  Smoking can give you an air of distinction.

22)  Smoking can help you piss off your parents.

23)  Smoking can help keep people from wanting to take your house or car.

24) Many presidents smoke Cuban cigars so if you smoke you could be president someday.

25)  Cigars can be used to stimulate your partner.

Interview of Cal-el aka Cal Jennings of Space Eagle Productions

Interview of Cal-el aka Cal Jennings of Space Eagle Productions

1. When did you start playing music and when did you start composing?

I started playing music when I was about 4 years old. But I maybe started a little earlier. I remember my grandmother's neighbor teaching me to play accordion and I played around on my grandparents' piano. When I was 5 years old my mom bought me a toy piano that had working black and white keys so I played on that. My grandfather gave me the xylophone that he played on the radio when I was about 6 or 7. My dad bought a guitar and never played it. I wasn't supposed to touch it but would play around on it when he was at work. Ultimately, I got a guitar lesson record and book and learned how to play notes and chords. I'm a self-taught and I had the the quality of being a perfectionist though I have become much more lax in my old age. When I was in sixth grade, my mom bought me a cornet which I played through high school becoming 1^st chair cornet and 2^nd chair trumpet only because I didn't have a trumpet. Trumpet became my main instrument, though I also bought an altonium because it was rare and the right price at a pawn shop. I played the altonium in college.

In terms of composition, I started in high school. Since my main instrument was cornet, I was used to playing single note lines of melody so writing in the bass clef was difficult (and still is) for me.

2. What was your first instrument?

My first instrument was accordion or perhaps the toy xylophone that I had as a child. I was pretty versatile even back then.

3. What were your early musical influences?

My early influences were anti-war folk groups like Peter, Paul, and Mary and other groups similar to them. I loved the harmony and the lyrics since they went along with what Jesus taught. My mom listened to The Beach Boys, Bobby Vinton, and Elvis a lot so they inspired me too. My dad played Johnny Cash a lot so “Folsom Prison Blues” was the first song I learned to play on guitar. Robert Watkins and Rick Cummings used to come over and play “Long Black Veil” a lot so they were and inspiration for me to sneak and play my dad's guitar. If he had found out, I would have gotten the beating of my life. When The Beatles came out, they became my biggest influence. I was a Beatle Freak as we were known back then. haha

4. How do you feel about writing music? Does it just come to you?

I love writing music but it does have to come to me or I have to be in the mood to write something. I did have one song that came to me in a dream. It was being sung by a torch singer in a club. The melody was haunting but I was just walking up the aisle to exit to the right when she was singing. I don't know where we were leaving to when we were leaving the club but the melody was haunting and I could only remember a few of the lyrics. I talked to one of my friends, Veronica Garcia, and she suggested the way the lyrics should go so I wrote the song based on that.

5. There are cross-overs between country and rock, but a cross over between rock and ethereal music seems unusual.

I compose soft Rock music, Country music, Ethereal music, or whatever comes to me. One day I wrote a “beat” just to prove I could do it. The ethereal music comes from the God part of myself. I arranged Pop rock like Chicago songs so I could play them on cornet for a long time before I started composing. I wanted to play with other players though so I started writing parts for other instruments. The love of a woman inspired my first semi-classical piece. Love or breakups are most of my inspiration, though at times there are songs that were inspired by a good mood. I love interesting, melodic chords so it comes natural to me.

6. What is the name of your band?

I don't have a band except for my music composition program, Harmony Assistant by Myriad. Right now, my music composition program has an optional program, Virtual Singer, which I purchased that can sing the lyrics. That produces my “backup singers” for now. In my videos, I call my “band” “Cal-el.” It's a take off on Superman being portrayed as Jesus in Superman Returns. Someone had asked people to dress up as super heroes to talk to school children about Jesus and since I was in the Superman Returns Webmaster Program, naturally, I dressed up as Superman. Superman's name is “Kal-el,” the “el” representing “of God.” My name is Calvin or Cal for short which sounds like “Kal” so I adapted the name since I was part of an online ministry for those who are “disabled, disadvantaged, displaced or disenchanted in this world” and can't or won't get out to a church. The first time I wore the T-shirt, jeans, and cape outfit was at a 4^th of July fireworks display in Tomball, TX. I was surprised to find that the elderly were as excited as or more excited than the kids were and would drive by and yell, “Hi Superman!” Ever since then, the name and t-shirt stuck. I used to wear a leather jacket with the t-shirt but it just gets too hot in this part of Texas. I would LOVE to have others collaborating online if I can't have a band.

7. Who are your favorite musical performers and composers?

One of my favorite musical performers is... believe it or not... Barry Manilow. I think he stole my idea of changing classical music into Pop music. LOL (I really thought that for awhile.) I like Kenny Loggins, James Taylor, and other relatively mellow music for the most part. John Barry and John Williams are my favorite composers. They really know how to set the mood for a movie. I'm really not into Rap. I think the lyrics are abusive toward women and support an attitude of greed for the most part.

My Life Story (What I was able to recover)

The Making of a Superman

Chapter 1 In the Beginning

I was born in Corona, CA. My dad was stationed at the 29 Palms Marine base. My dad was shipped to Korea, so we came home when I was 12 days old. My mother told me that when I was on the way to the Naval Hospital where I was born, the car broke down in the middle of the desert. My mom was in labor and my dad had to hitchhike back to the Marine base to get someone to come help. As my mom was waiting in the car out in the desert for my dad to return, a pack of coyotes tried to attack her. She rolled up the window and had to endure the desert heat with me in her belly. I guess that was the beginning of my toughening. My dad DID finally return and my mom made it to the hospital in Corona in time to give birth to me.

My earliest memory is when I was six months old. I was sitting in a small swimming pool on the front porch in Highlands, TX. My mom called me into the house to show me a picture of my dad who was overseas in the Marines. It was either that or sitting on an anthill thinking it would make a fine stool. They happened around the same age. I was living in this house.

My first house where I was in a pool on the porch

Where I was stung by sitting on an ant hill

When I was 18 months old, shortly before my dad came home from Okinawa, I was run over by my mother's best friend who had just gotten her driver's license. I had quit breathing and my leg was stuck on the tire and my leg broken under the fender well cover. I had quit breathing so I was presumed dead. That's not the only time I made a miraculous recovery but it was the first. Here is a picture of my grandmother's house where I was run over in the driveway by my mother's best friend who had just gotten her license. I was playing with the shell in the driveway while my mother was untangling my dad's fishing line in his fishing reel.

Nowempty lot where I was run over - Grandmother's House

I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house. In fact, we practically lived there. My uncle who was ten years older than I would teach me Morse code, my grandfather would teach me about drums and broke his lamb snare head when I was trying to play it which taught me a little about physics. I saw that I couldn't break the drum head beating on it as hard as I could so I turned the stick vertical to the head and tried to hit it to see how it sounded. The stick went right through it. My grandfather was very upset since lambs heads were very expensive. I felt really bad and told him I would buy him a new one. At three, I didn't really have a way to repay him.

