Just when you thought it was safe to go back to your mailboxes....!

Some people think that this is a continuation of my newsletter. But is isn't. This is in lieu of a personal letter to all of my friends. No one receives one of these in the mail unless our paths have crossed in some way which was meaningful to me. I would love to hear from each of you, but realize that many of you are too busy to write. However, I also accept audio and/or video cassette letters. I enjoy writing these letters because I get to talk non-stop and say whatever I want!

When I left off in my last letter, I was hopelessly trapped in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was hot, humid and rainy all summer. But after Labor Day it turned out cool, dry and sunny. I continued to hike and ride my motorcycle as often as I could.

Virginia is a very beautiful state and has a lot of paved secondary roads down which I loved to ride my motorcycle. Twenty miles west of Charlottesville is the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is a Parkway which goes for well over a thousand miles through the Blue Ridge Mountains from North Carolina to New York. It skips all of the towns, has no stop signs or traffic lights, and has a speed limit of 45. Several years ago I had ridden the southern beginning of it in North Carolina, starting in the Smoky Mountain National Park.

When the weather turned dry in September, I often rode on it. I never ceased to be amazed by the beauty revealed from that road. But, as a Kansan, I am always awed by trees and hills. If you ever get a chance, drive that Parkway. You will always be glad you did.

I never was able to meet anybody to whom I could relate in Charlottesville, so I kept pretty much to myself. By good fortune, Simon was there at an Ashram 20 miles south of town. He was my one saving grace. I had met him in Sedona the previous winter but had the opportunity to really get to know him this summer.

Unfortunately, his visa had expired and he had to leave the country. I missed him a lot. He went to India for six months. Then he returned to the US for a while before returning to India. I have not seen him since that Fall, but stay in touch with him through the mails. He is very happy in India and certainly seems to have found understanding, peace and bliss for himself. I am very, very happy for him.

I never did go back on the Psychic Counselors Telephone Network, continuing to live off my MasterCard and Visa until they were full and then had to borrow several thousand dollars from my parents. I had a six month lease which I had to pay whether I lived there or not, so I sat around waiting for an insurance job to come up.

Early in September I went to Washington, DC to attend another Bill Bauman seminar. There I met a lot of wonderful people from all over the country. the seminar was at a hotel and I slept in my van in the hotel parking lot.

There is not a lot more to say about my Virginia experience. It was pretty boring. In September and October I did have a lot of trouble with noisy neighbors. The neighbor on one side kept me up until 3 AM and the neighbor on the other side woke me up at 6 AM. Needless to say I don't have fond memories of Charlottesville.

In the middle of October I went to a couple of rock shops and sold most of my crystals at a "rock" bottom price. When I came out of that second store, I KNEW that I would be out of Charlottesville within ten days. Selling the crystals was a sure indication that my energy was beginning to move. Nine days later I left for Lincoln, Nebraska.

There was a possibility that I might have gone to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, but that fell through. On October 21, I had a dream that I had moved back to my parents' house in KC without having closed out my life in Charlottesville, including leaving all my stuff there. In the dream I thought that maybe it was a dream, but I looked around and everything was so detailed that I knew it was real. Somehow I had gotten in my van and driven to KC. Now I would have to turn around and drive back there to get my possessions. Just to make sure, I pinched myself and it hurt, so It was no dream. Then I cried out several times, "please, God, let this be a dream'" After the third time the phone rang and woke me up. It was my head hunter telling me that the company, Lincoln Benefit Life, wanted me as soon as I could get there. Weird dream. I never could figure what it meant, except for the obvious.

I quickly canceled my utilities, took my couch back to Goodwill (who didn't want it back), packed my stuff and cleaned my apartment. My lease expired the end of November so I had to pay that month's rent before I left. However, I had a half month's free rent coming and they let me use my $99 security toward the rent. Later they refunded my $99 security deposit, so that last month didn't cost me much.

I had filed a change of address with the Post Office but got no mail forwarded until I called them three weeks later. My absentee ballot was stuck in Charlottesville and I didn't get to vote for the first time since 1964.

