Revisited May 21, 2022: Part One-Penetrating The Conspiracy Of Silence

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”
—Jiddu Krishnamurti

Powerlessness and silence go together. We … should use our privileged positions not as a shelter from the world’s reality, but as a platform from which to speak. A voice is a gift. It should be cherished and used.

—- Margaret Atwood

Our nation’s mental health status is an issue of national concern. The intention of this book is to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness, and enhance our understanding of the issues surrounding it. We are now witnessing the cumulative effects of the oppression of our citizenry, and its primary spawn, mental illness, while they cast their chaotic spell over our world. The internal fogs created by the repression of powerful aspects of our most noble essence and shared human spirit is encouraged by our culture, thus compounding the effects of the disease. And, diseases in the mind of mankind spawn diseases within its own body, so our national health and wellness is at risk, too. Until the day comes that we collectively make a change, mankind will continue to suffer in silence, and all of the oppressed, victimized, innocent and sensitive people will remain part of our most vulnerable group of citizens.

In America right now, it is conservatively estimated that there are FORTY EIGHT MILLION citizens suffering from mental illness. That figure works out to nearly ONE IN FIVE Americans who are subjected to being taken by such illness. FORTY THREE percent do not ever get care for themselves. And, the time period between the onset of mental illness, and the victims first treatment for it, averages around ELEVEN YEARS. And, the most common medical disorders for children under of eighteen years of age involve mental health issues, with suicide becoming one of the leading causes of early death. And the sufferers of mental illness impact their families, their friends, their employers, their communities, and, ultimately, their worlds in confusing, destabilizing, conflicting, and even tragic ways.

Many men are experiencing despair. There are underlying social and economic forces at work, as well. More men are finding themselves in a much more hostile labor market with lower wages, lower quality and less permanent jobs. There is greater difficulty to find life partners and reduced prospects for marriage. When the work brings excessive overtime there becomes reduced connections to children, play, and social connections. Resultant social dysfunction continues to build up over time. There’s a sense that these people have lost a sense of status and belonging. There is a sense of loss of a sense of personal empowerment and that they have any say in their lives. And these are classic preconditions for suicide.

The rates of suicide are much higher among men than women, though both suffer immensely under the weight of distress and despair. Drug overdoses and alcohol-related liver deaths are higher. Mortality trends are identical for men and women with a high school degree or less. Under that body count there’s a lot of social dysfunction that is the result of poor job prospects over the course of their lives. Economic and social status continues to decline, and further oppression can be a result. Pain and suffering increases, repression of that pain through dysfunctional responses increases, which spills over into all other areas of the lives of susceptible people. Yet, it is not just economic forces that lead to mental illness, it is the cumulative effects of a civilization that has faltered, while failing to create a collective foundation for good mental health. The creation of jobs alone is not equivalent to the creation of well-being for its citizenry.

The oppression of our citizenry, and our culture’s unconscious response to it, which includes the continued and dysfunctional repression of our pain and suffering, exacerbates a cultural conspiracy of silence. Those who have been traumatized by their own, by their family’s, or even by their community’s mental illness often do not communicate their distress, and suffer in silence. There are many secrets that are kept and held close to the heart, for the victimized and the broken do not have the language, nor the receptive audience to share their trauma and pain with. Some traumas are so painful and distressing that the victim is fearful that the revelation of their disease will bring harm to others, or bring further harm to themselves. And many have been punished for merely mentioning to others that they have been victimized, or are continuing to be victimized.

I am a three-time diagnosed depressed individual, as well as a recovering addict/alcoholic. I have the label and experience of a dual-diagnosis human being. Dual diagnosis is the term used when a person has a mood disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression) and a problem with alcohol or drugs. I belong to one of the dark castes of our society, and, collectively, our spirits are stymied, and our voices have been quieted. When we don’t have a voice, the most we can hope for is to be silent witnesses to life.. We thus join with a multitude of others in a conspiracy of silence rather than be robustly interactive participants with life.

Our society continues to play into a conspiracy of silence, only focusing on these difficult issues when convenient to its agenda, when a popular star or athlete experiences the ravages of this disease, or when there is a sensational news story to be reported. Our insurance industry has denied coverage for addictions and mental health therapies until recently, and even now co-payments for treatment and medication remain inordinately high, and out of the financial reach for far too many Americans. And in the most evil of recent developments, the mentally ill have become the scapegoats of immoral and emotionally unhealthy gun rights propagandists who continue to claim that this category of humanity is responsible for all gun violence, as well.

 I should have died by suicide on January 28, 1986. Death by an overdose was to be my response to a lifetime of not feeling loved, not having been heard, and not developing the capacity to listen to myself. My greatest fear in life, the fear that I had no value, probably took form within me while I was still a baby. That perception was to plague all future iterations of my self, as well. I was to be saved by a twist of fate, a desire to find the truth, a timely intervention by an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and an almost divine intercession. The rest of our mentally ill population can not be guaranteed that such miraculous interventions will happen within their own lives, however.

A book club meeting that was held at our house in November of 2016 was to expose me to the Emmy award-winning journalist and author Sheila Hamilton. She visited our home, and shared with our book club insights into her life, and her marriage with David Krol, her deceased husband who had died by suicide. While reading Ms. Hamilton’s book “All the Things We Never Knew”, I was struck by how Sheila had to piece together what David’s inner experience must have been like, as David did not communicate to others his inner turmoil and chaos effectively.

When Sheila told the group that David’s parents had wrapped him up in a blanket as a baby and left him in the garage at night because of his excessive crying, I had an AHA moment, because as a baby that is exactly what had happened to me, as well. I felt a need to give another voice for our shared disease, as I am a person who had also walked through the gates of hell itself, yet somehow re-emerged to tell my story..

The following work is my attempt to capture lightning in a bottle, and see if a little of my personal experience of “The Mystery” might bring a small light to others. I recount my own drama and internal struggles with mental illness, with the hope that I can bring to verbal light some of the inner workings of my own mind and life as it existed while I was in a diseased condition, and while I was also in relationship with a woman with her own disease. I have been personally impacted at the deepest, most profound levels, by my own mental illness and depression, addictions, anxiety, and panic attacks, and my path through life has made me a reluctant expert in these matters.

I am a product of our civilization, and of our shared humanity. Thus, I am also a broken container for our Spirit, like everybody else, who is not in denial of their own human nature. The act of writing this book was a difficult proposition, as I had to overcome a lifetime of internalized oppression, poor self-esteem, and repression of major aspects of my spirit. The messages that I received from my world, or collective consciousness, as both a child and as an adult are that I have little of any lasting value to give to the world, and that I should just blend in as best I can, and not complain. My conditioned response would be to keep silent, as I had nothing of value to share with the world, and/or the world could give a shit about what I had to say anyway. Who is actually out there that cares, anyway?

Recently, I had to travel on an extraordinary path to develop the willingness to write about my experiences with mental illness, and our individual and collective healing potential. On January 11th of 2017, I had a ‘seizure’, the first of its kind since my drug using days of 1986. I awoke at 2:45 in the morning, and went into my office and sat down. Suddenly, I lost all ability to move, and to even think, though I remained quite aware during this approximately one minute process. It was then that I became aware of a “black mass”, almost the size of a golf ball, in the left portion of the brain area of my inner field of body awareness. This was the first time that I had awareness of the energy field of my body since July of 1987, when I had my first, and only, experience of detecting my own life energy field. Those who understand what our proprioceptive senses are, will know this vision is just that capacity turned inward. I became quite concerned by this whole experience, though I kept it to myself initially. Every subsequent time I looked internally, I could still see the dark mass. In February, I was to have another seizure, this time much milder in nature, while in a public setting.

I did not initially talk about the seizures, or the black mass, because I thought that I might be losing my mind. I learned early in life to keep secrets, especially about aspects of my self that I know that others would not understand. I later began talking about it with my wife, and two friends, and it was theorized that it might be related to something spiritual or psychic in nature. But I came to know it as “death”, at least in a spiritual sense. I saw that there was no negotiating with it. Prayers, meditations, affirmations, reading, and talking with others would not dislodge the dark mass. I knew that some sort of death was coming my way, though I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor. I trust the doctor for ailments of the body, but much less so for ailments of the mind and spirit. I did tell my family doctor that I feared that my own death might precede my father’s, when I took my demented, dying father to see her in the first week of January.

On March 5, 2017 Marty, a friend of mind for over twenty years, suffered a major seizure and was hospitalized at OHSU. Marty had been in a four year recovery phase from malignant melanoma, a process first diagnosed in late 2012. He appeared to have been successfully treated with Interleuken II therapy, a powerful immunotherapy regimen. Now, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. My wife Sharon and I visited him two days prior to its surgical removal. Marty and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his seizures with my own, though mine were relatively tame by comparison. Marty’s brain tumor was the exact size, and in the same place in his brain that I had perceived the dark mass to be within my own, as well. I told Marty that my perception was that Death was making itself known to me, through the dark mass that I could see in my own energy field. I was also beginning to see a relationship between our problems, but I was hesitant to tell Marty about it. I told him that I hoped that his brain mass did not indicate a death for him.

That next day, Wednesday, at noon, I had another episode of such intensity, and duration, that I dared not even attempt to get up from the couch. I had previously arose from the couch, and briefly lost consciousness, so I was all shook up, yet I still had no desire to get a doctor involved. Sharon came home later that afternoon from her creative writing class, and found me quite compromised. She listened to my story, and accepted my decision not to seek further medical attention. This was perceived to be a spiritual crisis, and she offered her own love and care. She monitored my blood pressure, and whenever she noted when my breathing became shallow, she offered me a paper bag to breathe into, to prevent a panic attack.

Each time I tried to get off the couch, I became quite dizzy. I continued feeling quite physically subdued, and some sort of anxiety reaction was also happening with my body/mind. I was also losing my ability to talk. It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out. It was reminiscent of a time 31 years before, when for two days I had an event that prevented me from speaking during a portion of my trip through the underworld. I lost my voice for two days when confronted with the reality that there were dangerous people I was associating with, and this fact had finally, and powerfully, struck home with me.

The present time, I actually felt like my consciousness was trying to escape, that I might be losing my mind, and it took all of my resources just to hold it together. I did not want anything to do with a psychiatrist, or another neurological exam, having been through a horrible experience several years before, when I had experienced excruciating headaches. I tried to go about my normal activities, while being grateful that I did not have to provide care for my disabled father, whose care that week was taken over by others.

Thursday came, and I had not improved much. It also was the day that Marty’s tumor was being removed. I had dual concerns, for Marty, and for myself. I went about my limited daily activities as best I could, but I became quite conscious of my own fear and anxiety around Death, both of self, and of Marty. I continued to listen to the occasional taped spiritual wisdom tapes of some of my past teachers, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. I listened to one special one from Jack Boland, a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process. I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, and stated that he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He wished pain, not peace of mind, to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to any lasting spiritual progress . Those who understand this statement UNDERSTAND. And here I thought that I had already performed that process many, many years before! How wrong I was.

Thursday evening came, and after yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room, and awaited for Sharon to join me . My mind had become extremely active, and a dam burst within my mind, unleashing a torrent of words and thoughts. I felt a compulsion to share this message with my world. Yet I also knew that there were few, if any, people presently in my life who had the time, or even the interest, in listening to what Spirit was trying to pour out of my mind. I have witnessed that people become bored after reading about twenty words on my Facebook pages, and if there is not a clever or cute meme to look at, they just move on to something more distracting. As I lay out on the couch, feeling my own emotional/spiritual death about to overtake me, I cried out in despair to Sharon,

“Please share my message, I don’t have the medium to carry, or the capacity to deliver, this message in a way that others can hear, or understand!”.

Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion. Sharon had been listening to my story for close to thirty years, and she had witnessed me sitting on my voice for most of that time.

“Bruce, your message is your own, and must be spoken through you, or not at all. “

“But Sharon, that puts me head butt up against my greatest fears, and I know that I will never be heard!”

Even my tears, and begging, would not change her mind. She is a published author, and well respected within her community. I, on the other hand, had no such experience and background. I was in such pain and agony, that I knew that I could not go on with my life in any kind of healthy way, and I did not know what to do. I had the experience of a lifetime of people perceiving me as less of a human being than I am, starting with my own diseased father, followed by a steady progression of angry, sometimes hateful, judgmental male and female power figures, with a few very notable exceptions. I did not know how to act or feel differently. My voice had been silenced not only by others, but also by myself in the past, and this extends even unto the present time.

This loving act on Sharon’s part by refusing to speak for me was instrumental in the recovery of my ability to speak and to write. I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver my message. A prayer from my past, first created from a dream in 1992, formed in my mind and began with “Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You”.

All of a sudden I was COMPELLED to write, and I did not stop the process until fifteen pages of a story poured through me. My Spirit chose the format of a parable, perhaps knowing that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me. But the curious ones, the ones who had an inner Spirit that had not been yet stymied, would read, and appreciate, this aspect of the message that I now felt compelled to give to my world.

It took less than two days to write, and it was the first story I have ever written. I was never a writer, and before recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, most of the insight that I had was irrelevant to recovery and healing, and certainly was not worth writing about. While hospitalized for a month in 1984 for alcoholism, the journal that I was required to write about my daily insights seemed to be written by our society asking for permission to continue to be dysfunctional, rather than me getting in touch with my pain, and making progress with healing. People pleasing stories may be easier to read and write, but they sure lose their allure when one finally decides to move into the neighborhood of truth and real insight into self.

The dark mass in my body of energy disappeared upon completion of my story, coincidentally at about the same time that Marty’s tumor had been surgically removed. To this day, I remain healed of that darkness, though I am forced out of bed frequently now, to write, and to share with, the One who listens. Yes, I have finally learned that I need to listen to myself, more than just listening to other “authorities”. Some nights, I may only sleep 3 or 4 hours, and so I get out of bed to write until my wife Sharon awakens at 5 am. I have now written well over 300,000 words about recovery, healing, insight, and spirituality, which is miraculous considering that I never had anything to say until recently. I will spare you, by beloved reader, by limiting this work to only 50,000 words.

Creativity, and spiritual healing, when finally accessed, doe not conform to our conditioned mind’s expectation of how it should unfold. As a result of this process, I had an insight that is extremely difficult to talk with others about, an insight about my relationship with Marty and his disease in the final year of his life. I saw how I had become attuned to Marty on a psychic level. Some have called this connection radical empathy, some have called it telepathic, some have called it just plain fucking mysterious, and some would call it insane thinking on my part. For me, this is a natural outcome of prayer, meditation, mindfulness, tuning into a wider frequency of being, and enhanced attention to my dream world.

My love, compassion, and concern for Marty gave me the temporary ability to sense the dark, golf ball sized mass in my brain. It was not my physical cancer, it was Marty’s. Yet this “black mass” came to represent the cancer of oppression, and repression, within both of us. Death was to find Marty six months later, when the pain and suffering from the effects of the metastasized cancer and adverse reactions to new treatments drove him to select the Death with Dignity option. Yet repression, and oppression, continues, and a dark mass remains on the collective mind of mankind, and now I pursue the path towards a more universal version of recovery from spiritual disease.

We need to explore the relationship between the conspiracy of silence that permeates our culture and world civilization, and the incidence of degraded health outcomes that have resulted through reduced opportunities for healing, growth and evolution. Why do we continue to support potentially soul damaging techniques for engagement, dialogue and communication, when other more effective and loving means are available? Why do we clamor for peace and healing, and simultaneously make preparations for further confrontation with others, and for war? When we look deep within ourselves, do we even perceive that we have choices as to how to frame our view of reality, or is our life like witnessing a marionette speaking somebody else’s words? Are we able to locate all of the cultural and familial controls whose spell we are now under, and consciously examine each one, eschewing those which are impediments to our health and well-being? Finally, are we able to find our own truth, and then, find the courage to speak from it to those who might have need to hear it?

Our culture is only starting to come to an understanding about the causes of the epidemic of white middle-aged American men dying at earlier ages than would be statistically forecast, for the past 25 years. There has also been a marked increase in anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and mental illness in our general population, for men, women, and our most vulnerable of citizens, our children. For the adults, one of several causes around both lifespan decline and increased mental illness revolves around chronic abusive drinking of alcohol, and this has been reflected in our bodies by higher incidences of liver and esophageal cancer, especially in people under fifty years of age. There has also been the recent news reports with many references to the Opioid Epidemic, painkiller addiction, and the progression to heroin addiction by those participants. Drug overdoses killed 72,000 Americans last year alone.  Since 1999, more than 700,000 Americans have died from drug related causes.  America is losing the war on drugs, that is for sure. 

Alcohol and drug misuse are only symptoms of our cultural disease, and the abuse of intoxicants may be the way America medicates itself to avoid feeling the distress of feeling victimized by the forces of oppression within our society, failure to find one’s true voice and mission in life, and the repression of our inner natures. Other symptoms include our culture’s increasing problems with obesity, poor physical fitness, hoarding of weapons of war, or environmental, water and food supply toxicity. These are important issues, and their proliferation is directly dependent upon our often times toxic Capitalist economic principles and culture, so healing and enhanced awareness in this arena will lead to more effective solutions in our future.

Those who continue to suffer while eschewing the path of recovery live and operate in the background of our culture, and have a message that may not be spoken and/or cannot be heard or acknowledged because of the power of the collective conspiracy of silence. Our culture is broken, which leads to broken people and broken families. Yet, collectively, America has created a culture of denial, where we don’t look at our fundamental problems together, and confront them directly. Those who currently belong to certain religious, spiritual, or philosophical tribes tend to blame others rather than accepting their own roles that contribute to our shared disease. To the extent that the broken individual might indicate a brokenness within our culture, is the extent that the broken individual is marginalized and minimized by the entrenched power brokers of our civilization and their sycophants.

It is extremely difficult in finding a way to reach an individual, or a society, that has unconsciously made a decision to slowly and painfully commit suicide through toxicity and addictive cycles, while all remain in rigorous denial of that fact. Each toxic human being, be they an unconscious power hungry man or woman, alcoholic, drug addict, or mentally ill person must find their own unique “bottom”, where the pain of the disease causes a change, or turning point, in their lives. Insanity, loss of job, loss of family, admission to a mental health or addiction recovery facility, jail, DUI, threat of death, or near death experiences, and deaths of close friends or family members also suffering have been known to bring the desire for healing to many of us. A confrontation from those we may have harmed can have rather dramatic effects on our desire to change, as well. It took all of the negative life cycle outcomes to convince me to change behavior. Living in hell for an extended period of time brought me to death’s doorstep, yet I did survive, and the process helped me to seek for a deeper light.

Major sectors our culture continue to remain overly judgmental, uncaring and even indifferent to the plight of the suffering, and close their minds, hearts, and ears to those in need, so that they can continue relatively unbothered in their own selfish, self serving worlds. This indifference leads to those remaining silent in the face of the assault against their own neighbors, thus adding to our conspiracy of silence. There are many economic, religious, and political leaders who have derived the greatest personal and economic benefits through the exploitation of those who have no voice, and it is perceived as an existential threat for them to examine, acknowledge their own faults, and make changes to the damaged structure that gave rise to their own predominance in the first place. There must be a national discussion about our shared disease, its treatment, and the healing and changing of our culture to reduce the alarming probabilities of its recurrence.

The race is on between those who are spiritually supporting personal and collective Armageddon, and those who are promoting a more holistic, healing approach to living together in lasting harmony, peace and health upon our sacred planet. Those who can become receptive to their own spiritual awakening will become part of a world-wide healing movement, through co-creating the roots of the Tree of Life that supports a new world order of love, compassion, and the preservation of our home planet Earth and all of its sacred inhabitants. Those who choose to stay asleep will continue to contribute to the suffering, and the destruction of life in all of its diverse forms, and unconsciously contribute to the ravages that toxic living brings to our shared world. As a result of the division, it has been quite the mosh pit dance of conflict between the colliding forces of the need for revolutionary change, and the need for clinging to the status quo.

I have been asked by two male friends with strong spiritual connections as to why I continue to perseverate upon my own woundedness, and the damaged American psyche, and why I don’t instead focus on pure mysticism, Buddhist philosophies, and more pleasant, loving thoughts and activities. The question itself reveals the flaws inherent in absolutist philosophies, living an unexamined life, and the fragmentation already present in our collective understanding of how to bring healing to our self, and to our world. Does anybody think that the suicide victim, lone wolf arsonist, abusive alcoholic, mentally ill man shot by a policeman, drug overdose victim, morbidly obese person, rapist, child abuser, corrupted national politician and/or reality TV star, or mass murderer, is a unique being, with no relationship to the rest of the very humanity that spawned him? Just because we are not now consciously aware and viscerally experiencing the damaging effects of the unhealed American psyche, does not mean that we remain unaffected by its self-destructive, and other-destructive, energies. Ignorance never leads to bliss, but instead to more suffering by self and others.

Before we can proceed into a new world order of better health, increased happiness, peace, and preservation of our sacred planet and our relationships with the totality of life upon it, we must first completely see where we came from, or our self-destructive history will repeat itself. No human being remains unaffected by our damaged common core of consciousness, whether we personally express it, are impacted directly by it from others, or only read about it in the newspapers or on Facebook. For the truth is, our core of collective consciousness gets transmitted from our individual minds to the rest of the conscious universe, and we receive back from collective consciousness, as if it were an eternally uttered prayer shared by all of humanity.

The light of our country, though still burning brightly for the healing and the hopeful, attracts all manners of darkness to it, as evidenced by heartless terrorists, capitalists, and politicians victimizing our most innocent of beings. While witnessing victims of persecution and oppression within our own homeland, including our immigrants, our minorities, our homeless, our mentally ill, our children, our old, our diseased, our poor, our disabled, our sacred animals, or our environment itself, it can be difficult to feel the miracle of life that is constantly with us. Yet, to not have that experience, is to live a life devoid of much of the greater meaning available to us as human beings.

The American male, who carries most of the self-destructive, earth destructive, socially destructive, and feminine destructive energy within humanity, is paying a huge spiritual and physical price for the errors in both the presentation of our lives to the world and the experience of others’ contributions to our own lives. We, as a gender, continue to carry the historical fallout from many generations of callous indifference to the needs of others, and to our own spiritual needs for wholeness, love, healing, and compassion.

Toxic energy has damaged our masculinity, and is a disease of the human spirit that has been in existence since the beginning of civilization, and it continues to strike down men to this very day. Our world remains both addicted to and intoxicated by its masculine hubris, greed, indifference and insensitivity, and the resultant domination and subjugation of all life upon our planet. Callous, ignorant, hate inspired masculine energy runs rampant in our world, victimizing and destroying sacred life in all forms, while extremists of all types, including capitalists, politicians, and other opportunists profit from our own destruction. I have seen how men run in tribes or packs defined by their acts of self-destruction, the destruction of others, and the destruction of our planet. And I have seen, and I believe at the deepest level of my own being, that disease in the mind of mankind is directly related to the predisposition towards disease within the body of mankind.

One only needs to look around, and view the effects of toxic masculinity, and several of its ugly spawn, toxic religion, toxic politics, and toxic capitalism, to see that repression of our collective emotional/feeling natures, including the feminine and the Divine, is built right into the very fabric of our cultural existence. Our POTU$ is the perfect representation for all of the ills of our culture, and to the extent that the men within our culture practice his unholy principles of engagement with the world, and with its women, and men, they also share in his disease of mind, body, and spirit.

What happens to a culture defeated by the dark unhealed energy? We don’t need to look too far to see the insanity around us, the monetization of humanity and the world, mass murders, early deaths, suicides, drug addiction, alcoholism, abuse of woman, and children, extinction of species, destruction of our ecology, and see the relationships that now continue to a very bleak future, unless the men and women in this world awaken, and rebel against the prevailing dark attitudes of our dying culture.

Randy Olson (left-1955-2013) Dan Dietz (1955-1997)

I have watched an endless parade of friends, family members, co-workers, and acquaintances suffer from mental illness, alcoholism and addiction, and/or meet an early death, and I nearly died prematurely, as well. Most of my grade school and high school friends have already suffered, and have either become disabled or have had early deaths. Both of my best friends from earlier in my life died young from alcoholism and poor health choices My nephew has a bipolar condition along with alcoholism, and has alienated himself from important parts of his family I have a cousin who in February of 2018 was comatose and near death from the DT’s in the ICU, and who continues to drink. He is presently suicidal, and has expressed interest in bringing suffering to the rest of the family. We buried another drug addicted cousin in August of 2017, who, through her own self-directed treatment of pain coupled with the ignorance of her doctors, missed pancreatic cancer, and she died a miserable death within a week of a correct diagnosis. I have also witnessed two close family members who are practicing alcoholics continuing to ply their self-destructive trades, while ostracizing my wife and I, as well as one of our own grandsons has been addicted to pot and other substances since he was 11 years old, and he just has not been able to put a productive life together. I just can’t ignore this disease of the Spirit which has taken over my family, and our country.

In many cases, those early deaths or disabilities from mental illness and/or alcoholism were, literally, a divorce from their lives, as their lives were so unfulfilled and unhappy, and they had lost all hope for any positive change. In many of the cases that I am familiar with, they were not happy at the end, and their death appeared to be a welcome release for them. Some had lost their careers, and could not recover from that. Some had no meaning in their lives, and could not recover from that. Some were addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, and could not recover from that. Some were addicted to the idea that their only function was to provide for their wives or family, and, having achieved success or failure, they could not recover from that. Some were just waiting for a better day, and when it never appeared, they could not recover from that. Some were lonely and depressed, and they could not recover from that. Some had profound physical health issues, and they could not recover from that. Some had profound mental illness, and they could not recover from that.

What is the hidden story, the real back story to all diseased men and women, and their lives that may not have been told to their families, to their religions, to their culture, to their employer and co-workers, and to their Gods? Were any of our victims of society able to listen to themselves, and identify their own unique pain and suffering, and bring it to the light of love and reason, to search for, and eventually find a newer path to healing and meaning? Or, did they blindly follow down the well-worn path of premature deterioration and death that unconscious humanity, through engaging in our collective common knowledge game, the road defined by “sin”, suffering, and dying, is doomed to trudge upon?

This book is a mantle woven together by the words and stories that I have chosen to represent the whole of my life experience. I wear this garment in honor of all those who have preceded me, and for those who still walk beside me in spirit, in love, and in healing. I honor my deceased parents and grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and the countless generations past. I honor those who have sacrificed their lives to diseases of the body, and of the Spirit, be they the addict, alcoholic, mentally ill, victim of violence, or the so-called normal person who struggled with comprehending the insanity in their own life, and of their civilization, and died before finding healing. I honor those who are still alive, and suffering under the forces of oppression and repression that characterize much of life lived under our present economic, religious, and political systems. I honor those who will take the time to consider this work, and I also honor those who will never find the opportunity or the willingness to do so. Finally, I honor my wife Sharon White, who suffered with me through some tough times during a relapse in 2007, caring for my dying father the last several years up to 2017, and for the actual writing of this book.