My grandmother bought me my first toy guitar which I tried to tune even though it had a crank to play. I went down one day knocking on people's back doors, playing my little toy guitar and singing, and asking for candy. The woman at the end of the street three houses over gave me some candy and called my grandmother. My grandmother came over there, apologized to the lady, grabbed me by the arm, and switched me all the way home. That was my first spanking by my grandmother and I thought I was being killed.

Mrs. Chandler's House where I got my first switching

I got in trouble for climbing a tree in the back when I was three or four years old. I had climbed way to the top and when my grandmother found me she told me to get down from there and switched me for it. My grandparents had a piano on which I used to tinker playing things like Chopsticks and basically learning the sounds of the notes, creating my own songs sometimes. I learned right from wrong there.

At her next door neighbor's house, I learned to play the accordion a little but the old man had little patience with a four year old so I didn't learn much. I think I got a song or two learned but that was about it. The neighbors were the Esteraks. I was fond of the woman of the house who fed her peacocks in her back yard. Even though her name was Mrs. Esterak, I called her “Mrs. Quack Quack” because that's the best I could do at that age. I think I learned to say her name properly by the time I was four, but I think I still called her Mrs. Quack Quack because that's what I had called her for so long just like I called my aunts Doris “Aunt Dodo” and my other aunt Billie “Aunt BeBe.” Here's a picture of Mrs' Quack Quack's house.

Mrs. Quack Quack's House

By this time I considered my grandparents more of my parents than my real parents. Having my dad come home from the Marines was difficult for me because I was used to getting all of the attention from my mom, my uncle, and my two aunts who were nice. My dad... not so nice. Moving away from the small town of Highlands to Houston with my dad was even more difficult for me at first. I wasn't used to this strange man with the loud Marine Sergeant voice yelling at me and beating me. Here is a picture of the house in Houston.

House in Houston on Candleshade Ln.

It was white back then and I thought that's what they were talking about when they said The White House. When one teacher asked if anyone knew where the White House was, maybe in second grade, I raised my hand and when called on said, “I live in the white house.” Our house was the only white house on the street and everyone in the neighborhood called it “the white house” so I thought I was right. The teacher had to explain that it wasn't the White House where the government met.

There I finally got used to having a father but hated the beatings, sometimes for a small reason like accidentally coloring outside the lines, or other times for no reason at all. He loved to beat me with his belt so I didn't have too many fond memories of him. At one point though, my dad started building a race car and made me disassemble the engine. I think I was about eight or nine then. I was still skinny and weakly but I managed to get most of it disassembled with a little help from him on the hardest parts. He and his friends would put it all together and he'd go race at Meyer's Speedway in Houston. It was near Meyerland Plaza where my mother used to shop. It was fun watching my dad race every week though. I can't Meyer's Speedway anymore so it must have been torn down, but I did find Meyerland Plaza on Google

Maps.

Meyerland Plaza

While on Candleshade, I often experimented with electricity and robotics. I suppose the Superboy comic books were responsible for my curiosity in robotics since Superboy built robot duplicates of himself to carry out tasks. I was also a fan of Robbie the Robot. I would read Superman, Superboy, and any other comic that had Superman in it during the Summers on the farm to be sure that I didn't miss something Superman did. Since Superman was from space, a planet that exploded, I was also interested in astronomy and how light from dead stars took a long time to quit shining in Earth's sky because of the distance relative to the speed of light. I also read about Tesla and Einstein. I learned about Edison as well, but didn't much like him because of his stealing Tesla's inventions and claiming them as his own.

I went to Windsor Village Elementary School during that time, and in third grade at the age of seven, I was going to the restroom and saw the principal and a few other people watching the Kennedy parade in Dallas. I stopped to watch. It was a live broadcast. I actually saw him get shot. When I got back to the classroom, the teacher called me a liar and I believe paddled me. The next day she profoundly apologized when she learned the truth for herself.

Windsor Village Elementary shot with sign

Wide shot of Windsor Village Elementary

My mother sent one of her friends to pick me up and I wouldn't get in the car with her because they had just showed us a film on strangers. I didn't really know what a stranger was, but she was trying to get me into the car like a stranger did in the film, so I wouldn't go and walked all the way home.

Having the injury to my leg and dying for awhile caused me to be more sickly and less athletic than other children my age and very skinny as well, something that plagued me from that age through high school. Since I was skinny and weak people would beat me up. Still, I continued to do my best at whatever I could do. The scar on my leg from the surgery was unsightly... and still is to some degree so I almost never wore shorts, something difficult in Southeast Texas heat. When I went to the beach, I hated to have to pull off my long trunks to go swimming in my swimming trunks. It made me very self conscious. In third grade I had an emergency appendectomy because my mother had given me an enema because I had a stomach ache which further inflamed the appendix. The appendix burst in the doctor's hand just as he removed it. That put me out of commission for a few weeks. During that time, I did a lot of reading. I loved science, mythology, and religion. Since I was greatly confined to the house, I kept myself busy with indoor activities. There was only one boy in the neighborhood at first and he was weaker than I was so I was the strongest boy in the neighborhood... until a bully moved in down the street that was vertical to our house. He was VERY strong and beat the snot out of me. My mother talked to his parents and had me go over to his house to play with him one day and he seemed to hate me less after that.

I had an uncle who sang in a barbershop quartet. He had a multitrack recorder and made a recording of Alvin and the Chipmunks visiting his house. I thought it was real at first but had my doubts. When I inquired, my uncle explained how he recorded himself at a slower speed to make the chipmunk voices and recorded his voice at normal speed for his voice. People teased me with the name “Calvin and the Chipmunks” but I took it as a compliment so I really liked the recording he made. I was intrigued. I wanted a tape recorder and actually got a small one for Christmas one year. It was somewhat similar to this one.

Small Tape Recorder

Mine had a small microphone that you could clip on your pocket. I found it was also good for spying on my sisters. Haha My mom always told me that I was responsible for them and if they did anything wrong, I would get a spanking. “Just wait until your father gets home” were the words I dreaded most. I spied on my sisters to try to keep myself from getting a beating, but it didn't always work.

I also had a toy piano that had real working black keys. I would sometimes record my little songs and thought I was marvelous as little kids do. I loved music though and recorded myself singing a Christmas song by Bing Crosby. When I was singing, I thought I sounded exactly like him but when I played it back, I couldn't figure out why I sounded so different. Eventually I got used to the sound of my voice on tape.

