Terry

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Posts by Terry

• 
  5

  "You Had to Have Been There"

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  from my memoirs ...______.

  .....moments later, thoughts inside my head still reverberated as though i were a bell struck into vibrations beyond control.

  i trembled.

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• 

  Terry

  Thank you.
  
  Yes - Worldly people were the nicest people to me out of my entire life.
• 
  5

  "You Had to Have Been There"

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  from my memoirs ...______.

  .....moments later, thoughts inside my head still reverberated as though i were a bell struck into vibrations beyond control.

  i trembled.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  Not the same California any longer, I'm afraid.
  My son moved out there briefly as an animator and his rent was almost $3,000 per month in a one bedroom apartment!
  Oh, I missed the terrain dearly. I surely do.
  Not a day goes by ...
• 
  5

  "You Had to Have Been There"

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  from my memoirs ...______.

  .....moments later, thoughts inside my head still reverberated as though i were a bell struck into vibrations beyond control.

  i trembled.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  From my Memoirs ...
  ______

  "YOU HAD TO HAVE BEEN THERE ..."

  .....Moments later, thoughts inside my head still reverberated as though I were a bell struck into vibrations beyond control. I trembled. My hands were shaking. I was laughing and nodding my head: first “yes” and then, “no.” It happened. No, it could not have happened.
  And yet—it did!
  ______________

  CALIFORNIA circa 1979
  ______________

  It is mid-day. Lunchtime.

  Southern California sprawls like a lazy beachcomber glowing orange-pink from the dazzling sun.
  Above a trio of gliding seagulls hanging in the air. This is my land of milk and honey. I hoard each golden moment with a greedy smile, having left my bitterness with Texas in the rear-view mirror of my car. This isn’t Fort Worth, Cow town anymore—this is Playa del Rey, California.

  Yes-s-s-s!

  I departed work at the art studio in El Segundo early, enjoying the drive to the beach; savoring a feeling of relaxation stretching to an endless horizon.
  As I often do, I pulled up close to the embankment overlooking the sandy strand, only a brief jog away from the Pacific Ocean's mysterious, restless call.
  
  Dave Grusin’s Sweetwater Nights on the radio,
  as I munch cucumber sandwich squares, sipping ginger ale and steeping in the half-dream of sunlight.
  _________

  Back “home” in Ft. Worth, I was nobody and nothing. Today I’m on my way to being happy for the first time.
  As a Jehovah's Witness I was a janitor, telephone solicitor, day laborer on beer trucks, toiling for pennies in despair.
  Then, I woke up and got the hell out of Texas with a wife and 3 very small children in tow.
  I was working in Art, in an etching studio with new friends.
  Escape from a cult!
  California or Bust. That was 5 years in the past...bursting with satisfaction at this new life.
  
  

  ---Dream bubble popped suddenly ---

  I sat up out of my slouch and blinked through the windshield Something was happening.

  Out of the corner of my peripheral vision, there was motion. A flurry of movement tugged at my eyes. Something was up! My first hint that anything was going on arrived with slamming car doors.

  I surveyed the scene.
  Cars now stopping in the middle of the road as people dressed in business clothes, or shorts and a tank top, or slinky dresses and pearls all apparently lost their wits and abandoned whatever occupied their lives—but for what reason?

  I turned my head to face a wave of mass hysteria - finally reaching my senses, I found myself scrambling from the car seat, springing into the headlong herd dashing toward the ocean.

  "We are creatures in the wild", I thought, " we are spooked."

  A horrible possibility passed through me.

  “Somebody has drowned!” Oh God—do I really want to see that?
  “What if it is a child?” Horror gripped my heart—but the frenzy of the moment impelled me forward with all the others.

  I topped the gentle rise which hid the apron of sand from the surf—sprinting toward voices ringing in awe and wonderment. There it was—at that very moment—stopping me dead cold, beholding the incredible circumstances just up ahead.
  Stock still we all stood...
  I gasped—Oh My God!
  _____________

  HALF DEAD
  I beheld a throng of humanity reaching out, madly pushing their naked hands toward and against the glistening bulk of an enormous beached whale—impossibly marooned—likely half dead.
  
  All of us filled with a spontaneous rush of compassionate madness—instinctively!
  

  We surrounded it. I laid my trembling palms against this miraculous living being, pushing against its damp flesh as all of us summoned strength. Did we actually think it was possible?

  This was the largest living thing I’d ever beheld! Its panicked eye stared imploringly at our feeble efforts. I listened to the uncanny whoosh-whoosh of its labored breathing. We labored electrified and determined in our resolve to achieve this one impossible thing and not doubting it must be done.

  Somebody cried, “Boats are coming! Boats are coming!”

