So, Eve, when are we ever not in church?

    My take is, Eve did precisely what God designed her to do, and maybe some day the three Abrahamic religious will figure that out, and maybe their heads stuck way far up where the sun never shines yoga position is terminal.

    After reading the Apocalypse: the destruction of humanity’s South Pole, Eve post, a dear, old, devoted-to-her-church friend emailed me:

Linda

Did you happen  to listen to Lessons and Carols from King's on Christmas Eve morning?  The first lesson is read by a chorister, as you probably know, and the young boy readers are delightful to hear.  Last year and now this year, especially, the readers have pronounced the words in perfect poetic diction, telling the story of the temptation of Eve and God's discovery of his humans skulking around in the Gah-den.  The perfect spitting out of "The Woman . . ..  ) seemed to me to be a powerful encapsulation of what's still wrong with the world:  It's Eve's fault.   

 

Things become clearer, don't  they? 

 

Later, L. 

 

Sloan

Sorry, Linda, all of that is Greek to me, it’s been decades since I attended church, perhaps never on Christmas Day. I feel no affinity with the church paradigm, but do wonder when I’m ever not in church? What’s wrong with the world, indeed, if you don’t consider the demons, is the feminine is hardly even breathing, and, in the main, that’s in women, as well as in men. 

 

Linda

Don'a apologize, I know you don't attend church services, but the King's College service is loved around the world so I thought you might have encountered it on public radio.  What struck me particularly this time was the energetic diction of "The woman gave [the apple] to me, and I did eat."  He practically spat it out--  "woman" I mean.   

 

I'm not sure I followed your meaning after "if you don't consider the demons . . ."   

 

And yes, the world is the church, or could be, and I must say that I see a lot of theological and mystical writing about that these days.  In the main line, to be sure.  But that has to overcome the paper-thin understanding of God that dominates so many people's lives.  Am I a stuck-up snob? 

 

Sloan

My ignorance exposed, or my memory, I don’t recall ever hearing of the King’s College service. 

 

Very few care to consider demons influence people, which is where you and I disagreed about your minister initially, and you disagreed recently.  

 

As for man-made churches, I had a pretty good friend, who was a successful building contractor until he had a rough heart attack and retired and became the minister of a Methodist church. I attended his church for a while. 

 

He was 100-percent convinced the Devil would get anyone who did not attend church, while several times I saw in his church, the Devil operating In plain view. He could not wrap his mind around when are we ever not in church? So, I asked him one day, how many churches made of mortar, stone and wood did Jesus build? And, where was Jesus’ church? And, when was Jesus ever not in church? And, the minister didn’t get any of it. So, I asked him where did he think the Devil might hide, where no one would ever think to look? He said he didn’t know. I said, a church. He didn’t seem to get it. 

 

Later, I was shown in a dream that he was at risk to another bad, probably fatal heart attack if he kept being the minister of that church. I figured there was no way he would believe my dream, so I wrote his wife a letter and told her about the dream. Not long after that, he asked me in a dream if something a little different would be okay, and I said, yes. I later heard he left that church and took a job with the Methodist equivalent of an Episcopal diocese, and was traveling around visiting and counseling its churches.  

 

So, my dear old friend, perhaps what I have written to you today, and what I put on my blog recently, which I shared with you and with other people, explains why I don’t know when I am ever not in church, and why I simply feel no connection to man-made churches. 

 

Linda 

I do understand that Church is everywhere, and hope that I got that across in my last note.

I have another friend who can see and has seen evil.  She can walk into a room and feel it.  I don't think she's had an experience like that for a while, but I could only believe her when she'd describe some incidents.  She and her family are fierce believers in God--  it occurs to me that the Devil really is after her because she's so good and has such spiritual gifts.

I won't belabor this because it makes you ill--  but you're obliging me to think about the possibilities of real trouble with our minister.  Many of us in the congregation think he's struggling with something that he can't shake.  Time will tell. 