My aunt felt sorry for us since we were relatively poor at the time. She would buy us Christmas presents to be presented as “Santa Claus” gifts. I already had a train track and often played with the transformer that powered it. One year when I was about five years old, knowing that I loved robots, she bought me a Robot Commando. I was a little disappointed that it didn't REALLY obey commands. You just had to blow into the hand piece to make it work. Still, it would fire balls from its hand using centrifugal force and shoot soft tipped plastic rockets out of its head with a spring. If something broke down on it, I would take it apart, fix it, and put it back together. One year I tried to modify one of the rockets with a wood burning iron and melted the plastic tip. At least I only damaged one of the rockets. This video is pretty boring since the guy is geekier than I am, but it does show the different features of the robot and also shows the gears that operates the robot. I wasn't aware that it was fifty years old.

Robot Commando

My mother was raised Methodist and took us to church every Sunday. I didn't much care for Sunday School coloring pictures of Jesus, but I loved hearing the pastor speak. The first time I heard about God, I felt like I already knew him. I talked to the preacher and asked him many questions. This was the start of a long relationship with God.

When I was about five or six, one of my best friends had to move away. His mother came to get him as he was playing outside with me. She explained to us how her husband had been killed in Vietnam and how horrible war was. Those words stuck with me throughout my life. When I heard the beatitudes, I took note of the following verse:

Matthew 5:9

New International Version (NIV)

9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

From that time on, my desire was to be a peacemaker. I tried to live as Jesus did and tried to behave as the Bible taught us to. Still, I was raised in a very strict Christian home and thought all evil should be punished. I wanted to fight evil so I talked my mom into getting me a Superman costume. She made me promise not to try to fly off of the roof and explained that it didn't give you super powers. Of course, when I got it, the first thing I did was try to fly off of the top bunk of my bunk beds. I learned very quickly that it didn't work when I hit the floor. Still, I wanted to fight evil like Superman did on television. When the preachers said to resist evil, I thought he meant physically.

Chapter 2 Life on a Farm

Every Summer, my parents would send me to Mulberry, Arkansas to help my grandmother on the farm. She had divorced my grandfather, making him sell his motor yacht to buy the place, and moved to a farm to live. She lived on a hill that was full of sandstone, so sometimes it was difficult to get the garden started, but we eventually did. After plowing and planting, there wasn't much to do but water the garden and wait to water it again the next day. She lived on a hill that was full of sandstone, so sometimes it was difficult to get the garden started, but we eventually did. The sandstones came in handy since the place was full of snakes and tarantulas. My uncle would take me out walking the 54 acres and we'd frequently have to pick up a sandstone to kill a snake or a tarantula with. My grandmother would fatten me up during the Summer on the farm before she sent me back home to go back to school. I also learned to shoot well on the farm. You never knew when a wolf or a bobcat might try to attack you or one of the farm animals. I enjoyed sitting around a campfire at night and looking up at the stars. I developed a strong love of nature and astronomy there.

I had a dog there whom my grandmother named Comanche. It's mother was a German Shepherd and it's father was a wild wolf that got hold of her when she was “in season.” Although it was my grandmother's dog, I was the only one that it would let near it. It was pretty wild except when it was with me. I would scream, “Here Comanche” in my then shrill

voice at the top of my lungs and he would come running wherever he was and whatever he was doing. He was my companion and my comfort for my loneliness. He was also my guardian. I gained strength and weight on the farm before I was sent back to my parents' house where I was starved again by the next Summer... not because we didn't really have money for food but because my dad would spend the grocery money on alcohol instead of buying groceries as he said he was going to do.

Chapter 3 Longview

A few years after my dad started racing, he was transferred to Longview, TX by his company Triangle Refineries, Inc. where he had been a computer programmer. He was a CEO of Premier Oil in Longview. That's when things got rough. This was our house in Longview. It's still the same ugly pink that it was then.

Our House in Longview, TX

It was a split level home and our bedrooms were upstairs. The television was downstairs on a room next to the basement. That's where my dad would sit and drink when he got home. He started beating me and my mom more frequently. I made a few friends there and even had a girlfriend. I was eleven through twelve years old when we lived there. The boys were pretty rough, most of them and their dads being in the KKK. They liked to beat me up because I was a Methodist and not a Baptist. One day at school, the boy across the street who claimed to want to be a Baptist preacher got a gang of kids together to beat me up because I was Methodist. I asked him, “If you're going to be a preacher, shouldn't you be acting as Jesus did?” He had no answer. That gave me a pretty bad impression of Baptists. That made things even harder. I talked to a friend about the beatings and his father said he beat him with a razor strap that he kept in the garage. It made me feel that a belt wasn't QUITE so bad. At least I had a friend there who could relate.

It wasn't all bad though. We had a great music teacher there at Pine Tree Middle School at grade five. I also had an earlier music teacher who taught us music appreciation and showed us historical movies and music of Bach, Beethoven, and other great musical artists throughout history. at Pine Tree Intermediate grade four. She taught us to sing and taught us to read music and play the recorder. I enjoyed that. The girl next door who was a grade ahead of me played cornet, so I wanted to also but had to wait until I was in sixth grade. The school gave performances by great artists and classical musicians. The guy who did the whistling for the Andy Griffith Show, Earle Hagen, put on a performance one time. He whistled both parts at once with his mouth. Petula Clark came once and sang Downtown, but since so many people made noise cheering when she came, they had no more popular singers visit.

My dad had decided to spend his money elsewhere and not at home. Every night we would hide behind the couch to see if he came home sober or drunk. If he was sober, he was relatively friendly. If he was drunk, he was hell. By then I'd had enough of his Marine Corps "discipline..." basically the torture he went through at 29 Palms. I was beaten at home and beaten at school. I wasn't athletic then but did well at music. At the time we didn't realize that my kidney was infected and was getting worse and worse. Besides my dad starving me severely, my kidney problems were a source of me becoming skeleton thin as well. Since my

grandmother sold the farm and remarried my grandfather, I no longer had the farm to go to in the Summer.

One night, my dad came home, beat and pistol whipped my mom, shot a hole in the door to the garage, then put the gun in her mouth as I spied from the stairs. After that he made her strip so he could take pictures of her. No, I'm not going to show you the pictures, but you could see the fear and hurt in her face. I had her burn them. I waited for him to walk past my door with my bow and arrow in hand, but somehow fell asleep. Afterward, he went upstairs and laid on top of my sister. My mom woke me up and I saw the bow and arrow laid neatly on the floor next to my bed. I had to get up and push his drunk, passed out ass off of her with my legs. He was 250 pounds and I was a 98 pound weakling. That made me feel strong... at least internally. I had to be brave since, when he hit the floor, I knew that there was a chance that he would wake up and give me a severe beating. Just being able to push him off of my sister made me feel like Superman.

Although I had been disciplined by a Marine, I didn't like to fight because I wanted to be like Jesus. That got me beaten more than if I had stood up for myself. I did occasionally get in a fight with a neighborhood kid who would want to beat me up because I was skinny. Still, I

was determined enough to tell my mom that I was going to take my sisters and go move in with my grandfather if she didn't leave him. She thought about it then finally made the right choice and left. One thing that still haunts me about him is all the Country music I had to listen to growing up as I was being beaten.  My experiences DID make me quite tough, though even if I wasn't strong.