  As we heaved and hefted and grunted against the mammal’s wall of living flesh, more and more of my fellow creatures arrived. We were as a swarm of ants bent to the task of rescuing an elephant.

  I turned my head to behold an extraordinary mixture of old and young, wealthy and down-and-out, ordinary humans stretching out arms—pale or tanned—freckled or porcelain, as though about to seize hold of the secret of life itself balanced on the threshold of eternity.

  How could we know what to do?

  Moments before, hadn’t boundaries and walls and fences blocked our connection with each other? Where exactly were we in the Family of Man, the Eco-system of Mother Earth—the bond of Nature itself?
  Wasn't the answer all around me?

  The natural goodness of humanity suddenly revealed itself as no hollow fable to disbelieve any longer. We had not been summoned, seduced by rhetoric, or cajoled by false promises of reward. Each of us—all of us had been thunderstruck toward a purpose written in our bones: We survive together or die alone. If you save one living thing—you save the world entire.
  
  

  Several boats arrived and towlines were secured to the narrow section of the creature’s tail.
  My conscious mind dissolved into final efforts.
  Hundreds of hands pushed, pulled, and grappled as the taut ropes stretched to the breaking point, and boat engines strained to limits unknown.
  I beheld this staggering crew of humanity welded into a unity of purpose one last time—searching with my artist’s eye for details to be etched into memory for the dark times yet to come.

  Two little girls in party dresses, spattered with mud, squealed at the adults close by.
  “Help him—Mommy—help him!”

  Executives in expensive suits, derelicts reeking of cheap wine, blue-haired grandmothers, housewives, out-of-work starlets, throngs of teens, tattooed body-builders, and every other sampling of our species—were bound in spirit to the task at hand.

  And then—it was over!
  Just -like - that.
  ____________

  Straightaway, the orca flipped front to back, heading out to sea with a gaggle of frantic fishermen cutting at their ropes lest the loosed ocean mariner become tangled or restrained.

  As quickly as it had begun, it ended.
  ________

  All of us stood panting like workhorses at the end of a day of plowing. One by one, we looked up at each other, toward a dawning realization of mystery.
  What had just happened to us?

  We started to cry, one by one—weeping as though the face of God had appeared to us all in a cloud. Then, we paused and laughed hysterically. Children screamed in celebration, jumping up and down in the sand. This was our proud, jubilant exultation celebrating life itself!

  It seemed as though nobody really wanted to leave the scene.
  We somehow knew—this had been our day to share a miracle we’d never know again. Gladdened hearts would slow in exultation and the luster of heightened experience would fade in radiance—eroded in the telling to those who could not possibly understand.

  Only a feeble :"You had to have been there."

  One by one, soaked to the bone, stragglers seem to blink and come to their senses. The so-called real world returned. As we separated, none of us could refrain from taking parting glances toward the horizon.
  What did any of this mean? Why had it happened?
  What greater lesson had been missed?
  ________

  I returned to my car and dug some spare clothes from the trunk; sand was in my nose, eyes, ears and hair. I smelled like the ocean. I smelled like . . . orca.

  I drove back along the Pacific Coast Highway in a euphoric daze of confusion, tears, and exhilaration; there was no place for it to go inside my head. I pulled over on the shoulder of the road and sat in stunned silence. I couldn’t move forward.
  I stared at my watch for the time—it had stopped.
  Was it my watch, or was it time itself?
  
  

  Here I was and everything had changed for me. Was it as simple a lesson as "We're all in this together?" Or, was it, "Don't get trapped?" I felt foolishly naive and incredibly wise all at the same time.
  
  In the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses, in almost twenty years, I had accomplished nothing as wonderful as those few precious moments of exertion with total strangers in rescue of that fabulous sea creature!
  THESE PEOPLE - these WORLDLY people's raw instinct was beautiful!
  I had been taught to see them as things about to be destroyed.
  I had been a fool and fooled into an empty gesture of rescue all that time.
  But today -THIS DAY - I came to understand how very empty my JW life had been.
  
  

  That afternoon I simply could not return to work from what had started as a casual lunch overlooking the beach and ending as this miracle.
  Yet—I returned to work anyway.

  I began excitedly telling my friends what had occurred...
  but all they could see and feel was how bad I smelled and how much sand I was tracking into the art studio.
  I was laughable. Now I can laugh.

  I took the rest of the day off—to the relieved blessings of one and all.
  Back home, it took hours of scrubbing before I was back to ...NORMAL.
  Normal?

  That was the saddest moment of all. My Miracle on the sand can never be
  experienced in the telling of it. It is all mine, a secret feeling centered inside.
  You had to have been there.

  ________________

  From my new book: MEMOIRS OF AN AMNESIAC
• 
  13

  Call Me MacGyver!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i rode my bicycle to the corner gas station / convenience store.i couldn't find my regular mask - so - i improvised.as i walked up to the young lady clerk, her eyes grewwide wide wider and she said:"that's a um very unique face mask you have there, sir.