Sloan 

It came to be that nearly every time I attended a church service, I felt the palpable presence of Evil.

Yes, people like your friend become very interesting to Lucifer/demons, and they need to be very careful, is how I was trained. Catholic exorcist priests are taught about that risk when they are in the rites of exorcism training, and perhaps even before that.

Perhaps your friend will attend a church service with you and observe your minister and tell you what she is picking up?

Two years ago, when you and I discussed your minister and I told you to make a ruckus about it in the church, I was attacked by a demon, which made me ill. As did absorbing into me the trouble in your church and in you regarding the church.

That happens every time I engage something grubby humans are doing :-).  

 

Ciaosky, dearestsky 

    Just around the Alabama corner on Facebook, I found a super grubby Christian beauty contest entrant. Yellow Hammer is the Alabama State Bird. I have heard a few times that Yellow Hammer News publishes what people pay it to publish. If so, I wonder if its owners studied at Trump University?

Yellow Hammer News

FAITH AND CULTURE NEWS POLITICS

Alabama Senator to atheist group: ‘We need more children, not less to hear the good news of God’s saving grace’ 

By

Grayson EverettDecember 21, 2023 

 

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation has routinely made the Christian faith shared by most Alabamians the focus of lawsuits against small towns, school systems and the state itself.

This time, just days before Christmas, their most recent demand is over “snacks and water” at Southside High School in Etowah County.

According to the out-of-state atheist group, “A concerned Etowah County Schools community member has informed the state/church watchdog that the district has been soliciting religious organizations to proselytize and attempt to convert its students in exchange for donations.”

“It is our understanding that wrestling coaches at Southside High School and Rainbow Middle School have sent letters to local churches offering them the opportunity to proselytize and convert students in exchange for water and granola bars,” an attorney for the FFRF wrote in a letter to the Superintendent of Etowah County Schools.

They called the practice “disturbing” and demanded it be stopped at once.

State Sen. Greg Reed says he fundamentally disagrees.

“Churches are an essential part of the fabric of our communities across Alabama,” Reed (R-Jasper) said in a statement to Yellowhammer News. “Even more importantly, they are the means by which the Gospel is preached and places where we worship God.

“This week we are celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him goes all the praise and all the glory. That should be our focus, and it should not be interrupted by out-of-state groups trying to push faith out of our lives and the lives of our children.”

In addition to representing Jasper in the State Senate, Reed serves as the President Pro Tem. He added, “We need more children, not less, to hear the good news of God’s saving grace.”

In September, the same group attacked Auburn University for the role three of its coaches — including Auburn head football coach Hugh Freeze — played in the “Unite Auburn” event, during which hundreds of students were baptized.

Grayson Everett is the state and political editor for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @Grayson270

Sloan Bashinsky

I have a question. Did Reed, or someone associated with him, pay Yellow Hammer to publish this?

Maybe children need to be taught more about fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the steep and narrow path Jesus taught in the Gospels, instead how how easy it is supposed to be to get into heaven, if they just say they believe Jesus is the son of God and he died for their sins, no matter how they behave now and the future?

Max Somers

Sloan Bashinsky, maybe they need to be taught what is constitutional.

Sloan Bashinsky

Children or atheists? Either way, constitutional in what way?

Max Somers

Everyone. It’s a great lesson for the teachers, the students and evidently the state senator. You can’t offer up the students for religious grooming in return for water and granola bars. It’s unconstitutional for the school to endorse one religion over another. In this case Christianity.

Sloan Bashinsky

I’m a retired lawyer, and I agree schools should not be allowed to be used by churches, religious organizations, etc. to proselytize Christianity, but I’ve never won that argument with conservative Christians, who remind me a bit of Islam. What I think needs to happen is all major religions are taught to school children, as part of their world history courses, because those religions have had a huge impact on world history.