I would have voted for Clinton. The reason I would have is that I felt that he was telling the electorate whatever he thought they wanted to hear, and that he had a secret agenda. However, the secret agenda I thought he had has yet to make an appearance. I think he was supposed to be president, but I don't yet know why. Perhaps it is to bankrupt the country. A good friend of mine says that it was so that we could get a strong female role model in the White House. That makes as much sense as anything. As of this writing the Whitewater investigation is getting bigger and bigger. Who knows what the conclusion to that will bring?

I left Charlottesville at two o'clock on October 23. I scrubbed and cleaned real hard and fast so I could leave with enough daylight to see the colorful leaves as I crossed the mountains. They were at the height of their color. I was wearing sunglasses and I had never seen such intense colors before in my life. When the sun shined on the reds and the oranges it was as if they were lit from within. It was awesome! I took off my sunglasses to go through a tunnel. The colors weren't nearly as intense on the other side of the tunnel. Then the sun came out from behind a mountain and I had to put my sunglasses back on. The colors returned. My sunglasses were tinted red and it was THEY that were causing the intensity of color. But it was still beautiful. And now I understood what my pot smoking college friends meant when they said, "the colors, man, the colors"!

After the sun went down and I turned on my headlights, I noticed that only one of the motorcycle trailer's taillights was working. Normally I would worry about getting a ticket for this. But I ABSOLUTELY KNEW that no one would stop me for this. I KNEW nothing bad could happen to me. And, of course, it didn't. This was most unusual, for normally I would have worried about a flat tire, the motorcycle falling off the trailer, or getting a ticket for a non-functioning taillight. But this time there were no worries.

I drove most of the way to KC before stopping at a rest stop for a brief nap. I stayed in KC an extra day, giving up a sorely needed day's wages, to watch the KC Chiefs on TNT. They got their butts beat bad by Pittsburgh 27-7. In hindsight, I should have gone on to Lincoln.

I spent fourteen months working in Lincoln. I handled it okay for the first six weeks but then most of my Spirit decided it didn't want to be involved in such boring work so it left. I was left with about one cylinder to try to get by on. But enough of the heavy vibrations! I won't bore you with my experiences there. Suffice it to say that almost every month my van broke down and I spent $2700 in repairs. On the positive side, I was working so had the money to pay for the repairs.

Lincoln is a VERY nice town, despite the fact that everyone there is a Cornhusker and I am a Jayhawk. I didn't advertise that fact and they let me live. It has a population of about 225,000 but feels much smaller. Everyone says it is a great place to raise a family.

The city, as well as the entire state, is fanatical about Cornhusker football. On game day red flags were everywhere and the game was on TV and radio in every store in town.

I was reminded of something that happened to me in the Fall of 1970. At that time I was living in and working out of St. Joseph, MO. I was working as a bill collector on farm equipment. A young farmer was going out of business and having an auction to sell everything. As he was selling equipment which he had mortgaged with my company, I had to be there to get certified funds.

This took place on a Saturday morning in Odell, NE, a small town in the south central part of the state. The sale was over by noon. I was waiting around to get my check to take to the local bank. A man who had bought some cattle had driven into the barnyard. It had rained heavily the night before and the barnyard was quite muddy. The truck got stuck in the mud.

About a dozen of us men stayed around to try and help the man get his truck out of the mud without success. After a while I looked up and noticed I was the only one left trying to push the truck out of the mud. It was 1:15. I saw a man walking away and asked him why everybody had left. As if it explained everything, he told me that the Nebraska football game was about to start. I shrugged and decided to go in to town to the bank.

When I got to the bank it had a sign on the front door, "Closed. Reopen at 4:30." So I went across the street to the cafe to get some lunch. There was a sign on the front door which said, "Closed. Reopen at 4:30." It seemed that whole town (such as it was) closed down until the football game was over. At least it was on TV and not just the radio! But such is the allegiance of the Cornhusker fans of Nebraska.