As a culture, we need to remember that our mentally ill population, which includes the addicts and the alcoholics, are society’s “canaries in the gold mine”. We are all susceptible to the damages incurred by spiritual asphyxiation, should we neglect to listen to the stories being told by our most vulnerable family members. The sensitive and the oppressed of our culture define the leading edge of the journey of our own shared human experience and are indicators of our collective spiritual condition.

The conspiracy of silence is built right into the framework of our collective consciousness. Dead men tell no tales, but the nearly dead MUST continue to tell their stories, with respect for themselves and others, until our civilization finally wakes up. To not express ourselves honestly and openly results in our own early demise, spiritually as well as physically. We each must penetrate the conspiracy of silence, and bring the light of a loving heart and healing words to the hidden darkness. We can then bring hope to all of the canaries in our society who are now struggling for air.

“If you really, really knew me, you wouldn’t love me”

—This is often heard in many recovery meetings, and one of the foundational beliefs behind our collective conspiracy of silence, which supports poor self-esteem, and distrust of others.

We are only as sick as our secrets”

–This is another aphorism frequently heard in recovery meetings. Shame keeps those secrets secret. My present understanding is that we will remain as sick as our secrets, while being victimized by society’s secrets, as well.

There are many in our culture who have calloused hearts, which reflects in both toxic and criminal behaviors, and crazy making communication styles. Those who have witnessed the way that many men abuse their physical privilege, and take advantage of their positions of power and influence to oppress, victimize and control others spiritually, and sexually, can become disheartened and demoralized. Members of my own sex have also suffered under toxic influences from other men, as well as from our own wayward intentions. There are no positive mental health outcomes for those who suffer under such abuse. My heart goes out to all women and men, past and present, who have been abused by unconscious male power dynamics and abhorrent sexual behavior. These darkened and traumatizing actions made lifelong victims of my first wife, and at least one other woman who I had a long term relationship with.

Our political, religious, and economic leaders, and those whose professional practice includes mental health, have found that they have limited options for dealing with the disease, resulting in feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and even institutionalized indifference. On that down side, there are those within our culture who misunderstand or ignore, over-medicate, ostracize and marginalize, Isolate and imprison, abuse and punish, degrade and dispose, and just plain “give up on” the mentally ill. On the up side, there are many family members, therapists, psychologists, spiritual advisors, and psychiatrists who have given their lives, hearts, and souls to the care and healing of our mentally ill, and my heart sometimes breaks FOR ALL OF US, as we struggle to manage both our own lives, while also being of service to these fallen fellow members of our family and society.

The psychiatric profession would do itself wonders to finally gain the necessary insight to understand the underlying message here, for we are all being impacted by our cultural INSANITY, and far too many American citizens will continue their own unconscious descent into darkness and mental illness. The mentally ill need better guidance, and our sick society needs better guidance, before it is too late for all of us. Chemicals can carry a disabled personality only so far, and then the river of spirit, with healing and insight, must carry the diseased human being the rest of the way to sanity. Yet, better than treatment is a plan for prevention, which a resistant society will not take the necessary measures to enact.

Our culture’s stories revolving around mental illness points to a problem with professional bias. Each patient is trying to tell the world a secret, yet due to the conditions of their disease, they cannot reveal it. The mentally ill, like all semi-conscious human beings, do not yet have a safe container for their troubled feelings around whatever has traumatized their lives. It takes each patient a unique period of time to connect with the willingness to access the source of their pain and suffering. And it takes a specially trained listening ear to hear the broken person’s deepest meaning, as it can be buried among ancient pain relics from far distant places and times, and, in the extreme, disassociated personalities. Many patients in need of healing may well head for the door, figuratively or literally speaking, if there is a perception that they are not being listened to with compassion and empathy. That is the primary reason many never even reach a professional’s doorstep, for the isolation and fear informs the broken person that there is nobody alive who will understand them, and embrace them with love anyway.

Be mindful oh Mankind, of all the painful secrets that we must keep,
By sharing with others we may awaken, or by our suffering silence just die asleep
—–Bruce Paullin

The following story indicates my path towards wholeness and spiritual integrity, after moving away from both my own personal insanity and our culture’s schizophrenia. I document a few of my hard-earned insights that I have been given into the life that we all share. This is a presentation of my unique perspective. Please forgive me in advance if my insights and realizations appear obvious and simple, or challenge basic sensibilities. Though it is not my intention to be offensive and argumentative, I hope that some new energy is stirred within the reader. It is not my intention to create more spiritual froth with trite all-encompassing statements like “love heals all wounds”, or “love is the only power”. Love of this type and nature can be a most elusive spiritual resource, and is not what the vast majority of the human race initially seeks or believes it to be. The following work is the documentation of my own “hero’s journey” towards all such noble human values.

There have been several messages bubbling up within my consciousness that have hinted at the collective errors in human reasoning, and this work is the culmination of my attempt to honor all of those “whispers of the Spirit”. My personal truth demands of me that I deliver these words, regardless of what others might think, or how resistant I might be in sharing them. In the face of the evil and ignorance that predominates our world mind, those who have the sensitivity of the artist, the skill of the musician, the message from a miraculous healing, or even the voice of the marginalized prophet, must continue their best efforts to bring forth the Word, even while our civilization continues its seeming inexorable slide into chaos, hatred, and planetary destruction.

I would prefer to entertain my own participation in the cultural conspiracy of silence, yet my own healing demands that I share my understanding and experience at the deepest levels that are available to me. One of the greatest gifts that we can give to each other is a non-judgmental listening ear, and to keep our hearts open to the stories that are being told. I struggled mightily with manifesting my potential for this, though I have dramatically improved over the years since 1987. Because I found a way to listen to myself, and listen to all people in my life, both past and past I now can better relate our shared story.

In some of the early times of my life, prior to my addictive cycles, I carried a sense of isolation, depression, and a strong feeling of anxiety around life and the unknown. From 1971 through 1987, as a practicing alcoholic and drug addict, and mentally ill human being, I lost most of my remaining freedom of choice. I belonged to the “death wish core group” of Americans, who lived lives of desperation, addiction, suicidal ideation, and mental illness. We all sought an early death, either by our own hands, through our addictions, or by the poor health and relationship decisions that we continued to make. Many of us could see the insanity of those still claiming for themselves good mental health, while the choices of those supposedly “healthy people of the world” continued to bring the promise of the destruction to our planet Earth. While we contemplated our own end, we witnessed a world in the midst of its own collective march towards suicide.

In my personal story I attempt to use one linear time line, with some minor overlap between the stories. There will be no lurid tales of debauchery (well, maybe a reference or two), nor overt acts of aggression or crimes against my fellow-man, though I certainly carried the capacity for all manners of the evil inherent in the human mind. In my journey through Portland’s underworld community, I associated with people who had acted on all manners of ignorance, evil, and darkness, and many lives had been destroyed or damaged as a result of their behaviors. While a practicing addict/alcoholic, I had the potential to damage or destroy many lives, especially through driving. I was pulled over seven times for drunken or reckless driving, though I never got a DUI because of my capacity to appear sober, no matter how intoxicated that I was. I drove intoxicated over two thousand times, and though I never hurt or killed anyone, there were a few wrecks, and many near misses. In alcoholic blackouts, I accessed incorrigible attitudes and contemplated egregious acts, but good fortune saved the day for me, and for the world.

Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil leads to continued propagation of evil

Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil, heal no evil!

My life certainly has not been newsworthy or extraordinary in any obvious ways. In my youth, I was the person who was best described as one who was on the “outside looking in” on life, versus the one who was on the “inside looking everywhere”. I never really quite fit in, when it came to living life. But, the best part of my story lies in the lessons learned from a life experienced from both perspectives, with much of my personal truth having been derived from the movement through my family and its history, as well as through the bigger picture painted through my movement through our culture and civilization. There is a direct connection between what unfolded in my life while being a masculine energy dominated addict, alcoholic, and isolated, mentally ill human being, and the dysfunctional patriarchy that continues to unfold in our world today. Now to my story of disease, deterioration, near death, resurrection, and evolution.

1971-1987

I arrived at 15 years of age with social anxiety and awkwardness, low self-esteem, and a physical immaturity for my year in high school. I had no idea who “my people” were, though I had still had 3 or 4 quite socially compromised fellow travelers who had been my friends since 5th grade. I was truly a “stranger in a strange land” at high school, and the anxiety around this social adjustment was uncomfortably high.  Looking back, it is easy to see that I was in a vulnerable state of mind.

I began my sophomore year at Rex Putnam High School, still not fitting in too well with the whole process of being educated in a high school setting. I remember a high school science class where the teacher was so disturbed by my “aloof and judgmental” behavior that he called me out in class, and called me a “pseudo-intellectual”, and then laughed when he then announced that I would not know what that means. Well, I recited the definition from my memory of what that offensive word meant, smirked at him, and then sat down and became quiet. Yes, not only did I not fit in, but others perceived that I did not fit in, as well.

I had no desire to use drugs at the time, as I still was repulsed by the behavior of my sister, who, through her own drug use had become an outsider within our own home family structure. She still hung around, when she was not running with her other friends, or hanging onto her latest boyfriend. But her resistance to and fighting with my parents disrupted my own distorted sense of what a healthy family setting should look, and feel, like.

One late fall Friday night in 1970, my friends Tony M and Randy O found me at a Friday night football game, and said that I needed to try something with them. I went with them, and when we drove off of the campus, Randy brought out a couple of “joints” and told me what they were. Well, I wanted nothing to do with it at the time, but the peer pressure was high, so I went along with them, and inhaled some of that nasty stuff. I did not get “high”, though they did, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves, though I could not understand how.

I tried pot three more times, because I became curious how a substance could change somebody so profoundly that they appeared to be uninhibited and enjoying themselves in public, which was an unknown concept to me. Then, the damage began. I actually became high, and nothing was ever to be the same again. For the first time in my life, it did not matter that I did not fit in, and my sense of social dis-ease left, and my own poor sense of self-esteem evaporated in a cloud of intoxicating smoke. I began to gather a support group of fellow users around me, and thus established myself in a new community where I finally felt that I belonged.  Thus, the oppression of my human heart and soul became normalized in my own life, through the continued usage of the drug and association with others who also used drugs.

I first met Dan Dietz in 1969, when I saw him as a freshman in high school.  He came from Oak Grove grade school, and I came from Concord grade school, to join the freshman class.  We did not associate with each other, at least initially, and rarely acknowledged each other until the sophomore year.  An associate of his, Mark Anderson, was in my PE class, so that is where I first made contact with the “greaser” group that they all belonged to.  There was Bruce Chapman, Dan Dietz, Mark Anderson, Barry South, and the many drop-ins that associated with them throughout high school.  Bruce Chapman had a garage outside of his home, where he perpetually worked on his 1955 Chevy race car.  Bruce’s Garage took on an almost sacred connotation in all who knew him over the next few years, as it became THE GATHERING PLACE many weekend evenings.  Lots and lots of suds were consumed there.

While still a sophomore in high school, In my search for another source of pot, Dan Dietz strongly came into my awareness, and, thus, we were to begin a deep, though at times troubled, friendship. Dan was a big young man, with little athletic inclination. He was already well versed in the art and science of heavy drinking by the time that I met him. He found me some pot, and invited me to smoke it with him. I then was introduced to the “gang”, and the rest is history. Soon I was to join them in their weekly celebrations of hops, marijuana, and fairly close friendship, it seemed.

We hit it off fabulously, and I found my mission in life, which apparently was to drink and use until I died. I got drunk for the first time in my conscious life with Dan and the garage gang, at age 15. And I knew that I was an alcoholic from the very beginning. After a couple weekends of drinking, I admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic already. I got so “high” off of alcohol, it was like a narcotic. And I always drank until I was drunk, as there was no middle ground here.

It was here that I had the realization that I would die from alcoholism, that there was nothing that I could do about it but hold on tight, and ride it out to its self-destructive conclusion. My statement to myself was that I would either quit alcohol and drugs by age 30, or I would die, perhaps by the destructive effects of the disease itself, or by my own hand. Yes, hopelessness came early, but there was still a lot of fun and experiences to be gained through its use while my ship of life sank over the next 16 years. Life is so fun, when you know that you are going to die young, right? There were several nights my senior year in high school when my mother would have to hold a bucket under my head while I released extra beer from the stomach reservoir, which I would always overfill. She investigated Alcoholics Anonymous for me, but I had no desire to connect with a bunch of boring old people, and I steered WAY CLEAR of anything approaching sobriety in high school, or in the two attempts for Bachelor’s Degrees at the University of Portland that were to follow in subsequent years.

“Ain’t It Fun” (lyrics by Guns & Roses)

Ain’t it fun when you’re always on the run
Ain’t it fun when your friends despise what you become
Ain’t it fun when you get so high
Well… that you, you just can’t come
Ain’t it fun when you know that you gonna die young
It’s such fun
Good fun
Ain’t it fun when you taking care of number one
Ain’t it fun when you feel like you just gotta get a gun
Ain’t it fun when you just can’t seem to find your tongue
Cause you stuck it too deep into something that really stung
It’s such fun, ah
Well, so good to me, they spit right in my face
I didn’t even feel it
It was such a disgrace
I punched my fist right through the glass
I didn’t even feel it
It happened so fast
Such fun
Ah such fun Ain’t it fun when you tell her she’s just a cunt
Ain’t it fun when you she splits you and leaves you on the bum
Well, ain’t it fun when you’ve broken up every band that you’ve ever begun
Ain’t it fun when you know that you’re gonna die young
It’s such fun

In my junior year in high school, I was required to keep a daily journal, and record my insights into myself for a writing class. The problem was that I had no insight, at least as far as being able to put into words what the interior nature of my mind and life looked like. I did not spend a lot of time giving descriptions to events happening around me, and, instead, listened to others as they described their own experiences, which I either accepted and supported or rejected and judged against. But for me to give a description of the interior dimensions of my own being seemed an impossible task. I had to submit something, and in my desperation to get a decent grade I went to a bookstore, to find a book to help me to ‘look at myself’.

Hugh Prather had written a book called ‘Notes To Myself’, and I stumbled upon it, and bought it. I was so empty of complete statements about myself and my life that I copied statements from Hugh’s book, and tried to ‘personalize’ them so that it would not be obvious that I had copied his work. I got my passing grade, felt very relieved, and continued on my awkward, highly dysfunctional path through high school. I was near the top of my class near graduation time, yet I was completely out of touch with the majority of my classmates, as well as with myself. I had hoped that to finally graduate from high school might change, if not end, much of my social anxiety and sense of disconnect. Of course this could not be further from the truth. When I entered my freshman year at the University of Portland in 1973, I was lost again, and I had no internal maps to guide me through the complexities of college life.The use of pot, alcohol, and relationships with emotionally diseased people continued in earnest, obscuring any clear vision of my goals, and I constructed many self-destructive road blocks that impeded all progress.

Looking back, this verbal and emotional disconnect would have been great stuff to write about in the high school class, but i was living a lie, without having the words to even describe it, and the telling of the truth to others, let alone to myself, might force me into changes that I could not embrace or consider as possibilities. The absence of personal honesty and insight, and to be verbal around it, and the inability to communicate my distress with others doomed me to a deteriorating life experience. This limited my choices so much that many days, and years, I felt trapped in a prison, with interior windows sometimes only opening to Hell. I did not even have an adequate description to communicate my hell to others, so this is the secret behind the motivation for many mysterious suicides.

Sean Tucker was to play a small, but important, role as a friend to me from 1972-1986. I first met Sean Tucker in 1972, when he moved into our area from his mother’s home in Colorado. His father was estranged from his mother. His father was a manager with the Bureau Of Indian Affairs, and Sean had chosen to live with him. Sean drove a perfect four door baby blue 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, which was his distinctive chariot for most of the time that I knew him as a youth. Sean had long hair, and always wore it in a pony tail. We met at the Owen Sabin Occupational Skills Center, where I was learning Electrical Construction, and he was learning Printing. Sean was a handsome young man, and he really had an easy time with dating women.  That certainly was not to be my experience, however.

Sean eventually became my favorite friend.  We did so much together, and I looked forward to having adventures with him, all the way until he joined the Air Force in 1978.  We took long drives out into the country, we played pinball at all of the local bowling alleys and arcades, we partied with all of the other local party animals on weekends, and we shared many family events and meals at my parents’ home.  Sean did not include me in his family events, however.  I had many drinking and using friends, but Sean seemed to exist in another realm for me, where spirit joined with love and friendship and shared values and meaning.  We would listen to Alan Watts on Saturday night, and while “high” sometimes laugh and giggle together at Alan’s wisdom and insight, though we might catch an occasional AHA! from our listening efforts.

We talked a lot about what God might be, and how we might encounter it’s truth in our journeys.  Sean was not a church goer until much later in life, nor was I, so we were not limited by structured understandings at that time.  We would play with meditation sometimes, after hearing that a more prolonged “high” could be experienced through meditation than could be obtained through the use of drugs and alcohol.  One time I was meditating in a full lotus position on the pool table in my parents’ home basement, and my mother saw me, and was surprised and shocked by what she witnessed.  I was embarrassed by her discomfort with me, and shortly after that, I ceased all further attempts at meditation.

One profound experience around group energy temporarily “enlightened me” in 1972, when I attended my first rock concert.  There were three groups, The Grease Band, Rod Steward and the Faces, and Savoy Brown.  A group of us smoked some weed, and we all attended the $3.00 event.  It was Tony Mecklem, Sonny Graham, and myself, with Sonny supplying the Panama Red pot.  I did not know what to expect, but I knew that I liked the artists, so I was pretty excited about attending.  But, when we got to the Memorial Coliseum, I was amazed at the number of people who were there.  This was by far and away the biggest event that I had ever attended in my life.  We walked through the ticket line, and proceeded to try to find our seats.  But when I opened the door into the arena, it was like an explosion went off in my mind.  I went from carrying just my normal sense of self, with a marijuana “high” component attached to it, to a Cosmic/Group  mind experience.  I Was The Crowd, and it was like I was spread all over the Coliseum, and I was carried by the music, and I was the music.  A form of Cosmic Consciousness had hit me for the first time in my life, and I Was Blown Away. I had finally “fit in” with strangers at an amazing, profound level. Much of my later drug use had the unrealized hope that I might feel this expanding sense of self again.

Looking at my history, I have both rocked with the Mystery, and been broken by addictive misery.

Marijuana brought to me a temporary sense of peace of mind, and kept me from being so hyperactive mentally, at least while I was under its influence. I was quite the precocious person, with an almost photographic memory, but I did not respect nor sufficiently appreciate my abilities.  Over the course of the many years of use, I lost many of my basic abilities to feel my emotional heritage, and to draw from my internal intellectual resources. Through the process of normalizing the oppressive qualities of this drug, I attempted to become immune to the distress going on around me, and the distress building up within my mind, and body.

I started smoking pot before attending mathematics classes, and before doing my most difficult homework.  I was in the most advanced science and math classes already, and Rex Putnam High had even introduced a college level calculus class for our senior year because there were several people who had the same advanced capabilities as with me. Even calculus was too easy for me, so pot made boring homework more of a challenge to finish.   I enjoyed creating the extra level of difficulty for my work, and for my life, apparently. 

EPSON MFP image

The fun and challenge of using pot while trying to succeed in school ultimately backfired, when I hit college. It was disheartening to lose my nearly photographic memory to the damaging effects of pot, a memory capacity which had enabled me to slide through most of school without doing much homework.  By the time I hit my junior year at the University Of Portland, I can remember many, many hours of just staring at my homework, unable to comprehend what I was looking at, near the end of my academic road in 1976.

The use of LSD had become popular by the late 1960’s by those great experimenters of human consciousness, as well as by casual users seeking a unique “high”. In the last two years, there has been several books written by various authors, and several articles posted in Psychology Today, and in other scientific, spiritual and healing newsletters, about the possibility of some forms of psychedelics being useful in the treatment of depression and other mood disorders.  I won’t necessarily be directly addressing those articles here, but modern research may be confirming what has already been witnessed by many users of these mind altering substances over the last fifty years.  Psychedelics, and their use, could take a whole volume, if I were to describe and define all of my experiences with them over the period 1972-1980.  I used LSD and mescaline during my high school years over twenty times, from early 1972 through the summer of 1973.  In college, I did not use them hardly at all, nor did I use them much after that, perhaps using them once or twice a year until 1980, when I ceased using them altogether.

Psychedelia comes under a different class of experience than alcohol, pot, amphetamines, or downers.  They were referred to as “mind expanding drugs” during the period of time when they were most popular, which began in the 1960’s and extending through the 1970’s period of time.  I found psychedelics to be extremely challenging to use, yet they brought into my awareness some amazing and logic-defying experiences.  The experience of phantasmagoria, where images both real or imagined blur together, is the stuff of great creative expression, with constantly changing series of scenes or events that shift in color and intensity. I had several exotic, supra-normal types of personal events on several occasions, as well as the opening of some inner doors, behind which insanity resides..

My first time that I used LSD, I was a sophomore in high school.  I had no desire to ever use the drug, as I was afraid of the potential effects on me.  But, Pam’s friend, Terry Potter, gave me a small pill that had been saturated with LSD liquid to give to Pam.  Pam, at this point of her life had no desire for the drug, so she gave it back to me and told me to return it to Terry.  Well, I kept it, and then decided to try an ever so small amount of it, in case I had a dangerous reaction to it.  I grabbed a razor blade, and scraped about one fourth off of the pill, and ingested it, and then took a bus to downtown Portland, to hang out at the city library.  Well, an amazing feeling overtook me about one hour later.  I became euphoric, and I had never felt so good in my life!  I felt peace, and love for everybody and everything, and being only fifteen years old and having never experienced such an energy before, I thought that I had found the “promised land”.  There were no visual or auditory hallucinations, because the dose was so low, and that was just fine with me.  It took longer than usual to sleep that night, as my mind remained on “high alert” well into the early morning hours.  There was no hangover, nor did I regret taking the risk using the drug.

Another time, while in the summer break between my sophomore and junior years in high school, I went to attend a concert at Washington Park..There, a man sold me something called DMT, which he called the businessman’s LSD, because its effects only lasted 2-3 hours, versus the 10-13 hours LSD’s effects may cause.  This drug is similar to the drug Ecstacy as it is now being sold in the US.  I became euphoric on this drug, and I had a fascinating experience.  Every person that I would encounter for the next two hours, I felt an incredible kinship with.  I also felt as if I could understand them at some level way beyond my normal capacity.  It was as if I was able to feel all of their good thoughts, so to speak.  So, it was an experience of the elimination of fear for me when dealing with strangers, and giving me the sense of being connected with everybody at a level impossible to achieve while in normal states.  A more sedate and sane variation of this experience was to come to me more “naturally” fifteen years later, after recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism.

There is another LSD experience that I consider worth commenting upon.  Marc Anderson, Mike Kelsey and myself had taken LSD together in my senior year at Rex Putnam.  Mike had already dropped out of high school, and had his own “rat castle” so we enjoyed LSD’s effects at Mike’s place.  One amazing effect was that somehow Marc and I became entrained, so that we would “see” the same hallucinations at the same time.  Yes, I was taking the drug in high enough doses that hallucinations were now quite prominent.  One of the biggest prolonged laughs that we all had together was when Mike turned into the Devil himself, with red horns, a tail,  and a red face.  Of course, Mike could not see it, but Marc and I saw him transform Exactly at the same time, and we could not stop laughing for ten minutes!!

One final experience that seems to have significance is one time I had secured a variation of LSD called Orange Sunshine, while attending a summer concert at Delta Park in north Portland.  The pill itself was a small phosphorescent orange color, and boy did it pack a wallop!  Any kind of visual image or scene had the likelihood of changing into almost anything else, seemingly spontaneously.  When I say that the “walls were melting” at times, if I was in a room, the walls did melt with the most wonderful synesthetic blending of color and sounds together.  My psychological set was eliminated as well (meaning all of my personality was no longer accessible, so I was witnessing and experiencing the moment without my normal ways of experiencing reality through my conditioning).  It was incredible, disorienting, wild, and transformative while under LSD’s influence.  I was to have a drug induced “awakening” where I realized that I was the one controlling my very reality, and through the focus of my will and my heart I could change what I was witnessing in  the world.  This took on rather bizarre manifestations, with colors swirling through new images, sometimes appearing as if some sort of internal kaleidoscope were projecting images out into my visual field, ALL UNDER MY CONTROL.

When I saw how I could also experience people in a thousand different ways, depending on the position of my internal “kaleidoscope”, I came to realize that I had a lot more say in how I experienced my fellow man than I ever realized.  I can understand why Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), Timothy Leary and so many other pioneers in the modern day exploration of human consciousness have used LSD.  LSD, under the right conditions, can reveal the awesome powers, and potential, of the unconditioned human mind.  It can be temporarily transformational, and potentially quite beautiful, and dangerous, as well. 

I found that the older that I got, the less of a positive experience that I got, so I stopped using LSD in January of 1980.  It took two days to recover from my last experience, of which I had shared with Dan Dietz.  I feared that I might not return to “my normal”, the place where I am comfortable in my “psychological set”, and I never wanted to use it again.  But, the potential for the positive aspects of mind expansion without drugs did occur for me much later in adulthood, having similar sort of mind altering experiences, in a much more natural, permanent, and less disruptive way.

In the summer of 1972, I was to meet Donelle Flick, who eventually became my first wife. My relationship with Donelle, and aspects of her own personal journey, is the most challenging story for me to tell. I became sweethearts and lovers with her in 1973, I married her in 1979, I legally separated from her in 1980, and I divorced her in 1984. I had occasional contact with her from 1984 through 1996. My experience with Donelle through twenty four years of a tragic relationship contains enough information to be a book in and of itself. Her life does not neatly fit into a linear time frame, and her story, just like her life was painfully disjointed, a quality that characterized both of our lives through at least 1987. Mental illness ultimately left her in a permanently broken state, regardless of the multitudes and diversity of medications administered by ‘professionals’, the follow-up care received, OR LACK OF IT, or the rest of the outer circumstances of her life.

Donelle’s life experience as an adult is a direct result of her relationship to traumatic abuse as a child at the hands of a pervert and a beast of a man, as well as the all-pervading aspects of our damaged male dominated culture. Other factors such as poor professional mental health care and few, if any, alternative therapy options, as well as unknown genetic predispositions may be factors that kept her spiritually, emotionally, and physically imprisoned in a life lacking in freedom and good health. Her early years with mental illness had no relationship with recreational and illicit drug use, as she did not use them at all in high school.

Donelle was never able to speak out against the abuse that she
experienced throughout her life. Being born into a socially diseased
family, where her mother’s narcissism and selfishness, and neglect of
her young children were the defining characteristics of their relationship. Her mother’s poor relationship choices with men resulted from her own brokenness, leading to the conditions that promoted sexual abuse and assault against Donelle when she was but 6 years old.