Chapter 4 Back to Houston

When we arrived at my grandparents' house in Oak Forest, at 1410 Ebony Ln. I had to finish fifth grade at Oak Forest Elementary. I didn't make many friends there since I was new to the school and didn't know anybody in the area. My grandparents lived in a small 2 bedroom house but we managed to fit in there somehow. My bed was placed by the big picture window facing the back yard. I could see the stone patio and the fire pit my uncle made where we would roast marshmallows when he was home from Texas A&M University. There was also a pomegranate tree next to the fence in the back that produced the most sweet pomegranates that I'd ever tasted to this date.

House at 1410 Ebony Ln.

Every Summer when my uncle came home for three months from A&M, he would bring a foreign student home to stay with us. One of them was from India, another from the Dominican Republic, another from Dalhart, TX. I learned a lot about foreign cultures during their three month stay there... even from the one from Dalhart, TX since that part of Texas was so different than Houston where I had spent most of my life. The one from India taught me how to tie a towel into a turban, a skill I have long since lost. We became friends and he gave me a tennis racket to remember him by.

Speaking of tennis rackets, there was a park one street over that had a swimming pool and a couple tennis courts. When I wasn't swimming, I was playing tennis. Both helped me to develop body strength and endurance. When I was swimming, sometimes I would go to the deep end, let out all of my breath, and go to the bottom to simulate weightlessness, imagining I was in space. I really did want to become an astronaut at that time, but later I would prove to be too sickly to enter the military, much less go through astronaut training. This happens to be where I lived when Star Trek first came on. It's also where I got my first Vulcan sideburn haircut.

Oak Forest Park

At night in the Summer, my uncle, his friend from out of the country or out of town and I would spend the evenings playing tennis. Besides helping me develop some leg strength, it helped improve my poor coordination. Having asthma, I couldn't play for more than two sets a night without taking a puff from my inhaler, but it was fun.

My grandmother had brought Comanche there from Arkansas. That was probably a bad idea, though I loved him and he comforted me after the horrifying ordeal that I had gone through in Longview. When my dad came for a visit, Comanche wouldn't let my dad get anywhere near me and I was glad for it. After a couple years though, being half wolf and not liking strangers, he got outside and bit the mailman. My grandparents told me that they had sent him off to Arkansas to the Thorpe's where he killed a sheep so they had to put him down. Now I know that it was more likely that they had to turn him over to Animal Control and have him put down.

Chapter 5 Moving

When I was about eleven years old, my grandfather decided that the house was too small so he went out and started looking for larger houses. There was one in the Heights that was pretty plain and there was one in Garden Oaks that had beautiful architecture. He wanted the one in the Heights but my grandmother and I fell in love with the one in Garden Oaks. It had sculptured entrances to the living room and dining room, a phone nook in the hall, a coffin shaped hall under the stairs that had a cabinet on one side then the entrance to the kitchen. It had lovely ceiling and floor molding and crystal door knobs. It also had a crystal chandelier, French doors that opened up to the balcony, and the tall pillars that held it up. It had an artificial fireplace with a gas heater hookup in the living room but it was better than no fireplace at all plus the mantle was handy. The houses back then were designed for no air conditioning so they were designed to have good air flow throughout the house. It did have an attic fan on the second floor. My room was the first room you came to after you made it up the stairs. It had a window that overlooked the screen porch which would come in handy later. My grandfather had the next room and my mom and sisters had the huge room to the right past the full bath with a vanity table. The French doors in my grandfather's room and my mom's room led to the balcony. The bedroom that my mom and sisters in was HUGE. It held two double beds easily and had room for an organ and still had plenty of room left over. I think it was about 24'x18' but don't quote me on that. It also had two huge walk-in closets that had shelves between them and racks for shoes on each side consisting of a slanted board on each side with a piece of quarter round trim at the top to hold the heels. It was a magnificent old house and we were very glad that we were able to talk my grandfather into getting it. What settled the deal was that he got it for half price, $16,000.00 which would be $82,434.83 in 2013 because someone died there and the house was said to be haunted.

Some strange things happened in that house. The ghost that lived there was friendly. It was supposedly and ex-CIA agent who died in the house. He mostly liked to slam the door between the dining room and the kitchen if it was left open, but he would play with me sometimes. I would place objects on the table in a certain order and he would rearrange them. My grandparents, my uncle, my mother, and my sisters all witnessed the events multiple times. He also seemed to love Quentin's Theme. I had a bat kite hanging from a string that never usually moved, but when I put on that record, it would turn back and forth as if someone were dancing with it. When I told my grandmother about it she said that Quentin's Theme used to have another name. I can't recall the name she told me but it was something similar to “Annie's Waltz.” I tried playing other music from classical to hard rock to see if the kite would move because of vibrations from the speakers, but it was to no avail. It only moved when I played Quentin's Theme.

I was still very skinny from being starved and kept getting sicker and sicker the more I was beaten at school. My mom thought I was just faking it until she finally took me to the doctor and he did a couple tests on me and found out that there was something seriously wrong with my kidney. I was in the middle of the 6^th grade and didn't want to have a surgery since that was the time when my interest in girls was starting to peak, but the doctor said that if I didn't have the surgery I'd be dead within a week, so off to testing for surgery I went.

Radioactive isotope imaging was relatively new back then and, for some reason, when they would inject me with they dye, a nurse would yell, “Calvin, get back here!” When I replied that I was still here and they turned and saw me still on the table, they turned white as a sheet. The nurses weren't the only ones to see me where I wasn't though. My family and my best friend saw it at different times, each time withing a day or two after the radioactive isotope had been injected. I don't know if my spirit just didn't want any part of it or what happened, but it was a strange occurrence. I only saw it once. Eventually, after the test results were in, it was time to go off to surgery at Texas Children's Hospital.

Texas Children's Hospital

It was an eight hour surgery in which they had to remove the infected part which made my kidney the size of a grapefruit back down to the size of a thumb then do skin graft from my intestines to make a new ureter since the other one had been completely eaten away by the infection. I must have woken up a time or two during the surgery as I seem to do during all of my surgeries. They were rolling me into a room which I thought was a closet and I thought I was beamed up to an alien ship. There appeared to be a man with a crystalline white head and a scowl on his face putting some kind of lizard skin on my stomach. When he was through, I thought I was beamed back down and taken back into the operating room. Looking back, it was probably the surgical mask, a doctor with a scowl because the surgery was taking so long, and the effects of the anesthesia making me imagine the strange images. They took me to recovery where I was dying of thirst. My aunt finally had mercy on me and dampened a washrag and squeezed a drop of water out which seemed WONDERFUL! I was always thankful for that.

Once I recovered enough to go to a room, the doctor asked me how I was doing. I said, “I'm not dead yet. I'm getting better.” He was shocked at what I said so I explained that I had just seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He had no idea what I was talking about though, then they transferred me to the bed and knocked me out with morphine.

