Posts by TerryWalstrom

9

First Girlfriend first kiss

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

first girlfriend first kisswho was my 1st girlfriend?.

the first girl i took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named robbie.. i was in first grade, so i must have been six-years-old.. i had no idea why this particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them.

adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction.

TerryWalstrom

I've published 2 books. The first is the story of becoming a JW and going to prison as a "conscientious objector." (I Wept by the Rivers of Babylon)
The second book is a Sci-Fi novel about Martians, Pastor Russell, Rutherford, and cult mind control. Yes, I know :) (The Monorails of Mars.) Both are available on Amazon.
____
I've been working on this third book a long time and if I wanted to, I could publish it immediately I'm still editing. It will take up where my first book left off, just before 1975, when I fled my Jehovah's Witness milieu to move to Hollywood.
It will be a memoir.
The working title is (A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Armageddon.)
____
Thanks to all for the kind response!

9

First Girlfriend first kiss

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

first girlfriend first kisswho was my 1st girlfriend?.

the first girl i took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named robbie.. i was in first grade, so i must have been six-years-old.. i had no idea why this particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them.

adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction.

TerryWalstrom

That's a whole nuther story, my friend!

9

First Girlfriend first kiss

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

first girlfriend first kisswho was my 1st girlfriend?.

the first girl i took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named robbie.. i was in first grade, so i must have been six-years-old.. i had no idea why this particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them.

adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction.

TerryWalstrom

FIRST GIRLFRIEND FIRST KISS

Who was my 1st girlfriend?

The first girl I took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named Robbie.

I was in first grade, so I must have been six-years-old.

I had no idea why THIS particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them. Adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction. Nope. Not at six.

I made shy boys look aggressive. So, I never spoke to Robbie. She can count herself pretty lucky. My interests at that age were Hopalong Cassidy, Tarzan, rocket ships, archery, knife-throwing, and rubbing kittens on my face.

_____

My first real girlfriend and my first kiss came NOT because of any natural attraction on my part. It was a strong sense of competition between myself and my best friend, Johnny Santa Cruz.

Johnny and I were rivals. We never spoke about it. It was one-ups-manship. Two Alpha-males. Natural as can be.

Johnny went all googly-eyed over Carol Brown, the blonde girl across the street whose face was a natural habitat for freckles.

He was determined to get from her his first kiss.

Carol Brown didn't push any magic buttons inside of me but the idea that Johnny would get the first kiss before me--well, this will NOT stand!

We were 15-years-old.

Johnny was full tilt into adolescent glandular upheaval. This dude was in heat! I, on the other hand, probably had delayed onset of puberty. All those internal churnings didn't really happen for me until I was about 19. Yeah. Really.

Walstroms are late-bloomers and long-lived.

The efforts Johnny was making consisted of complimenting Carol. On what? I dunno, the plenitude of her freckles, I suppose. She seemed to react with moderate interest.

Wherever Johnny went, I went. I was his shadow. (He was a wide-load kind of fellow and already had a substantial shadow.) Consequently, when Froggy went-a-courtin', I was like the "sword and pistol' by his side.

He held her hand.

His voice dropped into a Barry White whisper (years before there was a Barry White.)

I was nauseous.

I listened to him telling me how great she was and I squinted hard without confirmation.

It was only when he made the bold declaration, "When Carol gets back from summer vacation with her family, I'm going to give her...her first kiss."

"You mean, your first kiss, don't you?"

The fact he didn't want to say it was enough for me. I KNEW.

_____

Before Carol left, I sashayed across Parkdale Ave. and walked up to the Brown's house. Carol's mother answered the door.

"Yes?"

"Hello, Mrs. Brown. I'm Terry, a friend of Carol's. I was wondering if you'd be kind enough to give her this letter I wrote for her to read after you folks arrive at your destination?"

The nice lady gave me a very Mom-like once over.

I was tall, slim, good-looking, blue-eyed, and very polite.

"What's this all about, if you don't mind my asking?"