Her mother, Marlene, was a young bride, who married Donald Flick, in 1954. Don owned 2 sections of land in North Dakota, which he managed and leased out, as well as being a full time worker at the Camas Washington Crown Zellerbach paper mill. Don would work so much at the mill, that time at home was quite limited. Marlene would have parties at their home while he was away, and she would invite single men. There was always alcohol being served, and Marlene tended to promiscuity during that time period. While she would be taking leave to the back bedroom with her latest “friend”, she would leave her young children vulnerable to whoever was left without a partner. Donelle, being about 6 years old during this difficult period of time, was selected and abused by Bud Barr, who was a child predator, heavy drinker, and all around bad attitude man. Bud would repeatedly abuse Donelle, and it was also later learned that he abused his other daughter from his previous marriage.

Marlene and Don’s marriage collapsed in 1962, and they were divorced. But Marlene married the abuser Bud, and they moved in together near Five Corners in Vancouver, Washington. Donelle lived with her mother the majority of the time, due to the conditions of the divorce decree.
Donelle had to face the threat of sexual attack from this criminal for
the next ten years of her life, though her brothers told me that Bud was
not allowed to be alone with Donelle, after Marlene and Bud moved in
with each other. Yet, the damage was already done, and Donelle came to know trauma intimately, and she continuously felt the threat of his presence for all of her childhood years.

My childhood best friend, Randy Olson, found his first long term girlfriend, Terri-Lynn Barr at a Portland Rose Festival event in the summer of 1972. Terry-Lynn’s father was Donelle’s step father, Bud Barr. One day late in our sophomore year in high school Randy drove Donelle down to Portland, where I had my first chance to meet her. This was not a date for me, but when I first laid eyes on Donelle, I was hooked. She was the most beautiful young woman I had ever met, gorgeous beyond all description, and she was incredibly intelligent, and a very caring person, too. Donelle had the manner, and the figure, of the woman of my fantasies. I had a sense that I had witnessed my future, when I first saw her. I did not see her again for several months, but she had left an indelible mark upon my soul, and I just could not forget her.

Donelle, trip to South Dakota in 1972

I was still not driving at the time, so I just let all thoughts of re-connecting with her just slip away. She already had a boyfriend in Vancouver, Washington at Evergreen High School, according to Randy, and I had such a low self-esteem that I felt that I could not compete for her affections, anyway. I mean, here I was, a scrawny guy who had barely reached pubescence. But I was to grow substantially from my sophomore year to my junior year, and I was to finally start to physically catch up with my peers. Emotionally I was quite immature and limited in my ability to be lovingly present for any woman, let alone one with her psychological handicap..

Randy did bring Donelle down again during our junior year at Rex Putnam High, and I made my move.  Donelle began to express interest in me, but since we lived twenty miles apart from each other, future connections would be dependent on other people, which was untenable for me. I knew that if I wanted to keep this relationship going I had to do something extraordinary, or stupid. My father would not let me get a drivers license, nor would he buy a car for me. My father had purchased a Honda 50CC motorcycle that he was going to use for fishing (he never did), so I commandeered the bike, grabbed a helmet, and drove that silly little thing up I205 into Vancouver, or Camas, wherever she happened to be staying at the time.

My relationship with Donelle began near the end of Marlene and Bud’s marriage. Donelle and I were to become sweethearts while I was still 16 years old, and she was 17. We both were virgins, and our first sexual encounter while we were seniors in high school was anything but satisfying. I began to wonder if this was all there was to sex, what was the point? Donelle was very cold, and unresponsive, and I was later to learn that she was non-orgasmic because of the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. Yes, childhood trauma is the gift that keeps on giving, the trauma created by predators that sexually abuse our babies.

I was to meet and talk with Bud twice, and found him to be an angry, dark, judgmental man, and I learned to hate that man. I could see that he was an extremely oppressive presence, and he practiced intimidation in all of his spare time, apparently. Upon hearing the story of sexual and physical abuses meted out by Bud from Terry-Lynn Barr, Donelle’s step sister, I was to experience the desire to murder human beings for the first and only time in my life. Bud sexually abused both Terry-Lynn’s other sister from another mother, and her step-sister Donelle when they were both young. Don’t ask me what should be done with those people. Life has a way of punishing them, but it is always too late to save the victim. Many of these victims are so traumatized that they never recover, so prevention is really our only hope here, at least for now. Donelle was never to recover from this, and she could not even “touch herself” without having an incredible guilt and discomfort. Sex was anything but fulfilling for either of us, and it was a harsh disappointment for us.

Marlene, finally divorced from Bud Barr late in 1972, after she found a new boyfriend from her work at Parker Furniture in Vancouver.  Marlene was proud of finally disposing of that ogre, and looked to her children for affirmation that she had finally made a good relationship choice. Tom was the new lover’s name, and he was to tolerate Donelle, and me when I visited with her, for about two years.

Eventually, Donelle and I, and Randy and Terry-Lynn, became best friends and couples that shared much time and love together. We did a lot of fun and silly things together, including making love with our partners in the back of Randy’s Chevrolet station wagon, in side by side fashion. I did not always get along with Terry-Lynn, which was a trend that was to continue through most of Randy’s relationships with many other women in the years that were to follow. One time we were all camping at Short Sands Beach campground at the Oregon Coast, and Terry-Lynn became so irritated with me that she pulled the tent stakes out of the tent that I was sleeping in. I think that she might have been a little irritated that I had got up at 4:30 in the morning, and had finished a six pack of beer by 7:00 am. That is only one of many stories that show that I did not always have the best connections with Randy’s girlfriends, probably because we both encouraged each other’s bad behaviors. There were a couple of times to follow, in later years, where my connections became a little bit too close with some of his ex-girlfriends, which brought me some additional painful, and pleasurable, learning experiences.

One time on a motorcycle drive to Vancouver to meet Donelle, an Oregon State policeman tried to pull me over, and because I did not have a license and I was afraid, I began to elude him by driving off of McLoughlin Blvd into a field near Eastmoreland Golf Course.  When I attempted to fly through a ditch, the bike landed upon me, and the cop got me.  I was charged with eluding an officer and driving without a license.  The court allowed me to get a driver’s license so that they could suspend it for three months, and I also had to volunteer at the Veteran’s Administration hospital to work off my penalty for being an idiot.

EPSON MFP image

Midway through my senior year in high school, I did not feel like I wanted to continue being in relationship with Donelle. Things were just too complicated, and her mother and her new boyfriend Tom were becoming too controlling and oppressive of a presence for me while I visited with her at her home. It was too far to drive, Donelle was becoming increasingly more complicated in her emotional responses to life, and I just did not have the skill package to be a success in this relationship. I sent her a breakup letter, because I was too cowardly to break up in person. Her mother opened up the letter and read it, and found out that Donelle and I had been having sex, and Marlene made life HELL for Donelle. Donelle called me up, distressed beyond all understanding, and I felt horrible shame and guilt for subjecting her to this unskilled attempt at a breakup. My guilt drove me back to her, and the trap had been finally set that I would not escape from. We had known each other for two years by this point, with us having dated for the eight months prior to the onset of her disease. Two months later, she developed her first nervous breakdown.

Donelle was to develop mental illness late in her senior year in high school. She had her first “nervous breakdown”, a term that I consider to be an awkward euphemism and she began to suffer from what psychiatric professionals now label as paranoid schizophrenia, with aspects of multiple personality disorder. She had been near the top of her class academically prior to her breakdown. She spoke German fluently, and was a wonderful creative writer. She had the respect and admiration of her fellow classmates. When it came time to graduate, she did not want to attend the ceremony. I strongly encouraged her to attend, and she relented at the last moment. She looked disheveled and disoriented, and I was crushed to her not able to shine her light like she had before. She was able to graduate from high school, but her vibrant spirit was drowned by her disease, and so was mine.

My life experience with Donelle ending up becoming some of the most compelling, heartbreaking, and depressing experiences that I could never have envisioned for myself, or for her. I struggled mightily to both help and understand her, over the many years to follow that I stayed in relationship with her. After her first breakdown, she was briefly hospitalized, and was placed on some powerful, experimental medications such as mellaril, artane, novane, haldol, Clozaril/Clozapine, and many others, to try to keep her independent. These medications are used to treat certain mental/mood disorders, or side-effects from other anti-psychotic drugs.. Clozapine is a psychiatric medication that works by helping to restore the balance of certain natural substances in the brain. Clozapine decreases hallucinations and helps prevent suicide in people who are likely to try to harm themselves. I eventually gained insight not only into her disease, which ultimately devolved into multiple personality disorder, but also into my own mind, and the very collective mind of mankind.

1973 Evergreen High School Photograph

After Donelle graduated, Marlene and Tom insisted that Donelle leave home, trying to foist her onto her father, who lived in Camas.  Don Flick accepted Donelle conditionally for awhile.  Don had remarried several years earlier, to a woman named Alice, who also worked at the Camas Crown Zellerbach paper mill.  Alice was a quiet sort, appearing slow and dull. Alice was not too expressive, at least initially, of Donelle coming to live with them.  But after eighteen months, Alice was ready to have children, and her patience with Donelle, and with me visiting them at their Camas home, ran out. 

In the summer of 1975, Donelle was still being treated for schizophrenia, and she remained quite brittle, psychologically.  Donelle pleaded with her mother to let her stay at their home, and Marlene relented for a little while. But after three months, Marlene and Tom insisted that Donelle move out, and she had nowhere to go. It was amazing and distressing for me to witness the totality of Donelle’s family, including her two brothers and a sister, becoming unwilling or incapable of providing temporary housing support for her.

Donelle’s family was ready to put her out on the street, literally moving her clothes and bed out into the yard, so in my need to protect Donelle, at the age of nineteen years, I was forced to move out of my parent’s home, and find residence with her in Vancouver, near where she was still receiving psychiatric treatment at the Columbia River Mental Health clinic. My parents were appalled, and accused me of being quite the fool. The only way that they could financially support me in college was through providing housing for me at their home, because my father had lost all of the money saved for my college education in the stock market.

The question of the moment was how was I going to be able to continue to go to college, live with Donelle and provide financial support for her, while only having an academic scholarship. Those thoughts were far too advanced for my near genius mind, apparently, but my father suggested that I take a Civil Service exam, and see if I could get some part time government work. I took the Civil Service exam early in 1975, and I succeeded in getting summer work at the Portland Main Office of the US Postal Service for the period between my sophomore and junior years at the University of Portland.

My relationship with her family was to occasionally become quite testy, but I made my best attempts at being civil. I had serious issues with the poor family support Donelle had always been the recipient of, and I developed quite a resentment against Donelle’s mother, and both Bud and Tom. There was a time several months before our marriage in 1979 that I wanted to hurt both Bud and Marlene very badly, for mistreating and abusing Donelle. Under the right set of conditions, I had the will, and the potential, to kill Bud, but I never acted upon my disgust and hatred.  Had I killed that man, I would have saved two other people’s lives, a married couple who were killed when a drunken Bud turned his truck in front of their motorcycle in 1978 near his home on 172nd avenue near Five Corners. He spent time in prison, and we never visited him while he was there. He later died an ignominious death, and he deserved every bit of the suffering he experienced prior to his demise. The innocent people that he physically and sexually terrorized did not find much relief with his death, however.

I broke my collarbone fighting with her oldest brother Keith in 1979, when I made confrontational statements against his mother, Marlene, and Keith felt obliged to defend her by jumping me and wrestling me down to the ground. I wrestled with both him AND his wife, who had jumped into the scrum to help her hubby. Keith later apologized, and told me I had every right to be upset. I was to eventually need to have the collarbone surgically repaired, and it was through this process that I developed a real fondness for pain killers, which came back to terrorize me much later in life, in 2007.

Before I met Donelle, and before I was introduced to drugs and alcohol in 1971, I was to first become an Air Force fighter pilot, and then, hopefully qualify to become an astronaut. Through a series of poor choices, I instead became permanently grounded, resigning myself to a life of mediocrity. I had already absorbed more than my share of alcohol and other chemicals to help me cope with my own dysfunctional self concept. I left all of my boyhood dreams behind in the process, walking away from a full scholarship with the Air Force ROTC in my freshman year at the University of Portland, so that I could be close to Donelle, and give her the support that she would require for the rest of her life. Initially, I had hoped to become a lifelong friend and partner for Donelle, yet I was to become a guilt ridden care giver, and care taker, boyfriend, and, eventually, husband to her. Donelle and I both had lifelong diseases to fight, and we fought losing battles within our minds.

Over the many years that i knew her, I tried to be the best support person that I could be, but I was damaged goods, as well, so I failed in my mission, too. She deserved better that what I could give her, because I suffered under my own limitations of selfishness, addiction, and sense of personal powerlessness. With mental illness, we all tend to fail together as a family, as a culture, and as a human race. Those who can bring forgiveness, insight, compassion, and a sense of the Spirit are the true blessings for the sick within our society. I was not to find that promised land of good spiritual health and a sense of well-being until much later in life, after my own extended journey into a chemically induced spiritual coma.

Donelle Mae Flick (Paullin) 1974

I remained hesitant to marry Donelle, let alone have children with her, fearing that she would yet again destabilize, and collapse into psychosis . She had several “mini breakdowns” during the period from 1973-1979 that were controlled through new medications, or additions to her old regimens of drugs (she took up to 4 different pills at a time, several just for side-effect mitigation of other medications!).

I was to secure a lifetime guaranteed job with the US Postal Service , with the intention of being able to provide short term economic support for Donelle, and myself. Getting a degree in Electrical Engineering was becoming a less important goal to accomplish, since it was not going to lead me into the Air Force, or into the space program. And my unconscious desire for self-annihilation certainly provided insurmountable roadblocks towards accomplishing anything meaningful in my life.

Ultimately I worked at the main Post Office as a floor clerk, a letter sorting machine operator, and finally as a maintenance mechanic/electronic technician, for a total of ten years, This was the same office that my father worked out of, and it certainly was not my dream job. Initially, I was supposed to quit work when fall term for my junior year began, but instead I continued full-time swing shift work, while going to school full-time during the day. Add to that time management challenge was trying to manage my alcoholism and drug addiction, and a mentally ill significant other, and it was pretty easy to see that this story was not to have a happy conclusion.

I ended up dropping out of college my senior year, with few credits left to secure to get a degree, and even fewer units of personal desire to do so. School had the potential to become all-consuming, and I probably needed sobriety to have any hope in the first place. So the best decision for a practicing alcoholic/addict is to keep the job I already had, and give up on the degree for a while. That was the second major life goal that I literally smoked and pissed away, after resigning from the ROTC my freshman year.

After dropping out of college for the first time, in 1976, I began to spend some real time with Donelle. I continued working the swing swift at the Post Office during that time period. It was a relatively stress free period of time, and I continued to be quite the party animal with Donelle’s younger brother Terry, whom I had become great friends with. Terry and I dealt some drugs together, and I used my connections to secure high quality pot. One day, Terry got popped in school for drug sales, and his arrest made the local television news. I was scared, and took all of our stash back to Portland, and hid it in my parents’ new condominium. As he was a minor, nothing permanent stuck to his record, but it changed how we used drugs together. Terry and his girlfriend Angie were to take residence in the same duplex, in the adjoining unit to ours, near Mill Plain Boulevard in Vancouver.

In 1976, I was 21 years old, and one of my best friends was still Dan Dietz (RIP). Dan and John Durkin went with me to the Faucet Tavern. I was already a “seasoned drunk” by this time, but being able to “legally” enter taverns and bars seemed like a big deal at the time. I had been getting into bars since I was 16 years old, usually accompanied by Dan. The southwest Portland Faucet tavern seemed like a great place to visit, as it was famous for its turtle races, and its all-around “party hardy” atmosphere.

Dan and I bought a bottle of booze, and we kept it in the trunk of his car, to “sip” from, in between beers at the tavern. I started out my birthday evening by playing several games of pool, gambling $5 a game with some “locals”. At that time of my life, I was a very good pool player, and I removed a few bucks from some very unhappy patrons. One unhappy patron followed me out to Dan’s car, where I was grabbing a swig off of a whisky bottle. He let me know that he did not like me having so much fun at his expense, and tried to fight with me. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but somehow the fight got “postponed”.

I walked back into the tavern, and enjoyed a couple more beers with Dan and John, and played some more pool. I was quite the “happy drunk”, though my behavior did not make the outraged individual I had already taken $20 from feel any better about me. The next time I walked out to Dan’s car, that unhappy man grabbed two of his friends, and they all tried to “teach me a lesson”. Dan looked out from the tavern door at his car, and saw that I was in trouble, and secured the bar manager. But it was too late, one guy pulled a knife, and the fight was on. There were a few lunges at me with the knife, and a couple of punches thrown (none quite hit me). There was a lot of loud voices, and some yelling and screaming. The manager called the police, but at that same moment, the guy with the knife took a final stab at me. According to the reports from Dan, I spun kicked the knife out of his hand (which was an act of pure, unadulterated luck on my part), and then I threatened to take his head off with the next kick. The sirens of the police cars about to arrive there scared the three attackers away more than my attempts at Kung Fu, and it also scared Dan and John, who quickly threw me into the car, and we drove off up Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway towards Wilson High School.

I got angry with Dan for not coming out to help me with the attackers, and he told me that calling the police was the best that he could do. He then not so politely, invited me to walk home from close to Wilson HIgh, to Milwaukie, about 7 miles or so. I was fortunate to make it home in one piece, and not be arrested for being drunk in public, or for drunken walking. I visited Dan the next day, and apologized to him. He was in really bad shape, and he was still pretty hung over. And he was the designated driver! We were to resume our friendship for about four more years.

Donelle continued to have her ups and her downs. Late in the summer 1977, Donelle was in the middle of another relapse into schizophrenia. Sean Tucker, Donelle, and I undertook a road trip through much of Oregon in my 1962 Buick Skylark. We traveled through much of the Oregon Coast, into Crater Lake, where we illegally camped along the lake rim, and Eastern Oregon around the Bend area.  Sean and I had our normal complement of pot and alcohol, as well as a couple of doses of powerful psychedelics, and Donelle had her mental illness, and all of the sometimes bizarre manifestations of it.  Sean had known my wife almost since the beginning of my relationship with her, and he was always a kind, supportive presence for her.  But, Donelle’s symptoms were hard to understand, and we were both quite helpless and felt out of control in the face of her disease of the mind.

One evening, we all sat around the campfire, and Donelle continued her sometimes bizarre behavior.  She was hearing some sort of collection of voices, and she would talk to herself, and sometimes confuse what we were talking about with what was going on in the secrecy of her own mind.  Sean and I would cast uncomfortable facial expressions to each other, and try to engage in conversation with each other solely, especially in the moments when Donelle became overly detached and unresponsive.  In a moment of insight, I spoke of my helplessness in the face of managing Donelle’s disease and treatment, and the futility of all of my attempts at understanding her mental illness.

I had a form of LSD with me, which was a powerful mind expanding drug, also known for creating temporary symptoms resembling various forms of insanity.  It was then that I wanted to take the drug, and see if it would provide any insights into Donelle’s mindset, as well as how I might manage my relationship with Donelle; Sean thought that I should give up on that thought, and stick to the pot and alcohol. But I insisted, and I took the psychedelic. I did not receive the desired illumination, but it showed that my deepest desire was to be of help to Donelle, as well as to try to understand the nature of mental illness, and how to bring a measure of healing to a most difficult life situation. My beloved Buick Skylark was to develop a leak in a radiator hose on the final drive home, and we blew the engine up right outside of town.

As a twist of fate, my friend Sean, and not me,  went into the Air Force in 1978. I felt like life had really delivered a sucker punch to me with his decision.  Had he stayed in town, he would have been the best man at my first marriage. Instead, he was to slip away physically, emotionally, and spiritually from me, while he established his new life.  I settled on Dan Dietz and Randy Olson, my other best friends, but these two just did not share quite the same spirit with me as Sean did during this era of my life. Sean was to drift out of my life for good over the next several years.

I had one amazing experience around Sean several years later, and it revolves around the time the rock group Heart was to come to town in 1984, to play an outdoor concert at Delta Park.  I had not heard from Sean for over four years at this point, as we  both had become quite busy in our respective lives.  Sean was stationed in Madrid, Spain at the time, and he did not ever write or telephone me, nor did I back to him.  I awoke one Saturday morning, in August of 1984, and I JUST KNEW THAT SEAN WAS ABOUT TO CALL ME.  No sooner than I had the thought, Sean called me, and told me that he was going on leave, and would be coming to Portland, during the same week that Heart was to play.  We were both quite excited about the prospects of renewing our friendship. He came to Portland, we went to the concert together, and he got blasted on wine, to the point of oblivion. And I was to find tht he was no longer emotionally and spiritually connected with me. Alas, we were both different, and our friendship seemed to have faded away..

As I look at my life’s history, I heard one phone call from its Mystery, My heart was ultimately broken because it was such a poor connection, however.

Eventually, Donelle improved enough that she applied for the Sus Chef training at PCC Sylvania campus, and was accepted into the training. She did great for two years. Donelle was making great progress, and she only needed to finish her last term to graduate in great academic and practical standing. She was getting good reviews and grades there, and because she had stabilized so well, I finally felt comfortable enough to marry her, having delayed marriage since 1973 because of our tumultuous experiences around her variable mental health. Donelle and I got married in September of 1979, after having lived together for 4 years. Dan Dietz and Randy Olson were the co-best man at our wedding, held at a church in Hazel Dell, Washington. We had a rip roaring beer keg celebration after the wedding at my parents’ home in Milwaukie, and we had many people attend..

Our marriage started off well. We had an amazing honeymoon on Vancouver Island, staying in Victoria at the famous Empress Hotel. Three months later, on a weekend near New Years, 1980 our step sister (Keith’s wife) had promised that Donelle could baby sit their two children over the weekend. Donelle loved their children, and felt honored and really looked forward to caring for her niece and nephew. One of her challenges was that she could not be a mother right now, and it hurt her knowing that we could not have any children until she showed at least two years of good mental health. Her sister-in-law reneged on the baby-sitting offer, making horribly erroneous judgements against Donelle, and broke her heart. Donelle had the most devastating nervous breakdown of her life three days later.

By early January of 1980, she had collapsed once again into another ‘nervous breakdown’, which was catastrophic in nature, and included “hearing voices”, talking to herself, and generally experiencing the ravages of her paranoid schizophrenia. Both Dan and Randy had known Donelle almost as long as I did, and they both knew all too well of her limitations while she was in her “breakdown mode”, so I felt like I had some friendship support from both of them.

Donelle would repeatedly exclaim:

“I am controlled! I am controlled!”

yet she was incapable of communicating with me who or what was controlling her inside.

I moved out of our shared apartment on Harrison St. in Milwaukie, and moved across the street into another apartment, so that I could stay in close contact with her. I needed to stay in other quarters because her disease made her too disruptive. She was irrational and argumentative, I grew fatigued by her incessant talking to herself, and antagonistic behavior.. She would not sleep at night many times, and she would claim to hear screams from the basement of the Milwaukie Police department, where she thought that they were torturing civilians, and she would cry out in anguish because of what she was “hearing”.

While Donelle was having her latest breakdown, Dan still tried to stay in touch with both of us. Donelle, even in her diseased state, still liked to go out and listen to live music, and drink liberally. I refused to take Donelle out to party, because her state of mind was too bizarre, and her behavior unpredictable. Dan was still quite the drinker and party animal, and known to be somewhat of a predator, so I demanded that Dan stay away from Donelle while she was in her breakdown phase. Instead, he took her out one night, and they both drank to extreme drunkenness together. When I came over to Donelle’s place the next morning, I noted that her panties were on the floor, and that she was partially dressed, and still woozy on the couch. She told me that she awoke to Dan raping her after she had passed out. When I confronted Dan about it, He said that he did not remember anything, but I went ahead and broke my hand on a door that he stood in. I told him to leave, and i never saw Dan alive again.

Dan was to move to Pacific City, and live in his parent’s cabin there. Dan found himself a girlfriend, and he might have had a son by her. As far as I know, Dan never stopped drinking and smoking, and died in 1996, at the age of forty-one years. To this day, I swear that I felt his presence in my car, laughing his “hay-hay-hay” way, the day after his death. I nearly swerved off of I-205 at freeway speeds as a direct result

While living across the street from Donelle’s apartment on Harrison in Milwaukie, after her breakdown, my father came to live with me for about three months.  He had been kicked out of his house by my mother, after she found out about his ongoing affair with the company nurse.  I was not too impressed with my life and my family, having an insane wife, and my parents marriage in a state of collapse, and now  my own father spending time in my own apartment, when he wasn’t sleeping at his girlfriends’ home.  My new normal was anything but normal, yet I seemed to have few choices.  Dad eventually had to end his relationship with the nurse, and moved back to his own home.  I had warned him that I would not be too friendly with him if he left my mother, so it would be best if he could work things out with her. 

Donelle was finally kicked out of her apartment across the street, for being too disruptive during her breakdown.  Her neighbors did not appreciate her talking loudly to herself at all hours of the day and night, as well as her bizarre behavior.  I took her in, but it was really difficult for me, as well.  Her middle of the night screams and crying and carrying on were too much for me, as well.  I was forced to have her committed to Dammasch Hospital, for her protection and care, as well as for my own. She remained there for at least six months. I was to get a legal separation from her, as well.

The effects of the turbulence of my marriage was lessened somewhat by the distraction of maintaining employment, and I met some really interesting characters while working at the main office of the US Postal Service. Some were incredibly damaged human beings, while there were a few diamonds who found a way to sparkle. Larry was a Vietnam veteran from the Marine Corps, and he would tell stories derived from the front lines of the war. He was involved in the fragging of an American Lieutenant, and that story disgusts me to this day. Greg worked in the maintenance department, and he would funnel stories and literature to me about the right-wing American patriot movement, its militias, and their plans to take over the country with the help of the US military when the right American president is elected, a president similar to Donald Trump in nature.

Paul and I both worked on the same letter sorting machine, and spent a lot of time together after work, drinking and video gaming until all hours of the morning after work. But he had a dark side as well, and I suspected him of being the arsonist who set fire to his disabled Uncle’s home, which resulted in his uncle’s death. But I met some good people, as well, including David Valdivia, who I still am in contact with, mainly with him being my late father’s and my insurance agent. He left his postal career before the idea that he could do nothing else imprisoned him, like it ended up imprisoning me..

I worked in the PAMS (Portland Area Mailing System) unit from 1979-1980. This was an experimental mail forwarding operation headed by both a mechanical and a software engineer by the name of Don Cannard. There were eight employees who joined the operation, which operated during the swing shift. Jeff Tobin was to join me in this unit, the man who was my “partner in crime” during the sixth and seventh grades. We were both the focused workers, each outperforming expectations within the unit. We ended up resuming a form of friendship, and would go out for drinks and pot smoking after work. Jeff drove like a “bat out of hell”, and I feared for my life whenever I rode in his racing truck. He definitely had a death wish, and was mentally unstable, even more so than me.

