| Deceiver To Believer | ||||||||||||||||||||
| You Can Do It |
This page is still underconstruction. Throughout our lives many decisions will be placed before us. Some will be small and not important. However, some will have a great impact on our future. They will determin how we act, what we become and how we view the world. Mistakes will be made by us all. Although, these mistakes can be rectifed in most cases. As you read my story, I hope it will give you some insight into what CAN be accomplished if you face your fears. Do not believe what others may say about you or even what you may think of yourself. Set a goal and attempt to reach that goal. Only then will you know. | |||||||||||||||||||
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I won't go into my childhood, other than to say, I was the youngest of five children. My mother and father were divorced when I was 4 or 5 years old. I stayed with my father, who worked for General Motors all of his adult life. I was 14 at the time my father died; and very soon thereafter, my life turned upside down. I was in and out of reform schools. At the age of sixteen, a friend and I stole a beer truck full of beer. Needless to say, we were caught. Thinking that enlistment in the army was the best for me and would straighten me out, the judge ordered me to do so. While in the army I went to Japan, Korea, and Viet Nam. I was first introduced to drugs in Viet Nam. I found out later, that this lifestyle would follow me into my civilian life. At the age of twenty, I was discharged from the armed forces. Almost at once, I joined a biker group and continued on drugs. This was the late 1960s -- hippies, free love, and all the drugs a person could want. I moved to Saginaw, Michigan after that. I met up with two men, Larry and David. Larry was a card shark ( for a lack of better terminology). David was a pool hustler. Larry taught me how to cheat at cards and David taught me how to play pool. I became very good at both. They also taught me something that would take over my life for over 2 1/2 years -- how to do Heroin. For two and a half years we became almost inseparable. We traveled all over the US on what we called "Road Trips". Sometimes we would leave Saginaw in an old beatup car and twenty dollars between us. Larry and I would pull card tricks, usually on young kids working in all-night gas stations, to build up our bank roll. Then we would financially back David while he played pool. One day, while in Las Vegas pulling card tricks, we were arrested for strong armed robbery. It seems that one of the kids we had conned had taken money from the cash register to pay us for his losses. He was afraid of what his boss would say, so he called the police. He told them we had thrown him up against the wall and robbed him. After showing the District Attorney what we had really done, the charges were dropped to larceny by conversion, a misdemeanor. Larry and I spent the next six months in the Las Vegas county jail. We were both released the same day and then we caught a bus and returned to Saginaw. A short time later Larry was killed in an auto accident while on drugs. As the months passed, all the men in our group of friends either went to prison or were killed in drug deals gone bad, except for me. Yes, even David. While coming home very early one morning, he was shot seven times and died on his mother's front lawn. By this time drugs had such a hold on me that I continued to live the life I knew -- playing cards and shooting pool to support my habit. Many times I had to run out of a door or jump through a window to avoid being stabbed or shot when I was caught cheating. UNTIL... I was coming home one morning after staying out all night. I arrived on the corner where I was living at the time, to see police cars in front of our house. It seems that my roommate, another addict, had cheated some drug dealers out of their money. In the early morning hours, they broke in the front door. They shot and killed my roommate and the woman that was there with him. I didn't even go up to our house. That afternoon I caught a bus headed for San Francisco. For some time after that I stayed with people I met, slept on park benches or in Golden Gate Park, pulling card tricks or selling drugs to survive. What you need to know here is what drugs will do to you -- not the high you get, but what it does to your mind! Even though I have an IQ in the range of 140, I had a very low self-esteem. I thought of myself as being dumb and not capable of doing anything except pumping gas. But THAT was all to change! One morning after being up all night on speed, I was walking home. In a doorway on one of the side streets was a bum -- filthy, an empty bottle of something beside him, and vomit on the sidewalk at his feet. Now, I have never been a very religious man, but the vision of that poor man lying there did something to me inside. I remember thinking, "I need to do something and I need to do something soon. If I don't do something soon, that could be me lying there." I remember walking down a few more doorways and ducking in so that no one would see me. I collapsed on the steps and cried and cried. I said, "GOD? Please help me! I can't do this on my own". Then a strange calmness came over me. I don't know if it was GOD saying He would be there for me or it was me thinking I was going to get some help from somewhere. I went on from there, applying to a school and getting accepted on a poverty grant and at the end of my program graduated in the top of my class. I worked for awhile and then went back to school to further my education. I became a respected medical professional and have been one for over twenty years. I am sure that old bum is dead now. To this day, I think about him occasionally. Did my life benefit from his misfortune or was he put in that doorway to show me what I might become? But whatever the reason, GOD BLESS YOU OLD MAN!! Your life DID have a purpose and a meaning! So you see? All is not lost until you give up belief in yourself. When that belief is gone, your world goes with it. So be as kind as you can to your fellow man. That homeless person you see on the street or that bum in the doorway may someday save your life or be your inspiration. There, but for the grace of God, go I. | Always keep your dreams | |||||||||||||||||||
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| My email: OMA ls [email protected] |
Love Your Fellow Man Today I live my life as if it were others observing ME. Do not look at what someone is doing when they offend you. Look instead at WHY they are doing it. Be kind to and respectful of others. Like yourself, their lives are important also. Be loyal to your friends --not because you may need them some day, but because a true friend is something to hold close to your heart. A true friend is not often found. Last, but certainly not the least, be faithful to the one who loves you. It is he or she who brings happiness to your world. Like that true friend, the perfect love for you comes but once in your lifetime. | |||||||||||||||||||
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