I scuffed the toe of my shoe against the door jam and looked down at the ground.

"I have a crush on your daughter, Mrs. Brown. But--I haven't said anything because of my best friend from across the street, Johnny. He has plans to become Carol's boyfriend--I don't want to be a bad friend. I just...well...I want Carol to have a choice as well as time to think it over without pressure."

Carol's mother stood very, very still with her mouth shaped like she was about to whistle. Her brain was ticking away and I could imagine the calculations inside a mother's noggin.

"Sure. I'll give it to her, Jerry."

"Um, it's Terry."

_____

I had written--NOT a letter--but a poem.

I had a knack for writing. It was my strong suit.

I'd made Carol's Mom promise not to give the poem to her daughter until she was settled in when they arrived in Corpus Christi.

That evening, I sat on the front porch of my house and listened to the cicada's astounding symphony of buzzing lyricism in the trees surrounding the yard. Stars punctured the dark leaves with pinpoints of silver light. I was working at psyching myself up for my first kiss only 30 days away!

I was confident!

_____

When you're young, a minute is an hour and an hour is a day. If you talk yourself into being in 'love'--and you are waiting on the object of your obsession--a month is a life sentence!

By the time Carol Brown returned from vacation some transformations had occurred inside both of us--mostly as the result of internal romantic imagination.

She and I had fantasized every possible scenario!

We weren't in love, of course. We were in love with the grand fantasy of being IN LOVE.

Girls mature faster than boys. Especially THIS boy. She was way ahead of me.

Johnny and I sat in front of his house watching for the Brown family's station wagon to appear. THIS was ground zero and D-day. He had no idea what was coming thanks to my Machiavellian machinations. (i.e. treason.)

Sure enough, the car appeared and chugged up into their driveway which was up a slight hill. I made an instant reckoning. I ducked out. Carol and her family would be exhausted after a long, long drive on the hot Texas freeway in August without air-conditioning.

Let Johnny be the casualty of BAD TIMING! His choice--not mine.

_______

It was 1962.

Johnny was going to celebrate Carol's return by having a little backyard party at sunset with lanterns and lemonade and a phonograph playing 45 rpm records.

I had with me only one single to play at exactly the right moment.

It was Roy Orbison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7M-g1fW9XM

Earlier, I waited for Johnny to barge on up as the exhausted travelers emerged from their journey. He plunged right in like a puppy at meal time.

Whatever he said to her I don't know, I remained across the street standing in the shade. I saw Carol craning her neck to look and I knew she spotted me. I stepped out into the light with a smile like the unveiling of an elegant sculpture in her honor. I waved, turned, and walked back into Johnny's house.

My idea was to let the Johnny tsunami crash on her shores first and leave all the anticipation and mystery for later.

____

It was the evening at last.

Music filled the humid night air, drowning out the zing of mosquitoes. Johnny's sisters, friends and a few neighbors were dancing in his backyard. Carol was dancing with my good buddy and I played coy, being quite cordial to everybody without tipping off Carol how I was timing things to the optimum moment.

Johnny wandered into the house at last. I was a duck on the June bug. I appeared by Carol's side magically just as Roy Orbison started his dramatic sonnet to competitive love and angst, RUNNING SCARED.

"I've been wanting to talk to you all day."

Her freckles glistened with moisture. There's nothing like a sweaty Texas girl to start a cowpoke's heart a thumpin'.

"Aw, I didn't want to intrude. After all, Johnny saw you first."

"I read your poem. It was beautiful. I must have read it a hundred times."

(YESSSS!)

"Before you left I went off by myself to a quiet spot and thought about things. I found myself writing my feelings and once it started--well, I couldn't stop. When I'd finished, I knew I had to let you read it. I'm too shy to say anything otherwise."

(Roy Orbison's amazing crescendo was winding upward, like a drumbeat for a Commanche attack on a circled wagon train.)

"I was hoping you'd ask me to dance."

"I couldn't possibly do that."

"Why not?"

(Wait for it...wait for it...wait for it...)