I have read the Declaration of Independence many times, and there are four references in it to deity, none remotely resemble Christian lingo, theology, etc. The Founding Fathers were acutely aware of the religious persecutions in Europe and England, and they very much did not want that to happen in the new nation they risked their lives to declare independence from England and its king.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, I think it was, led the charge to successfully block Virginia Governor Patrick Henry's efforts to get the Virginia Legislature to make Christianity the official religion of Virginia. Jefferson was a Deist, who basically detested the way Christianity was practiced, but he did not detest Jesus, evidenced by he cut passages of many of Jesus's sayings in the New Testament out of a Bible and pasted them into his own book, which became known as The Jefferson Bible.  

    The next Alabama Facebook beauty contest entrant today: 

Victor Bragen

Sloan Bashinsky

Through his way, as he lived and taught, the steep and narrow path, the gate through which few enter, to which many are called, but few are chosen.

Victor Bragan

Very well said Sloan! I’m thankful that I chose Him-and You?

Sloan Bashinsky

I imagine what’s important is who he chooses?

Victor Bragan

And so many more verses suggest that He’s there when we truly believe in Him and choose Him and believe the sacrifices He made in order for us to be apart of His Kingdom.

Sloan Bashinsky

Again, he said, the way to life is difficult and the gate narrow and few enter; and, many are called but few are chosen; and, the work is great, but the laborers are few. I simply cannot reconcile that with the salvation formula promoted by Christianity for a very long time, which certainly is attractive, but it just doesn’t mesh with the above.

    Last today, from a sect Christianity doesn’t recognize as having anything to do with God ... Reddit’s r/spirituality forum.

AffectionateSalt

Is it normal to be really sad after your spiritual awakening?

Don't get me wrong I'm really grateful for it but I just can't stop crying, there are lots of things I want to do with my life like writing and publishing books and also making art and music but right now I just feel like I can't do anything but cry and be sad about it. It's like the sadness of my entire life just caught up to me now. I'm 27 btw.

Puzzleheaded_Drop

If you didn’t go through something like this, and again, and again, you might wish to wonder if you were headed in the wrong direction. The spiritual path is long, steep, arduous, and while there is beauty and joy as well, it is not for the faint of heart, and it’s often been said, better not to start on the spiritual path, than to start and then try to get away from it.

Sound’s like you might be in a dark night the soul. Those things come on their own and leave when they are ready to leave. I know this both from reading various accounts of it, and then living it myself.

Some people who survive a dark night, then experience the black night, which is far more difficult.

In the black night, you pray to die and fear you won’t. You plan ongoing to kill yourself, but if you are lucky, or something stays your hand, you hang in there until it lifts. I read about it, then I experienced it.

You might wish to read St. John of the Cross: Alchemist of the Soul, by Antonio T. de Nicholas.

About 14 years after I was brought out of the black night, I experienced another dark night.

No two people are alike, so there is no cookie cutter recipe for the spiritual path, although there are some things that are constant. One constant is being stood before lots of mirrors looking at self. Another constant is starting to see the people and world around us very differently. Both processes are quite distressing and challenging,

Laueee

I was aware of the dark night but I had no idea of the black night.

Puzzleheaded_Drop

Juan de la Cruz described the dark night and the black night in his commentaries. He said there is some light in the dark night, and while it is rough, it is doable. However, he said there is no light in the black night, and woe be unto anyone it visits, who is not in the care of people who know it is a spiritual trial. I was not in such care, but then, shortly before the dark night arrived, I was told in my sleep by a familiar voice, “With respect to St. John of the Cross, you haven’t seen anything yet.” I woke up, terrified. A few months prior, I had read de Nicholas's book.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

if you go to Key West for a visit, you perhaps should know the waters around it and the Florida Keys contain MRSA flesh-eating bacteria and you need to take precautions before you dive in

Fort Zachary Taylor State Park

Key West

2017

    The day after Christmas, my younger daughter and her family flew to Key West for a vacation. She is a medical doctor. Before they left for Key West, I told her that the waters around Key West and all of the Florida Keys are full of MRSA, and she and her family should wait 24 hours after shaving, before going into the ocean. I told her to have hydrogen peroxide handy, to treat any nicks or scratches they got on the skin while diving, swimming or fishing in the ocean. I told her that doctors and divers in the Keys know the ocean is full of MRSA flesh-eating bacteria, which is fatal, if not properly treated.