They kept me asleep for about a week then gave me morphine as needed. With the incredible pain I was in, “as needed” was as often as possible. Imagine a strong punch to the kidney and multiply that by 100 an you probably have an idea of how it felt. The draining tubes kept my back wet with urine and whatever other spillage was coming out. When I finally came to enough, I looked at my stomach to see if the lizard skin was there, and THERE IT WAS! It was probably just the Tincture of Benzoin they put on my stomach that had dried and cracked. I felt extremely miserable and I remained in the hospital for a month. They had a book cart so I read every book they had then my mom started bringing me homework from school so I wouldn't get too far behind.

When it was time for me to be released, the hospital, Texas Children's Hospital, wouldn't let me leave until my mother came up with some, for the time, ungodly amount of money. She had to sell off all of the antiques that had been passed down through the family including the dining room table that was hand carved and had leafs on each end that could be pulled out and locked up in place to extend the table for large events. She came up with the money finally and got me out of there, then it was time to try to get back on the road to recovery.

Since I couldn't climb the stairs, my grandfather put a bed downstairs in the ball room where my grandmother slept. I continued doing my homework and kept asking for more until one day the teacher said, “You've done all the work for the year.” That was in a span of about two months.

Something that may have quickened, or perhaps delayed, my recovery was when the doctor gave my grandmother something he called “happy pills.” One day she saw what amounted to tribbles before the “Star Trek" The Trouble with Tribbles episode aired. She had a broom and said to help her kill the fuzzy balls that were everywhere. I looked and there was nothing there. That got me kind of nervous. Another day, she told me to get the fish with razor blade teeth off of her feet because they were eating her. I pulled back the covers so she could see that there was nothing there and she kept insisting that they were then looked at a picture of my uncle and said they were eating him too. That TOTALLY freaked me out. All I can imagine is that he must have given her some form of hallucinogen, perhaps LSD, and was having some bad trips. I talked to my mother and my grandmother about it afterward and we agreed to flush the pills down the toilet. It freaked me out so bad that I walked up the stairs and got in my own bed no matter how much it hurt. I spent the rest of my recovery upstairs in my room where I bunked with my uncle. We had taken the beds apart prior to my surgery and put one on each side of the room. There was no way I could make it to the top bunk.

Even though I was in incredible pain, I continued to study things like Science, Astronomy, Mythology, and the Bible. It was a difficult time that I had to struggle to overcome, but finally I overcame it enough to go back to school. When I got back, everyone was shocked at how bone thin I was. The surgery had taken a lot out of me. My eyes were sunken and black and I probably looked like a zombie or a walking skeleton. Everyone else had become couples in my absence. I probably missed out on one of the most important stages of my development which would haunt me the rest of my life where relationships were concerned. The teacher had to talk to the class before I came in and everyone stared for quite a while. A few of them stared for weeks. It certainly didn't help my love life any.

About 7^th or grade when I was thirteen, I took telescope to school, with the permission of my Science teacher and my Gym coach, for the total solar eclipse. It was Thursday, Sept. 11, 1969 (curious date) and I put the sun filter on and gave everyone a turn to look as the sun and sky darkened. I didn't expect the chill in the air, but it came. Even the coaches took a turn looking which was good since we had to set up on the outdoor basketball court. Everyone was in awe and people left me alone for a little while. Later, the daily beatings would start again. I didn't care about them hitting me as much as when they hit others but they put me back in the hospital, damaging my ureter in the beatings three times. They wouldn't let me heal. Finally, Coach Cox took me under his wing and put me in the class with the football players and other athletes. I did all of the exercises but enjoyed running track the most. Still, I wouldn't join a team because I didn't want it to interfere with my band performances.

Dark Shadows was huge at the time and learning that my great grandmother had been a white witch before she converted to Christianity and became a Seventh Day Adventist, I decided to try to study magic, or magick as many people call it these days. I read every book available trying to find a spell that would bring us money since my mother had to sell everything and go into debt to get me out of the hospital. I studied both black and white magic so I could get an idea of the difference but none of the books had even one spell. One day The Houston Post printed an article about Hoodoo or White Magic that was used to fight Voodo. It contained a love spell which I followed trying to get one particular young lady as a girlfriend. I wanted to see if it worked. The spell took about a week to complete and the last few days I had to go on a band trip. I got caught by a teacher as I lit the candle in the bathroom. That interrupted the spell. I don't know if it partially worked or if the young lady found out and was flattered, but she did start talking to me. She had a boyfriend though and her dad was a biker who was very strict about who she went out with. Being a grade ahead of me, I think she really just wanted to be friends. We did have a locker next to each other and she and I would talk a little as we exchanged books for the next class but that was it. I also tried burning green candles for money as I had read in a book on witchcraft because I was wanting to find a way to get money to replace the money my mother had spent on me for my surgery and maybe get some of her furniture back. It didn't work, of course.

I did finally get a girlfriend who lived a block away. Her name was Betty. She was very forward and every time we would get to petting heavily her parents would return. I learned the sign language alphabet so I could talk a little with her deaf aunt and cousin who lived a few houses down from her. I took her to the country club when my aunt Doris invited us. We went swimming and she tried to get me to read her lips. I couldn't make out what she was saying but she finally whispered, “Feel me off.” I wanted to borrow the car to drive to a more secluded area, but I guess she wanted it right then. Eventually she tired of me and became extremely cruel. One Summer when I had a very bad sunburn she scratched my back with her long fingernails. She called me a pussy when I screamed in pain. She then started hitting me so I decided it was best not to try to continue the relationship. She wanted to break up and I was tired of the abuse.

I walked down her street to get home to avoid the heavy traffic on W. 43^rd St. There was a gang of rich kid bullies there who would beat me up every day. One of them tried to pick on me alone one day and I knocked him off of his bicycle with my briefcase full of books. My grandfather happened to be following me without my knowledge to see where the bullies were. When he saw that I was being picked on again, he drove up in his work car. He was a Tax Assessor/Collector and his car had an emblem on the side. They thought he was an undercover police officer and after that they quit beating me on the way home.

When I went to school the bullies would beat me more. To go to one class, there was only one walkway that led to the class. There were chains hung between the steel support beams that the bullies would sit on with the shackle of a lock on their fingers with the lock in their hand and beat me with it as I walked through. I quickly tired of it and tried to find an alternate route but that only got me beaten worse. I often thought of hitting them with my thick briefcase in which I carried all of my books, but I wasn't sure that would be the best method of dealing with them. One day, I finally got mad and pulled on the middle of the chains, knocking them off, and running through the gamut. They didn't hit me as hard after that. It made me hate bullies. I swore that I would get in condition one day to stop bullies from picking on people.