"If I had my arms around you I wouldn't be able to stop myself from kissing you."

(Orbison's voice is rising, rising, rising as the orchestra swells to a majestic turn--a cataclysmic reckoning--seconds from the revealing ending.)

_____MY HEART IS BREAKING, WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE?___

"I've never been kissed before. I was kind of saving it for the end of a perfect date."

"Well, what are you doing Saturday? We could go to a movie."

"I'd really like that."

"There's no reason not to rehearse our kiss, just so-- by the time the end of the date comes around--it will be perfect..."

(Orbison knocked it out of the park:)

____YOU TURNED AROUND AND WALKED AWAY WITH ME-e-e-e-e-e___

I leaned in and planted a real Hollywood smacker on Carol Brown's pink lips exactly the way I'd seen Troy Donahue liplock Suzanne Pleshette in 'ROME ADVENTURE.'

___

I can close my eyes right now. I recorded everything in-the-moment and it is permanently etched on some dusty row of neurons in my brain vault. The night, the music, the smell of Emeraude perfume, Roy Orbison's voice, the mosquitoes, and the feeling of this freckled blonde's heart pounding against my skinny body.

By the time Johnny came back out of the house (where I knew he had his marathon BM each evening) I had strategically maneuvered my troops to the high ground and planted--not the flag--but my lips.

Carol and I shared our 'moment' on the side of the house in the shadows, but we were fooling ourselves if we thought we hadn't been seen.

Somebody ratted us out to Johnny.

He told me later that night.

"I'd already made up my mind I wasn't interested in Carol anymore."

"Oh. Really? Why is that?"

The answer was a long time coming. Come it did.

"The only thing she wanted to talk about was you."

This is when I knew I would be a good writer. A good writer is effective at bringing about FEELINGS inside his readers.

I had known I had to write something which would kindle feelings.

I'm embarrassed to say--I actually remember the first line of the sonnet I had written for Carol in that letter. It sure doesn't sound like anything today as I look at it on the page in black and white. I'll set it down for you anyway.

______

"All things worthwhile are worth waiting for--

or so the saying goes

But just how hard it is to wait--that few people know

Unless someone who they love has gone from them away

And they've waited hopelessly throughout each endless day"

_______

Try as I might, I can't recall the rest. It filled a whole page.

I just wonder to myself...wherever Carol is...does she still have that tucked away someplace?

3

Aw Shucks

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

aw shucks___________.

her voice caught my ear.

“i’m gonna jerk a knot in yer tail!”.

TerryWalstrom

I was reared by great-grandparents and grandparents and those folks go way back into the late 1800's. They had some odd expressions most of which I've forgotten.
My great-grandmother had come from Tennessee in a covered wagon chased by what she called "savages." Today they wouldn't dare.
Her favorite expression of stubborn refusal was to declare, " Don't hafta do nuthin' but die."

6

Confession: I, Safecracker

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

i, safe cracker _______________.

this is one story i doubt i’ve told before.

for obvious reasons…it was 1969; the place, fort worth; the location, the star-telegram building in downtown fort worth, and i was a lowly janitor working for $1.60 an hour on the midnight to 8 am shift.you might wonder what a tall, good-looking 22-year-old was doing struggling at a no-future employment for slave wages.

TerryWalstrom

I thought of Les Miserables. It wasn't stealing real bread, it was the 'other' kind and the sentence would probably be the same.

One of my daughters found an envelope full of cash one day when on a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas. She turned it in.
A friend who saw this (who had been sitting in the back seat) made a big deal out of it.
My daughter told her, "I got money from my grandma on a birthday and lost it a couple of years ago. I KNOW how it feels."
That is empathy.
I met a lady once (we were on a date) who told me about finding a briefcase with money in it. She was able to contact the owner. He wanted to give her a $200 reward which she refused.
I gave her a hard time about that (even though it wasn't my business.)
Her answer made sense, however.
"You don't return money to get money. You return money to return money."
The moral of every instance is a different variation on the "why" each person has
done the "right" thing.
It's way more complicated than it seems IF YOU THINK TOO HARD.