  "i grinned invisibly.

  "yep, i actually made it from an old pair of purple boxer shorts.

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  Terry

  Well, ya know - sometimes I think I've just simply lived too long to care about
  common sense anymore.
  Watch the entire world pulled out from under is fascinating to me more than scary.
  I don't know who or what bumped the "reset" button - but it is happening.
  
  The real crazies: Leaders who are so easily living in a Fantasy Bubble; printing more money than has ever existed, pretending we'll go back to 'normal' and worrying about the Stock Market, etc.
  
  Nothing IMHO is ever going to be the same and we may well find it's ALL up for grabs.
  
  So, I have lapsed into a devil-may-care attitude.
  Life is now a kind of madcap TV series I can't stop watching.
  The characters and episodes are beyond belief and nobody knows who's writing the damn thing.
  But the ending? I predict it will be unpredictable.
  
  Schitt's Creek Pt. 2
  
  Just think: all those wack-a-doo Preppers were right all along.
  Makes you go, "Hmmmmmmmm..."
• 
  4

  Unbelievable!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  unbelievable!.

  i just finished my evening walk.i wait for the breezy part of the afternoon.

  after all - it's texas.. quiet out ...until - until it wasn't!i hear horns honking.

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• 

  Terry

  On the previous day ...
  _____
  
  

  I RODE MY BICYCLE to the corner gas station / convenience store.

  I couldn't find my regular mask - so - I improvised.
  As I walked up to the young lady clerk, her eyes grew
  wide Wide WIDER and she said:

  "That's a um very Unique face mask you have there, Sir."

  I grinned invisibly. "Yep, I actually made it from an old pair of purple boxer shorts."

  "Yes, I guessed as much." Said she.

  "Oh? What gave it away?" I queried innocently.

  "Well, the tip of your nose is poking out of the pee flap, Sir."

  ____
  I accidentally put it on backwards.

  Call me MacGyver!
  
  
  
• 
  4

  Unbelievable!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  unbelievable!.

  i just finished my evening walk.i wait for the breezy part of the afternoon.

  after all - it's texas.. quiet out ...until - until it wasn't!i hear horns honking.

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  Terry

  I see similarities between Aussies and native Texans.
  So many non-Texans have moved in over my lifetime (because Texas has no income tax) the rough and tumble nature of our 'aborigines' his diluted in public view.
  But 'real' Texans are are genuine species of their own.
  I grew up around them and never was one myself. So, I suppose I have more of a spectator's eye.
  Fascinating and utterly incomprehensible.
• 
  4

  Unbelievable!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  unbelievable!.

  i just finished my evening walk.i wait for the breezy part of the afternoon.

  after all - it's texas.. quiet out ...until - until it wasn't!i hear horns honking.

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  3. 
• 

  Terry

  UNBELIEVABLE!

  I just finished my evening walk.
  I wait for the breezy part of the afternoon. After all - it's Texas.

  Quiet out ...until - until it wasn't!
  I hear horns honking. A regular riot of horns.
  Rounding the corner I see what can only be described as
  some kind of procession headed toward me.

  First thought: it must be a funeral.
  But heck no!
  Every one of the seven cars displayed blinking lights, emergency lights flashing, colored balloons flapping on the radio antenna...

  Who'd celebrate a funeral??

  At the tail end of the procession was a local police car - it too had every damn one of its lights flashing, its horn honking like all the rest!

  WTF is going on??

  A long shotgun barrel pokes out of the lead car window and a deafening blast echoes through the neighborhood.
  I jumped out of my skin...of course - you would too.

  But the blast was filled - not with buckshot - Nooooo - a showering cascade of multi-color confetti rained down.

  What in hell?

  I'm so puzzled my head hurts.
  "I've got to figure this out." I said to myself.
  
  ___

  From one of the cars a young man jumped out for a minute or so to speak to a neighbor who had been sitting on a lawn chair in his own driveway. I could see them chatting before the kid returned to the car just as the cavalcade of cacophony made the right turn and shambled toward my street.

  Once and awhile the shotgun blast and confetti banged aloud and the riot of honking horns magnetically extracted the neighbors out their interior quarantines in stupefied curiosity.

  "Yeah - join the club", I mutter to myself.
  
  

  I suddenly had an idea.
  
  I turned on my heel and headed toward the old fella in his drive-way, stopping short by about twenty feet as I asked him aloud:
  "DID THAT GUY you were talking to explain what's happening?"

  He snuffled and nodded.

  "Yeah, Billy Joe used to be my paper boy - he recognized me and stopped to say hello."

  I waited ... "A-n-d ?????"

