BLOG VIGNETTES

Blog number forty and six                                                        Oct. 04, 2006

Late at night at Mather AFB, I'm walking to my car which I park outside the gate because I don't have insurance.  No insurance, no driving on base.  I see a big burning ball moving horizontally over my head, then it explodes and disappears.  I think it was a big meteor.

Bye the bye, the Air Force got to be real big on their personnel being lean and mean.  I always thought they should have built a big parking lot outside the gate and the only on-base motor traffic would be military vehicles.  If I had been General of the base, that's what I would have enforced.

Everybody walking everywhere, good exercise, and lots less traffic on base, making everyone more peaceful.  "Good idea," I thought and still do think.

Also late at night, same base, and this is a true tale although it might sound like a racist joke, but I was coming out of the mess hall late at night after eating midnight chow and I hear this female voice ask me something.  I peer around, trying to see where she's at.  Then she smiles and I see her standing about ten feet in front of me -- a Black girl in dark blue uniform.  I honestly couldn't see any part of her until she smiled and I saw her teeth.
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I caught a very small catfish one summer and inadvertently left it in the trunk of our car overnight and most of the next day.  When I finally found it, it was covered in coal dust and still alive.  No water for about sixteen hours.  Is that a survivor or what?  I put it in our water tank.

We used to put live fish in the water tank and sometimes I would go there and fish, catching them again.  I have caught catfish that were on a string that had gotten loose from its mooring.  Trout won't do that. You catch one, the rest of the school are done for the day.  Catfish are like pigs.  They'll eat all day long.
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I lived in a housing development with my wife and kids for a few months one year, got to know the neighbors pretty well.  One afternoon one of the neighbors came over and asked me to look at his mother because he thought she might be dead.  When I got there, her eyes were open, but there was no sign of life, and since the son was convinced she was dead, that was good enough for me.  This was when I was afraid of dead people and I just wanted to get out of there.  I closed her eyes and said, "Yeah, she's dead."  The next time I looked, her eyes were open.  I never said anything.
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Was watching "Weeds" on the telly the other night, one of the guys was being bitten by a pit bull and one of the other guys said for someone to stick a finger up the dog's rectum.  I got to thinking, "I'll bet that would work."
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Used to do twenty-five pushups if I couldn't sleep, then I'd crawl into bed and drop right off.  After my bypass, even after a year's workout three times a week at the gym, couldn't get more than two pushups. It was not like I was straining, either.  It was more like trying to fly or something like that.  I think some nerves or muscles were cut that prevents me form exercising the right muscles.  They just won't move.
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I repeated an est training.  Cost me ten dollars for a repeat instead of three hundred for the first.  Girl asked me what I wanted to get out of est and I told her I just wanted to have the experience again.  She said I couldn't do that.  I asked, "Why not? -- that's what I wanted to get out of it."

We argued a bit and I finally asked if she wanted me to lie and she said yes, so I did.  Now you have to realize that est was a very, very ethically oriented training, and magic also, because what you went for was what you were going to get, so I was kinda curious as to how this new factor was going to play out.

So the third day we were supposed to choose between an imaginary chocolate ice cream cone and a vanilla one.  Then the trainer (a different one than I had the first time through) would ask why we chose that particular one and the answer was supposed to be, "Because I chose it." 

This one lady, I don't know what her problem was, but she absolutely refused to go along with it.  The trainer finally said she would have to leave, so she turned in her name tag and left, whereupon the trainer went out after her.  They came back and he asked her again which cone she would choose and she, very upset, said, "But you told me I wouldn't have to do that if I came back."  He kept insisting.  She was finally cajoled and threatened into it.  The TRAINER lied to her!

I realized I had seen the first result of the girl insisting I had to lie in order to get to go through est again.  This was going to be a "lying est."

I began to get bored toward the end of the third day, so at the break I told the assistant trainer that I was going to leave.  She said to wait until after the break and we would talk about it.  I said, "OK."

The break ended and she never approached me, (she lied) so I went to where she was behind the table and told her I was leaving.  She asked me if I had made an agreement to stay and I said yes, AND I was leaving.  Est taught us that too. It is not, "Yes, but..." It is "Yes, AND..."  One circumstance does not determine another circumstance.  I put my name tag on the table and walked out.  A young girl followed me and we started talking about my leaving.  I explained to her that I had had a "cosmic experience" that told me If I did what I wanted, everything would be all right and what I wanted right then was to leave. 

We were enjoying each other's company, it seemed, just chatting, and then the trainer's assistant came out.  She started in on me again about didn't I agree to stay and why was I not keeping my agreements and I told her about the cosmic experiences and she got this very, very angry look on her face as she said, "Don, you're crazy."

I figured this was going nowhere, so I said, "Well, at least we can still be friends."  She responded with, "This isn't about friendship." Hearing that, I turned to the pleasant girl to say good-bye to her, and lo and behold she had the same angry look as did the trainer's assistant.  From friendly to hateful without me saying a word to her, nor any insulting thing to anyone.  I left.

As I was walking away, playing the whole scenario in my mind, I realized that just before the break, the trainer had told everyone -- these two women heard it too, he said that if you tell someone that you are going to do what you want, people will tell you that you are crazy.
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Remember what I told you about people having watches on their person after being repeatedly told not to have them?  Well, when you repeat an est training, you are not allowed to share (est is where that term came from that is now part of the American lexicon) or to ask questions.  You have a different colored name tag.

This one guy is asking the Trainer about something and the trainer is answering him and then the trainer stops and says, "Wait a minute."  Aren't you a repeater?"  The guy says, "Yes."

The trainer says, "You're not supposed to be talking."  The guy resounds with, "Yeah, but I wanted to know what you meant by what you said."

People!
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I was watching "Cops" and this young girl was talking to the cops that came as a result of a domestic disturbance call.  She hadbeen beating on her much smaller husband, She kept telling the cops, over and over, "When you get married you're supposed to be happy.  I'm married.  I'm not happy."