    From Wikipedia:

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a group of gram-positive bacteria that are genetically distinct from other strains of Staphylococcus aureus. MRSA is responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It caused more than 100,000 deaths worldwide attributable to antimicrobial resistance.

    Representative photos of MRSA abscesses, I found among many more by google searching MRSA images online:

    For over a week, I have dreamed of being in Key West, doing something, but I could not figure out what, or how the dreams applied to me now, up here in Birmingham. Had yet another dream (last night) about me being in Key West. The rear tire on my bicyle was low on air. There were old familiar faces, including 5-time mayor Craig Cates. during his victory celebration party after he won the first time, without a runoff, in 2009, Craig thanked me for that outcome, as did his campaign manager. At candidate forums, I had told the audience, if they didn’t vote for me, then vote for Craig, who was born and raised and had lived his life in Key West.

    Ruminating on all of that this morning, my thoughts drifted to what I still think isthe most important issue facing Key West and the entire Florida Keys: the sea waters there are full of MRSA flesh-eating bacteria. This is known to local divers, who carry hydrogen peroxide with them to dab on any nicks or cuts they get on their skin while diving. It is known to local physicians, who treat MRSA infections all the time.

    I learned of MRSA in 2003, when nasty abscesses erupted on either side of my penis and on my right buttock. I was sleeping nights in a tent in the wetlands near the city’s airport. At that time, the city had a free medical clinic, run by Dr. Ian Garriques, a retired infectious disease specialist. His clinic was in the local hospital on the next island above Key West, known as Stock Island. After seeing my abscesses, Dr. Garrizues got onto the hospital’s internal telephone and talked with a local surgeon, named Michael Klitenic, who came straight away to the free clinic and examined me. Dr. Klitenic called on the hospital phone and arranged emergency surgery that evening. I left on my bicycle and came back into town and went to the local Florida Key Outreach shelter, run by a non-profit, and was assigned a bed, for I could not sleep in a tent and safely recover from the surgery.

    That evening, I rode my bicycle back to the hospital and checked in and was assigned a room. The anesthesiologist came by and asked me if I was allergic to any anesthesia? I said don’t use a valium, unless he wanted me to sleep until the next day. He said he didn’t think it wise to use a spinal block, because if the MRSa had entered my blood and body fluids, the needle might transport the MRSA into my cerebral-spinal fluid. I tsaid had been a massage therapist and cranio-sacral practitioner, and I knew about that risk, and I agreed that he should use general anesthesia.

    After the surgery, I had three gaping holes in my flesh. Dr. Klitinek came by my room, examined the wounds, said I could do anything I wanted to do, except go into the ocean. I didn’t ask him why, but I figured he didn’t think the ocean was sanitary, as it was well known to be infected with bacteria found in human shit.

    I was put on a very powerful antibiotic, which tore me up internally. As those three surgery wounds slowly healed, I got a new huge MRSA boil between my anus and my testicles, and back to the hospital I went, to the ER, where I was attended by Dr. Garirques’ medical partner, whose name I do not now recall. He said he agreed with me that MRSAc can be passed by human contact. He lanced the new MRSA infection and injected it with an antibiotic and gave me a new prescription.

    The three surgery wounds slowly healed, and 4th infection subsided, but new MRSA infections kept appearing on my skin, and I went to see Dr. Garriques and he prescribed another round of antibiotics. The abscess healed, and a new abscess showed up, and back to Dr. Garriques I went. The newest MRSA abscess was on my right hand.