Because of my uncle who was my roommate, I was a huge James Bond fan. He had turned me on to the music of Goldfinger, which I loved at the time, and the album cover with the naked gold painted lady on the cover. I read the entire bible cover to cover that year but I was also a boy who was getting close to puberty. Since I was 13 years old, my mom took me to see my first James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I loved his real martial arts moves and actually thought he was better than Sean Connery though I had not yet seen a Sean Connery movie. That was the movie where James Bond got married and his newlywed wife was shot in the head. Connery said that he wouldn't do it because he didn't want to make his audience cry. George Lazenby certainly did a good job of making the audience cry after convincing the audience that he was really in love with Dianna Rigg's character, Tracy. Dianna Rigg's “Karate” wasn't very realistic, but who cared? It was Dianna Rigg. I think Connery fans just didn't want to give Lazenby a chance because he was the first to replace Connery. That stupid scene with him putting away all of the “Q” gear from movies he didn't play in probably didn't help. Even never having seen a Connery movie at that point, I thought that scene was ridiculous. In spite of everything else, it made me want to be a spy for the CIA so I started watching all of the Bond movies and tried to duplicate the gadgets at my desk in my bedroom. One Christmas or birthday my mom bought me a small “James Bond Briefcase.” They offered them at Sears where my mother worked and I HAD to have one. They had three different cases. I wanted the most expensive one, but had to settle for the middle one. Still, it did have a built-in walkie talkie which I used with my other walkie talkie and my toy base station that I could tune to channel 14 to talk with friends on the other walkie talkies. I would climb out the window onto the roof and tell my neighbor to meet me at the fence then jumped to a nearby tree and shimmied down to meet him.

In high school I was a HUGE James Bond and Bruce Lee fan and went to an almost all black theater on Prairie St. In downtown Houston to watch the martial arts movies. It was a rough part of town with strip clubs, whores, and pimps but I was there for the movies and I had almost no fear. In fact, I think most people feared me because I was a crazy white boy in an all black theater in the worst part of Houston second only to the 5th Ward where they often killed police who responded to calls there.

Through eighth grade I never fought. In ninth grade, I got tired of being beaten up by gangs of football players mostly and gave one a thorough ass whipping. I hate to say that violence is sometimes a better tool for peace making, but sometimes it seems to be. I had started taking Judo and Tae Kwon Do. I wasn't bothered too much after that except in high school when an occasional jerk would want to fight me. I also once got the band to charge through the JROTC so we could have our breakfast. Why they decided to try to keep us from eating since we had to be there at 6:00am to start band practice, I'll never know. It was important to me though because I had to work until 3:00am then be at band practice by 6:00am so that gave me very little time to sleep and no time to eat at home.

I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday. I often spoke to the minister or preacher of whichever church I attended. I always asked them if they knew what the unforgivable sin was. If they didn't answer correctly, I figured that they didn't know enough to be my preacher.

In high school at lunch, a group of us sat at a table and discussed the bible. Each of us were from different religions. At the time, I had become discouraged with my Methodist minister and was seeking the truth about God and Jesus. Some things that were preached didn't add up. I decided to try the different religions to see which one was best for me.

The first one I tried was Baptist. I went to First Baptist Church in Houston, TX. I was working very hard at a minimum wage job at Weingarten's, a grocery store, trying to make enough to buy my school supplies and my gasoline, and also to try to save for college. I was happy to tithe my 10%. Soon, the preacher started asking for more and more. He wanted to build a new church building since the one downtown had become quite old and was in need of serious repair or demolition. He asked us to dig deep into our pockets and told us how Mr. Colgate of Colgate toothpaste used to attend his church and started giving 10% then 20% then 30% and God blessed him with success. He also said that he had no idea how much he was giving now since he had moved. I gave all I could... more than I could actually. I found that I didn't have enough money left for my school supplies and definitely didn't have any money for savings for college. When I found that the preacher had used the money to build a church that was more like a country club, complete with bowling alleys and tennis courts, I felt betrayed. They could have used the money to start a kitchen for the poor rather than build a bowling alley. That caused me to start looking for another church.

As it came to pass, I ended up visiting a Catholic church and couldn't understand the Latin which made me think it was pretty useless, then was persuaded by a very intelligent woman whom I admired to join the Church of Christ. I later made the mistake of following that woman to a Church of Christ Bible College, but that's another story. It is worth mentioning though because it was there that I first started learning nunchaku and Ju Jitsu.

I wanted to expand on my martial arts ability and took Tai Chi Chuan then took Ju Jitsu after reading Bruce Lee's book “The Tao of Jeet Kun Do.” After that, I would stop gangs from picking on a single person... yes, by force. I would sometimes have to tackle people with knives and once a gun but made it through unscathed.

When I was 16 my grandfather bought me a car. It was a 1969 two door Chevy Impala. I drove like James Bond did in the movies and considered being a stunt driver. I did jumps over steep railroad tracks and drove on two wheels a couple times. After wrecking my first car when I was 21 I went to a lot with my grandfather and we got a used FBI car. It handled the stunts much better even when I drove around with a 300 pound friend in the passenger seat and my other friends in the back seat. I used my C.B. Radio on channel 9 as my police radio and I thought of myself as an assistant to the police sort of like Superman. I would drive around town reporting crimes, stopping criminals, and keeping gangs from beating up innocent individuals. I had always wanted to be a police officer and knew many police officers but they considered me to be too skinny for the force. Because of that, I sometimes assisted them in ways that they couldn't legally stop crime. I can't say that I was always a good peacemaker even though I longed to be one. Though I hated war because I knew of the horrors of war from my upper classmates who had been and knew of it from my friend whose mother told us about her husband dying and how incredibly bad war was, I thought being a policeman was being a peacemaker at the time. I thought policemen were there to help the general public. It didn't sink in until later about the police beating protesters and the ROTC shooting the victims at Kent State that police weren't always good.

Chapter 6 – Social Life

I did quite a bit of dating in high school since I had a job and a car.  I did some fairly heavy petting with several girls but never went past "second base" because I was trying to save myself for marriage.  I can't tell you how much sex I turned down (silly me).  I really WAS in love with a woman named Sharon.  We had gone to quite a few upscale places and events together and people would often comment what a lovely couple we made, though she would generally deny that we were a couple.  Her dad was a rich accountant for a prominent bank in the front of Town and Country Village Mall in Houston.  I can't remember the name of the bank at present.  I was just a poor son of a divorcee so I was looked down upon by her parents.  I just wasn't in the same social class even though I was living in the neighborhood right next to hers.

I always wanted to go to a formal event for New Year's Eve. That would be $1,184.83 in 2013 dollars. Quite a lot for a minimum wage worker. I bought tickets for one that was $125 a piece for a ball in Houston. I had saved and saved to buy those tickets. She turned me down. I was heart broken. That was in 1974.