There are only two things I didn't like about Lincoln. Everyone drives 10-15 mph below the speed limit. I am from Kansas City. When I see a speed limit of 40, I expect the cars to be going 50! Especially on Ward Parkway coming into the Plaza from the south. The other thing I hated was Cindy Wanek's voice. She, her husband and his twin brother owned a furniture store in Crete, NE, about 20 miles away from Lincoln. She has a high pitched, squeaky, obnoxious sounding voice. She does all of the radio commercials for the store. Every week she announced the next sale of the century. The commercials ran several times every hour on most radio stations. Every time I heard her voice, I cringed and changed stations. Only one person I talked to didn't despise her voice, and she was a personal friend of Cindy's.

One of the things I liked a lot about Lincoln is the cookie stores. There were several cookie stores downtown and they all made great cookies. I couldn't eat just one dozen! People were always bringing them to the office. Even the motel where I was staying occasionally gave me cookies. I loved it!

The streets in Lincoln are named after famous alphabets, namely the English alphabet. I found this out by looking up a store in the Yellow Pages to find it located on N street. But it didn't say N what street. Fortunately they ran east and west so they didn't have N N street.

Lincoln doesn't have a lot of nice restaurants, mostly fast food, but did have two brew pubs, or microbreweries, which brew their own beer. Interestingly enough, once more showing that the Universe has a sense of humor, both of these brew pubs are located on "P" street.

In Chicago, where I last worked, I would go to the bank upon which my paycheck was drawn to cash it. It would take thirty minutes to cash it. I later found out that the cashier had to go to a different floor and talk to one of their accountants who would then call the treasurer of the company for which I worked to make sure that the check was not a forgery. If someone was on the phone or out to lunch I was out of luck. This happened each time even though I went to the same cashier each time.

In Lincoln when I cashed my paycheck I seldom had to show identification. It took about thirty seconds. Even when I came in wearing jeans, they cashed it without hesitation.

There is very little crime in Lincoln. Gangs, drugs and drive by shootings are virtually non existent. If someone gets their car stolen it makes the six o'clock news. Eric Piatkowski is a senior basketball player for the University of Nebraska. One evening he left a bar with an open bottle of beer in his hands. A bored but alert cop saw this and arrested him. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't littering and he wasn't "P" ing in the bushes. He just had an open bottle of beer in his hands.

Well I tell you. It made me sleep better at night knowing ole Eric wasn't roaming the streets with an open bottle of beer in his hands! He was put in an alcohol diversion program for first offenders, thereby avoiding hard time and, no doubt, a life of drunken debauchery. I read about this incident and the subsequent followup as he went through the criminal justice system in the newspaper at least five times.

While Lincoln had a daily newspaper, I mostly read the Omaha Herald because their sports page covered something besides Nebraska football. it is a staunchly reactionary, ultra conservative, antiliberal newspaper. They hate anything that smacks of liberalism, despite what it might be called. President Clinton went to Liberal, KS to dedicate a library or something and they refused to print the story because the dateline would have to be LIBERAL, KS! Clinton had been president a week, a week mind you, when their lead editorial declared his entire presidency a failure. This is a true story.

As is usual the company paid for my motel room and paid for my meals and other expenses. They put me up at the Residence Inn. There I had a double bed, cable TV with HBO, a refrigerator, indoor plumbing, electricity, a dishwasher, garbage disposal, a microwave, and maid service! I thought I had found the promised land! Then I had to go to work. One of the wonderful things I took with me from Lincoln was 18 six hour videocassettes of syndicated reruns of Night Court and Married With Children. I will have months of mirth watching the zany antics of those two bunches.

One of the first things I spent money on, besides my van which doesn't count because that wasn't any fun, was a boom box with CD player. During the ensuing year I spent over $800 on CD's and now have something else to lug around with me in my van.

Lincoln Benefit Life is the nicest place I have ever worked. I could never have imagined people so nice to work with. Everyone with whom I dealt there was friendly and helpful. The company has doubled in size the last two years. Most of the people they hired were young men and women right out of the University. Many of them grew up in small towns in rural Nebraska and came to Lincoln either to go to the University of Nebraska or right out of some small college in outstate Nebraska.