3

Aw Shucks

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

aw shucks___________.

her voice caught my ear.

“i’m gonna jerk a knot in yer tail!”.

TerryWalstrom

AW SHUCKS
___________

Her voice caught my ear.
“I’m gonna jerk a knot in yer tail!”

I flinched but I took quick notice.
She had a fierce, worn beauty; the kind I seldom see anymore. Those eyes on her stabbed like flashing blades.
The object of her scorn wasn’t yours truly, thank the Almighty. Whoever this poor bastard is, he’s hunkered down into the chair like a collapsed accordion. The air has gone out of him.
He’s gotta be in his late 40’s. He’s clearly a working man; a hardworking fella who spends all day in the Texas sun. The sun-spackled leather on his face and arms used to be skin. An expression of alarm has lit up his deep set brown eyes.

She’s still at it.
“A snake in a wagon rut is what you are, Henry Lee.”

I’m sitting way too close to this domestic turbulence for my comfort. I’m pretending to be invisible so I might observe without being observed.

She is hungry-thin; cheekbones and jaw firmly set, catching the light and casting prize-winning shadows. A black and white photograph of her would look damn near the same as a colored one.

He speaks!
“I ain’t gonna be no hummingbird on your string, Lulu. Leave me be. I ain’t drunk no more. I’m dryer than a popcorn fart.”

I’m wondering what language these strange folk are speaking.

The man is more or less gathering himself up into a ball of courage as he speaks. He un-slunk himself out of the seat and stands like he wants to bolt and never stop running.

I let my eyes shoot a few flicks askance. I know I’m going to be writing about this any minute now. Folks such as this are way better than crows and less likely to steal food.

The woman is wearing jeans. Old ones. She’s got a figure like a retired rodeo rider--all sinew and no meat to spare. I scan the table next to them. No hats. No guns!

______

Okay. They’ve gone.
What a pair these were. They ended up kissing like they were getting paid ten bucks a smooch.
As far as I can gather, they drove to Ft.Worth from Sweetwater. It was an anniversary. They ran into some old friends and the man got drunk and neglected her.
She hadn’t put up a fuss around the friends. She didn’t say a word. She waited.
I was the lucky listener.
She let him have it with both barrels until he’d gone through every excuse, angry defense, and finally surrendered with a heartfelt apology.
She got what she’d wanted.

Other than not speaking English (at least Standard English) the two of them should be preserved in the Smithsonian as a throwback to maybe the 1800’s. I could have listened to them talk all day and never grown weary.

I wanted to follow them when they left and see what kind of truck they were in. They weren’t.
An Uber came and away they went!
Now how in hell do you figure that??

One more thing…
His best apology I’ll share with you in parting.
This man put both of his large, leathery paws on the little lady’s shoulders and looked straight down into her cat’s eye marbles. He swallowed hard and she waited for it but good.

“Lulu, without you--I’m as lost as last year’s Easter eggs.”

Aw, shucks.
_______

6

Confession: I, Safecracker

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

i, safe cracker _______________.

this is one story i doubt i’ve told before.

for obvious reasons…it was 1969; the place, fort worth; the location, the star-telegram building in downtown fort worth, and i was a lowly janitor working for $1.60 an hour on the midnight to 8 am shift.you might wonder what a tall, good-looking 22-year-old was doing struggling at a no-future employment for slave wages.

TerryWalstrom

It is punishing to do the "right" thing and hate yourself for it!

6

Confession: I, Safecracker

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

i, safe cracker _______________.

this is one story i doubt i’ve told before.

for obvious reasons…it was 1969; the place, fort worth; the location, the star-telegram building in downtown fort worth, and i was a lowly janitor working for $1.60 an hour on the midnight to 8 am shift.you might wonder what a tall, good-looking 22-year-old was doing struggling at a no-future employment for slave wages.