Jeff Tobin 1970 Yearbook photograph

One time, he offered to buy some pot for the two of us, and took our money and bought a big bag of weed. The weed was of extremely poor quality, and Jeff felt very bad about it. He punched himself and bloodied his face and eye, to make it appear that I had beat him up, so that he could try to coerce the guy who sold it to him to get our money back. I was blown away by this extreme behavior. Donelle was undergoing her first post-marriage nervous breakdown during this period, and Jeff tried to be as empathetic as he could be with me, which I appreciated.

One evening, for unknown reasons, Jeff did not report to work. He called in, after being taken to the hospital for a suicide attempt. He quit his job during the phone call, which he did not intend to do. The Postal Service would not give him his job back, once he “recovered” which was another blow to Jeff. I could not even bring myself to visit Jeff while he was in the hospital, even at the urging of our supervisor. I was selfish, and just too spent from my own problems to be of any help to Jeff. I saw him again thirty years later when my present wife Sharon and I were walking in opposite directions to him on the Oaks Bottom trail. We talked together and shared a bit of our stories with each other, and never spoke to each other after that. Jeff still was considered disabled, was living off of a trust set up by his father, which was to run out when Jeff turned fifty five. He did not know how he was going to make it without his trust payments. Jeff was to eventually succeed in another suicide attempt, shortly afterwards, when he turned fifty-five years of age.

I was eventually promoted onto the maintenance team, where I started as a maintenance mechanic in the summer of1980. What I had hoped to become was an electronic technician trainee. I did work on some older mechanical or electrical-mechanical mail sorting gear for a couple of years, which was quite boring. Because I was the new low guy on the totem pole, I was last in line for all promotions, no matter how qualified, or unqualified, I was for any new or more favorable positions that opened up.

About one year before the start of the maintenance position, I again I applied at the University of Portland Engineering Department for readmission, but they were still unimpressed with me because of my meteoric fall from academic grace 3 years earlier. I went from a being a scholarship student, with a strong B+ average in college, with advanced math placement, to a student who no longer showed up in class. I apparently did not show the right initial interest, because I was told by Dean Mash to attend a community college for a year, to prove that I was really interested in going to school. So I attended Portland Community College, Sylvania Campus, for the 1979-1980 school year, to see if I still “had it in me”. I was to get straight A’s in the most difficult science and math courses offered. I also took some philosophy and religion based courses, knowing that they would help me with the University of Portland readmission project that I was undertaking. I was to be readmitted to U of P, at about the same time that my new maintenance position began. Donelle was still not in my life at this point. I had to wonder how would this new marriage of school and full time employment would work.

Since I was a new hire into the Maintenance Department, headed by John Zimpleman, I was relegated to performing the least favorable duties that the Main Post Office had to offer. I was usually blowing dust off of equipment, tightening conveyor belts, replacing motors, resetting photocells, adjusting timing on the parcel sorting machine, or other sundry and mundane tasks that my predecessors had dutifully performed prior to my “advancement” into their ranks. Right after I started, I was referred to the Employee Assistance Program, which was run internally to the US Postal Service. My attendance had been fairly poor up to this point while I was a clerk, so this was a carryover from those days, too. Larry and Mike tried to befriend me, and tried to get me to admit that drinking and/or drugging had something to do with the poor attendance, but I stood unaffected by their suggestions. I had to go to 5 AA meeting to meet the requirements of the EAP, which I did, but I had a quart of beer stashed under my car seat for immediate consumption after each meeting, so the “message” fell on carbonated ears.

Once again I combined work and school, and this time I knew that I had a chance to succeed, since Donelle was no longer in the picture, at least at this point (she was to return in the latter part of 1981). I would now be able to retain my focus, and not collapse into the confusing quagmire that I fell into after from trying to maintain a marriage with a troubled person, work and go to school at the same time, like I had attempted 5 years previously.

From 1980-1982 I attended the University of Portland while working graveyard shift at the US Postal Service. I did not have time to drink alcohol excessively, except for on weekends. For the first year, I had great grades, perfect attendance, and a lot of hope for myself until I hit the first semester of my junior year. During the same period, Donelle came back into my life, after I found her hitchhiking along a busy road near my parents’ home. She had been released from Dammasch State Hospital, and placed in an apartment complex on Roethe Rd. near my parent’s old home near Rex Putnam High School. She was on Social Security Disability, and was receiving outpatient care as needed for her mental illness. I did not immediately resume my marriage with Donelle, however, and we were still legally separated since her original commitment to Dammasch in 1980.

Eventually, after several weeks of contact with Donelle, I was encouraged enough by her progress to want to resume our marriage.  On the night before I was to move back in with her, my friend Paul, from the letter sorting machine gig, and I went out and really tied one on.  While in a bar near his home in northeast Portland, we came upon two female co-workers from the LSM’s, Candy and Lorna.  Candy was six foot tall, attractive, but outweighed me by forty pounds.  Lorna was a redhead, of reasonable dimensions, but very plain looking.  Paul had partied with both of them in the past, so he knew them quite well.  I had no idea what was about to ensue, however.

In quite a drunken state, I accompanied Paul, and the two women, over to Paul’s house, where we continued drinking, smoking pot, and playing some video games.  I was ready to go to sleep, when Paul took off into the kitchen with the two women.  When he returned, I asked him if I could sleep on his bean bag chair.  With a big grin he proclaimed

“Why hell yes, you can.  But first, you get to pick which woman you are sleeping with tonight!”

“Umm, Paul, I am not really prepared for this one.  Uh, uh, uh, Candy, would you like to stay and talk with me until I fall asleep?”

The truth be known is that I had no desire for either woman.  They were not appealing to me in the least, yet I selected Candy out of some sort of need to protect the woman’s feelings.   Candy was quite pleased to join with me in Paul’s living room, where the bean bag chair was located.  Lorna accompanied Paul into his bedroom, and they closed the door behind them.  I was still quite drunk, yet I felt a little self-conscious.  We could hear laughter and raucous activity coming from Paul’s room, and we figured out what must be going  on.  Somehow, without me remembering exactly how, my pants disappeared off of my body, as well as all of Candy’s clothes.

I awoke the next day, naked, and laying beside Candy, who was still asleep.  I got up, wrote a note apologizing to Candy, and stated that I had made a mistake, and to please accept my forgiveness for having sex with her while drunk (while sober, I NEVER WOULD HAVE CONSIDERED SUCH A PARTNER FOR LOVEMAKING). I felt diminished somehow, for having sex with her. 

For the next two months, she chased after me at work, tried to call me at my parent’s home, and eventually gave up, when I never returned her calls, and continued to spurn her.  Some disparaging writing ended up on the walls of the bathroom stalls in the Post Office women’s bathrooms about me and my penis, which brought huge laughs to the janitorial core, and, eventually, to the maintenance core, who shared the same locker room.  The joke was that Candy might be better suited to maintaining the Postal Service’s equipment, where blowing the dust off of equipment was a nightly endeavor.  Ouch, emotionally, for both of us.  I felt quite embarrassed, and it took way too long to live that one down.  I also felt bad, because even though I did not technically cheat on my wife, I was feeling like I had.

So, that next day I resumed my relationship with my wife, who I was still legally separated from. My self-destruct cycle resumed, and I restarted my active party mode, with my attendance at work tanking.  My attitude at even being there was in the dumps, as well.  I moved into Donelle’s apartment, much to the disappointment of my parents, who continued to warn me about the potential for another horrible outcome. 

My employment at the US Postal Service continued to supply me necessary income, as well as some more unique learning experiences. One of my co-workers in the maintenance department that i partied with after hours became a heroin addict, and I got first hand experience of the horribly disfiguring disease that opiate addiction can become.

I was sent several times over a four year period to Norman, Oklahoma, to the national training center for US Postal maintenance workers and electronic technicians. Because of my education with electrical, electronic, and computer engineering, that placed me well ahead of most of my peers in theoretical expertise, and caused some concern among some co-workers who thought that I might try to parlay this education into a pogo stick to jump over their place on the seniority roster.

Shortly after joining ranks with the maintenance department, I was sent to Norman, Oklahoma for my first three week training experience on troubleshooting and repairing some of their letter sorting equipment. This was the first time that I had ever flown on an airplane, on Continental Airlines, and it was my first great adventure by myself away from home. I stayed in the University of Oklahoma’s student dormitory, which was shared with the USPS during the summer months for all students.

My roommate was Bill Y of New York City, who also was a maintenance mechanic/electrician from that area. He happened to be a black man, and he is the first black person I ever had any relationship with, other than through basketball adventures throughout Portland that I used to engage in. Bill was damaged goods, being a veteran of Vietnam, and still suffering from some very concerning aggressive tendencies and attitudes. But, somehow, he held himself together.

One Saturday evening, six of us Post Office Maintenance Trainees drove a substantial distance from Norman to a bar in Oklahoma City. There were five African-Americans, including my roommate Bill, and Jermaine, from New Jersey (who had a huge bag of weed that he just grabbed into and freely distributed to all who liked to partake) and me, the one pale-faced party warrior. I loved being with these guys, and I have never experienced more camaraderie and mutual respect than running with this group of men. There was a bonding that I just did not understand, but I later learned one of the fundamental tenets of their group energy.

When we arrived, the parking lot was full. It was a huge club, with all sorts of action going on outside, and, I was to see, inside as well. We found a decent parking spot, and all walked up to the door together. Bill led the way, and the greeter held us all up, because of me. They did not allow “white people” into their place. Bill explained to the man who I was part of their team, and I was not a “white person”. The door man told Bill that he would have to register me with the club, and so I was signed into the club, with the other five people with me signing the same paper, vouching for me. I was told that I was not to dance with any of the black girls, and to keep with my group so as to keep the peace. The place had several hundred black people partying and carrying on, and I got more than my share of searching, and many times, dirty looks. Somehow I kept my cool, and paranoia would not have helped me that evening. I settled in eventually, and enjoyed a couple of strong drinks. Bill went outside, to share a joint with Jermaine, while the rest of us hung out to one side of the dance floor.

Suddenly, Bill came back in, with Jermaine in tow, and started waving his gun around in the air. He started yelling very loudly, proclaiming

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt here!”

and authoritatively stated that someone had blocked our car in, and unless they moved their car immediately, someone was going to get hurt. My other three friends surrounded me, and we all started walking to the door, with the express intention of leaving without anybody slowing us down. A parting of the crowd, like Moses with the Red Sea, occurred, and we made it outside, awaiting the offending driver to move his vehicle. Two tough looking dudes came outside, with a following entourage of onlookers, and moved the car, all the while with Bill still waving his firearm in the air.

The offending car was moved, we all piled into the rental car, and Bill assumed the driver seat, laying the gun in his lap. We tore out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, and we all watched to make sure that we were not followed. Bill later expressed one of his fundamental values, which was that we have to be willing to lay our lives on the line for our friends, and make whatever sacrifice that is necessary to protect each other from danger.

I began to really understand why I had never felt so safe and protected while with this group of men. This was the civilian equivalent of a small military squad in a war zone, which, apparently, Bill still felt that he was in. I have never felt this way with any other group of people in my life. It was exhilarating, fun, bonding, challenging, hair-raising, and enlightening to run with this group for three solid weeks. I was someone I had never been before, respected, accepted, and honored as being a part of a family, where we were accountable for each others’ success and safety. I was accepted into the field of human energy where I was unconditionally accepted as a brother, and a friend.

Well, after my three week training, where I partied hardy with lots of great pot from my new brothers, and copious amounts of alcohol consumed, I returned back to the everyday, boring world that I had left from after the training. I still worked graveyard shift, getting off shift at 8:00am, and I continued to drink heavily after my evening work on non-school days until around noon. I would usually hang out at Yurs tavern on NW 15th Avenue, and eat breakfast and play pool with other Postal Service employees.

During this period of time Donelle and I decided to move to Cedar Hills Apartments late in 1982, the same apartment complex that Randy Olson was already living in.  I quit going to school once again, this time leaving the Electronic Engineering/Computer Engineering degree on the garbage pile, with just one year to completion.  My addictions resumed in earnest, with my introduction to Gary G, a local cocaine dealer, serious fellow party monster and our new friend. He had a dealer that supplied him nicknamed “Superman”, so what could possibly go wrong?

Donelle thoroughly enjoyed the local rock and roll scene, which she became immersed within with our reintroduction back into Randy Olson’s life in 1982. I got the privilege of running with the same important local people who Gary did, including prominent local rock and roll DJ’s, as well as the best local rock and roll bands, including the almost famous group Sequel.  And, during this time, I started to fantasize about someday hooking up with his beautiful, most alluring sweetie, Di Di (Diane) McCloud, but I never had any intention of having an affair with her. Somehow, she stayed with Gary for over two years. Their lovemaking noise was famous, with their neighbors repeatedly filing complaints against them, and their passions, and it made for interesting conversation. Di Di was quite the free spirit, as well as a drug addict, so Gary’s appeal may also have been enhanced by his constant supply of drugs.

In 1982, when Gary G. used our home to store his drugs, Donelle found the occasional use of cocaine to be fun and exciting. She was pretty accepting of me when it came to my own drug use, as she did not try to discourage me from using, but instead found a way to fit in while our friends and family used drugs together. At this point, the damage that drugs were doing to me was overshadowed by the thrill and rush of their effects, and the socially connective activity around their procurement and use.  Several times, Gary would come over to my unit, and cook up some free base cocaine for smoking, and then share it with me FAR TOO LIBERALLY.  To this day, I do not know how I avoided becoming fatally addicted to that crap.

Donelle was too become too burdensome by late 1983, demanding to go out almost every night to “party” and listen to live rock and roll music, and she eventually collapsed into yet another “nervous breakdown” by then, so I was between a “rock” and a hard place.  I finally attempted to kick her out of our apartment, which she initially agreed to go, to hang out with her new rock and roll friends.  I was finished with enabling and supporting her mental illness, and I was extracting myself from years of guilt and shame around my relationship with her and her illness.

I met Cindy Dahl, a letter sorting machine clerk, in 1983.  I was invited out to Lung Fungs near 82nd avenue by a former male friend from my time on the letter sorting machines, and he introduced us one night.  This was during the period of time that Donelle was having the final nervous breakdown that I could tolerate..  It is a funny thing, I had no intention of going to bed with Cindy, but that night, we hit it off so well that she came home with me that evening, and we had a wildly great time together.  We slept in the same bed, and bedroom, that I shared with my estranged wife, who was now going out on her own, and not coming back some evenings.  I never asked where Donelle went at night , because I did not want to face one of my toxic masculine internal stories that I had told myself in the past. The story ended with a fatal ending, that if my wife ever cheated on me, I would kill her.  Well, Donelle walked through the door that very next morning, while we were still in bed, and grabbed some clean panties out of the top drawer of her dresser, smiled, said hello, and left.  That old toxic need to punish a cheating wife just miraculously disappeared, when I saw that we both appeared happier by our final separation from each other.

One day, when she came back to the apartment after a night of partying with her new friends, I insisted that she get all of her clothes, and leave my unit for good.  She balked, and a yelling match ensued.  I opened the door, and pushed her out of the door, after she started pushing at me.  She called the police, and they arrived to investigate. Gary was in the back room with his safe, which was filled with cocaine and cash, which created an amazingly awkward, stressful situation. I walked outside of the unit to talk with the police, and both Donelle and I were arrested for Class C felonious assault.  Gary escaped unscathed. Randy picked me up within two hours of incarceration, but Donelle had no one to bail her out, so she sat in the jail overnight.  We both had to appear in court the next week, and the charges against both of us were dropped. Donelle was advised to not step foot into my apartment again without permission.

I was sent back to Norman, Oklahoma for another three week training. Cindy and I were still lovers, and we traded time at each others’ residence. She offered to have Carol, her roommate, jump in bed with us, but I was intimidated by the thought of a threesome, and I delayed it for awhile. Her roommate was also a member of a twelve person letter sorting machine crew with Cindy, of which I once was a member of before I went into the maintenance department. While I was on the crew, I remember Carol would make the sounds of a loud orgasm while seated at her letter sorting station, driving the rest of us crazy.

Cindy was small of chest, and wanted to have her breasts enlarged. The timing was excellent, so while I was back in Norman, she had the surgeon work his magic on her equipment. I got back into town, and I was a little interested in checking out the surgeon’s handiwork, but in my absence, Cindy had developed other interests, and she was “off-limits” to me. She warned me that a member of my maintenance crew, Greg S., was a former policeman, and there were rumors circulating that he had extra interest in the activity going on around our apartment complex in regards to cocaine sales and use. It reminded me that it was time to move on, and move Gary’s stuff out of our unit, and move to another neighborhood.

Donelle stayed with an unknown relative for a short period of time, then was booted out. She eventually became a homeless street person wandering the streets of Portland, and she would frequently show up in the 4th floor cafeteria at the Main Post Office on nights that I worked, and would sit at a table for hours, crying, and waiting for me to take a lunch break. I would pass whatever money I had on to her. She would recount her stories of horror of being out on the streets of Portland as a homeless person. I felt helpless to do anything for her, as I was now concentrating on my own version of mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction. I was nearing the end of the line, and less than a year from my first conscious suicidal thoughts.

Donelle was to be adopted by some fundamentalist Christian wack jobs, who pulled her off of the streets, and attempted exorcism on her. She was held captive for a week, but was able to escape. She was picked up by a social service outreach, and redirected back to outpatient psychiatric care, but not having a place to live, this presented impossible hurdles for her. Eventually, the State of Washington accepted responsibility for her care, and she continued to be monitored and sometimes warehoused into the Ft. Steilacoom Hospital near Tacoma by them for many years to follow. Our divorce was considered to be the saddest case that the presiding judge had ever overseen, and my lawyer learned some lessons about the failure to address and meet the needs of the mentally ill by our social and human services in the State of Oregon.. I already had learned that lesson ALL TOO WELL.

I continued to absorb more than my share of alcohol and other chemicals to help me cope with my own dysfunction. The ten year process of watching my lover disintegrate, and then, occasionally, resurrect herself, from the effects of her disease through the latest medications introduced by the drug companies was over. My disease was not over, however. We both had lifelong diseases to fight, and once again, we continued to fight our own unique losing battles with our illnesses.

I briefly moved back in with my parents after cancelling my rental contract at Cedar Hills Crossing in late 1983.  Randy was ready to move out, as well, and called me up to inquire if I was interested in living in a second room of a high-rise apartment that he had located.  Randy and I began living together near downtown Portland in February of 1984.  We lived on the 22nd floor of the Panorama Tower, and it was at this home that Randy first brought Di Di, who had recently broken up with Gary, into our shared lives. She hung out with Randy for a few days, then lost interest in him. Randy and I now partied together only on the weekends, because of my shift work.  My partying got the better of me, and with the threat of losing my job with the Postal Service, I considered entering the Lovejoy Hospital Care Unit for alcoholic recovery. 

Randy was always there to offer a helping hand, and always counseled me to look ahead.  He knew that I could find another direction for my life, and that it was important for me to enjoy the present moment as much as he did. Randy could never offer the sobriety direction, however, as he enjoyed his beer more than the next guy, and, I am sure, could not envision a life without the support of the spirits of the beer keg. Randy and I were to roam the Cities of Beaverton and Portland for a hundred nights or more, enjoying the music, the people, the temporary friendships of others, and the support of a multitude of friends that Randy had developed over the years, including his many girlfriends. 

I finally undertook a crash course in insight, when, In April of 1984, I placed myself in the Care Unit for alcoholic recovery at Portland’s Lovejoy Hospital for a month. My initial intention was to maintain my job with the U.S. Postal Service, as well as, maybe, stay sober for a little while. I was assigned a female Christian counselor named Claire, who was my guide while residing in this facility. Claire was my personal counselor, and she also happened to be a Four Square Church minister, so I sure got a lot of Christian slanted recovery information, as well. I was not too big on Christianity when I got in there, but I was a “people pleaser” by nature at this point, and I wanted to look good for her.

Claire was an attractive woman, and that alone helped to keep my attention focused on the good messages that she was trying to communicate to the groups, and to me as an individual. I was not very fertile ground, with quite a few rocks in my head. I had already spent about a month in intensive study of Christianity in December of 1980, spurred by the course work of a University of Portland Theology class that I was required to attend. which somehow had kept me sober for close to a month, as well. But  I had met three rich drug worshiping brothers, one of whom was an international drug dealer in his “spare time” in January of 1981..Their access to the alternative “higher powers” of highest quality drugs, including Peruvian Pink Flake cocaine, and Thai sticks, captivated me, and that first adult Christian leaning of mine quickly dissolved into the haze of further addiction.

I spent thirty days in the Care Unit. I met many other people who were also attempting recovery. My roommate was Tom Cravens, a man of native American Indian descent who had spent more than his share of time in trouble with the law, and with his drinking. He became like a big brother to me while I was there. Tom told me about his relationship with Steven Kessler and the 1968 Oregon State Prison riot. That information seemed inconsequential at the time, but Kessler’s life wreckage would subsequently impact my life directly, in the time period from 1986-1987.

I also befriended an ex-Hell’s Angel’s motorcycle gang member by the name of Scott. Herm Gilliam (now deceased) of the 1977 Portland Trailblazer championship team was also there. So I was not alone in recovery, and it eventually became a unique attempt at a healing experience. I almost came to regard the group therapy, talking sessions, and attempts at personal inventory to be like taking a vacation from life. My personal inventories were pretty weak, and appeared to be only people pleasing efforts, which was the best that I could do at the time. My favorite pastime was smoking cigarettes, and I was up to four packs a day of smoking Player menthol 100’s, probably the most toxic kind of cigarette on the market.

Claire was to try to steer me towards Jesus Christ as some sort of new container image for my hopes for healing, but that image was not to serve me well. The corrupted theology and philosophy of present day Christianity was a total turn off for me. I did attend the Hinson Baptist church several times during my month stay at the Care Unit, at the request of a new friend that I had met there.  I ended up buying a pin stripe suit so that I could look the part of a church goer, but I certainly did not feel the part of practicing Christian.

Religious reasoning and oxymorons

The lifelong struggle to find the self that could be the ever expanding container for my hopes and dreams for the future, and for my healing in the present, was not to be found in white man’s Jesus, my father, my culture, or myself, The journey of self discovery was not to end here. The question remained:

Just who in the hell, or the heaven, am I?

While I was in the Care Unit, a requirement was to keep a daily journal, and to document our “internal weather” while undergoing reorientation into the new life of sobriety. I remained quite uncomfortable recording my interior universe. Little had changed within me since high school in regards to becoming honest with myself, and finding any hidden gems to discover, and write about. I found that i could write a lot if what I wrote had the intention of pleasing others ,especially if they were female, or if I wrote poetry. And, if I could make somebody else wrong for what they were, and cast myself as the VICTIM, or, more regularly for me, if I accepted full responsibility for the mistakes of others, and thus cast myself as the AGGRESSOR, I could also find something to write about. I really had the “attack-defense” mental posturing down to a science, and I was in the initial throws of making that process conscious for me. I was to learn that I had really mastered the passive/aggressive posture for dealing with difficult people and situations, and that there were more emotionally empowered ways to deal with life. Well, that wisdom sure did not take!

Up to this time, I had never written a poem, nor had any inclination to do so. I found that in the writing of poetry, I could start to capture my unskilled attitudes, anguish and isolation in verbal form. Through my new found willingness to write about my suffering, I created two poems about the pain and suffering that had led up to my placement in the Care Unit. These poems are from the hand, and heart, of a toxic man who was in the initial stages of awakening.

Pain, Part I

Though the dark cloud looms on the horizon, it is also hidden within myself.

It appears to hover in the distance, just beyond my reach, and it patiently waits my most vulnerable moment.

I then feel the initial mist from its clouds, suspecting that I am its intentional target.

A piercing wind picks up, hugging me with its frozen arms, and I vainly look for protection

As the torrential downpour begins, I feel my tenuous sense of peace and safety eroding beneath my feet.

As it strips back, layer, upon layer, upon layer, upon layer, of my consciousness, exposing a bedrock bereft of sanity.

Exposing long forgotten mental relics, threatening old, unhealed memories, and dangerous old habits,

Stinging, piercing, hurting me at my core, obscuring visions of glorious, yet impossibly distant futures,

Washing away all tenuously held possessions of sanity, and hope.

Uprooting the feeble foundation of a life desperately, but futilely, attempting to, yet again, reconstruct itself,

Carrying a powerless, helpless, desperate soul back into toxic chemical valleys, amid a dark, swirling depression

Ravaging, drowning, then decaying.

Pain, why?

Part II

Growing without roots, with a will that won’t bend,

Weathering life’s storms, which never seem to end.

No longer waiting for the sun that was once promised to arise,

How could truth’s light possibly shine in dimmed eyes?

Having reached with futility for all the high goals of life,

With no spiritual growth, while consumed by inner strife.

Devoid of healing affection, and a stranger to real love,

Unrealistic hope was what my failed dreams were all made of.

Despair meets each day, summer has now changed into fall,

Looking at life, I am totally disgusted by it all.

Dying of loneliness, and holding life by only a thread,

With me rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.

Pain,

Why?

I recently located within my Care Unit files the following poem. I had written it upon a napkin that I had found in their cafeteria while I ate lunch.

Oh, those ephemeral loves, I wish we had never started,
Just vacant wayside stops in life, from which I soon departed.
Standing alone, though seemingly surrounded by others,
Desiring just one, wondering who would be my next lover.
Searching for that one, to share in a new life’s dream,
Disgusted by the many, who were not quite what they seemed.
Needing attention, and wanting to share love,
That’s what all of my dreams seemed to be made of.
My life has become empty with only darkness looming ahead
Without an inner change of heart, quite soon I will be dead.
Running on life’s mysterious road, one final journey to start,
With no maps to follow, save those presented by my empty heart.
(end of poem, but not the end of the nightmare)

The last three days I was at the Care Unit, I started to feel the stress of impending release. It was easy stay clean and sober in the hospital, but the thought of carrying a new attitude towards sobriety that had not yet really taken root into the real world was quite threatening. We were set up with phone numbers of fellow graduates, and the internal counselors, just in case we were to need any support. We had a family meeting the night before release, where the patients all had their family members attend, so they could get a little crash course in how to live with the recovering alcoholic. My parents attended, and I learned something about my father that was pretty disturbing. My father had internalized my struggle so much, that he thought that he needed to stop alcohol, that somehow I was in the Care Unit because of his drinking. It took the therapist a long time to explain to my father that the drinking problem was my own, and not his. During an interview with my parents, Claire was to note that my father had poor boundaries, and was attempting to live his life through me. Wow, what a concept! I had not even figured out who I was, nor had I lived my own life, and here my father thought that he could live his own unfulfilled life through me. I was to find, I had unconsciously and unintentionally patterned myself after my father, by both adopting and then rejecting my father’s mode of understanding as my own.

I was discharged back to my home that I shared with Randy Olson, I was regularly attending Hinson Baptist Church at the encouragement of another Care Unit graduate. I started attending AA meetings yet again at the Alano Club on NW 24th and Lovejoy, as a direct result of my attendance at the Care Unit. Since I live only 500 yards from the Alano Club, I did not have too many excuses for not attending meetings, but I found a few, anyway. Randy continued his beer drinking behavior undeterred by my sobriety, which suited me just fine.