The energy of these young people is incredible. I must have fallen in love at least three times a day. The women were intelligent as well as pretty and nice. I know that because they had more sense that to talk to a worthless reprobate like myself. Nevertheless, sooner or later they had to deal with me in a business way and I got to feel their lovely energy which radiated from them. I attended the Christmas party on December 17, 1992. I was absolutely amazed at the beauty of the women and the mature self confidence of the young men they were with. They were all self possessed and centered. No one got drunk, loud, or obnoxious. Later I observed them at the office. I decided that they were comfortable with themselves and needed no defenses. They were very open and had plenty of self esteem, so they were free to be just themselves, without any facades.

At least once a month the company had a "casual" day during which we could wear jeans and a sweatshirt. Between Christmas and New Years we had casual week. Also at least once a month the company would provide a free lunch for everyone, having it catered by one of the eateries downtown. Neither of these things had I ever experienced at a company before.

My boss there, Rodger, was a prince of a guy. We became friends and had many nice conversations. He is young, mid thirties, and was always concerned about the welfare of the people who worked for him. I have a lot of respect and admiration for him.

One of the first people whom I got to know was Susan. When I was introduced to her, I could see light glowing around her. She is one of only three people around whom I have seen this glow. The others were a Chiropractor in Chicago named Amy and a park ranger in Arkansas. Susan is about my age and recently married to a man from New Zealand. Susan's heart is wide open and I watched as people would flock to her to be loved. People just love to be around her because of the warm, loving energy she radiates. She was a temporary like me and, unfortunately, wasn't there very long.

Christy was a young woman in her late 20's. She is the most precious human being I have ever met. She is like a loving, innocent five year old girl who grew up but still has that cute, innocent five year old girl energy. I don't know how else to describe her. She was always happy, and even when overworked was always helpful and pleasant to the numerous agents who called in. She just liked being helpful. Just hearing her voice in the background never failed to bring a smile to my face.

Martin is a lot like Christy only male. He is from England and all of the women love his accent. He was hired after I had been there several months. When he was brought in for his interview I met him in passing on a stairwell. Afterwards I went to Rodger and said hire him. When asked why I told him because he had good vibrations. Rodger groaned and said he was afraid I was going to say that!

But Rodger did hire him and Martin and I became friends. Martin's wife, Chris, is one of the most powerful human beings I have ever met She is not doing much with her power as yet except being a wife and mother, but she radiates power. You can feel it, just like you can feel heat from a flame. She is also very creative and makes and teaches many fine crafts.

Darlene was one of the lead clerks. She was always happy and outgoing. I watched her for months to see why she was always so happy. I thought maybe she was smoking those funny cigarettes before she came to work. Then I found out she had four children all five years old or younger. Then I knew why she was happy. She was just happy to get away from so many young children at home! Finally I asked her why she was always so happy. She said that was just the way she was and chose to be. She didn't let little things get her down (or big things, either, apparently) and lead from her heart. Amazing!

There are many more wonderful people I met at the office about whom I could talk, but will leave off with someone whom I only knew by phone. I dealt with a company which did a service for my company. When I needed help I would call Kathy Johnson. No matter how stressed out I was, when I heard her say, "Good morning. This is Kathy Johnson. How may I help you", I was instantly centered and relaxed. She was one of those rare people who experienced life almost entirely through her emotions. And that is how she expressed herself. Everything she said was slow and heavy with feeling energy. No matter how stuck I was, she always took me out of my head. Some days I looked for excuses to call her just to hear her voice. When she finished her greeting, I would say, "You have, just hearing your voice." I did tell her why I felt that way, but otherwise did not flirt with her.

Shortly after I started at the company I brought a small crystal cluster to put on my desk. Rodger stopped by to tell me something and commented on the crystal. So I gave it to him and brought in another the next day. Soon other people were commenting on the crystals so I brought in all of the crystals I had left which I was willing to give away. Within a month I had given away about fifty. Even after the move to the new building I would walk around and see my crystals on everybody's desk.