TerryWalstrom

I, SAFE CRACKER
_______________

This is one story I doubt I’ve told before. For obvious reasons…

It was 1969; the place, Fort Worth; the location, the Star-Telegram building in downtown Fort Worth, and I was a lowly janitor working for $1.60 an hour on the Midnight to 8 am shift.
You might wonder what a tall, good-looking 22-year-old was doing struggling at a no-future employment for slave wages.
Let me tell you.

The reason is this. I had just been paroled from the Federal Correctional Institution in Seagoville, Texas. In case you’re puzzled--that was a prison and I was now an ex-con.

As losers go, things were worst still--I was in a religious cult, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and trying to hold down a job while simultaneously devoting 100 hours each month to neighborhood door knocking ministerial outreach known by JW’s as PIONEERING.

Living on $12.80 a day doesn’t sound like much preparation for a bright future, does it? Ha! I would have laughed back then at such a suggestion. What did I know that most other people didn’t know?

The END of 6,000 years of human history was only a few years away! My religious leaders (in Brooklyn New York) had been tipped off by none other than the Supreme Being--1975 was bringing down the curtain on humanity. Only we J-Dubs would survive. We had pity on the rest of humanity, of course, that’s why I was going door to door and warning my fellow Texans. First, they should ‘donate’ twenty-five cents for a little blue book called THE TRUTH THAT LEADS TO ETERNAL LIFE, then, they needed to agree to sit down with me for a weekly Bible study (really just a study of that little blue book) and follow that with regular meeting attendance at the local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But this story is titled, I, Safe cracker--is it not?
I’m getting to that. Just be patient.

The majority of young JW’s had crappy employment because the “future” was six years away and our religious Governing Body assured us college and higher education and a career was a BIG waste of our time which was better spent saving lives.
Some toiled as truck drivers, some were shoe salesmen, some were window washers, and many were janitors. (Spoiler alert: 47 years later THEY STILL ARE.)

I secured employment from a big custodial business and the client building was the local newspaper. My duties were to empty trash cans and ashtrays in all the offices on whatever floor we were cleaning on any particular night.
My story officially begins on one particular Thursday night. It is significant because the following day would be a Friday (duh) and PAYDAY for Star Telegram employees. It was the custom at that time for many businesses to pass out pay envelopes with cash in them instead of printing checks. Banks were only open until 3 pm and many workers needed the cash. Banks weren’t open on the weekends and there was no such thing as an ATM money dispenser. Got the picture?

My assignment that Thursday night was the executive private offices of the Editor-in-Chief. Inside the office was a walk-in vestibule with one of those huge Excelsior Wells Fargo safes you see in old western movies. It was about 5 feet high with a large combination lock dial and handle.
(Before I continue, here is an authorial aside: In High School students were assigned lockers which were fastened securely with combination locks. We were admonished and mandated to keep those locks closed at all times. Owing to the shortness of time between classes, we clever youth would dial in ALL the numbers in advance except the last number. Why? All we had to do was make a slight turn of the dail and jerk the handle. Voila! It opened!)
Entering the Editor-in-Chief’s (Mr. Kuykendahl) executive office, I vacuumed his carpet, emptied the metal trash can, wiped the ashtrays, dusted and--uh-oh!--What’s THIS? A Wells Fargo safe??

This is the part where you will just have to take my word for it. Good luck with that!

I had never had direct access to one of those old safes before and I thought--on a lark--it would be sort of FUN if I pulled on the handle and rotated the dial S-L-O-W-L-Y on the outside possibility I had A. Chosen the right direction to rotate and B. Passed the correct last number on the C. Possibility Kuykendahl was just as lazy as any common High Schooler standing at a locker between classes.

IT WORKED!
I was flabbergasted! Gobsmacked! Thrilled!
I complimented myself on a brilliant guess.
Then, I realized I could technically be charged with SAFE CRACKING!!

The door was open and I could see stacks of cash right before my wondering eyes.
There was a bottle of Vodka, too.

In a split second, my subconscious mind was weighing the statistical odds of many permutations of happenings!