I ended up dating an intelligent woman whose dad was a Church of Christ preacher.  Her name was Sherilyn.  She was a very intelligent woman whom I ended up following to a Christian college in Florida since my real love at the time had turned me down. When I got there, I was shocked at how they treated the students. They ran the college like a prison camp and even housed and schooled prisoners there. They followed people when they went on dates to be sure that they weren't doing anything they considered ungodly. One day they brought a couple up on stage in front of the entire college student body and shamed them for “going to a pizza place, having part of one beer, then kissing!” The woman was embarrassed to death and wouldn't even look at others. I approached her and told her that she did nothing to be ashamed of and that she should sue the college for defamation of character. She was too ashamed at first but then realize I was right. She won a sizable reward and the college was forced to change its behavior. I realized that this was not the religion for me and left after half a semester to go back to Texas and attend the University of Houston.

Chapter 7 – Becoming a “Superman”

When I was at Florida College, one of my suite mates was a Navajo Native American who knew Jiu Jitsu. He taught me how to make and use nunchaku. That inspired me to take martial arts at a regular class from a master instead of relying on my uncle to come home on leave to teach me Tae Kwon Do. Since I had studied Tae Kwon Do and did the best to do everything in the book my uncle gave me, I decided to take a softer form of martial arts, Tai Chi Chuan. I learned that you could block using less energy and increase your endurance in a fight. I also learned to manipulate “Chi,” a sort of electrical force that runs through us all. After studying for about a year and a half, I learned to either slow down time for others or speed it up for me which allowed me to get multiple hits in at times.

My best friend was usually my copilot watching for criminals and telling me where to turn. His name was Thomas McLean. One day when we were at the Northline Mall an illegal alien stole some gold from a small jewelry kiosk in the store. Tom and I quickly pursued the criminal but used caution since he had a gun. We ran to the car to pursue him, Tom watching where he was running as I got into the car and started the engine. Tom yelled, “There he goes!” He pointed the direction and I was in hot pursuit. He pulled the gun and I told Tom to get down. I also got down and sped straight toward him. He was so scared that he dropped the gun and ran.

A bunch of other people on foot were searching for him also. He seemed to vanish as we approached the freeway. They were looking along the top of the freeway and I had pulled into a U-Haul trailer shop to try to see where he went. I spotted the criminal and yelled, “He's down there below you!” The criminal ran across to the drive-in theater across the street from the U-Haul and I almost ran over him, sliding to a stop when he slipped and fell with the front of the car barely over him. The crowd followed and we had him cornered. I got into a stance and told him not to move.

Soon, a pair of butch looking ladies pulled up in a Toyota that would barely hold them and grabbed him. They stated that they were mall security. They put him in the car and drove to the back of the mall. I followed in case they needed my testimony. They told me to wait outside as they entered their office which was made of plywood. I heard them yelling at the criminal and throwing him against the wall and giving him a thorough working over. I thought that was pretty brutal having stopped to think that maybe he was just trying to feed his family. They came out and thanked me for catching the criminal and said I could go. My policy was like Superman's. Never kill or seriously injure anyone. At the time I was a “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” Christian. I also focused on “Love what is good and hate what is evil.” I made it my mission to stop evil wherever I could.

My “copilot” Tom bought me an 8 Track tape of the soundtrack to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This inspired me to drive like a mad man, doing stunts to prepare for what crime we may face. I had found out that Tom was good at spotting criminals but wouldn't take any action if there was trouble. Still, I was glad to have him along. He was good at giving me directions when someone got out of my sight because I was keeping my eyes on the road just as he had done with the incident at Northline Mall in Houston. We would drive along many streets in Houston, but we most often travelled from North Shepherd to South Shephard then took the loop back. Most of the trouble occurred close to the black area of town... usually a robbery at gunpoint which I would foil with my car and my CB radio. Sometimes I would “patrol” the NorthWest Mall area or T.C. Jester and Ella, but the police usually had Ella covered.

I would practice in parking lots, especially on rainy days, to do turns, skids, recoveries, and other emergency moves as my Driver Training instructor suggested. I would also jump railroad tracks... which was much easier when I got my FBI car because the car wouldn't bottom out, even with a 300 pound passenger in the passenger side.

I had changed jobs and started working for Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor/Restaurant at which I became fountain manager. I decided that after two years of Tai Chi Chuan and reading and practicing Bruce Lee's “The Tao of Jeet Kun Do,” I needed to try something that used Judo-like flips. I started taking Jiu Jitsu. I found all but one of my fellow class mates to be on the Houston SWAT team. I think I only took Jiu Jitsu for about a year because my inspection sticker expired and I couldn't afford to get my muffler fixed so I could get a new one. I was afraid the police might arrest me or give me a ticket putting me further into debt. At this point though, I felt ready to take on crime on the streets. At the time I was of the opinion that a Christian should fight criminals and get them off the streets. I was young and less compassionate in those days.

With Tim gone, I became a one man crime stopping machine. I foiled more gunpoint robberies using my car as a weapon. I would stop gangs from picking on one person. One time, one of my fellow Tai Chi Chuan students was being attacked in a parking lot. Our master had taught us that Chinese stick together instead of just sitting back and watching like the other martial arts did. I didn't see the beginning, but I did see a gang of about six or eight people beating him up. I squealed my tires into the parking lot, screeched to a halt in a parking space, jumped out of the car, and started beating the people off of him. After I shamed the people for ganging up on one man and they went on their way, I turned to Bobby and said, “Please tell me that you didn't start this.” He hung his head and said, “I sort of did.” I chastised him about doing such a thing, especially with his inexperience, but I had saved his life and made a friend. It was actually the second time I saved him. The first was in 6^th grade when he was walking across the street and a person in a station wagon wasn't paying attention and was about to hit him. I darted across the street pushing him out of the way. The mirror to the station wagon scraped my behind. He had turned to me and said, “What are you doing? Trying to save my life or something?” I just shook my head.

Being a crime fighter was pretty much a thankless job. Still, it made me feel good that I was able to be that strong and quick and be able to do something to help the community. I kept a low profile and only talked to two officer friends. They pretty much advised me just not to get caught and don't interfere with a crime scene. They didn't really discourage me though, so I kept on doing what I did.

Chapter 8 – University of Houston

After coming back from Florida College, I went to the University of Houston majoring in Electrical Engineering. I was working at Farrell's to pay my tuition and buy my supplies. I was cutting it pretty close. As I was walking from one of my classes in the engineering building, I was approached by a CIA recruiter. He wanted me to join up with them and said that I would need to take three foreign languages to be in the elite service. I told him I would think about it. They also happened to be doing a study on the effects of marijuana on students where a person would smoke marijuana and click a counter. I thought about doing that, but at the time was a marijuana virgin and decided against it. I thought about going ahead and signing up for the CIA but I thought about what they really did, having learned a little more about the service from history classes and decided against it. The next semester I didn't have the money to pay for my tuition so I had to apply for a grant. I was told that I couldn't get a grant because they had to give it to a black person to meet their quota. My father had just died in a truck driving accident so I couldn't get any help from him. I ended up having to just go to work to help support my mom and sisters as well as myself. I had spent too much time majoring in pinball at their game room there anyway and my grades suffered for it. It was time to do something else.