One day I was in the computer room where we got all our reports hot off the computer. Linda was busy tearing the edges off both sides of a thick computer report. In another useless attempt to be friendly with the office help, I asked Linda if she could tear telephone books, too. She said that she couldn't because they had no punch lines. Then she set down the report, looked me in the eye, and said, "Neither do your jokes!"

One of the highlights of my Lincoln stay took place in a shopping mall. I was distantly following a man who was carrying a six month old baby over his shoulder. The baby looked suitably bored when it suddenly focused on me. Suddenly its eyes lit up and it smiled broadly at me and waved. It touched me deeply. It was like being recognized by God.

The one thing that I did for myself while I was there that allowed me to live through 14 months of work without a day off was to get a massage once a week. I picked Amy's card up at a New Age bookstore because it had good vibrations. Soon I had a weekly appointment for an hour massage every Tuesday at five. I let nothing get in the way of that.

Amy is the most together human being whom I have ever met. She is very aware spiritually and knows how to integrate that with the human. it is the most dynamite blend of spiritual and human awareness I have ever come across. I must have some good karma because she and I became friends. Amy is one of those delightful (from and full of light) people that you don't want to let go of when you hug them. Her hugs were instant Nirvana.

As were her massages. Amy was dating a very nice man who lived in Independence, MO. Since they lived so far apart, they didn't get to spend much time together, especially without her two beautiful children. But over Labor Day weekend Amy rode down to KC with me while her ex-husband took the kids for the weekend. At the end of the weekend Evan brought Amy back to where I was staying.

On the four hour ride back to Lincoln, Amy was in a very heart place, missing Evan so much after really spending quality time with him. Of course I felt this emotional heart energy coming from her because she was emoting so strongly. The next day I came for my massage and she was still in this very emotional state, full of love for Evan and missing him. I asked how Evan was. That opened her up even more. She sent (unknowingly) all of that warm, loving, emotional energy out of her hands into my body. It was the most incredibly wonderful experience of my life. Surely heaven must feel a lot like that. I was floating! Needless to say, the first words out of my mouth next week were, ''How's Evan", but she was out of that intensely emotional state and it didn't do me any good.

The weather in Lincoln during the whole of my time there was just on the wrong side of horrible. Ice storms, snow storms, cold weather, rains, the works. How it can be fifteen degrees and still rain, I don't know. But it happened several times per week my first winter there. Except for flash flooding we didn't get the floods most of the rest of the Midwest got because there are no rivers in Lincoln. It was all around us though.

At 11 PM on July 8, 1993 Lincoln got the most destructive storm, dollarwise, in its history. A thunderstorm blew up Interstate 80 from mid Nebraska into Iowa. Winds of one hundred miles per hour at the front of the storm blew down trees, powerlines and roofs. Until this time the floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes occurring around the country were just pictures on TV to me. But the wind blew off the gravel roof of a building just upwind from the motel. Gravel from the roof shattered the windows on one side of my van as well as all the other cars in the parking lot. This I did not realize until I left for work the next morning.

Everything inside my van was covered in water and glass. Fortunately most of what could be ruined by water I had already removed from my van. A tree had also fallen on my motorcycle and broken its windshield--the third broken windshield in three years. Five months later I found out that the tree had first fallen on my van and put a big indentation in the roof. None of this was covered by insurance, but, again, fortunately, I had plenty of money to pay for repairs. After that, the disasters on TV seemed a little more personal.

I met Heather at a group meditation. I was already sitting in the room when she walked in. When I looked at her it was as if she were in three D while everyone else in the room was 2 D. Or as if she were in color and the rest of the people were in black and white. She stood out that much. She and I also became friends. Her husband, Rob, was very nice, also, but I didn't have the pleasure of getting to know him as well as I would have liked because he often was busy when the group got together.

I never did figure why Heather stood out so much, but she continued to do so every time I saw her.

I also met Lawrence at the group meditation. We chatted while we sat next to each other on the couch. I thought it would be nice to get to know him better over lunch, but was tired of always being the unknown in groups and having to take the initiative. No sooner had I thought that than he asked if I wanted to meet for lunch!