1. Getting caught (“Was your safe securely locked, Mr. Kuykendahl?” “Yes, of course, it was.” “Who else had the combination?”)
2. Fitting all that cash on my person without telltale bulges in my clothing. (Terry, are you feeling okay? You look bloated!”
3. Keeping a straight face for the next 8 hours as I vacuumed, swept, dusted, etc.
(Hey, why do you keep giggling like that? You drunk?”
4. A loud interior voice was screaming: “You are a Jehovah’s Witness entrusted with keeping the reputation of the ‘only true religion’ free of desecration!”
5. I wonder how many twenties would fit inside my underwear and socks?

_______

Before you judge me too harshly…
What I tell myself today, all these years later, is that the decision I made in pretty much less than 3 seconds, was a BIG MISTAKE. I was earning slave wages, newly married, had no prospects for buying a car or a house or anything else.
But THE WORLD WOULD SHORTLY END and people who steal cash would NOT survive Armageddon (the war of the Great Day of God Almighty in which evil people are hacked to death by avenging angels.).

Therefore, in view of the fact I was morally locked into a very character-testing situation and all eyes in heaven were on me…

______
Like I told you before, that was 47 years ago.
Would you believe me if I told you, in all that time, no matter where I was or what I was doing, not a week has gone by that I haven’t thought back to that moment of decision where all that cash was just lying there and the chances of anybody figuring out how a lowly janitor could crack a safe without a torch or dynamite…
Well--you get what I’m saying. Don’t you?
In real time, I slammed that Wells Fargo door and spun the dial as quickly as humanly possible BEFORE the intelligent part of my brain made me reach for the cash! I save myself FROM myself.

Now here is my final confession. Are you ready?
I regret slamming the door on that safe.
I DO--I think I acted quite foolishly.

I keep trying to figure out how good or how stupid I was back then AND how bad and how stupid I am at this moment.
I just don’t know.
Do you?

Starman the Astronomer Clown

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

starman the astronomer-clown.

"why do you think starman stopped coming to see us?

"what did you tell your mom about starman?".

TerryWalstrom

STARMAN the ASTRONOMER-CLOWN

I and a few other scraggly urchins stood awkwardly in a circle surrounding "Starman" as he demonstrated one of his baffling magic tricks.
There was a garden faucet suspended in mid-air with water running out!
Head scratching followed.
"How do you do that, Starman?" Wayne, the mean kid from down by the tracks demanded to know.
Starman turned the spigot and the water ceased flowing. He cocked his head toward Wayne and forced a smug grin.
"I do it very well, I'd say."

Each visit from Starman was special for one or the other of us. He would select one child and go off with him (some place out of sight) to tell a tale of astronomical interest, circus hijinx, or magic.
I was the youngest kid on the block and never got chosen.

I asked the older kids but nobody said a word.

"Starman said if we tell--he'll stop coming around. Magic is secret and we swore."
My feelings were hurt. I was the odd boy out. This wasn't unusual. I never fit in any place either on my block, at school, or at games the others played.

"Who is that strange man?"
My grandmother had noticed with her keen eye. There was something dark in the tone of her query.
She definitely refused to accept my reply.
"He's an astronomer-clown who knows lots of magic. He lives in the circus and ---"
Grandma interrupted immediately. Her face was flushed.

"Next time that man comes around you come straight in the house and tell me. You hear?"
This frightened me but I didn't know why. I was worried I'd end up being blamed by the others if Starman stopped coming around. I did agree to report any astronomer-clown sightings, however.

_____

Years later, I was reading a comic book and came across an advertisement for a book revealing magic tricks secrets and it brought to mind that summer when Starman stopped visiting.
I had dutifully made my report and was told in no uncertain terms to remain inside the house while Grandma went out to speak to him.
I was at the window straining to hear but the two of them were too far away.
Starman was wearing what he always wore; baggy khaki pants and a Hawaiian shirt. He never looked my Grandma in the eye and seemed to say very little. She was doing all the talking.
He had turned to leave but the police car came around the corner and he froze in place.
My heart almost stopped. The neighborhood kids would find out about this and I'd be blamed! I didn't see any of them because he hadn't had time to round anybody up thanks to my intervention.
I remember the black and white police car and how the little red light on top revolved a bright flashing sentinel as I stood at the window without understanding any of what I saw.
A minute or so later, the police drove away and Starman walked off sadly, unmolested by the law.
My grandma had nothing to say to me. She shut me down completely.
The astronomer-clown never returned.