Alas, I had to return back to work, which I loathed, but went ahead and gave it my best shot. After repeatedly being denied an opportunity to take the same training that my peers in the electronic tech corps were receiving, I applied directly to the training facility in Norman Oklahoma to challenge one of the preliminary courses in computer logic that the technicians were required to pass in order to move forward. My local employer decided I needed some training in maintaining the manual letter sorting machine, so they sent me back to Norman in May of 1984, which is a significant date because I also had just one month of sobriety at this point, having just “graduated” from the Care Unit.

Upon my exit from the Care Unit, Di Di also came back into my life. Somehow, we hooked up, late in the spring of 1984, and this most beautiful woman professed her love and willingness to stay connected with me shortly after that. She stopped using drugs during this period of time, in her effort to be supportive of me. I was blown away, as she was the most attractive, sexy woman I had ever seen. I was so inspired by my relationship with Di Di, that I wrote my first love poem in 1984. She treasured the poem, and actually sought another copy of it shortly before her own death early in 1987.

She was to become the first person that I felt I had ever truly loved, but we had to let each other go after a short period of time. I was to reconnect with her again for a heartbreaking weekend in April of 1986, after I had begun my “search for truth” while in a full downhill slide into self-annihilation.

The national US Postal Service Training Center was located, adjacent to the University of Oklahoma campus, and we had full access to their campus and sports facilities, which was awesome. I stayed sober the whole time there, and I behaved myself. I passed the regular training with flying colors, and on the last day was my test scheduled for the class challenge. I breezed through the written portion of the test, on computer logic and electronic design, by scoring 70 out of 70 correct. The practical portion of the exam I was quite concerned about, as it referred to equipment that I had no training or background on. I only needed to answer one question out of the last 6 correctly to successfully challenge this course, and I could not do it. It was right there that I decided that when I got home to Portland, I was going to get drunk. I called my friend Craig, and requested that he meet me at the airport to pick me up. I WAS BUYING!!

As Spirit would have it, my Care Unit counselor Claire Z got onto our airplane on our layover in Denver, and she rode the trip back to Portland on my plane. I avoided her like she had the plague, and I never let her know that I was on the airplane. The problem here is that I had already said YES to relapse, NO to sobriety, and to talk with Claire would have helped me stay sober, which was not what I wanted.

As I look through my turbulent history, I see that I have repeatedly resisted its healing Mystery.

Alcindia represents an era with great overall darkness in my life. I met Alcindia at “Bannisters”, a bar in Beaverton, after Randy and I moved into an apartment near 117th avenue late in the summer of 1984.I danced with her one evening at the bar, then I brought her back home to the apartment that I shared with Randy. She was a cute younger woman, who worked at the Aloha Intel Fab as a chip maker. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, other than I was a lonely man, and Alcindia might be a good short-term friend. We hooked up that first night, and there were no strings attached, at least not initially.

I continued to live with Randy, while still working the graveyard shift as a maintenance mechanic. Randy had a live-in girlfriend at the time, by the name of Claudia. Randy thought that she might have psychological issues, noticing that she might be manic/depressive, or something along those lines. I was to find that she could by hyper-sexual. She had come from another relationship where she lived with three guys, at least one of who was bi-sexual, and, according to Randy, she may have had relations with all three men over a period of time. I rarely talked with Claudia, not knowing exactly what to think of her, and my schedule kept me away from Randy and her the vast majority of the time.

The week following Alcindia spending the night at our apartment, Claudia became “interested” in me and my life for some reason. I did not think much of it initially. One morning, I came home from work, showered and went to bed at about 8:30. Randy had already left for work, so it was just sleepy me and Claudia. I was just falling asleep when my bed bounced, and a naked Claudia appeared next to me in bed. Not knowing what to think or what to do about it, nature somehow knew what to do, and did so three times, and left me wondering how the hell I was going to explain this one to Randy. We went out to a bar together, where I met Hal for the first time. Hal was a dealer of speed, and he was to figure prominently later in my story during my trip through the underworld in 1986. I bought a little speed, and shared it with Claudia, and boy, I did not have to worry about sleeping that day!

I did not tell Randy right away, feeling shame and remorse. I continued to see Alcindia, who came over on my weekend and spent one more night with me at our apartment. Since we were just “friends” there was no need to tell her about my indiscretions. The next day I was visiting with her and her friend Baby at their apartment, trying to get to know Alcindia better. Baby got her name, because her birth mother was so fucked up that she refused to name her, and just called her “Baby”. Out of the blue, she starts telling a story to Baby about another girlfriend’s boyfriend who slept with his best friends’ girlfriend while his best friend went to work. As she told her story, she repeated back to Baby, and to me, some of the language that was used during my soiree with Claudia, even recalling that there were three sexual interludes. I was to learn, at a much later time, that she had placed a voice activated recorder under my bed. This was to be the first time that a recorder was to become a haunting presence in my life, but not the last time. I had my suspicions, but never confronted her about her “story” to Baby. I subsequently moved in with Alcindia and her mother, at an apartment complex in Aloha on southwest 172nd avenue, where I stayed until November of 1985,

As fate would have it, Alcindia also had sexual abuse issues in her background, which definitely impacted our 16 month relationship in various ways. But, these issues did not lead her into the psychosis like it probably did with my ex-wife. Unlike my sexually unresponsive first wife Donelle, Alcindia at least found a way to experience an orgasm, and she brought the fruitage of that exploration into our shared sexuality. On a physical level, she was a small step up. On an emotional level, it remained an often times confusing, stimulating, sometimes happy, but mostly challenging relationship.

When we hit an early “rough patch” in our new relationship, In a shameful moment of weakness, I gave to Alcindia a copy of Di Di’s poem. I did not ever tell her that I had not really written the poem for her, and that I did not even love her. I tried to fool myself from the very start that this woman was worth my time and effort, but we were BAD for each other. Have you ever heard of the term “slumming”? Alcindia’s mother Carol was well aware of our incompatibility, and challenged me as to why I stayed with her daughter. It was an unholy match, compounded by my own selfishness, loneliness, lack of integrity and honesty, and drug addiction and alcoholism.

On a spiritual and emotional level, our relationship did nothing to enhance a shared vision of wholeness, instead, gradually becoming a source of pain and suffering for the two of us. How a one night stand turned into a dark 16 month relationship is anybody’s guess, but my poor self-esteem, loneliness and need for female friendship sure played into it. Baby, and her boyfriend, both were to become quite prominent in our shared story, but I will keep their story at a minimum. Suffice it to say that Baby’s boyfriend, who belonged to a motorcycle gang in Hillsboro, had access to pure rock crank/speed, which, at that time, I had never experienced before. This is a very significant event, and I became an immediate, ardent fan of the drug. This “friendship” would later accompany me into my underworld experience.

1985 Bruce, Alcindia standing, Baby sitting

1985 Bruce, Alcindia standing, Baby seated. Note the suit, it was the one I purchased to attend church while in the Care Unit.

Our relationship of 14 months cemented my unconscious determination to self-destruct through continued drug abuse. Both Alcindia and I were mentally ill, and we knew it. I sought psychiatric care for myself, finding a shrink by the name of Dan Beavers. Alcindia visited Dr. Dan with me a couple of times, and we discussed together the traumatic effects of childhood sexual abuse. Dan prescribed me some anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication, which I did not utilize for my greater good. I ended up having a toxic event around drinking and the use of the anti-anxiety medication, and felt suicidal. I was yet again hospitalized, this time at the Cedar Hills Hospital, for recovery from mental illness and alcoholism. I profoundly disliked the atmosphere in this place. I witnessed the abuse of mentally ill people, and it was disturbing and heartbreaking. I watched three male attendants rough up a woman about my age who did not immediately respond positively to one of the attendants requests. The three of them ganged up on the unfortunate women, and proceeded to forcefully remove her from the room, and attempt to tie her down unto a bed. She screamed and cried, and was subjected to quite a beating. The only way they would later release her from her bondage was by getting her to apologize for her “indiscretion” to the attendants and the other witnessing patients. The victim was apologizing for having to get beat, and this is how it really was.

Cedar Hills did have a recovery team on site for treatment of substance abuse issues, and they treated me with respect while I was there. I was expelled after only three days because my health insurance had run out, and I did not want to pay close to $1000 a day out of my empty pockets. Dr. Beavers prescribed me a new high-powered antidepressant called Nortriptyline, which suddenly turned my whole understanding around. It was like a light went on in my mind, and for the first time in my life I was happy. I happily stayed clean and sober for over six months, and found a renewed passion for life, my job at the US Postal Service, and even for the highly dysfunctional girlfriend that I had in Alcindia.

I began to work out in our local fitness center where we lived, and I started developing some serious leg muscles. I also gained about thirty pounds, ballooning up to 208 pounds, from eating nearly a half gallon of ice cream almost daily.; Food in general tasted almost too good, while taking this wonder medication. But, I did not feel comfortable attending AA meetings, because my integrity misinformed me that taking this anti-depressant was somehow part of a relapse process, and that by being on medication that made me feel that good I could not honestly practice the program, and I felt some shame around that. During this period of time, Alcindia’s mother moved in with us. She suffered from severe depression, and psychosomatic ailments, and she became a disruptive, though friendly, presence in our apartment for the rest of our relationship.

Things went well for nearly six months until Alcindia and I took a week-long vacation around the July 4th holiday in Bend. In the middle of the week, I happened to see a partially smoked marijuana joint spill out of Alcindia’s purse. Rather than replacing it, I somehow justified in my mind that it would be better to smoke pot and get high than take anti-depressants. This messed up reasoning caused me to experience extreme shame, guilt, and self-consciousness, to the point that I would not return to work after our vacation. I called in sick for several weeks afterward, and I never returned to my “lifetime guaranteed job” of working for the US Postal Service. After ten years, I sacrificed that career so that I could smoke a joint. It was a fast downhill slide into the furthest reaches of insanity, depression, continued suicidal ideation, alcoholism and extreme drug abuse.

Alcindia on fateful camping trip to Bend of July 4, 1985

Alcindia on fateful camping trip to Bend of July 4, 1985

By November of 1985, which also corresponded to when I finally was terminated from the Post Office for failure to appear back at work, I also abandoned my now nightmare relationship with Alcindia, and left her for good. Our last month together encapsulated all of my lifetime of pain, suffering and isolation, and I felt deeply disturbed and I liberally spread my discomfort and discontent around. I accused Baby’s boyfriend of being sexual with Alcindia, and everybody else that Alcindia knew felt the effects of the collapse of our troubled relationship.

Randy had continued to stay in contact with me, and, in fact, I lived with him both after walking away from Donelle, and now, two years later, after walking away from my relationship with Alcindia. I moved back in with Randy in December of 1985, and i stayed with him until March of 1986. He had relocated into a smaller apartment in Beaverton. Randy’s apartment had only one bedroom, however, so the couch became my bed until March of 1986.

Randy was always there in my life to offer a helping hand, and though he felt bad about what had happened to me, always counseled me to look ahead and find another direction for my life, and to try to enjoy the present moment as much as he did. Randy could never offer the sobriety direction, however, as he enjoyed his beer as much, or more, than the next guy, and, I am sure, could not envision a life without the support of the spirits of the beer keg.

On January 26th, 1986, after yet another night of fighting depression with the hops and yeast anti-depressants, I woke up upon Randy’s living room couch at 8:45am, with him emerging from his bedroom, exclaiming to my clouded mind:

Challenger Explosion January 28, 1986

Challenger Explosion January 28, 1986

“BRUCE, WAKE UP AND TURN ON THE TV!! THE CHALLENGER JUST EXPLODED!!!”

After watching that horrific event over and over, I realized that my life was also over. I had made the decision to fulfill a 15 year pledge that I had made to myself when I was just 15 years old. I had known since then that I was a hopeless alcoholic and drug addict, and if I could not shake the disease by age 30 (and if the disease itself had not already killed me) I would take matters into my own hands. I just held on as best that I could for the intervening years, and tried to make the best out of a self-destructive life situation. I never told another soul of my self-imposed 15 year “pull date”, should I fail at sobering up. I saw mirrored in the Challenger disaster the total destruction of all of my hopes and dreams, and I made the decision right then and there to end it all.

It remains no mystery to me as to why some people choose suicide over recovery. I was starting to see the end of my own road, with the dead-end sign fast approaching my out-of-control car of life. This was it, because I knew that my problems could not be solved. I only needed to refill a prescription for some antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication that I already had from Dr. Beavers, the psychiatrist that I had been seeing since 1985, and I was going to take them all, and call it a life. I went to the pharmacist, with the intention of seeing the deed completed immediately. This was it, because I knew that my problems could not be solved, at least not on my level.

The pharmacist REFUSED to fill the prescription, even though I had one refill left on each one, and told me that I needed to see the shrink again.

Hmmph!

I saw the psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Beavers, and he perceived what might be happening within me, and elicited a promise from me that I would not kill myself. Dr. Dan had just had another patient kill himself using the same medication that I had, and he could not live through another such event (nor could I, I guessed so astutely). So, he got the promise from me, but I kept those pills under the front seat of my car. I told myself that unless I found the truth about my life, about all of life in general too, that I was going to leave the planet, as I thought that only the absolute truth would give my life any meaning at all, a meaning that I could live for.

EPSON MFP image

My life was about to be “canceled”. My look of death.

I contacted my friend Sean Tucker, who was stationed in Madrid, Spain for the Air Force. I told him that I had a terminal brain tumor, and that I was looking for a place to die. Sean told me that I was welcome to join him and his family in Madrid, so I went about my business of securing a passport, and attempting to locate some money to get me to Spain.

I then proceeded to file for retirement benefits from the US Postal Service, and I also filed for unemployment benefits, to help with temporary income needs. I filed for bankruptcy, as I had no intention of meeting my financial obligations, which were immense I had student loans, credit card debts, credit union loan debts, personal debts to my father, and other debts that totaled close to forty thousand dollars. I was to be dead sometime in my thirtieth year, according to my fifteen year plan initiated when I was fifteen years old, so I wanted the slate to be clear by the time I was gone, and this seemed like the right process to engage in. (note: The bankruptcy became official on the exact day of my thirty-first birthday, November 20, 1986, the final day of the expiration year that I had long ago accepted to be my own.

I continued to party a little with Randy, but my time was quickly running out with him. My retirement benefits would not become available for several weeks, so I continued to live off of credit cards, and unemployment benefits that the State of Oregon had resisted in paying to me. I still drove a treasured 1976 Dodge Dart that I had purchased while still employed at the Post Office, and it was my only possession, other than my clothes.

I was to see Di Di walking along Beaverton Hillsdale Highway one afternoon early in March, and I stopped to talk with her. She was now living in some apartments near where I saw her. She was excited, because she had just been on the local news for having helped somebody out of a burning building. We went to a local tavern, and caught up with each other on what had been happening since we had last seen each other two years before. We both had not been on winning streaks, that was for sure!

I was to see her two more times in April of 1986. I saw her at a bar in Beaverton, and we traveled to the beach together to Seaside to spend the following evening. She was somewhat distracted, and in the intervening eighteen months since I seen her last she had deteriorated in her appearance, looking a little worn. We drank at the local Seaside bars, until I no longer had any desire to drink anymore. I told her that I was going back to the hotel room, and left her the extra key. She stated that she wanted to keep the party going, and continued drinking and carrying on with some of the local folks. She returned to the hotel room at two in the morning, all excited about some new “friends” that she had made, and the great cocaine that they had shared together. She wanted to bring the two guys back into the hotel room to continue the party.

“No thanks, this is where I take my leave!”

I announced in a rather angry tone of voice. I grabbed my overnight bag, and headed towards home, even though I was drunk, almost to the point of being in a blackout. Somewhere along Highway 26, beyond the Elderberry Inn, I crashed my Dodge into a guardrail, nearly going over a cliff in the process. I could not get out of the drivers side door, it was so crashed in. I quickly got the car back onto the road, in my attempt to get home before any more trouble befell me. When I finally reached North Plains, I fell asleep at the wheel again, stepped on the accelerator, and rammed into the back of another car at freeway speeds. We both pulled over, and I was able to bribe the owner of the car not to call the police, since I was DRUNK, by writing him a check for $471, which was every last penny that I had in my checking account. My car was totaled, but somehow I was able to make it home, miraculously escaping death or a DUI citation.

My mother went with me to a local car dealership, and with her credit, I then purchased a 1977 Datsun 310, which became my chariot for some real adventures through alternate human realities over the next year. I continued to have no other possessions, other than my immense monetary and emotional burdens. I then gave up on the idea of the geographical relocation to Spain to live with Sean, because I just could not get enough money together to sustain me for any length of time.

EPSON MFP image

My home for May 1986- March 1987

Di DI called me a month later, wanting to talk, and wanting a copy of the love poem that I had given her two years before. When we met, she told me that the poem was the most beautiful gift that anybody had ever given her, and that she was sorry that she did not find the spot in her life for me. We both cried, and parted company on rather sad terms. She eventually died one year later, when she was killed in a drunken driving related automobile wreck in Lake Oswego.

Di Di became a part of myself and my consciousness, and I had one profound dream with her in it, shortly after her death. In the dream, I am confronted by a man exhibiting aggressive, unkind, abusive behavior. In the dream, I am appalled, disgusted, and threatened by his manner. I call out to a policeman, imploring him to arrest that man, and protect all of us from his violence. Di Di then walks up to me in the dream, taking the policeman’s place, and states quite plainly that for love to reappear in my life, in all of its fullness, I must first “arrest” all of these negative qualities within myself, and rehabilitate my own passions, then love will reappear.

The dream ends, but the journey continues.

Poem Written for Di Di, in 1984.

Though hibernating for oh so long
And hiding from the deep pain of winters’ chill
Love reawakens to sing its special song
So for how much longer can we be still?
With eyes that melt winters’ deepest snow
A tender touch that always seem to say
That all we will ever need to know
Will be learned along Love’s way
Two minds that were brought together
Two hearts that seek to share,
Two bodies that need no tether
Two become one, though still a pair
Heavenly nights and rapturous mornings,
Love promises through all of our years,
The sweet, stirring music of love sings
For two souls who now have the ears to hear.
True love can be the source of dreams
For two hearts continuing to awaken.
I pray that we are all each other seems
And share in Love’s next journey taken.

.
Well, during my search for TRUTH, in which I traveled the darkest, most desperate roads that our city had to offer. I used up all of my retirement money (from working at the US Postal Service, where I had worked close to ten years) to support me as I wandered through the city’s dark side, basically living out of my 1976 Datsun 310.

It is a funny thing, I was already dead, or so I thought, so I had no fear as I related to all of these human beings. These were people who I never would have associated with in my more ordered past, but in this phase of my life, I had no fear of them at all. My only intention was to find the truth of living, IF THERE WAS SUCH A THING, and of being. I engaged every one of these types of individuals, and I had conversations with them about what life meant to them, and what they felt about God, Good, Evil, Darkness, Light, and human relationships.

I carried my suicide drugs under my car seat, so that when the pain got too real again, I could make my departure from my world of little or no meaning, no peace of mind, and extreme personal suffering. I had a 1977 Datsun 310 sedan that became my home for the next year, having eschewed all associations with family, and friends from my past, and this vehicle for my consciousness, and for my body, served me well. The year of 1986, through March of 1987, became the time container for my descent into the furthest reaches of hell and darkness that would finally lead me to the door to the truth that could bring life back to me..

I then began to undertake my own unique “search for truth”, which took me into Portland’s underworld community of drug manufacturing and distribution, homelessness, witnessing of crimes against self and other, associating with and befriending homeless teenage victims of sexual predators and child abuse, friendships with members of motorcycle gangs and their hit men, felons, murderers, and undercover federal agents, some of whom were still investigating the criminal tentacles remaining from the Stephen Kessler, Wayne Harsh era when in 1982 a prison guard was murdered during the famous prison escape from Rocky Butte Jail, and, subsequently, DEA records that were also compromised.

I ran with my new “friends”, and my only intention was to be the best person that I could be, while living out the final moments, days, or weeks of my life. My intention was to bring harm to no one, and to practice the 12 steps of AA, even while still avoiding recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism, which I had totally given up ever successfully completing. My AA book, which I carried in my car wherever I went, would later come in handy, but not in the way Bill Wilson, the originator of AA, ever had in mind.

My second “realization” was that I could no longer smoke pot, because it made me feel paranoid, and wanting to keep isolated, and in my need to find ‘truth”, those characteristics were counterproductive. Pot also dulled my emotions, intellect, resourcefulness, and curiosity, and I needed those qualities of being to survive in my new world, with all of the new people who I was to associate with. I made a commitment to hang with the type of people who, in the past, I never would have befriended. The way I saw it, the people who I had judged against may well have had some of the answers that I was searching for. In my mind, I was already a dead man walking, so past fear of society’s undesirables receded into the background, and I now considered myself a fellow traveler in darkness.

I met well over a hundred new acquaintances over the next year. I spent hundreds of hours in conversations with all manners and types of emotionally disfigured human beings, the same human beings, that while living my life of “white middle class privilege”, I never would have associated with. Yet in my “final journey through life”, these oppressed, maligned, and misrepresented human beings became my best, and only friends. I was to later realize that the same spiritual disease that afflicted my underworld friends also terrorized my privileged white middle class friends, only the privileged had better ways to mask their disease from themselves and others.

Methedrine, crank, speed, go-juice, or one of any number of other street names of the same street stimulant became my primary drug of choice, as it made me feel “social”, connected and conversational with all others. I would not sleep for up to one week at a time, while running with my peer group. The Punjab tavern on Foster Road became my main hub or center for social contact with many of the social branches of the tree of death that I was now climbing. Many a night, and after hours’ parties, were spent with a revolving group of my new friends there, with a main core group of people who had mutual interests.

I don’t know how to tell the rest of this phase of the story, except for inserting a series of “vignettes”, where I am able to document and describe some of my major interactions with others. The following descriptions will, once again, appear fragmented and incomplete.
I will begin my story of the underworld with Ralph. Ralph was from Scappoose, Oregon, or so he said. He was the center point for much underworld activity, and I quickly became his friend, and driver, through many underworld adventures. Through him I met drug chemists, motorcycle gang members, hit men, armed robbers, practicing felons in possession of firearms, prostitutes, homeless victims of child abuse, heroin addicts, and Steve (not his real name), who was an undercover federal agent, and who would figure strongly in my future release from personal HELL. Steve deserves a story devoted all to his self, as he saved my life when I stood at the final brink, early in March of 1987.

I learned to really love Ralph, who was an incredibly damaged soul, and his excessive drug use would sometimes cause concern for me. I noticed that paranoia was creeping into his mind, and we would joke about it, but he became my first living example of the damage that excess meth use causes. He was one of my “protectors” in the underworld, and would redirect others who were tempted to bring harm to me, because I did not fit in too well at times with Portland’s dark underbelly, being too healthy looking, too educated, and too well spoken. My appearance would quickly change, however, as I lost 70 pounds, receding to 136 pounds by November. My big vocabulary betrayed me on several occasions, and I was counseled to use smaller words wherever possible. One time I was “busted” for using the word “magnanimous” while sitting at the bar, and I was told that people who use “quarter words” where a “nickel word” is enough were not welcome there.

One quick little story about Ralph before I leave him for now. Once, I had all four tires of my car slashed while parked overnight for a party with Ralph and his minions. Ralph put the word out on the streets that this was unacceptable behavior, and whoever did the deed would answer to him personally, and to lay off of that car. I felt strangely safe, and protected, while with Ralph, even though there were continue threats against my safety and well-being. While jacking up my car for tire replacements, I had to use my AA book to help with extra elevation, which attracted some strange looks from those who already thought that I was a stranger in this strange land. Hey, I had finally found a constructive use for the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I actually felt a little pleased with myself. Ralph told me to “ditch that evil book”, and I kept it hidden from all sight from that point on, though to this day, I still own that very same book.

AA Book, AKA extra car jack mount

AA Book, AKA extra car jack mount

In his appreciation for me, Ralph also offered to me Sarah, his long-term girlfriend, who he had an “open relationship” with. But I had already eschewed all connections with women, other than platonic ones, because I feared that they would distract me from achieving my goal of either killing myself, or finding some new truth that would sustain my will to carry on. But I did share many adventures with Sarah.

While hanging out with Sarah, we would occasionally visit incarcerated friends at the local jails. One day, she decided that we needed to visit Jake, who was being held in Clackamas County Jail until his transfer was completed to a federal penitentiary. I knew Jake on the outside, and he was always so kind and friendly towards me. I wanted so much to express my sorrow at his long-term imprisonment. It was on the way there that I learned that our “friend” was a “hit man” for a regional motorcycle gang that distributed drugs, and one ”hit” went horribly wrong for him, apparently.

Sarah and I snorted some of the latest designer meth creations from our favorite local chemist just before arriving at the jail. It was just after that I had either a stroke, a prolonged seizure, or I was struck dumb, and speechless, for two full days, perhaps by the realization of the potential danger that I was in. When we met Jake at the reception area for the jail, all that would come out of my mouth were awkward grunts and squawks. Yes, the stress created by the meeting, coupled with the drug interactions, caused my loss of the ability to speak, thus contributing to the “conspiracy of silence” that my own drug use and addiction created.

Hal was a tall, lanky fellow, who wore black rim glasses. He had always seemed to have a cigarette going, which was common with the crowd that I was now running with. Hal was the alternate transportation for Ralph, when I was unavailable. Hal lived in downtown Portland, near the Scientology office. We became friends for a while, and spent a lot of time processing information together about the insane people and situations that we were experiencing while hanging with Ralph and Sarah. There was never a dull moment, that was for sure.

Hal was from a devout Catholic family background. His family was economically disadvantaged (POOR), and Hal had to work even while in high school to help his mother make ends meet financially. He had taken four years of college, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in forestry, and he was no dummy, that was for sure. He had a strong work ethic, when he was employable, but now he was suffering from the after effects of some sort of emotional breakdown. To support his income stream, he peddled speed at some of the local strip bars and taverns. It was a high risk proposition, as he had to make exchanges with some really damaged people, as well as potential exposure to informants and snitches.

He tried to present a happy face, though, whenever I saw him. I felt a strange, sad feeling though, whenever I saw him. One time, while visiting him at his home, I saw a copy of his college degree from Oregon State University. His photograph was next to it, and it was only from six years previously. yet, he looked twenty-five years older now. I was a little surprised that I could feel my own heartbreak around the loss of human potential for somebody else, yet not even feel it for myself.

From time to time, we would get involved in discussions about religion, philosophy, psychology, and society, in between snorting lines of our latest shipments. He was the best person for animated discussions, which were accentuated by the stimulants that we liberally used together. Hal loved to make extensive commentary about the Pope, or about the state of American Catholicism. I would usually just listen to him after he got all “fired up” because I just did not share the same sense of oppression that he experienced because of his religion while he was growing up. I certainly was oppressed, no doubt, but at this point I did not have a really good clue as to why I felt that way.