  He sat back down in his chair.
  "His brother Stevie Ray just got released from County Jail on account of the shut-down and pandemic. The whole family is celebrating", he said.

  I thanked him and walked away.
  
  

  None of what he said made a bit of sense. I wasn't satisfied.
  Five minutes later I turned my corner and - straightaway- beheld a most unexpected sight!
  
  

  All the cars were jammed together and several police vehicles had them wedged in - hands up - apparently under arrest.

  I walked within hearing distance of a police woman. I thought I would hazard a dumb question... more of a statement, really.

  "One of the neighbors way back down the street said some guy named Billy Joe had been released from lockup and the family was just celebrating."

  Oh the look this policewoman gave me!
  A hard expression with radioactive beams piercing my skeletal structure caused me to stiffen with sudden fear.

  Then, she just sort of laughed spontaneously.

  "Released? He broke out and called his daddy to come and get him. The dad rounded everybody else up. It was his mamma's birthday they were celebrating when they got the call."
  
  (I just stood with my jaw open)
  
  

  "That officer with the red face and the handcuffs over there followed them all the way from County Jail. I'm surprised he didn't shoot em' all."
  
  She laughed again and then - just as suddenly - went back to being dead serious.

  I skedaddled, as we say in Texas.
  ___
  The damnedest sight I ever beheld in my life ...
  that is, if you don't count the really ugly naked lady who insisted on sunbathing in her backyard as my friend Doug and I mowed her grass for money back in high school.

  ____
• 
  13

  Call Me MacGyver!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i rode my bicycle to the corner gas station / convenience store.i couldn't find my regular mask - so - i improvised.as i walked up to the young lady clerk, her eyes grewwide wide wider and she said:"that's a um very unique face mask you have there, sir.

  "i grinned invisibly.

  "yep, i actually made it from an old pair of purple boxer shorts.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  I RODE MY BICYCLE to the corner gas station / convenience store.
  
  I couldn't find my regular mask - so - I improvised.
  As I walked up to the young lady clerk, her eyes grew
  wide Wide WIDER and she said:
  
  "That's a um very Unique face mask you have there, Sir."
  
  I grinned invisibly. "Yep, I actually made it from an old pair of purple boxer shorts."
  
  "Yes, I guessed as much." Said she.
  
  "Oh? What gave it away?" I queried innocently.
  
  "Well, the tip of your nose is poking out of the pee flap, Sir."
  
  ____
  I accidentally put it on backwards.
  
  Call me MacGyver!
  
  
  
• 
  48

  Do You Believe Joe Biden Sexually Assaulted A Woman In The 90’s?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there is an allegation floating around saying he assaulted one of his female staffers .

  most mainstream media do not report on this claim.

  they either don’t believe it or don’t want to believe it.. funny how if it were brett kavanaugh or donald trump, they would be all over it.

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  Terry

  I shall never forget the day my employer marched all of us into a store meeting and compelled the group to sit for a PSA video (prepared by attorneys) about the looming spectre of sexual assault claims sweeping the world of business like a grass fire.
  
  At the end I asked the question: "You mean to tell me that any person is free to interpret any action as a sexual assault and it is now legally exactly that?"
  
  Perception = presumed evidence
  
  That is world apart from any I had previously known.
  
  A failure of rational thought, due process, and common sense - it seemed to me.
  
  However - largely, women didn't agree with my POV. And that, my friends, is where the rubber meets the road. Half the population are women and what they perceive, how they feel, react, and interpret is not-at-all the same as men's.
  
  If you are going to take every woman's word as true - then - by God, do exactly that because if you cherry pick the #MeToo movement all you really have is a Star Chamber.
  A court of kangaroos V men.
  When it comes to sexual matters, perception is the new reality.
• 

  Fantastic Interview - Three Hours of wide-ranging topics and incredible insights

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  note: the drawback in posting something like this comes when the folks who follow upand respond did not bother to watch.this is to be expected, of course.

  i stuck with the interview because of the fascinating ride it took me on and the out-of-the-box insights i would have missed otherwise.if you make it to the end - it takes a whole nuther level of wildness and explores some pretty rarefied topics.buckle up!joe rogan interviews eric weinsteinhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf0_nmaq6ta&t=6165s.

• 

  Terry

  NOTE: The drawback in posting something like this comes when the folks who follow up
  and respond DID NOT BOTHER TO WATCH.
  
  This is to be expected, of course.
  I stuck with the interview because of the fascinating ride it took me on and the out-of-the-box insights I would have missed otherwise.
  If you make it to the end - it takes a whole nuther level of wildness and explores some pretty rarefied topics.
  
  Buckle Up!
  
  Joe Rogan interviews Eric Weinstein
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf0_nMaQ6tA&t=6165s