I became good friends with him and his wife, Monnie. They like to shoot bows and arrows and I had always wanted to get one and shoot, so I did and we did. It was quite a treat. There is an archery range west of Lincoln and one fine Fall day we went out there and I got to play Robin Hood! I only went out that once, but still carry the bow and arrows with me. Spending most of my time in National Forests, I am sure there are more ranges for me to find.

Over last Labor Day Weekend I visited Stan in KC. A drummer from one of his bands came by to watch my KC Chiefs with us. I mentioned that I really liked drums but had no rhythm. He said that everybody had rhythm. I then told him that the only people who had any rhythm in my family were my parents, and if they had had any rhythm at all I wouldn't be here!

It was good to get to watch my Chiefs again. I had season tickets for seventeen years from 1972 and saw some of the worst football imaginable. All of the Chiefs' games were televised in Lincoln so I got to watch them play well for a change. Watching the beer commercials during the games was about as close as I come anymore to having sex. My adopted lifestyle rather precludes any romantic involvements. In fact, it has been so long since I had sex, I forget who gets tied up first!

While in Lincoln I heard a twist on the Paul Revere tale:

Listen children and you will hear,
the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
He pushed the starter, stepped on the gas,
the bottom fell out and he fell on his ass.
One if by land, two if by sea. And hold up three fingers if you want pizza. I have to go out anyway!

Last summer, besides being very difficult for me, was very strange. All my dreams from the first of June until the middle of August were very detailed. I did not appear in any of them. It was as if I were watching 1950's black and white TV shows. They were very detailed and realistic. I would wake up every 15-20 minutes all night, every night in these dreams. Then suddenly in mid August they stopped and I went back to my usual, more dreamlike dreams.

But speaking of dreams, three years ago in Sedona I had a most unusual dream. First a little background. Several years ago I made up a song titled, "The Easter Bunny Meets the NRA." "Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail, Bang! Splat!"

With this in mind, I was dreaming of a column of soldiers marching with rifles singing some song I see them singing in movies. Then the scene shifted to a single soldier who tripped and fell forward spread-eagled into a mud puddle. In my dream as this happened, I heard the words, Trip! Splat' Still asleep, I started laughing. I laughed so hard that I woke myself up. As it was quite early I tried to go back to sleep. But every time I started to drift off, I would start laughing again. So I got up. And that is the story of how I actually saw the sun rise one morning. I have seen it set many times but always had to assume that it rose in the morning.

Due to these dreams and my lack of sleep over the summer, it was hard for me to function. I had to concentrate ALL my attention on what I was doing in the moment and hope l was doing it at least close to correctly. As a consequence of this I learned a lot about living in the moment, since nothing else mattered. I took things as they came and did my best. There was no yesterday. There was no tomorrow. There was just one big now with which I had to cope. Later I realized that I had been suffering from All Time Is disease!

In May I had told Rodger that I would stay until the end of the year if they wanted me that long, but no longer. In October he told me that they did want me until the end of the year. Finally I was able to make some plans about getting back on the road. One thing I no longer wanted to do was carry my computer and printer with me as they took up so much room.

Since by this time I was accumulating a bit of money, I decided to buy a Macintosh laptop computer. Eventually I did buy their Powerbook computer and their portable inkjet printer. I bought the top of the line computer as an act of power even though the bottom of the line, at $1800 less, would have been sufficient for me.

I am most pleased with it. The computer and the printer are easy to use and take up very little space in my van. I have connections for both which allow me to run them off the battery in the van. It is so neat to be able to print letter quality right here in my van. Even this letter was printed in my van. In past years I had to go to a print shop and use their laser printers.

I even bought a portable CD player and miniature speakers so I wouldn't have to leave all of my CD's behind. Though I had to find room for them! I did leave my boom box behind, though. It was just too big.

On December 5, 1993 I went to a concert in Lincoln of Windham Hill's Winter Solstice. Primarily I went to hear my favorite group, Nightnoise, who were performing with a couple of other artists. Cricket's Wicket is my favorite song by Nightnoise. I first heard it in 1986 on a tape of New Age music a friend had made for me. I didn't know the name of the song or the group who had recorded it. But the concert ended without them playing that song. Though a standing ovation brought them out for one last song. It was Cricket's Wicket.