He would always end his religious take downs by stating, unequivocally, that heaven and hell are right here on earth, nobody has to die to get there. Just look around, he would say, the evidence is obvious.

“I carry heaven and hell in my own mind, Bruce. I don’t need the Church to tell me how to feel, behave, or believe, for they just add more layers of hell for me to sort through to find my own little piece of heaven”.

“Hal, I don’t really follow the Christian religion, or Catholicism too much. I only know that I carry more than a nodding familiarity with Hell. Since I do not experience anything resembling heaven on earth, I guess that is why the church people hope that it exists after we die, because we sure aren’t drinking from its fountains right now!”

“Bruce, there was a time when I occasionally knew peace of mind, and that is when I first knew that I did not need any God, any Jesus and his crucifix, or any Pope to lead me into my own greater good. But after walking through this world for the piece of time that I have, I have somehow lost all hope that it will return anytime soon. The damage in the world is becoming the damage in my own mind. I despair that the world will ever change, and I doubt that any change is even possible for myself”.

“Hal, wow, I actually might be your long-lost brother from another mother. I don’t have any answers. I stopped using pot because I wanted to see if it was preventing me from accessing important parts of myself. I use speed now, because it helps keep me engaged with the world in a more social way, yet I am no happier than I was before. I stopped using anti-depressants last year, and now I am just riding this bucking bronco until I get tossed for the last time. I am not planning on picking myself up again, when I hit the dirt the next time.”

Yes, our discussions never ended on a positive, life-affirming note, but how could they? Hal was to get arrested, and charged with drug distribution, when another “friend” of ours, Cowboy Ron, snitched on Hal to save his own, sorry ass.

I won’t give Cowboy Ron the honor to even give him much comment. No, I did not change Cowboy Ron’s name here. I only hope that he sees himself here someday, if he survived his own private hell. Cowboy Ron hurt a lot of people, including his wife and children, but that is another story, for another day. Sometimes the predator becomes the prey, and maybe that was what he was really looking for, in the end. People do bad things to hurt themselves, and other people sometimes just become collateral damage. I did not enter the underworld to judge anyone, including Cowboy Ron. I sometimes ran with the wolves, but this rabid dog challenged me in ways that made my flesh crawl.

I will now talk for a while about Robert. Robert was a convicted armed robber, who was recently released from prison in May of 1986. One night, fate gathered us both together to sit at the bar in the Punjab tavern. The bar was a long, semi-circular arc, which seated up to 14 souls. The bar had two pool tables, and several tables and booths where people could be comfortably seated. And, there were several video games, which drew my attention at “after hours’ parties” where I was usually quite wired, and needing extra entertainment.

I was sitting at the bar yet again one evening, conversing with the owner Jack, who was to become another friend to me, when Robert slid in, and sat right next to me. He was dressed in a leather jacket, which was popular at that time, and fairly new jeans. He was about my age, 30 years old, and looked like he wanted to talk. Let us “tune in” to a conversation that we engaged in that evening:

Robert: Hey, I have a plan for this seat, is it OK for me to sit next to you for while?

Me: Why, of course! Where are you coming from, you appear to be already having a good time.

Robert: Well, tonight is the night for good times, for sure. I just needed to get out, and get some “fresh air” and hook up with some old friends. I have been out of the neighborhood for a long time, and I am hoping to find some old friends.

Me: Well, maybe a new friend might show up, say, right next to you this evening?!

Robert: That would sure be nice.

Me: My only requirements are that you are not a murderer, because if my life has to end tonight, I want it to be by my own hands (I said this half-jokingly)

Robert: Hmm, I was just released from prison, having spent ten years behind bars for a pretty famous robbery committed in 1975.

Me: Oh, really? You really made the news, eh? I think that your notoriety won’t get in the way.

Robert: Umm, I killed a man while committing the robbery.

Me: (gulping, I am feeling rather uncomfortable and stupid now, and my thoughts began racing). Robert, everybody deserves a second chance, let me buy you another beer, and let’s turn our attention to the present.

Robert: Sounds good!

We clink our glasses together, and each take a big drink. An ‘old friend’ of Robert’s comes up to the bar, and accompanies Robert into the restroom, leaving me at the bar. I ask the bartender for a shot of whiskey, which I quickly down, and then wash the bitter flavor away with a big drink of beer.

Robert returns to the bar, sans his “old friend”.

Me: Well, what is up for the rest of the evening?

Robert: (slurring his words noticeably, and his eyes had lost their luster) I think that I will just hang out here for as long as I can, then move on down the road a piece.

He then closes his eyes, and slumps down, face onto the bar. Then, he falls off of the chair, and tries to right himself on the floor.

Me: Bartender, I think that my friend here just got sick, should we call an ambulance?

Jack: Heck no, Bruce, he is right where he wants to be. If you could, please help him over to a booth in the corner where he can try to get his shit back together.

Me: Jack, did he just shoot heroin, or something? Why would he do that to himself? I just don’t understand, because I want and need to talk to people now, and that would be so counterproductive.

Jack: Bruce, SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST WAITING FOR A BETTER DAY. Today is not the better day for Robert, and it may never arrive for him.

Me: Wow, thanks for that, Jack, I did not really understand, but I think that I do now. Let me get him out of view before we all get into trouble.

The Conspiracy Of Silence claims yet another human being. The heroin completely shut him down to his humanity, and left me wondering what my own fate might be,.

This story goes on, through an almost endless array of struggling, spiritually darkened humanity. I will continue this story with many other human beings that I had the privilege, honor, and distress to meet and converse with. Each one of them helped me to find the next step on my own path to recovery, and to finally embracing the path to truth and love within my own heart.

Dorothy was a young woman in her early 20’s, who had two young children. I had met Dorothy over a month earlier while hanging at Jakes (the hit man). I was invited over to her house one evening, and I was privileged to have a fairly intense discussion with her about our life’s issues. She was a heroin user, becoming dominated by the needs to use, and she was also “shadowed” by a former lover, Jakob, who was incarcerated in jail at the time of our connection. While I was there, I noted her “scraping” used spoons, so that she could get together enough heroin residues to give her a fix. Her supply was out, and she was waiting for her next delivery, so things were getting a little “tense” for her We spoke of what we thought the real powers of this world were, and it got a little interesting.

She did not believe in the power of “God” or “Jesus”, having long eschewed any connection with such concepts. She lived for the moment, and knew all too well that “shit happened” regardless of how “good” or “bad” a person was. She believed that her criminal boyfriend, Jakob, had extraordinary powers, and could “astrally project himself” out of prison at night. As long as she had company (friends, or heroin), Jakob could not materialize into her home, and threaten her and dominate her, as he did when he was not imprisoned.

“There is only darkness, Bruce, and all of the people who attempt to use it. Those who use to help others are considered “good people” yet, these same people will turn against others in a heartbeat, should the need arise. Good people do not really exist, just fucked-up people who occasionally make helpful choices for themselves or, inadvertently, for others, usually while they are really just trying to selfishly take care of themselves”.

“Dorothy, I believe that we all have both energies, and it may only be that if we stumble upon the right understanding, we can act more from a not-so-dark, not so selfish position, and occasionally help ourselves and each other to have better lives”

“Well, how much time and energy do you put into having a better understanding of yourself, and being more helpful to others?”

“Good point, Dorothy. But I actually try to look at the forces of darkness within myself, to see where I might also be negatively impacting myself and others through a lifetime of not fearlessly confronting those energies. I have no idea what will be revealed, if anything, if I ever successfully overcome my own darkness.

I continue to search for the reasons to stay around here, and see if there is any real value to staying alive. My old way of seeing life sure has not brought any lasting happiness or social responsibility to me. If there is no Truth to stumble upon to keep me going, then I may as well allow the darkness that I already know to finish swallowing me up, and take me away from my own suffering”.

“Heroin is quite helpful for me, Bruce, have you considered trying it? My supplier will be here shortly, and I can give you a little bit.”

“Dorothy, thanks for talking with me, and making the offer to share with me, but I have to return to some other business that I am attending to, so time for me to leave”.

My search for Truth would have ended that day, had I stuck around Dorothy’s home. I was only minimally tempted to try heroin that day, as I felt quite disturbed by the darkness that I felt coming through Dorothy. I never saw her again.

My relationship with Steve belongs in a special story all to himself, but I will include him here because he had ultimate importance in my “search for truth”. I met Steve at the same time that I met Ralph. Steve was a very intelligent, well-dressed man, about 8 years older than me. He drove a nice 1982 Chevrolet, which somebody had tricked out (I did not think that he did it, however). Shortly after becoming a “peripheral person” in our rotating community of characters, his car became impounded by the police, and he could not get it released back into his care (or so he said). That is where I first became “suspicious” of Steve, because I sensed that he was looking for somebody who might have an “inside track” into our Portland Police Department, and its inner workings.

Steve and I shared a lot of time together over the 12 months that I wandered over the underworld landscape. I could always count on him to give me good insight into others, though he held the truths about himself close to his chest. He was a practical, rational type of guy. He became a ‘big brother” to me, at times, and would not spare me criticism, if I appeared out-of-place, or out of touch. He would criticize Ralph’s excessive drug use, all the while using extremely small amounts of the same stuff, which he poured from a very tiny vile. He initially could not understand why I thought it necessary to be where I was, either, though he was the only person that I ever told that I was on a “search for truth”, while continuing to use speed, and alcohol. I did not understand, at the time, how he could “get by” with so little use of drugs.

From time to time, Steve would seem to “test” me, by exposing me to new situations and people who required some sort of help or intervention. Through Steve I met Georgette, a 15-year-old runaway girl, who was escaping a sexually abusive father by being homeless in the southeast Portland area. She was hanging out with another sexually abused homeless young man, named Greg, who was three years her senior, and already skilled in the art and science of locating abandoned or temporarily vacated homes, for their own temporary residences. Greg was always accompanied by five to ten other “friends”, who would be his assistants in illicitly securing property or goods for resale, and, I was to learn, help distribute freshly manufactured methamphetamine. Greg, I would learn, was also about to “peddle” Georgette, for added income.

Georgette was a tiny young woman, no more than five foot two inches, and ninety-five pounds. When I first met her, I noted her innocence, and my heart almost broke, and I felt helpless, though I wanted so much to protect her from her fate. She had developed “pink eye”, and I saw an opportunity to break her free from this group of itinerant thieves and junkies. I had her grab her meager belongings, and I placed her in my car, and we talked for hours. She was the younger sister, or daughter that I never had, and I wanted to keep her safe.

I finally whisked her away from the gang, and drove her to Outside In, where she could get necessary medical help and counseling. I had recently received a retirement payout from my 10 years working at the Postal Service, and so I had some extra money, which I stuffed into her pocket. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I never wanted to see her again with her “friends”, or there would be serious hell to pay. I never saw her again, though a tape recorded message of my conversation with her would mysteriously show up two months later.

Greg (Georgette’s ‘handler’) was to later engage me, and asked to speak to me in private.

“Bruce, I hear that you might be able to help in my situation. I have a friend who has set up a trailer near 82nd avenue, and we can hang out there, and use it as our base of operations”

“Greg, I am not sure what you are asking of me. My time is quickly running out, I am afraid, and whatever “help” that you are seeking, I probably do have sufficient assets to draw from”.

“Well, we have a pretty good operation going right now. I am getting lots of merchandise stockpiled, and, in fact, we have filled an entire basement near 52nd avenue. Before you say no to anything, let’s go over and check it out”.

“OK, but I can’t be tied down to any one place, any one situation, or any one person. I certainly do not have any interest in buying or selling stolen items. I will go over with you and have a look at the house, though.”

We drove over together to the home on Duke Ave. near Brentwood City Park in my Datsun 310, talking about a wide range of subjects. Greg appeared to be only about 17 years old, yet he told me that he had been on the street for over six years. I could tell that he was “feeling me out”, asking me many leading questions. My paranoia, which was a gradually increasing inner experience for me over the last several weeks, was barking at me, the closer we got to the safe house. As we entered the driveway to the home, Greg then asked me

“Bruce, you sure don’t talk like anybody that I have ever met. You talk about things that I don’t like to think about, or would normally not even consider. You are so different, and you sound a little strange at times, I think. I think that we should be partners. I can tell that you do not like women by the way you have ignored all the girls we hang out with, and you should know that I have little attraction for women, as well. I only feel a strong bond to men”.

I think that I then swallowed a golf ball sized lump in my throat

“Greg, I don’t think that you understand. I am not sexually attracted to ANYBODY. I want to meet people and make friends with no ties, sexual or otherwise to anyone. I have to travel light, because I am going to be leaving very soon.”

“I have heard you say that before. Where the hell do you think that you are going to go”?

“I got a passport earlier this year, with the intent to travel to Spain, to start a new life, or maybe to die. I think that my journey will not be taking me too far from home now, though”.

“I don’t understand. Why do you talk of death? Are you dying?”

“I am really not sure what I mean anymore. I know that something feels like it is dying inside of me. I won’t know until more time passes, and I meet more people. I will then know for sure what I mean”

“You don’t make any sense. Maybe when you see what we have in the basement, it will be easier to make up your mind whether to stay or to go”.

We exited the car, and walked up to the front door together. Greg knocked on the door, and a nearly fifty year old woman of unkempt appearance answered.

“Greg, come on it! I have missed you! Umm, I have not been able to organize everything yet.”

“Martha, this is Bruce. He is OK, don’t be afraid of him, I’ve known him forever Don’t worry about the mess, we can take care of that later”

There was some more small talk, and then we walked downstairs. Martha had merchandise almost stacked to the ceiling covering almost the entire basement, of which I estimated it was 1500 square feet. There were brand new boxes of retail merchandise, as well as some “used” items of very good condition. It was like an unofficial hardware section of Home Depot, and the clothing section of Fred Meyer. I saw chain saws, table saws, drill motors, hand guns, shotguns, military style guns like an HK 91,m toys, kitchen pots and pans, appliances, car parts, lawn mowers, bicycles, clothes, shoes, and just about anything one could imagine. We walked into a closed off section of the basement, with Martha becoming quiet, and almost reverential.

“I want to show you how the lab is progressing. Dieter has made great progress, and has secured all of the hardware and chemicals necessary to get started. We have not been able to get Jeff bailed out of jail yet, so we may have to kidnap one of our other chemists for a week to run a test batch or two”

She opened the door, and there were three tables filled with Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers of various sizes, Bunson burners, propane tanks and fittings, glass cookware, coffee filters, some sort of automatic stirring or mixing device, stainless steel pressure cookers, and a host of other tools that I did not immediately recognize, even though I had taken chemistry lab several years before. There were also several Mason jars and mayonnaise jars filled with substances of various colors, some of which were liquid in nature. I do not remember if they had made provisions for ventilation, though there was a window that looked north located near the ceiling that would have been adequate. I made sure not to offer up to them the fact that I had some background in chemistry, as the thought of being trapped in a lab as an assistant for a week or more sounded a bit like imprisonment to me, no matter how much free drugs might be made available to me.

“Well, let’s smoke a joint, and celebrate the good fortune that we are about to have!”

Martha then pulled out a stick and lit it up. When it got to me, I declined.

“Aren’t you a partaker of the wacky tobacky?”

“Not today. I’ll stick to my crank now. I need to keep my head clear, and the joint just gets in the way of what I am trying to do”.

“I don’t get it. Pot is the best stress relief available, save for the brown or black holiday”.

“I am trying to figure some things out. It is hard for me to function at the level I need to while high on pot”.

Are you sure you are OK?”

“Oh yes. By the way, I could use a line of crystal, can you send me a life line?”

“Now you are talking! Let’s get the party started.”

And with this group, another one week run starts, with no sleep, little food, and too much conversation. I was never quite sure what to make of Martha. I never saw her again.

Greg lost interest in me, and found himself a “friend” to hang out with him at his trailer. I saw him from time to time after that. He looked worse and worse every time that I saw him, and I think that he reflected back to me my own disease and disfigurement.

I continued an incredible downward spiral into addiction, and Steve commented to me, in November, how I looked like I could be the “Aids Poster Boy” because I had become so slight of figure, and so unhealthy looking. I had started “hearing voices”, and I had become paranoid, as well. Yet, I did not let on to others that I had become so disfigured internally, though the signs were starting to appear. I “heard” that there was a major undercover operation active in Portland, and that dozens of criminal indictments were immanent. In reality, that was partially the truth, yet I should not have known that, let alone warn a few others of those “facts”.

Steve wanted to know how I knew of these indictments, and I would not tell him. I noted that people were tailing me almost all of the time now, and that some of my conversations were being recorded in my car. One day I tore my car apart, searching for the transmitter, or the recorder. I had two different people stop by, and try to interrupt me from the search, which only added to my own paranoia. I did not locate the transmitter, but I really began to fuck with any listeners’ mind, by talking dark shit, and renaming myself “the Wild Card”. I let my world know, in no uncertain terms, that I was no longer aligned with anyone, as I was on my way to my own death.

I will fast forward through three months more of Hell. My main core group had collapsed, with Ralph relocating himself to protect himself. I had lost touch with Steve, my last connection with sanity. I was running with a new group, and most were intravenous drug users. I met Doctor Dave, a short, friendly man, with a severely pockmarked face, a man who also recently was released from jail. He introduced me to intravenous drug use. He ever so carefully shot me up with speed, for my first time of ever using the needle, and most subsequent times, as well. I could not shoot up by myself, as I feared needles so much. But the incredible rush I received from intravenous drug use made me want to use this hastened path to Death frequently for the final two months of my drug abusing life.

I will share a story of Frank, and Steve’s providential return to my life. Another house had been compromised near the intersection of Holgate and McLoughlin Blvd, and that became our new hangout. Our new leader, Frank, organized a big party, and we had over 70 people show up.

I was ready for my swan song. My mental health was irreparably damaged, and my “search for truth” had apparently only uncovered a hastened path to Death for me. Frank had just secured a fresh batch of speed, and heroin, which I had never used before, and he was mixing up his renowned “witches brew”, and invited me to join him. Sure, why not? I had nothing to lose, but a life that was already dead. I started to accompany Frank to an upstairs room, when I spotted Steve talking with a healthy looking 30-year-old woman, one that i might have been attracted to, had i been healthy. I overheard her calling his name, and it was NOT Steve. “Steve” saw that I heard his real name, and he then knew that I knew.

Steve took me aside, and tried to explain. I instead stopped him, and told him that I had suspected him all along of being undercover. I also told him that his secret was safe with me. I told him my journey was about to end, that I was going upstairs with Frank, and if I survived that experience, I was going to return to my car, and grab the pills under my front seat, and finish business, once and for all. Yes, I was finished.

“Steve” grabbed my arm, excused himself from his ‘girlfriend’, and took me outside to his car. We then drove to my father’s house, and “Steve” then commanded to me

“Bruce, I can no longer keep you protected and safe. Your search for truth has to end within this dangerous world. Now your real search for truth must begin, starting with your relationship with your father. I never want to see you again, but believe me, I am going to try to help you, any way I can. You deserve so much better of a life than you have given to yourself.”

We arrived at my father’s house, and he let me out. He and his partner drove my car to my dad’s house later that evening, and I never saw him again. The pills had disappeared from under the driver’s seat, as well. There was no way that I was going to go back to Dr. Beavers, as I was too ashamed to have anybody see me in the state that I was in.

Note 1: One year later, he called me, to check and see how I was doing. I was a year clean and sober, and, in tears, I gushed with my love and gratitude for “Steve”. He was the best friend that I never knew I had.

Randy Olson was to return to my life, yet again. I was still a mess, strung out from months of drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, and I still only weighed a mere 135 pounds. My face was all broke out, and I had the most horrific shakes, and I “heard voices”. I had experienced convulsions several times.. I was still drinking, but I was no longer using drugs very much. I invited Randy Olson over on March 13 of 1987. He came over, and he, and his girlfriend and I proceeded to down an inordinate amount of my fathers’ booze and wine. My parents were still “snow birding” in Arizona, and would not be home until the end of the month, so I was still able to keep my dysfunctional momentum going. Well, after partying with Randy until about 10:00 PM, Randy had to go home, so I was left alone with my horrible problems.

It was then that I entered into a blackout, and picked up one of my father’s loaded guns, and drove, quite drunk, to Brock’s home in the Milwaukie area. This person was an associate of one of the drug chemists in the underworld culture that I had just emerged from. I have no idea why I went down there, but I awoke from my blackout when the gun in my lap discharged, shooting a hole in the front door of his apartment. He had two sleeping children on one room, and a sleeping wife in another room, and I was fortunate to have not brought harm to anyone.

He then brought a hypodermic needle out, and injected me with crank/speed (I still would not inject myself.) I immediately snapped out of my drunkenness, and proceeded to talk with this guy for 24 hours. I got one more injection, and then clarity finally hit me.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literally, a light went on in my mind, and I saw the utter insanity of the person I was with, and the insanity of my life. I stood up, laughed at the guy, called him, and myself, nuts, and walked out of the front door, got into my car, and drove back to my parents’ home. I was changed, though I just didn’t know how much at the time. As I had only five dollars left to my name, I needed to make a decision. Either I needed to buy more beer and cigarettes, or I needed to get some gasoline for my car, and go visit my grandparents in north Portland. I kept the five dollars, and drove to family. My grandparents were happy to see me, but were concerned for my appearance. I claimed to have the flu, and grandmother nursed me back to some semblance of health over the next five days, while I detoxified and had withdrawals from cessation of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, all at the same time.

I returned home to my parents’ home after a week at the grandparents. It is another funny thing, two days later, out of the blue, Craig Salter called me, for the first connection in three years (he was a childhood friend that both Randy and I had known since the 5th grade, and the same person that I chose to have my relapse with after my Care Unit experience), and asked me if I wanted to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with him. He was required to attend meetings due to the conditions of the court that had prosecuted him for a DUI. Of course, Craig was not an alcoholic; at least he thought that he wasn’t. I knew that he was, though. I, in fact, was the person that got him drunk the first time in High School, when Craig was 17 years old. I actually may have started him on his own horrific decline into his own alcoholism, just like Randy Olson had started me on my first drug, which was marijuana, and may have indirectly contributed to my own eventual decline.

Anyway, I went to that AA meeting, because the way I figured it, since God was such a big part of AA, and since I was searching for TRUTH, there must be a relationship between those two forces, and AA must have an angle on that. I proceeded to attend over 270 meetings in my first 90 days, since I had nothing else to do, having lost my job, and, basically, my life, to my disease. Craig eventually stopped going to meetings, after his court ordered attendance ended. I continued to attend them, feeling like I had finally found my spiritual home. I did fall again into a temporary trap at the HInson Baptist Church, thinking that my personal TRUTH must somehow be hidden in the church system, and that I could unearth some more by attending church, and being baptized.

I then literally spent thousands of hours over the next several years in AA meetings, communication, investigation, reading, writing, meditation, associating with all types and manners of people, and, eventually, healing my relationship with my parents (especially my father). Yes, the prison guard with one of the primary keys to release me from my own spiritual imprisonment was my own unhealed relationship with my father. Overcoming lifetimes of oppression and control by others is no easy task. It also must be done clean and sober, for the true depth and healing of the experience to permanently take hold.

I was enlightened by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May 16, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholic Anonymous Twelve Steps

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I finally recognized that, for me, “God” was my innate capacity for change and evolution. I recognized that there was no “Jesus” or other prophet that could do my work for me. I threw the idea of “Divine Grace” right out the window, accepted personal responsibility for my life, and began in earnest the process of personal evolution. I recognized that I needed to create new paths of consciousness for myself, and to stop following the rutted roads created by other people. I recognized that there was no psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist that was able to make me more conscious, or more honest with myself. I finally recognized that there was no teacher, healer, or leader in existence who was going to bring salvation or healing to me. I had to do the work, and work all of of life’s issues out by myself. I had twelve steps to bring a spiritual experience to me, and through the changing of myself, I might finally change my experience of the world.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
—- Søren Kierkegaard

My search for Truth, which had taken me through the darkest regions of hell, was about to give me wings, and enable me to fly to the sun, and beyond.

On May 22, 1987, as I was driving toward Beaverton to visit Randy, a wonderful vision came to me. It was the vision of a loving mother, holding a baby, and I felt the love of this wonderful UNIVERSE for the first time in my lifetime. It should be noted that the vision did NOT have anything to do with “father” energy. My healing spirit needed to bring balance to my internal biosphere by the introduction of a feminine, nurturing energy.

There is the love we have for each other, for our friends, our pets, our children, our families, but this love that I felt flow into me, and though me, transported me into a heightened awareness, and an awe. The beauty was too great to talk about, the feeling so overwhelming, so healing, so resurrecting. I had to stop my car on Canyon Blvd, and I got down on my knees and prayed my thankfulness to a CREATIVE FORCE that finally had found me receptive, and open, to its presence.

I made it to Randy’s house, and I met with him for the first time since my blackout experience. Randy could not believe his eyes, he said

“Bruce, what has happened to you? You look different, you look happy. You look at peace. You have changed!!!”

Yes, I had changed. I started talking to Randy about my experience, and Randy started to get tingling sensations up and down his spine. The hairs on his arms starting sticking up straight off of his arms! Randy exclaimed

“Bruce, what is going on. When you talk, I start to tingle all over. What has happened?”

“Well, Randy, I think that I am having an experience with God”, I said.

“How wonderful for you! I am happy that you are having such a wonderful experience of change right now. I am not the type of person for it right now, but I sure am happy that you are changing. You really needed something different in your life really bad, and it sounds like you are now finding it!”

How right he was!

So, Randy was there at the beginning of so much of the important/ significant events in my life. And, he was there at their end, as well. I could not take Randy into my new-found world of love and happiness, I could only share, ever so briefly, my personal experience of it. My future conversations with Randy became increasingly less productive, and I found that I was losing touch with Randy spiritually, emotionally, and, finally, physically.

It was June 22, 1987, and I was hiking up to Larch Mountain, a beautiful peak that overlooks the Columbia River valley. From its vantage point it also oversees all of the major mountain peaks of the area. In the ancient times, I was to learn several years later by a tribal member this area was imbued with the energy of the Great Spirit, and considered sacred ground by the indigenous people, who came to this area from miles around to honor their spiritual heritage, and to hold their sacred ceremonies and prayer rituals.

I arrived at the top, and allowed myself to become as quiet as my mind would allow for. I slowly did a 360 degree rotation, observing for the many miles around me, in all directions, the incredible beauty of the area, including the mountain peaks of Rainier, Adams, St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson, and the great winding river called the Columbia River. It felt as if I were on the top of a great observatory, and, today, I was the only person with this special view, and I was quite grateful just to be alive, and to have this privilege.

I bypassed a guard rail, and I then climbed around the rocky peak so as to be hidden from the view from anyone who might follow me up to the observation area. With the additional privacy that I had created for myself, I then felt comfortable enough to begin to pray and meditate for just a little while. I was quite poor at this activity, as my body still had mild tremors, and my mind refused to quiet itself. But, at least I made myself available to Spirit, in the way that felt appropriate to me.