    I told Dr. Garriques that we both were professionals and he could level with me. Did medicine have an answer for MRSA? He said he had talked with doctors all over America, and medicine did not have an answer to MRSA. I said that must be really hard on him, who had devoted his life to healing people. He looked like he might cry. He wrote a new script for the same antibiotic he had prescribed before. 

    That night in my sleep, I had a dream that caused me on waking to think I should take one day’s dosage of the new prescription, and then stop taking it and see what happened. So, that’s what I did, and as days passed, the new MRSA lesion began to recede, and after about 20 days it was healed over.. There was no way in medical science that infection could have healed, which left me to pin the cure on angels. That, and no new MRSA boils appeared on my skin.

    In 2004 or 2005, Dr. Garriques published a letter to the editor in the Key West Citizen, which was read all over the Florida Keys, that MRSA was being treated by doctors throughout the Florida Keys and was pandemic in the Keys.

    Around 2007, a friend of mine shaved one morning, went for a swim in the lagoon in front of his home on Summerland Key, and a few days later he had a MRSA abscess on his left cheek. His doctor prescribed something that finally got rid of it. Perhaps by then, Keys doctors had learned that prescribing several antibiotics, rotating between them every few days, along with steroid injections to shock MRSA, finally would prevail?

    In 2009, a MRSA lesion came up on the right side of my belly, after I got into a fracas with Mayor Morgan McPherson over something regarding his wife, who was lovely and a very respected educator in the local system. There had been a scandal in the school system, and law enforcement had interviewed everyone but Morgan’s wife, and I wondered out loud on my blog, goodmorningkeywest.com (no longer available) why that was so? 

    Morgan was a very large man, and that night in my sleep, two huge gorilla football players slammed into my right side, and when I woke that morning, my low back was out and I would be weeks recovering from that. Meanwhile, the MRSA abscess appeared on the right side of my belly, and I wrote about that on my blog, goodmorningkeywest.com (no longer available).

    A woman friend, who read my blog told me to go to CVS and buy a small jar of Vaseline petroleum jelly, generic would do, and a bottle of red iodine, and get flat kitchen knife and scoop out a small hole in the petroleum jelly and fill the hole with red iodine, and use the knife to poke and mix the iodine into the jelly, until the entire concoction was pink, and then I should apply a dab of that to the MRSA abscess 4 times a day. She said no bacteria can survive iodine. She said to store the remedy in a cool, dark space, with the lid tight, as air and light diminish idoine’s effectiveness. In about 2 weeks, the MRSA wound was healed over.

    I shared that on my blog, which was read all over the Florida Keys. 

    A friend told me of a physician up in Marathon, about 50 miles up US 1 from Key West, who had developed a band-aid with iodine on the patch, to treat MRSA. I got his email address and  emailed him about the petroleum jelly-iodine cure. He replied that it he wasn’t interested, because he could not make money off iodine and petroleum jelly.

    There was a hugely popular public forum at bigpinekey.com, called The Coconut Telegraph. Its owner had created my blog for me. I published a lot in that forum over the years, and some people there liked me, and a lot of people there really didn’t like me. 

    Around 2011, I published on the Coconut Telegraph what I had experienced with MRSA, and that local divers and physicians knew local waters were full of MRSA, and the risk of going into the water with a nick or scratch on the skin. I described the petroleum jelly iodine remedy, and was blasted by several Coconut Telegraph readers, who said I was full of shit and should be ignored.

    A reader then wrote on the Coconut Telegraph that he was a professional diver and Sloan was correct, local divers knew the ocean was full of MRSA.

    A couple of weeks later, a woman on the Florida West coast published at the Coconut Telegraph that she lived on the Florida West coast and was going crazy over not being able to be healed of a MRSA abscess on her skin, and she read what I had published on the Coconut Telegraph and she used it and her MRSA was gone and her sanity and life were saved. 