I continued to work at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor/Restaurant where I met a woman who really took a liking to me. She claimed to be a lesbian but after awhile she took a real liking to me. She would meet me in the freezer in the back where we would steal kisses, hug, and ass grope each other. I converted her to Christianity and she ended up getting kicked out of her apartment because her gay roommates didn't like it. She asked me for a place to stay. I asked my mom if she could live with us at our house in Friendswood and explained the situation. My mother reluctantly agreed. I really didn't know what I was getting into.
 

Chapter 9 – Making Love and Getting Married

I won't say the woman's name, but she went by “Missy.” We were both riding together in the Audi I had bought commuting from Friendswood to the Northwest Mall to work. I was really still in love with my high school sweetheart, but each day when we got home, she would tempt me more and more. I continued to resist her advances. One day though, I got mononucleosis from drinking out of the wrong water glass on break at work. Another woman that worked there informed me that she had mono and I had accidentally drunk from her glass. I didn't expect to get it, but I did. Because I continued practicing my martial arts, it eventually turned into hepatitis. I became so sick that I couldn't get out of the bed even to go to the bathroom without assistance. Missy was always more than ready to assist me.

One day, after coming back from the bathroom thoroughly exhausted, Missy reached under the covers, stuck her head under, and started giving me a blow job. I was too weak to fight her off and she wouldn't stop with my pleas. I came in her mouth and she swallowed it and said that I owed her sex since I wasn't a virgin anymore. I told her I still was a virgin because I hadn't entered her... um... sacred temple. She became angry and frustrated. The next day when she came home from work, she crawled into my bed, pulled off her clothes, and started trying to stick my penis in her vagina. She would stick the tip in and I would pull it out. After a few times of this, of course, I couldn't resist and said, “Oh well. I always wanted to find out what it was like anyway.” I then rolled over on top of her and used the advice I had learned on the construction work job site and from books to do the best I could. Feeling breasts without clothing for the first time was great! It felt much better than feeling them through clothing. I guess we went on for about twenty or thirty minutes while listening to Doc Severinson and Henry Mancini's Album on 8 track tape, “Brass on Ivory.” We experienced orgasm at the same time. It was WONDERFUL! When we were though, I collapsed on the bed again and just held her for awhile. I really couldn't move after that. She started crying and I asked her why.

“You lied to me! You've had sex before”

“No, I haven't.”

“Yes you have! How else could you make love like that?”

“I read a lot of books and talked with the construction workers as we worked when I was trying to make money for college.”

“You talk about sex on the job?”

“Yes. That's about all they talk about on the job.”

“Oh.”

She looked at me and looked a little disappointed that we talked about sex on the job but continued to lay there with me as we held each other in our arms.

She had gotten my “cherry” but she was under age. I wanted her to go back and live with her mother until she was eighteen. In the mean time, we continued to have sex every day. I finally did convince her to go home.

 Chapter 10 Getting Married and Being Introduced to Drugs



Chapter 11 Having a Child



Chapter 12 Divorce


Chapter 13 Running Wild


Chapter 14 Breaking Up an Opium Dealing Ring


Chapter 15 Settling Down With a Con Artist



Chapter 16 Diane

Chapter ? Sharon

First, I got a call from the detective at the sheriff's office asking me to come look at the video from the HEB where my stolen debit card was used to purchase some drugs. As I suspected, it was Sharon's son. Unfortunately, there wasn't a clear shot of his face, so the video may not be of much use in court. To find out whose name was on the prescription he picked up, it will take a subpoena.

Sharon had borrowed my car yesterday, so she wasn't here to get the good news. She left at 11:30am and was supposed to be back in an hour or so. About 3pm, I tried calling her cell phone, but she didn't answer. I called every couple hours after that and sent her text messages, but to no avail. I called the hospitals and police to see if she had been in an accident, but they couldn't seem to find any record of her. I was starting to think she took off somewhere with my van never to return. Finally, about 11:30pm, she arrived with a flat tire on the front and said that she'd had another flat tire on the rear but had repaired it with Fix-A-Flat. By that time, I was quite angry since I had needed my car to go get another set of guitar strings and a few other things. (Now I wish I had gone ahead and ordered the strings online.)

I checked on the net the next day and found that the auto salvage yards in the area don't have sites to list the available parts. The salvage yards seem to be just inside Houston, so I'm going to have to get someone to drive me out to get a couple wheels so I will have a good wheel on the front and a wheel for a spare. As far as you have to drive to get anywhere around here, one of those compact spares won't do any good. You have to be careful with which tire you get. The last one I bought, even though it was a 15", was shaped in a manner that it locked against the brake rotor when you tightened the lugs. I guess I'll have to find a tire specifically for a 92 Dodge Grand Caravan.

I am payed for the anger and anxiety. My muscles and back are aching from the tension I experienced. I can barely stand or walk and it's pretty painful even to sit. At least I can say it hasn't been boring, I guess.

Chapter ? Heart Surgery

Sometime in March of 2013, I woke up lashed to a hospital bed. I didn't recall going to the hospital nor did I recall being rushed to surgery. All I saw was Vietnamese-looking nurses and wondered if I had been captured by the Vietnamese... though I never went to Vietnam. Too many war movies I suppose.

I didn't feel like I had been operated on. I guess the anesthetics they injected inside me were still working. I was informed that I tried to pull out my breathing tube and had torn my vocal cords. I must have tried to pull out one of the blood tubes from my neck also. In fact, I think I remember doing it, though it is a brief memory. I know I at least touched it. I finally gained enough

My hospital stay was brief compared to the last CABG. Although I felt great compared to the first one, they did let me out of the hospital too early. They ignored the pneumonia that I had in my left lung which caused me to have to go back into the hospital a couple more times.

My chest cavity was raw inside where they tried to wash away all of the blood that had been spewing from that artery that detached. They told my mom that the heart was so covered with dried blood that they didn't know how it was still beating. It caused me extreme pain but they didn't want to give me pain medication that would actually work. I did finally get them to double my hydrocodone and that helped somewhat... kind of like better than nothing.

Although I felt better than last time, I didn't really felt well enough to write. I just didn't have the energy... especially with this COPD which they're blaming on smoking but is more likely from the asbestos that was floating in the air when they tore it down from the unit. In fact, the operators who smoked lived longer than the people who didn't as a rule. I suspect the tar probably decreased the amount of agitation from the asbestos. The company doesn't want anything like that to be exposed, though so they'll probably never look into it. Besides, I didn't smoke that much. Just enough to protect my lungs if that really was the case. I did sometimes smoke a pack a day but I also had years when I quit. Now I'm smoking three to nine puffs a day... sometimes up to one cigarette a day if it's really a stressful day. Still, the doctors want me to quit completely.

There really isn't much left that they can remove without causing me extreme medical problems, so hopefully they don't TRY to remove anything else.