My nervous system was still quite compromised from all of the poisoning caused by the chemistry experiments masquerading as methamphetamine/crank that I had ingested over the 18 months prior to March 22nd of this year, in addition to my continued abuse of alcohol during that period. At this point, on June 22nd, I had been clean and sober for 3 months, but a total healing or recovery seemed out of the question at this point. I had been a drug addict and alcoholic, more or less, since I was 15 years old, but the last 18 months of my disease and insanity had really taken a toll. My health was improving a little, but I still was having physical tremors, almost identical to those of Parkinson’s disease, and I was also experiencing the psychological discomfort of “hearing voices”, an activity within my mind which consisted, at this point, of mentally generated internal thought based feedback about whatever I was observing, or doing at the time.

The “voices” were nothing more than my own thoughts, yet, in my mind, they appeared to be coming from a center not quite of my self, but of something, or some nature, not quite me. I was literally “out of phase” with myself. It was also like having a play by-play announcer operating in my mind, who mentally verbalized everything that was happening, as it happened, with no color commentary added to it. The insanity expressed through a “third person” perspective, with a running monologue documenting anything that my consciousness was focusing on at any particular moment. I had an uncomfortable relationship with this mental feedback, and I dare not report this to medical professionals.. I feared that I would be hospitalized, or placed on the same destructive medications that I had seen administered to my mentally ill ex-wife. I had resigned myself to a life of marginal mental health, at best.

A light, warm breeze carried the fragrance of the nearby pine trees to me, drawing me away from the problems of my body, and of my mind. I continued to be absorbed by the beauty of the area, and the majesty of the unobstructed views. The mountain peaks began to feel closer to me, for some as yet unknown reason. I felt as though I could reach out and touch each of them. The river far below me felt close, very close, and the whole panorama seemed to be drawing nearer to me, and I began experiencing everything in a different way than I ever had before. And, for the 2nd time in a month, I started feeling a little “different”.

A month ago I had experienced a “vision” of a loving, divine mother holding her baby, and, with its presence, all of my loneliness and depression had lifted. I attributed that temporary healing to the presence of the vision, and there had been a love that had flowed into me during its presence. The “vision” had disappeared, but it had left its memory of a beautiful, unconditional love, and with it, traces of hope, and the expectations that something was to follow, of some as yet unknown nature. Well, something was following now, and it was “closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet”.

A voice inside of my head then stated, with its typical matter of fact nature,

“HE IS HAVING AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD”.

I was no longer separate from that which I was viewing. Everything revealed itself as an extension of my own self, of my own true nature. For the first time in my existence, I could see that, as far as I can see, all that I will ever see, unto eternity, is my own self. Then, with a sense of all of my thoughts now being my own, I asked myself “how will I see myself today?”

I saw that all of humanity, and, all of nature itself, was my true family. I saw that everybody was either my brother, or my sister, in this new, true nature that was revealed within me. I looked within myself, and for the first time in my life, I only saw myself, as well. The third person monologue had stopped!! I held my hands out before me, and my hands, which usually shook so bad that I could not even write my signature clearly, or use a spoon to eat from a bowl without making a mess, were steady! Peace had finally found me on a mountain peak, and I had finally found my true self. And, I had finally found that life, that TRUTH, I had been seeking since I know not when. And, a man who felt isolated for most of his life felt compelled to search for “my people”, which began a brand new journey of hope, connection, and healing with all others.

I also had finally found what real recovery is. It is not just stopping drinking alcohol and the cessation of drug use. It is the decrease, and, ultimately, the elimination of all patterns of thought that keep me from caring for this world, and for all of the life upon it. I can’t be alive, and live life fully and holistically, without loving my fellow-man, and all of the beautiful, divine life upon our planet.

When I think of the love that I might have for a newborn baby, or my favorite pet, I feel that love completely, with no self-consciousness, and with no reservations at all. I spare none of my heart or soul. But when I think of that family member or acquaintance who can cause so much distress, so much anger, can I give the same love that I would give for my baby to that person who I am distressed with? If I can’t let go of those negative emotions, then that is one example of my separation from God, or the truth of that present moment relationship. Today I choose to let go of all the emotional controls that keep me out of touch with others, and with myself.

I don’t have to travel to the underworld again to find that truth.

“WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE?”

became not only the question of that day, but now, also the question for my life, whenever I start to feel “disconnected”.

“My people” are now only a smile away.

I became motivated to drive to NE 73rd and Glisan, where the US Postal Service’s EAP program was based. I walked into the door, and I was greeted by both Larry and Mike (Mike visited me in the Care Unit 3 years before, and Larry was the director of the EAP since I could remember). I called out to them by name, yet neither man immediately recognized me. When I mentioned my name, they were both blown away. I was happy, or, more precisely, ebullient, and Mike said that I was simply “radiant”. They wanted to know what was going on with me, and I stated, with a matter of fact attitude, that I was having a “spiritual experience”, and they both gave me a huge hug and acknowledgement. Inspired by this reception, I returned to the Main Post Office, and checked in with the Personnel Department, where Eleanor Workman was the head of the department. She immediately recognized me, and then offered me an application to reapply for my “lost” position.

“No thank you, Eleanor, I just wanted to express my apologies for working for this company in such an unhappy manner for so many years”.

She stated that I could get the job back with little problem, since the Post Office knew that they fired me even though I was still a practicing alcoholic. I then stated that what would make me the happiest is if she could schedule a meeting between me and the head of Plant Maintenance, John Zimpleman. Well, he was “in”, so I went right up, and I had a direct opportunity to make amends to him for my poor performance from 1980-1985. He greeted me warmly, listened to my story, was quite impressed, and then stated that he wished his son could discover what I just found, because John Jr. was rapidly descending to my former level. Wow, this day of amends went so well, I remained ecstatic about all future interpersonal possibilities.

One day that next week, while visiting our world famous Powell’s Book Store on Burnside in Portland, I saw my old psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Beavers. He was standing in the metaphysical section of the book store. I walked up to him, and he did not immediately recognize me. I stuck my hand out to him, and re-introduced myself to him.

“Bruce, this can’t be you, can it? Last time I saw you, I was wondering how much longer you could survive if the medication did not turn your life around.”

“Dan, the medication worked just fine. I never used it, at least not in the way that you would have intended for me to use it. I finally found a new way to live life without medication, drugs, or alcohol. I now accept full personal responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and activities”.

“Bruce, that is the desired outcome for all of my patients. Congratulations on your success!”

I gave Dr. Dan a hug, and apologized for using him like a tool in my effort to manipulate my former employer, the US Postal Service. He said that I did not need to make amends to him, and that he was there for me to serve all of my needs, whether I considered them dysfunctional or otherwise. But it still felt good to see Dr. Dan and show him my healthier sense of self. I was to never see Dr. Dan again. When I recently saw his obituary for his premature death in 2015, I felt great sorrow, and cried.

Donelle Mae Flick (Paullin)

In early July of 1987, I visited Donelle at her apartment near Camas Washington. We had been divorced since 1984, but I still kept in touch with her on occasion, because of my concern for her. I had just gotten sober, and I wanted to make amends to her, as part of the program of working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (total sobriety was to last for me for over 20 years, until I developed a pain killer addiction in 2007). This time, she was in the middle of a complete MPD (multiple personality disorder) type of nervous breakdown. She had candles lit throughout her apartment, and the setting was quite eerie. I sat down with her to talk, and I noted that she looked so young and innocent, and I was struck by the change in her appearance and countenance. As she spoke to me, I felt like I was witnessing a 6 or 7 year old girl, with the new persona that was now speaking through her. For some reason, I was inspired to give her feedback about her “six year old self” that I was witnessing. I told her that she was not responsible for the sexual abuse that she experienced from Bud (and perhaps one or two unnamed others during Marlene’s drunken soirees). I tried to be as forgiving and compassionate as my heart would allow to the naive, innocent child making its presentation before me. We both cried together, and my heart was broken, and I hurt like I had never before hurt as a human being. I can only imagine her own terror and fear around her own abuse at the hands of her elders.

Another personality appeared, and it had a decidedly masculine sound. I asked Donelle who I was talking with. She replied that her name is “Beryl-Bruce”. Well, of course that is a combination of both my father’s and my own name, and I was curious. She then talked from that masculine platform for several minutes. From time to time I had an “AHA” moment, when elements of my father, and even myself, would come through her “conversation” with me. It was indeed quite curious, and, at time, profound.

Later in this visit, another “personality” appeared. A calm, composed mature person then “incarnated” into Donelle. I asked who I was talking with. She told me that she was “God”, and proceeded to give me the wisest, most loving feedback that I had ever received as a human being up to that point in my life.

I have many faces, but you have recognized mine, and you have reached the point of being able to accept beauty in your life.; You have made peace with your past, but peace does not last forever. You have much work to do, but your work will have love guiding it, and protecting you.”

Donelle’s “God” made a couple more statements, and I was floored by her relevancy and timeliness. Who was speaking? Where did this information come from? How could she know of things so personal to me in this moment?

As I was open to “God” at that point in my life, it was a miracle
that “God” could use the vehicle of a damaged human being to talk with
me. I speculate that this how “God” has to work sometimes..

Looking at my history, I remained open to the revelations from the Mystery

Who can say with certainty what reality truly is? We are all living lives comprised of our society’s, our religion’s, our science’s, and our family’s theories about how things are. We then mix in our own theories, and that witches brew becomes our own unique reality. Those who cling too tightly to what they think that they know, can unintentionally exclude a “whisper from God” that might be experienced and revealed in the newness of each moment, no matter what or who the source may be

Donelle’s reality was a most challenging one. I am distressed by the abuse that men over the course of her life heaped upon her. She was the most loving, kind person that I had every known, and she got bulldozed by our culture and community, and her diseased response to it. Nature, or nurture? Had Donelle been lovingly nurtured since birth through her adulthood, I would only hope that the disease would not have erupted. Traumatization of our most innocent cannot lead to happy outcomes.

In 1992, I was still in communication with my ex-wife, Donelle. At
this point, she was in the mental hospital at Fort Steilacoom,
Washington. She was committed yet again in 1990, and was languishing in there when I visited her. This was the 3rd time I had visited her there. She always had a shopping list for me to fill, invariably with some types of makeup. She still liked to make herself look as pretty as possible, but the effects of the medication over the years on her had taken a horrible toll. She was twice her normal weight, and she could not keep her food down consistently.

The most beautiful woman I had ever met was no longer that, and I was
quite saddened, once again, to have to connect with her while she was
so diseased. The medication was quite the “double edged sword”, and had been for all of her adult life. I don’t know what drug cocktails
they were giving her this time, but they had the same conflicted end
results; (I now have little respect for the drug industry, or for a
system that prescribes these drugs to people, rather than treating
people in a more holistic manner).

This particular weekend, my wife Sharon was running in the annual
Hood to Coast relay race. At this point in my life, I was not a runner,
having hung up my running shoes in high school, and also having retired from recreational basketball in 1985 due to back problems. My only responsibility was to drive to Seaside to pick Sharon up at the end of her adventure, after my visit with Donelle. I was quite down after my visit, and the drive to Seaside from Ft. Steilacoom was very dark, and
subdued.

When I started to enter the outskirts of Seaside, without even seeing
one H2C (Hoot To Coast) participant, I picked up on a new energy that
just started “vibrating in the ethers”. In the past, at the attendance of my first rock concert, I experienced a transcendent energy associated with a large group of people, and this would be the return of that energy in earnest. I came to name this energy “TEAMWORK” after the fact, not knowing what else to call it. It was the energy of collective support, love, companionship, and goal achieving, and I had never known that as a youth, as I had never experienced that on grade or high school sports teams, of which I never qualified for. It was like a beautiful “spell” had come over me, and I was totally captured by it! The mentally ill will remain on the outside of the benefits of this energy until the blocks to reaching wholeness, integrity, and healing have been addressed.

Donelle, and the mentally ill in general, suffer from extreme
isolation, and are insulated from emotionally satisfying and connecting
relationships. Donelle, and most other mentally ill people, have lost the capacity to self-facilitate interior healing change, and to experience the joys of teamwork within friendships, family, and work environments.. Donelle desired such connections intensely, yet did not have the capacity to make them happen due to the chaos and distress that her mental illness brought to her. A person will never know a greater heartbreak, than to know and love a mentally ill human being who cannot or will not respond to therapy, medication, and treatment. Yet, there are some who are considered extremely mentally ill, who have actually connected with the higher truth of life, creativity, self-expression, and spiritual awareness. It is a dangerous road to travel, the one where insanity and mental illness is one of the fog lines, and spiritual enlightenment is the other. To bounce back and forth between those lines creates a turbulence unknown to ninety-eight percent of humanity.

Running through my life’s history, I seem to have stumbled over a greater Mystery.

In 1995, I delivered some furniture to Donelle in a Vancouver, Washington apartment. Once again, she was released from a halfway house, to see if she could survive on her own. Early in 1996, I received a call that her father had died. I also heard that one of her younger brothers had stolen over $30,000 in savings bonds from her that her father had given to her. I have tried to make contact with her several times since 1996, but my efforts were unsuccessful. Other concerns of my life have taken precedence over trying to remain connected with her, and I have never heard from her since.

Randy Richard Olson

The last time that I saw Randy, it was in 2005, and he was placing a 12 pack of beer into his car at a Fred Meyer’s store in Hillsboro. He was hesitant to acknowledge me, and I felt as if he was trying to avoid me. He appeared sick, and bloated, and I wanted to say something to him about it. But I did not, thinking that it was not my right to intrude upon his life now. I had phone conversations with him three more times over the last eight years, with the last time being in 2010. Our friendship on the “outer plane” of life apparently was already dead. My wife Sharon read his obituary in the paper in the first week of June, 2013, shocking me to my core. My lifelong friend, Randy, had dead, apparently dead of a heart attack. His body was discovered in his car in his driveway, having just returned from a Subway sandwich shop.

And yet, he lives within me. I am so grateful to have known Randy. I now know that I could not take him to the spiritual places that I was to visit. It would have been the least that I could do for Randy, if it were only possible. He only needed a little willingness to join with me, to experience some of the joys of being on the path of recovery, healing, and love.. Yet that willingness was something that none of us can give to another human being. I had pointed to the new direction, but he chose to look the other way.

His funeral in June of 2013 was a shock to me, it was poorly attended (I only found out about it through chance, when Sharon happened to read the obituaries, and saw a listing for his funeral the day before). The most popular and friendly person that I had ever known died almost anonymously. He had, literally, thousands of friends and acquaintances through the years, but in the end, he was nearly forgotten. He died in isolation and near anonymity, but he deserved so much better than that.

You are still loved, my friend. I am grateful to have known you, and to have experienced the thousands of hours of life with you, the 48 years of life that we partially shared.

May you be at peace my dear friend, at the center of it all, from where you started, and to where you have finally returned. Save a place on your couch for me, will you please? I will know that I will be welcome in the Kingdom to come, if I see your apartment there.

Randy Richard Olson (Jan 21, 1955 – June 3, 2013)

Randy with my parents and me, during Thanksgiving of 1993

Inspired By My Friendship With Marty (died 9/11/2017)

The writing that follows are excerpts from several emails and text messages sent by me to Marty C. I had a long term friendship with him, which took on a new energy when he was diagnosed with terminally malignant melanoma. Some of the following writing is from text messages in April of 2017, while he was successfully recovering from brain surgery to remove a malignant growth. His final weeks were devoted to just getting through the day with as much peace of mind, and with as little chaos, as is possible under the absolutely overwhelming conditions of his declining life

April 2017

Now Marty, to bring you up to the present, I awoke this morning at 2:45 am, and I had a profound “sense of the presence”, whatever that means.  I could almost feel all of us gathered together again, and I asked for the “blessing” for all of us.  I have no concrete proof if such an internal process actually reaches anybody outside of my “field”, but I then entered a dream state, and something profound occurred.

I dreamed that we were all together in some sort of  noisy “industrial plant”, and there was an electrical system that needed reconditioning.  As I awoke, I was “told” that your security lock needed to be removed from the “electrical panel” that I was working on  (me, with you and Sharon witnessing).

I was wearing sound proof headsets, to protect me from the “industrial noise”.  I also observed others who had already performed their “work”, noting the discards in the nearby “dumpster”. I also saw how I needed to integrate my actions with their work, though it felt like we might be getting into each others’ way at times.

Symbolically to me, it is obvious what my subconscious was communicating with me.

Letting go of the controls, trusting in “the process” and turning over our “work” to “others”, even if for a moment, is difficult while being overwhelmed with the daily “noise of the mind” and the activities of our lives, and threats to our health and well-being.  But, even if we succeed in “getting the work done”, whatever that means, and how it might express itself, we have to suspend our fear and lack of trust in the process, as we still have to turn over the “operation” to others (trust in a higher power within our isolated self and its limiting ideas, all the while knowing that power resides within our heart and soul).

Marty, you have a resistance to your own healing.  You must remove the self-protective mechanisms and controls that you, and perhaps your wife, have layered over your consciousness for many years, or, perhaps, for your entire life.  These controls lock you out of your own greater good.  The very state of consciousness that made the melanoma possible, and helped support its presence and growth, is still embedded within your mind and heart.  Infusions and medications, though potentially helpful, alone will not get the job done.  If the supporting structure embedded within your ego is not dramatically altered, or transformed, then the conditions for the continuation of the growth and spread of the cancer have not been sufficiently altered either.

My “higher power” has ultimate confidence in you, and sees the absolute present beauty of who you are, how you are “innocent” and  Not Responsible for this melanoma wounding, and it has also seen the wonderful potential for your future life.  Once again, there are no guarantees, but I see this for you.

I plan on living into this dream with you, for a long time to come, Marty.

Thanks again for a wonderful evening,

Blessings to you!

Marty was able to maintain good health for only a few more weeks.  I gave to him a copy of a meditation inspired by a remarkable spiritual connection that I had made in July of 1987, but the meditation apparently had little positive impact for Marty.  My intention was to help him release his understanding of who he was, and for him to have an experience of his divine nature at the deepest, most healing levels.  Marty was a man of highest intellect, character, moral and ethical integrity, yet he had not ever experienced the release of his great creation, his ego, into the great Unknown, though he certainly desired to reach that place in consciousness.

July 2017

Mr. M. communicated to me his sense of being inarticulate, in relation to the new experiences of his deteriorating state brought about by metastatic melanoma, and the encroachment upon his critical brain centers which had already begun. A life transitioning from being

1. highly engaged with the culture and the world, and immensely supportive of his wife while doing so,
2. physically healthy and active,
3. spiritually, intellectually and technologically stimulating and expressive,
4. at times exciting and challenging,
5. occasionally joyous, and,
6. regularly immersed in family and social interaction,

to one that is

1. physically inactive, and almost home bound,
2. threatened with the loss of intellectual competence,
3. challenging in anxiety producing ways, and
4. humiliating, depressing, and emotionally painful, and
5. without normal joy and hope for the future, and
6. devoid of physical intimacy with the wife,
7. immersed in family connections, but now not under the old rules, and
8. a myriad of other less than happy adjectives,

And attempting to describe the changing experience, while still in the middle of it, is a most difficult proposition.”

A story came to my mind after our morning’s meditation, of which I sent to Mr. M in text message form, and I include parts of it here as a small record of our journey together.

“Mr. M , all of your descriptors are perfect, and they will change, as you change. While in meditation, the following images came to my mind:

Life can be like a lifelong adventure hike (perhaps the Pacific Crest Trail of everyday life?). On one side of the trail we are witnessing the unbroken beauty of nature and of our own wholeness and connection to it, and the joy of unfettered movement of an innocent mind and healthy body while walking through the magic and mystery of the unknown. Yet, on the other side of the trail, a wicked forest fire has erupted, obscuring our view, threatening our safety and freedom, and taking us out of the beauty and wonder of the new moment. Its flames are now, more than gently, lapping at our back side, burning away at our past, burning away at our clothing, at all of our hiding and holdings, and at all the knowledge and memories that we cling to, and hold so dear.. When you search for names to characterize this process, I understand at the deepest level why it is hard giving it a new name, or calling it “good” or perfect while still being so painfully “burned” by one aspect of it.

Losing independence in life and in decision-making is a most difficult proposition.

Losing the ability to get out of bed and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night by oneself can be demoralizing.

Losing the ability to plan for the day-to-day exigencies of life can make one feel less than empowered.

Losing the sense of intimacy with one’s partner, who is now more or less the primary caregiver, and not the lover, feels a bit like love has abandoned us for now.

Losing strength and mobility, and being dependent on another for all movement around the house, and now, around all of life, feels like life is almost stripping us of our dignity.

Losing control of one’s bladder and bowels, and wearing supplemental underwear, and the insertion of pads onto our beds to trap our incontinence, can feel like adding insult to injury.

Losing the use of the left arm and leg, and then not having others respect one’s sense of loss, feels like the world has become insensitive to all suffering individuals.

Losing the desire to keep living on dying’s terms, while all of the other losses kept accumulating and accelerating, can make the thought and actions related to Death With Dignity an attractive option.

Yet, your journey, with this measure of suffering becoming folded into it, is part of humanity’s unbroken wholeness, of which we all remain a most treasured, though challenged, part of. Can you begin to trust that Love itself is always guiding, and coming out in its many new, challenging forms? Love is soon to become your new and only garment, and any holding back will only increase your pain.

Mr. M, our hike on the path continues, and the “forest fire” always burns (it burns for all of us). Hope and expectancy tells us to keep walking, because the “view ahead is always changing”. But, what was our past continues to burn away in uncertain and many times anxiety producing ways. Around one of those next bends in the trail, there is only the unknown, bringing whatever is to come. And, also around that same bend, the “fire” will have burned away all that is unlike your true nature, revealing who you were “in the beginning, before the World was”. Giving it a name is the challenge unique to all of us. The articulate ones write great books, and attract lots of attention to their words. You don’t need that.

There are already many fine works available for the curious to read on the subject of death and dying, but your life is now your greatest teacher. Now that we finally have realized that facts and knowledge alone are not enough support to make all of life’s decisions with, we can willingly enter through the doorways to a new spiritual awakening, populated by creativity, intuition, and insight, where transcending many of the troubling aspects of the ego, and finally accepting the inevitable deaths of our bodies, becomes more likely.

Transformation, and death, can be so closely related that many people have profound spiritual experiences on the final stretch of their life’s path. Yes, I had a “death” 31 years ago, and people who knew me before the change, and then afterward (and who were not my direct family members) witnessed them. I was accused of being a “walk-in” by a friend from the 90’s (one of those “new age friends” I met in one of our men’s group from LEC), and I too was at a loss of words to articulately describe the death and dying process that I went through, let alone this subsequent “resurrection” that I am currently living through.

Thank you for reaching out to me in your time of greatest need. I am honored that you regard me as “the best thing you have ever done” when you got me to become involved in the OHSU Men’s Cancer Survivor’s Writing Class with you. To have a published author and Dr. in Philosophy, a highly intelligent and sensitive facilitator and several others over the past few years giving mutually positive, life affirming feedback on all of our creative writings, rather than the mixed bag that many have grown accustomed to receiving in our normal life experiences, is a revelation of sorts. Thank you for honoring and respecting the words that we all write, and the words that we directly speak to each other. Thank you for involving me in a process where I can listen with my heart and mind at the deepest level to those creative urges and surges that we all share in. Thank you for allowing me into a process where I can give you extra love and attention, and draw you away from the trials and tribulation around the home long enough to give you a sense of release, and relief.

You and me, we are both on the same path, though I experience it differently right now than you do. I “die daily to all that was myself”, through a process of personal inventory, mindfulness, and insight, though small parts of the old me pops up and reminds me that I am still human, and part of this glorious mess that we call humanity. Yet, right now, what seems to be different between us is that I have, more or less, a fairly secure sense of continuity between the past and the present, and I still experience the “illusion of control”. Of course, your fine engineering mind rebels at all thought of loss of control, even while personally witnessing the dramatic effects of that powerfully humbling experience.

It is really messed up to finally find ones place in life, one’s most healthy relationships with new and old friends and family, where healing and acceptance FINALLY reside, TO FEEL LIKE WE HAVE FINALLY BEEN INVITED TO LIFE’S PARTY, AND THAT WE TRULY BELONG, and then have a disease process creating conditions that feels like a rug is being yanked out from under us, the very rug that sustains our connections, and our future. It can feel, at times, like life itself is rejecting us, while our body continues the profound ejection process of our life force.

I parked myself on the outside of humanity for much of my early life, because I never saw or felt the welcome mat set out for me, by my early experiences of family, or many of my early relationships. And I was not skilled enough to create a welcome mat for myself among the diverse groups of people who I met through school and work in my “pre-30 year old” life. Most relationships with males were troubled, and too many men seemed to be dominated by the aspect of the Common Knowledge Game that included judging all others unlike ourselves as bad, ignorant, stupid, ugly, and undeserving of further positive regard, unless there was some obvious economic or personal power gain to be made from the relationship. I gravitated towards girls as friends, as a child, and then women as a maturing human, as they did not play the “put down” game so profoundly as my male peers and authority figures did (at least the women I met and befriended did not). I clung like a drowning swimmer to an inner tube to any male friendship where I was accepted, more or less, for who I was, without having to accomplish superhuman feats of accomplishment to just “fit in”.

Toxic Masculinity is the cause of so much suffering in the world, and the cause of some of our own suffering, and, at times, I am still repulsed by the baseness, cruelty, and ignorance of many males. The spawn of Toxic Masculinity is Toxic Religion and Toxic Capitalism, and thus the whole world suffers with us. I will try not to get too political, but the election of the POTU$ was a gut/sucker punch to us. We have been victimized by this type of male energy, as well as most women and children (though many do not understand the “following the herd” and the sexual dynamics behind it), and, when I was younger and more unconscious, I probably victimized others with my “masculinity” as well.

My past unwillingness to talk or write much stems from being shut down for much of my life, by others who did not want to listen, or did not have the time to care, and my unconscious involvement with the Common Knowledge Game, where I let the opinions of others, or my perceptions of the opinions of others (another deadly creative twist of the illusory mind) drive my own unique expression nearly into the grave. Your story of your relationship with your father resonated with parts of my own past, and self-esteem issues certainly arose through our fathers’ own lack of insight, and limited ability to be emotionally present in supportive, meaningful ways.

Thanks you for caring, and for listening with your heart. And know that I give to you all that I am, and all that I have, as well. I hear you, Mr. M, and I know that there is much challenge ahead for you. Yet, “ahead” will not be done in isolation, or away from your family, and your friends. The miracle for both of us is how our hearts merged at this most troubling of times. This is one of the “great unknowns to be experienced” around each bend of our life’s path. You will experience many more “great unknowns”, as the release process continues.

I will walk with you, in freedom, to whatever extent we can,

I walk with you, in pain, while we must,

I will walk with you into the unknown, where we will eventually recognize nothing but Spirit, as we release ourselves from our bondage to our deteriorating minds and bodies,

I no longer will burden you with thought experiments for personal transcendence.