    I posted at the Coconut Telegraph that the local governments, lodging industry, ocean sports industry, and the Tourist Development Council needed to be warning visitors to the Florida Keys about the horrible risk they took by going into the ocean with a nick or scratch on their skin, say, from shaving. Visitors enjoy their trip, go home, have a MRSA outbreak on their skin, go to their doctor, begin fighting for their lives, and they and their doctor don’t have a clue how they got it.

    Nothing came back from Coconut Telegraph readers. 

    The Florida Keys economy then, and today, is totally dependent on tourism. 

    During the 2014 Key Westmayor’s race, in which I was a candidate, there was a candidate debate on a popular local radio station. I told the listening audience about the MRSA problem in the ocean and that tourists needed to be warned about it. Incumbent Mayor Craig Cates said I was wrong, Key West waters were clean and beautiful and safe - Ya’ll come! I shook my head.

    Around 2016, a homeless man I knew well contracted MRSA and was put into an intensive care room in the hospital on Stock Island. I rode my bicycle up there a couple of times to visit him. He was hooked up to IV drips. He said he was getting one antibiotic, then a different antibiotic, back and forth, to mitigate MRSA’s ability to mutate. And, he was receiving a steroid for a while every day, to shock and weaken the MRSA. He was in the hospital about 3 weeks, as i recall, before he was released. He did not have a recurrence of MRSA.

    MRSA was greatly feared by homeless people in Key West, who knew about it. A long-time homeless man there told me that back in the old days, homeless people kept vinegar handy, to pour on a cut, nick or scratch on the skin, to prevent catching MRSA.

    Many times I saw homeless people in Key West with gauze bandages around their wrist, arms, ankles and lower legs, which meant they had MRSA. After the homeless shelter was built on Stock Island in 2005, homeless clients with MRSA were segregate from other clients.

    During my time in Key West, I became very good friends with a couple who published Key West the Newspaper, thebluepaper.com. Naja was American, Arnaud was French. The blue paper relentlessly rocked the establishment boat in Key West and the lower Keys. The blue paper had a very large reader base, extending into the U.S. mainland.

    Arnaud operated a salvage boat and was in the ocean in diving gear as part of that business. He caught MRSA. He and Naja knew how very difficult MRSA was to treat, and how expensive going into the local hospital on Stock Island would be. Since Arnaud had dual citizenship, he flew to a French Island in the Caribbean, where he was treated in a hospital for a lot less money than he would have paid at the hospital on Stock Island.

    Earlier this year, I realized something that I had not understood when I lived in Key West. I realized osquitoes were Mother Nature’s first line of defense against the invasive species, humans. Mother Nature’s second line of defense was occasional kick ass hurricanes. That kept invasive species somewhat in check.

    Eventually, the invasive species created a Mosquito Control Board, which acquired aircraft and helicopters and modern insecticides, which got rid of most of the freshwater breeding mosquitoes and made Key West and the Florida Keys far more comfortable for the invasive species, and far more attractive to real estate developers.

    As did widening of US 1 and building a much bigger diameter freshwater waterline from the mainland to Key West. Before the new waterline was built, real estate development was dead, because new construction could not tap into the old waterline, which was maxed out.

    After the new waterline was built, development exploded in the Florida Keys and Key West. Septic tanks and cesspits were all over the keys, as were people living on boats and dumping their raw sewage into the water. 

    The raw sewage, and the silt from bulldozing roads in new developments and dredging new canals, drifted out to the beautiful reef, which began to die, to the point that 95 percent of it was dead when I arrived in Key West in 2000, homeless.

    Also in play, the Florida Legislature declared the Florida Keys an area of critical environmental concern, and new residential real estate development permits were tied into how fast the Keys could be evacuated ahead of an incoming hurricane. The faster the Keys could be evacuated, the more new residential building permits could be issued by local governments, and the more hotels and motels could be built.

    The local Keys governments and chambers of commerce said they were trying to save lives by enabling quicker evacuation before hurricanes, but the real reason was to please developers.