_______
One of the young kids who lived three blocks away was named Don Jetton. He and I walked home from Morningside Elementary school together sometimes. He wasn't exactly a friend, but neither was he a bully like most of the others.

I screwed my courage to the hilt one afternoon and asked him.
"Why do you think Starman stopped coming to see us?"
He froze for a moment in mid stride. His face paled.
I watched a flicker of pain pass over him.
"I told my Mom. I broke my swear. She made me."

This brought immense relief!
I was bracing myself for accusation--but all that paranoia went away suddenly and I broke out in a beaming smile.

I was emboldened.
"What did you tell your Mom about Starman?"

He stared at me with a strange expression.
"Mom told me to never ... ever talk about that."

I could see he wanted to tell me. What should I say?
How could I convince him it was okay?

As I was scheming in my head, Don Jetton turned to me and straight away let it all out in a streaming confessional.

"He explained about the Big Bang and how many billions of years ago stuff suddenly happened and ...also how you could tell how old the universe is by something called redshift and... I can't explain it. I just listened and didn't ask any questions."

"Why does any of that need need keeping as a big secret?"

"Cuz at the end of all he was telling me...he leaned in close and whispered something in my ear."

I waited until my patience ran out. Which was about five seconds.

"Well, don't just stand there--TELL ME."

I can't describe the guilty look on Don Jetton's face but it looked like he was about to pass out.

"I'm waiting. Just say it already."

He swallowed hard and made his decision. He pulled near and leaned toward my ear which caused me to pull back. I don't know what I was thinking he was going to do. Well, maybe I do. I thought he was going to kiss me. He didn't.
He whispered so softly I made him repeat it.

As soon as he told me, I had to stand pretty quietly for about a minute. My wheels were turning.
I took what he said and matched it with the mysterious behavior and secrets and one kid at a time going off with Starman where nobody could see what was going on.

I nodded with understanding. I suppose I could understand the anger my Grandma showed and why she didn't want to say anything.

Back then, in the 1950's, such matters were very very scandalous in the South.
There were things you could never tell a child--especially somebody else's child.

Starman had whispered forbidden words. Three of them.

The astronomer-clown who was a magician had revealed a very creepy secret.

"There is no God."

6

What do you Think Would Happen ... if ...?

by TerryWalstrom in

what do you think would happen.... .

if the size of your city doubled and the increase in population was because jehovah's witnesses had moved in?.

or scientologists?

TerryWalstrom

WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN...

if the size of your city doubled and the increase in population was because Jehovah's Witnesses had moved in?

Or Scientologists? Or Mormons?

Or any group with peculiar beliefs, prejudices, judgments, and customs?

______

Do you think things would improve for YOU personally?

Think about it. Why wouldn't it?

We're talking about persons who are totally committed to a set of principles to the point of refusing to compromise. Isn't that...um...good?

Yes? No?

_______

Let's fine tune this question a bit, shall we?

What if your community doubled because of an influx of Orthodox Jews or Wahabi Muslims? How about Evangelical Pentecostals?

______

Finally, let's change the premise ever so slightly...

What if your influx (no matter which group showed up) were all living in poverty? How would that change things?

_____

How would YOU personally be affected in your daily life? Would prices go up or down? Would grocery stores and restaurants change their menus? Would local laws be modified? How about medical centers?

People who THINK, ACT and BELIEVE differently than you make up most of the population of the world.

If you can't tolerate them--why should they tolerate you?

Sooner or later, you may have to think about this premise. Why not get used to the changes right now, inside your head...and especially inside your heart?