When I heard that familiar refrain, it reminded me of the first, and only other, time I heard Nightnoise in concert. It was December 5, 1986. It was Sharon's birthday. She was the friend who had made me the tape. Listening to Nightnoise I thought they could be the group who had performed my favorite song. But I didn't let my hopes get up, thinking that all of Windham Hill's groups might sound a bit alike. But then they played that song! I remember looking down at Sharon with a big grin on my face and saying, "It's them! It's them!" Obviously I was too mellowed out and happy to speak proper English. I don't know what else it could have been. After that concert I went to the lobby and bought their album and have been happily listening to it ever since. So I guess that I get to hear Nightnoise live in concert every seven years on December 5. I can't wait until the year 2000!

I met Matt and Erin through Amy. They are a wonderful couple, though I didn't have the opportunity to get to know them well. They were nice enough to invite me to their Christmas party. They invited a lot of their friends from the office and some New Age friends. ALL of my New Age friends were there, about ten of us.

I wasn't sure how I would be able to handle a party, as I had had only twelve hours sleep in the preceding four nights, including none the night before. My ass was dra-a-a-gging. I did my best to keep to myself that evening as I tend to say dumb things when I am very tired. Yet the mood of the evening and these special people was so peaceful. As the evening wore on I became so relaxed. I was just there, feeling the energy and not saying anything. It was one of those very rare moments for me where I could have lived forever in that moment.

About the last thing I did in Lincoln was to watch the Orange Bowl game between Nebraska and Florida State with a dozen drunk and semi-drunk Cornhusker fans who screamed at almost every play. It was one of the most exciting games I have ever seen. Laura, a friend from the office, had just bought a new house and a giant TV screen with her fiance and had invited me over to watch the game. Well, that was about all the excitement I could stand on a cold night in Nebraska!

During the Fall it had occurred to me that I could buy a new van and still have enough money to live for a year or two. Once bitten by the buy-a-van bug, I could not get away. Trouble was I didn't know whether I wanted a camper van, a cargo van, or a conversion van. I spent one whole day over Thanksgiving with my Dad looking at vans. At the end of the day I realized we hadn't even gotten inside one, much less deciding what kind I wanted.

I continued looking once back in Lincoln after that weekend. I found one that I liked; a 1991 GM conversion van with a raised roof and low mileage. I decided that it was exactly what I wanted. Even though I didn't feel particularly good about this van for some reason, I decided to buy it if the price were right. They were asking $13,788 for it. We were dickering over price and I made an offer and wrote out a check. After the salesman had left the room with my check to take it to his manager, I suddenly had the worst feeling about the van. I suddenly did not want it at any price. Fortunately they declined my offer and I hot footed it out of there. I thought that was a fine time to get a feeling one way or the other about a van!

But I did decide to buy a van only if I felt GOOD about it. The day after I left Lincoln I went to St. Louis to buy a van from Beihlman Van, the largest van dealer in the world. They sell 50 vans every day, seven days per week. While their prices were very good on new vans, they were still more than I wanted to pay. I looked at their only two used vans with a raised roof, which was what I finally decided I wanted to buy. Both left me cold. As I was getting ready to leave, the salesman said he wanted to check something. He found out they had taken in a van like I wanted just the day before except it was not white as I had specified, but silver and dark blue.

I looked at it and immediately got very good vibrations from it. It had a raised roof, power locks/windows, and a TV/VCR. It was very clean in and out. I took it for a brief test drive and bought it. I was disappointed with the power and the gas mileage but I figured it needed a tune-up. And how! After I had it tuned up, the power came back and I increased the mileage by 50%. It is a 1988 and I had to spend more money for all the usual things on a used van, tires, battery, tie-rods, alignment, etc, but I couldn't be more pleased with it.

It looks nice, rides even better and is nice and roomy. And now I can watch all of those hundreds of movies I recorded from HBO while I stayed at the Residence Inn. I recorded every movie which said, "Violence, nudity, adult situations, language". I am sure I am going to fast-forward through some of them. But half way through my Lincoln stint the paper started rating the films and then I became more selective, recording only those with three stars or anything about motorcycles.