    I had loved the Florida Keys since my family spent spring break at the Ocean Reef Club on the upper east end of Key Largo, That’s when I fell in love with fishing the flats for bonefish.

    We came back the next year at spring break, and stayed in Islamorada, where I caught my first bonefish, and was totally hook, line and sinker gobsmacked in love with fishing in the Florida Keys.

    In 1963, my father bought a home on the Atlantic Ocean on Lower Matecumbe Key, in lower Islamorada. That’s when I learned to pole my own boat and catch bone fish all by myself.

    Back then, the Florida Keys truly were paradise.

    In early 1995, angels sent me to Big Pine Key, where, whenI was in law school, I had caused a large Tarpon near the Old Wooden Bridge remains after a fire burned it mostly down. During that 1995 trip, on the new concrete bridge, I had a vision that nearly ripped my heart out: that since I loved the Keys so much, I would be used to try to protect them.

    I ran the first time for the Monroe County Commission in 2006. My campaign mantra was, “No more new development, period, the end. The Florida Keys already are way-over-developed and there is not a person living here who can look in a mirror and honestly say otherwise."

    At a candidate forum in Key West, I was asked what did I think of the talk about making Mosquito Control part of the county government again? I paused, said, I would get rid of Mosquito Control, because I think the chemicals it uses are more dangerous than the mosquitoes. The incumbent county commissioner sitting beside me, chuckled, said, “That would create a lot of affordable housing.”

    It that context, it occurred to me earlier this year that Mother Nature took high offense to being raped in the Florida Keys, and She responded with MRSA, and early this year, 2023, I wove all of that into The Return of the Strange, which was the sequel to the novel, Heavy Wait: A Strange Tale, which fell out of me in April-May-June 2001, in Helen, Georgia, where I spent nights in a tent on a friend’s land that summer, to get away from the Key West heat, mosquitoes and hurricanes.

    The Preface of Heavy Wait explains how it was inspired by a dream I had while sleeping in a doorway in Key West, featuring that friend, who was a street performer I had met in Key West earlier in 2001. In the dream, he was riding a 6-foot unicycle and juggling and he was teaching me how to do my own street act. The next time I saw him was Helen. He was doing his act on the town square, riding a 6-foot unicorn and juggling. 

    We had dinner afterward, and then returned to his home outside of Helen, where he said he had heard I wrote books. I said, yes. He asked if I had ever written a novel? I said, yes, three. He said he had a great storyline for a novel, did I want to hear it? I said, yes, He told me the storyline and ask, if I could write that novel? I said, yes, I had lived the first half of the story line in 2000. His jaw dropped.

    Heavy Wait is a really wild ride that starts off in Birmingham, Alabama, and wends its way down to Port St. Joe and Apalachicola, Florida, then back to Birmingham, then to the Oprah show, and then to the Caribbean island, Dominica, then back to Birmingham, and ends up with the disbarred lawyer hero Riley Strange in a north Florida prison, and his 2nd wife, Willa Sue Jenkins, who looks just like Rile’s 1st wife, Mary Lou Snow, who died tragically, writing to her good friend Oprah, who made Willa Sue and Riley the most popular people in America, with a great deal of help from President George Bush and his Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who had Riley prosecuted for saving Willa Sue’s life and her sanity.

    Return of the Strange takes up where Heavy Wait left off, and then all the gloves come all off after Oprah and Larry King and their legions of fans are chanting “Riley for president!” and “Willa Sue for First Lady!”, while on Oprah and Larry King Live Riley is eviscerating America at war and the invasive species, and on the Coconut Telegraph he is evicerating the local governments in Key West and the Florida Keys for lying down and spreading their legs wide to developers hell-bent on destroying Mother Nature’s beautiful Florida Keys.

    Both tales can be read for free at the internet library, archive.org. Heavy Wait should be read first. Here are links:

https://archive.org/details/heavy-wait-a-strange-tale_202212

https://archive.org/details/retun-of-the-strange-v-20_202306

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com