I will no longer advocate for prayer or meditation for you, nor will I withhold from you any potential benefit derived through my own relationship to those processes,.

I will walk with you into death, each in our own time, and in our own way,

I will integrate part of my individual destiny with your own, and, ultimately, join with Destiny itself.

I am grateful to have you as a friend. I am also grateful to share with you in the good intentions and prayers of our spiritually inclined/religious friends and family.” We all mean well, perhaps with some of us needing more targeted training in supporting you in the way that has the deepest meaning and significance for you.

It is quite appropriate that my wife, Sharon White, chose for her lone published book the title

“Whose Death Is It, Anyway?”

It is all of ours.

Dad and Marty’s Death

“As you have been with me in life, so I will be with you in death.”

I “heard” this statement in my heart, and whispered it to Marty’s body at his graveside service Saturday morning, with Jo and Jim accompanying me to his graveside.

Dad’s caregiver called me to report Dad’s death at the exact moment I was to place Marty’s body into the hearse, Saturday morning. Sharon had to rush from the funeral procession to tend to Dad’s body, while I completed my pallbearer duties.

Oh, Dad, you always knew how to try to take command of a situation, didn’t you!?

Two men who have so dramatically shaped my life are now gone.

To truly become “one” with love for another is dangerous, and destructive to the ego mind. To not fully love one another is dangerous, and destructive to the heart, to the body, and to each other.

I have been destroyed, and I am also being renewed.

Where do we all go from here?

As we leave our history, we may enter into the mystery.

The Unknown is always calling out to us from within,

Listen carefully, and be transformed.

Day Of Marty’s Death, September 11, 2017

As I lie here on our driveway, and pet and caress our cat Patches, I marvel at the mystery of love and connection, and the diversity of life that expresses it, each in its own unique way.

I also reflect on the life, and the death, of my friend. As of 7:00pm this evening, he will be pronounced dead as a result of a Death With Dignity process.

I still marvel at the mystery of love and connection, and the diversity of life and how life expresses itself.

I also grieve for the death of my longtime friend, fellow book club group member, hiking partner, weekend vacation partner, couples dinner group participant (for the last 18 years), men’s cancer survivor writer’s group member, and one of the very few men in this universe who cared about what I had to say.

The way it all ended still leaves me somewhat disoriented, as if I have been on a spinning chair for the day. This morning was excruciatingly painful for me, as I contemplated our friend’s final day of life, after sharing time with him and his friends yesterday.

I do not pretend to understand this process fully.

I still marvel at the mystery of love and our interconnections, the diversity of life, and the infinite possibilities for its expression.

Wasn’t there any other possibilities? Perhaps a miraculous exception to the rule of life and death? Maybe a redo?

After the negotiations have been completed, I once again marvel at the mystery of life and love, life’s diversity, and the courage that it takes to face our fate as human beings.

Please save yourself,
before its too late.

Marty C. Eulogy (his wife did not use my eulogy at his service)

I never knew what I was getting involved with when I offered to you all of my heart in friendship this year, having withheld so much of myself over the years. 2017 was the year when I finally learned how closely two male human beings could connect, and ultimately become “one” on a journey of exploration and discovery on the way to your own death this past Monday, at 1:24PM.

You are/were an important missing piece in my own journey of self discovery. I tried to bring you along on the journey into the Unknown, deep into the Mystery of Life. You introduced me to Death in a way that has changed me forever. We walked together while we still could, while you still had hope for your Miracle. Another definition for Miracle now lives in my heart, and Soul. When our human knowledge parading as Truth is unveiled for the lie that it really is, insight, intuition, and Love are finally enshrined in our Heart.

Through your death, I have been Destroyed, and I am now Renewed.

Rest in Peace, Marty.

Beryl Donald Paullin Eulogy-edited (04/17/1927-09/16/2017)

Bible verse about fathers sins arising from ancestors

First of all, we want to wish our deceased mother a symbolic Happy Birthday. Today would have been her 87^th birthday, had she lived. It is remarkable to note that Dad and Mom are being buried together on the date of her birth. This was arranged by our Loving Universe, as we had nothing to do with the scheduling. I can almost hear Dad yelling “what’s the hold up here!” After all, it has been 12 days since his death.

We want to thank everyone who is here today. Your presence honors our father and mother, and the rest of our family, and we are all grateful to share these moments with you today. Our father is the main connecting link that continues to hold us together. And, after today, with his death severing that link, this may be the end of many of our connections with each other. It is up to each of us to renew, or ignore, our past ties to my father, and to each other.

There will be no ministerial service today. The last time that I remember Dad being present in a church was to witness my baptism in 1987, which also corresponds to the last time I was in such a structured church environment, as well. Dad avoided going to church, having never been convinced that church attendance had any relationship to a connection with God. He stated that if he ever walked into a church, it would probably fall onto him. His church was his love for nature, its beauty, the wildlife, hiking through woods and meadows, hiking the deserts in Arizona, the trails of the Columbia River Gorge, or any of thousands of places around America, and the world. His church was also his love of his wife, his family, including his brother and sister, and his in-laws, his love of his dear friends, his love of his dogs, of which he had many. He adored his dogs, and they supplied a constant supply of the unconditional love that his heart, and soul craved, and which his experience of his exterior life sometimes failed to supply him in sufficient amounts. He loved the homes in which he lived, and prepared the grounds of each of them carefully, as if making each one a sacred offering to his creator. His body of life was truly the temple of his living God. He was the type of guy that, had he ever met Jesus Christ in person, if he noted lettuce in the Christ’s teeth, he would tell him about it. He liked to state that “heaven was not ready for him, and that the devil did not want him either, as he would try to take hell over and run it the way it should be run”. Dad lived his life “outside of the lines” so to speak, and he delighted in challenging other people’s assumptions, sensibilities and understandings.

I am about to read for about 15 minutes about the story of Dad’s life. Like Dad’s life, the story is somewhat broken, yet still infused with love. Dad would have treasured the opportunity to talk on and on about any issue for 15 minutes without interruption, and our present political climate would have been a gold mine for him in his prime. Yet, it is my privilege to be his substitute for this once in a lifetime monologue, giving my father his opportunity to deliver a final message through me. There are some who thought that my father was a horse’s ass, but that is the limited view one gets when in second place, being passed by his race horse of a mind. For those who would like to offer their objections, or counter stories, there will be opportunities to share about dad at North Clackamas Park, after this service. Maps will be provided, and you are all invited to attend, eat some food, and share your experiences with each other. A man like my father, who lived a full life, could be talked about for hours, and not scratch the surface of all the people that he impacted, positively or negatively, and all of the experiences that he had, all of the humor that he shared, and all of the wisdom that he developed.

Dad was a product of the Great Depression, having been born in 1927. His Father, Beryl, was a Fire Chief, respected within the community, and a horribly abusive alcoholic in his private life. I know little else about him, other he also served in the military, during World War 1, and is buried in section K on these grounds. He also did allow a man impacted by the Depression to live in their basement during a period of time. My father kept Pam and I away from grandpa Bruce until we were teenagers, that is how much my father wanted to protect us from the oppressive presence of his father. While in our early teenage years, Pam and I did visit with Grandpa Beryl at his La Center home twice, and I visited him in the VA hospital prior to his death. In his later years, he was sober, and seemed like a pleasant enough man. Dad’s mother was the classic abused wife, suffering also through physical and emotional problems while married to “that Brute”, as my father referred to him. I also know little about her, either, other than she had kidney disease, and she died shortly after my birth. John Edward was his older brother (who preceded him in death) and Ed was removed from his home and placed at their grandparents’ farm in Oregon City at 6 years of age, after nearly being beaten to death by their father. Gloria (or Susie) as most people now know her, was his younger sister, and both Susie and my father suffered under horrible abusive conditions for most of their childhood. Both my father and my aunt displayed symptoms of PTSD for most of their lives, as well as being products of the age of which they grew up.

In 1943, at 16 years of age, Dad enlisted in the Marines, as he wanted to serve his country, get away from his family of origin, as well as he thought of himself as a “dummy” ,with no faith in his ability to successfully finish high school at Benson PolyTech. His mother promptly collared the local Marine Corps recruiter, and forced dad’s return home from the service. He re-enlisted in the Navy the moment he turned 18 years of age, and was assigned duty on two different warships, the West Virginia, and the Missouri, during his two years in the Navy. Upon his return from active duty in 1947, he returned home, where he threatened his dad with death if he ever laid a hand on his mother again. Dad moved on from that relationship with his mother and father, not seeing either of them again for quite some time.

He started college at the University of Portland, studying Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, and other courses, from 1947-1952. Dad formed a great friendship and relationship with Father Delaney, who taught at the University of Portland, and in whose name the Delaney Institute was named. He struggled a bit with his school work, but he did stay at it over a course of five years, which did not result in a degree.

Dad still had a fire in his heart, and an incredible desire to succeed. He worked harder than anybody around him, the sign of a classic “overachiever”. He endlessly drove himself, and he was going to overcome his upbringing, and prove to the world that he had higher value than the poor self-esteem that his verbally and physically abusive father had inculcated him with. His perfectionism and zealousness for order and efficiency was utilized to its best advantage in his future employment with the US Postal Service. That same attitude tended to, at times, challenge others, especially those that he attempted to help, or manage, as both a general manager with the Postal Service, and as a friend and family member. A person with a passive/aggressive personality, like me, had the most difficulty with him. Those who were self-assured or had found their own voice, and engaged him directly, had the best relationship with him, and he really enjoyed engaging with others in stimulating, challenging discussions. Those who took the time to get to know Dad, also found a way to love him, in spite of his sometimes rough edges.

He had several choices in his career, either as a policeman, fireman, or joining with the US Postal Service, of which he ultimately selected. He also began courting my Mother, Corinne Beatrice Henry, who happened to be quite a “looker”, and also quite a hard-working young woman, as well. Mom worked at the original Fred Meyer store in downtown Portland, among many other jobs over the course of her own career. Mom’s parents were not impressed with my fathers’ parents for obvious reasons, and Dad had to overcome some real judgements to make inroads into that family. My Grandpa Henry made my father mow his yard before he would even let Dad take Mom out, as part of their desire to prove that Dad really wanted to move forward with her.

Dad married mother in June of 1950, and they lived in NW Portland for several years. Pamela came along in 1954, and Dad knew love in a way he never knew before. Pam was a precious prize, and Dad delighted in her presence, and her life, until his death. I came along in 1955, and Dad initially had trouble embracing who I was, as I had troubled early years, causing much disruption to the family lifestyle, because of health issues. Dad had a house built in West Linn in 1955, and spent the next nine years there, investing thousands of hours of work turning his property into his own outdoor temple. He repeated the same process with his next two homes, as well, converting the landscapes into his own unique paradise.

First and foremost, Dad dearly and devotedly loved his new family, eventually including his in-laws, and all the new friends that they developed through the Oakey Doaks square dancing group. These included, amongst several others, Bob and Dorothy Fero, John and Cleone Edwards (who he also worked with at the Post Office), Dick and Eunice Jamison (who he also worked with at the Post Office), Joe and Sue Constans, and Bob and Diane West (both are here today), along with several others. He carried a lifelong friend, Roland Mills, who is here today, far into his adulthood, with Mom and Dad sharing many fond memories with Roland, and his first wife, Eloise, who is also here today. They attempted to continue their friendship with both parties after Roland and Eloise’s divorce. In the very early years, My sister and I shared some fond memories of staying at their home while being baby sat by their daughter Cindy, watching horror, science fiction, and Elvis Presley movies with her, and her brother Gary. Gary and Pam’s first deceased husband Jim Graham actually ended up working together for a while in the early 1990’s in the home real estate industry, resulting in the sale of the house to Sharon and I that we presently live in.

When dad was a young husband and father, he carried two jobs for a number of years because he did not like feeling in debt. But he also loved to play hard, and he had many stories of being a top flight beer drinker in the local tavern scene, while also becoming quite the accomplished shuffleboard player. He told a story that the owner of a tavern even served him a beer while he was in the bathroom. Yes, he became friendly with the suds during that time period. His love of the suds translated directly to me, where I learned, quite early, how wonderful the flavor of beer was, and how wonderfully intoxicating it’s effects were. He told the story of how when I was 5 years old, he left an open beer on the coffee table, and when he left the room for a moment, I lifted the beer up, and drank it all. Within 30 minutes, I fell off of the couch, and dad and I both knew that I had a new, but dangerous, friend. Dad took care to monitor his beer after that, and so did I.

Dad carried a tarnished understanding of how to discipline his children, though he later claimed that he eventually came to realize that he was repeating his fathers’ abusive behavior, as far as physical discipline was concerned, and thus he stopped. His rebukes were quite powerful, and, at times, seemed to outnumber his praise and acknowledgement of us. Early on, Pam and I suffered under the abuse of his belt too many times to recall. But through all of that, I never lost my love for my father. He was my hero, albeit a broken one. He loved my mother deeply, though at times unskillfully. Fortunately for mother, dad never lifted a hand against her, though they both traded many barbs over the years. A lot of it was just the way they communicated, thinking that they were being funny, and a lot might have been veiled aggression. They shared much pride in their children, and being parents brought untold gifts, and meaning, to both of their lives, because of, and in spite of, all of the challenges and lessons that we presented to them as children, and then as adults, over the years.

Dad was an accomplished card player, stamp collector, avid fisherman, hiker, camper, traveler, scout troop leader, general outdoors man, adventurer, and golfer, but retired early in life from hunting. As a young man he hunted with his father, though he grew to be repulsed by the idea of killing innocent creatures. One time while hiking in the Arizona desert with his dog Misty, they were confronted by a rattlesnake, and he had to draw his pistol and shoot the creature. He regretted having killed it, which shows how his love for all life had taken over his soul. He had a challenged understanding of cats, though, and was quick to punish wayward cats that strayed unto his property to assault and kill birds and squirrels.

Dad’s high point in his career was when he was promoted to Operations Manager of the Main Office of the US Postal Service, in Northwest Portland. His career there spanned 35 years, and he developed many friends, and a few enemies, along the way to his peak. He was respected by the Postmaster, though it was the Postmaster’s dissatisfaction with an aspect of dad’s personal life that encouraged dad to retire at 55 years of age. Mother had a direct hand in that decision, as Mother had a lifelong investment in my father staying married to her, and she took charge of a situation that would have discouraged most other people. So my fathers’ official retirement date was 1982, and a whole new world opened up to mother and dad.

Dad traveled extensively with mother in retirement. They traveled around the world, and around America. Eventually they settled upon their yearly snow bird excursions to Queens Valley, in Arizona, where they would park their travel trailer, and spend the winter in sunny southern Arizona. He lived the dream, and learned to make mom his best friend, and travel companion. Mother’s health had taken a downturn in 1978, when she learned that she had kidney disease. Dad would admonish her about her weight, thinking that if only she would lose her extra weight, her health would be better. Mom would do her best to comply, but, hey, that chocolate cake was just too hard to resist sometimes, and, anyway, she deserved it because she stayed so active.

In 1984, at the encouragement of the Employee Assistance Program where I worked, I checked into the Care Unit at the old Lovejoy hospital, where I spent 30 days in recovery from my own alcoholism. I bounced around between relapse and attempted recovery for the next two years, finally having an “epic fail”, and I descended into full darkness. After a suicide attempt by me after the Challenger explosion in 1986, I fully entered the unknown, searching for my own truth, a truth that might bring light to me, and a reason to keep living. After bouncing around a variety of challenging situations with the darkest characters our city had to offer, I was befriended, inadvertently, by an undercover federal agent. When things got too scary for my new ally and his relationship to me, he physically placed me in his car, and drove me to my father’s house. As he dropped me off, he told me

“Bruce, I can no longer keep you safe. your search for truth in the underworld is over, now search for your truth with your father”.

As I don’t want this eulogy to be too much about me, I will stop the story here, perhaps somebody, when they write my own eulogy, can refer to it then, and develop it into the amazing story that it was, and still is. Let us end this segment by stating that I became clean and sober in 1987, just in the nick of time. My mother and father offered me meaningful and loving support for the next 2 and one half years, as I was homeless and jobless at the time.

I met the woman who I had been looking for my entire life in 1989. Sharon is my soul mate, and she was to shape the second half of my own life in such a way that I could continue my relationship with my parents in a much more meaningful, loving way. Together, we chose to move to within 2 miles of my parents in 1993, knowing that they would need us soon, as they continued their aging process. As a result of moving closer to mom and dad, we also became connected in a new way with dad’s brother and sister, and they started becoming included in several family gatherings at our home, beginning in 1995. I grew to really love my uncle Ed and aunt Susie during this period of time. My uncle Ed captured my imagination and attention with his great stories of life, and family, and I saw why my father was so connected with him. Uncle Ed had a perfect way of deflecting my fathers’ controlling energy, and my father finally accepted his brother for who he was, rather than who my father thought he could be. Uncle Ed honored me from his own death-bed, actually remembering the date of my birth, which still brings a tear to my eye on occasion.

On the advice of our physician, Sharon and I began to share vacations with my parents. Sharon and I were also avid outdoors people, and it was quite the compromise for us to tone down our physical endeavors to meet the energy level of my aging parents. But the rewards were immense. In the year 2000, My parents, Pam, my aunt Susie, Sharon, and I traveled to Hawaii, celebrating their 50 year wedding anniversary there. It was the trip of all of our lifetimes, and a memory that I will cherish until the day I die. On this trip, my sister committed to getting her degrees at Oregon State University, which resulted in a total life change for her, as well. My parents were never prouder than when we witnessed her getting her diploma, then going on to getting her Master’s degree, as well.

As a family group, we continued to travel a lot of North America together, taking cruises to the Caribbean islands, exploring the Yucatan Peninsula, climbing pyramids and exploring Mayan ruins, driving on the Pan American highway through and around Costa Rica, cruising the west coast of Mexico, and generally just loving life, and living it to the fullest extent we possibly could together. I have been blessed beyond all of my ability to acknowledge the experiences, and they affirmed the value that we all had for family connections.

Two years prior to mother’s death, mother had noted dad’s cognitive deterioration, especially during his run in with prostate cancer. I noted that dad had lost some of his sense of direction, and he could no longer drive to his hospital to get his radiation treatments, because of his easy disorientation. Mom enlisted the potential aid of Eloise, to help in dad’s care, should he slip fully into Alzheimer’s. But mom had a fatal infection, and that threw everything into a chaotic mashup.

Dad found inner strength in dealing with mother’s three day dying ordeal in the hospital. He was an active participant in the final decision to take mom off of life support. But, shortly after that, he threatened his own demise by use of firearms, and I had to hide all of the bullets from his rifles and handgun, should he have chosen to end his life. I had to repeatedly advise him that it would be tortuous now for him to end his life, with all of the grieving that the family was already involved with. He acquiesced, though I still kept all of his weapons unloaded, unbeknownst to him. While attempting to disarm one of his weapons, a rifle discharged, nearly shooting myself in the foot.

The death wish abated, and Dad somehow held his own for a while. He was able to maintain his sense of self, and his memory of his family, and his love of his home. Around 5 years ago, after having backed over our mailbox twice, getting a big speeding ticket, and getting into a wreck which totaled mothers’ car, Sharon encouraged me to take him to the doctor and get a diagnosis. He was tested, and it was determined that he was no longer competent to drive. This ended life for me as I knew it at the time, and I had to eventually retire from my own career as an electrician four years earlier than I had wanted to. Sharon and I became his primary caregivers, drivers, friends, cooks, house cleaners, spiritual advisors, and, generally, his sole means of support to maintain him in his own home, as Pam worked and lived in California, and could not find employment opportunities closer to home. She remained on emergency call, and had to drive incredible distances to help in his care and maintenance.

It was tough watching my father deteriorate, yet, I found a way to love that man on deeper and more profound levels, as I continued to release my own expectations of how he should be, and how he should live. His sole concerns became his love for his dog, Rocky, and maintaining residence in his own home until his own death. He had lost all short-term memory, and was basically unteachable the last 5 years of his life, though he maintained his dignity, his sense of self, and his love for his children, including my wife Sharon.

The last conversation that I had with my father was 6 hours before his death. This is what we exchanged with each other:

Dad, you are still in bed, and its 2:30 in the afternoon, what’s up, it’s such a beautiful day outside.

You know son, I am always tired now, but I am about to get up.

Well, Dad, this might be the last sunny day in a long time, so why don’t you get up, and go out on the porch and have a cigar? I’ll put a chocolate bar on your table, and a drink for you.

I’ll get right up son. By the way, who is caring for me this evening?

Well, Dad, Madison is caring for you this evening.

Oh, poor Madison!

Dad, Madison benefits by being with you, as you do with her.

I will be with you beginning this Sunday morning, and I will be with you for the next three weeks as usual. You know we are planning one final trip to Hawaii with you, right?

Oh son, I am happy just staying at home. I have everything that I need here.

Well, OK dad. I am going to leave now, as I need to prepare for Marty’s funeral tomorrow.

When will I see you again, son?

Dad, it will be Sunday morning, OK?

OK, son, you know that I am dependent on you. Please take care of yourself.

Oh, dad, you know that I am dependent on you, too. You be careful too!

I love you, son.

I love you too, Dad.

I leave his room, not knowing this is to be our last exchange.

The next day, at 10:58am, as I stand in back of the hearse, as a pall bearer in Marty Crouch’s funeral, I prepare to receive Marty’s body to place into the hearse. I receive a call from Madison, which I cannot take, so I hand the phone to Sharon. Sharon is informed that my father is deceased. Sharon has to leave the service for our body.

Oh, father, you really knew how to place your unique stamp on my life, didn’t you?

In retrospect, My father only appeared to cast a shadow over my life. It was up to me to find my own unique voice, in my search for my own truth, so that I could arise from my own self-imposed shadows, and be with him as a partner on love’s endless journey. Those who did not learn to love my father, missed out on one of my life’s most precious gifts, yet there are many other opportunities to bring light into our own lives. The healing journey that I had with my father could be considered miraculous by some, yet it is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Yes, that healing will die with me, as I have no heirs. Yet, the love that we shared, as a family, will live forever in the mind and heart, of God.

“As you have been with me in life, so I am with you, in death”

Thank you, mom and dad, for loving Pam and I.

We love you, Dad. We love you, Mom

“I am destroyed, and I am renewed”

There are some who thought that my father was a horse’s ass, but that is the view one sometimes gets when in second place, having been passed by his race horse of a mind. A man like my father, who lived a full life, could have his own book written about him, and not scratch the surface of all the people that he impacted, positively or negatively, and all of the experiences that he had, all of the humor that he shared, and all of the wisdom that he developed. My sister, my wife, and I wrote several pages of “Beryl-isms”, which are quotes directly from my father about life in general. I have presented a few of his “top 50” statements, which he repeated many times over the last few years of his life. In parenthesis, I have included a few of my replies to his common statements that I used to give back to dad as part of our “conversation”..

1). Don’t wait too long to retire. People think they need to work those extra years, they work that extra one or two years, thinking they need the money, and death takes over, and they never make it to retirement (well, Dad, I retired early, but we will have to wait and see if that has any beneficial effect on my longevity. Right now, my main goal is to try to outlive you, oh immortal one!).

2). Oh those rich people, all of that money, and they still have to die anyway! (and the rest of us, we have to die too, darn it!)

3). Why do you need to know, are you writing a book? (well, as a matter of fact I am!)

4). I really took the system, didn’t I? (after being retired and on pension for 35 years, contributing $22,742 to your pension, and getting over one million dollars back, I would say that you did!)

5). Come back again when you can’t stay so long (well, I am working on that one!)

6). Don’t you have something better to be doing? (yes, but you are the priority of the moment, so try to enjoy it while I try not to suffer too much)

7). Sure am glad that I am retired, or is it retarded? (um, I won’t touch that one)

8). I might be here, but I am not all here (then where is the rest of you?)

9). You know, having a dog like Rocky adds 7 years to my life (yes, but your dog took 7 years off of mine!)

10). (to any waitress) Say, you sure are looking good this evening. Would you like to come home with me and serve me my favorite meal? (argh! So embarrassing!)

11). I am not trying to be pretty, and I never will win any beauty contests (I can’t argue with you on that one)

12). The doctor needed a urine, stool, and semen sample, so I just left him my underwear (oh, boy, what a bad joke!)

13). You couldn’t hit a beach ball with a banjo! You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn! (comments made to me both as a youth when pitching or batting on little league baseball teams, and while playing golf with him as a child and as an adult)

14). When I get to Heaven, I am going to have a talk with the “Old Man” about my wife dying before me. Wives are supposed to outlive the husbands. Either I should have died first or we should have died at the same time (Maybe mom finished her work before you did. In what form would you have wanted a simultaneous death, like in a murder/suicide, or in a car wreck?)

15). Son will we all meet again in heaven? (are you sure that you really want to hang out with the same crowd for eternity?)

16). Heaven is not ready for me yet, and Hell is afraid that I will take it over, so that is why I am still here (maybe you are still here to provide a few more lessons for the living. I know that I sure am getting a crash course!).

17). I am in no hurry to die. Nobody I know has ever come back from the dead and told me what a great time that they are having after death. (yes, and wayward religions continue to capitalize on that mortal fear, ignore the fact that heaven is here and now, and do not effectively teach us how to die to ourselves and our fears and suffering to experience heaven in advance of bodily death)

18). I provided care for you all of those years when you were young, now its your turn to take care of this old man (I should have read the contract more carefully before my birth!)

19). You should always be best friends with your sister. Never let anything get in the way of that friendship, because she will find a way to love you to your death, as you should love her as well (Well, Dad, you sure have shown commitment to both your brother and your sister, especially over the last twenty years. Somehow you all endeared yourselves to each other. Thank you for being a success in that aspect of family love, and overcoming the chaos created by your parent’s relationship. I think that Pam and I are on a good course right now)

And on and on it could go. My dad was a great story teller, and fountainhead of wisdom, one-liners, humor, self and other deprecation, and sarcasm. My personality was so much less colorful than my father’s, yet, it is easy to see that I truly am my father’s son. I have many of his same attitudes, and I replicated many of some of the same deficiencies in my own life that my father also experienced.

When my father was a young adult, he really wanted to understand the human mind at the deepest level. My father had an intense desire to understand the abnormal psychology of his parents and his society. His search for the truth about the broken human mind was interrupted by a hyper-busy life putting a family and a career together, and these factors got in the way of him finishing his studies of the human condition. I was to later pick up his mantle as an adult, and I have made my own attempts to finish the job that he had started. And, like my father, I rebel against the spiritual and philosophical authorities of the day, sometimes sharing my sometimes iconoclastic beliefs with others.

If those who profess to be channelers, or spokespersons for Jesus, the Buddha, or the Dalai Lama are reading this material, be prepared, for if I see lettuce in your teeth, I am going to call you on it! I have found my own unique value, and I will transmit my message prior to my own death, and, thus, prove to myself, and to the world, that it is possible to overcome core issues and express our own truth.

I have had my own experiences with transcendence and metanoia, so I take the gloves off in Part Two.