I spent two and a half weeks in KC and arrived in Sedona on January 25. The drive there was uneventful except for my stop off at Meteor Crater in northeast Arizona. This was featured in the movie "Starman." I first stopped at the Mobil Station, recognizing it from the movie. That was cool! The crater was seven miles away. There was a visitors' center with all of the usual tourist stuff for sale there. It was $7 to get to go down to see the actual crater. It was cold and windy and a storm was brewing so I settled for a postcard.

The back of the postcard says: "With the force of a multi-megaton bomb, a speeding nickel-iron meteor crashed to Earth nearly 49,000 years ago. Splashing nearly half a billion tons of rock, the resulting crater is 4150 feet in diameter, 570 feet deep, and three miles in circumference."

I was in Sedona for less than an hour before it started snowing. This was the first snow and first cold weather of the winter. It had been in the 60's and 70's all winter until I got there. It stayed cold and wet for my first month here. I went to a state park 20 miles west of Sedona so I could camp with electricity for heat at night.

The name of the state park is Dead Horse Ranch State Park. Now how you can have a ranch with dead horses is beyond me. But names here are very descriptive, including Horse Thief Basin, Bee Sting Road and Bloody Road. Arizona is a trip. You cannot carry a concealed weapon anywhere in the state. But you can carry a pistol as long as it is in sight. So you see a lot of people walking around with six-shooters on their hips.

Driving toward Flagstaff, which is on Interstate 40, 28 miles north of Sedona, I was reminded of my first trip through here four years ago. Twenty miles east of Flagstaff there is a sign that says, "Entering Coconino National Forest." Now you have to understand that at first all the forest consists of is a few bushes maybe four or five feet tall. It takes ten miles and a thousand feet in elevation before you actually see anything that looks like a tree.

Now you might think that since I am from Kansas I may not recognize a tree if I saw one. But I am a high school graduate and I have been around. Did you know that Kansas is the largest state in the Union that does not have a National Forest? Even Nebraska has two National Forests. In Kansas if we had two trees in the same county we would call it a forest and apply for National Forest status!

I had trouble sleeping in my van at first because of noises which occurred about every ten seconds all night long. It sounded like settling noises but, nevertheless kept me awake. I mentioned this problem to a friend of mine in Sedona and she "cleared" the van for me. It did work, as the noises now came only every 5-6 minutes and a couple of weeks later I noticed that they were entirely gone. Now there will always be noises when the metal is heating up and cooling down. These I can live with as they occur at dawn and at dusk.

After a week at the state park it was obvious that it wasn't going to warm and dry up any time soon. My friend Santarra was supposed to be in Quartzite, AZ selling her jewelry and stones at a month long swap meet. She is a wonderful woman, at once everybody's mother/lover/friend. I decided to go visit her. I did and stayed there a week.

She brought me up to date about her experience with the grand jury in Michigan. Two years ago, when we left off, she had been served with a subpoena to appear before a grand Jury in Michigan investigating her ex-boyfriend's marijuana trafficking. Before she actually appeared before the grand jury, her ex-boyfriend had been captured and jailed. Three days before Santarra got to Michigan he escaped from jail and presumably has left the country. In any event she hasn't seen or heard from him since then. When she appeared before the grand jury, she pleaded the fifth amendment, as she had refused to give any information about her ex-boyfriend to the authorities. I know that Santarra had agonized over this because she still has strong feelings for him.

Quartzite is a small town which has a permanent population of 2,000 (800 in the summer.) But it has a winter RV population of 500,000 on weekends. I have never seen so many RV's before. There is nothing to do there except swap and meet. Everywhere you look you see retired folk sitting in their patio chairs visiting or just looking at the trucks go by on the highway. One warm, sunny day I was feeling lazy and spent the day sitting in a chair merely watching the day go by. Someone asked me what I was doing and I told them that I was practicing for when I was old.

A couple of weeks after we had left Quartzite, in the Phoenix newspaper it was reported that the current mayor of Quartzite had been arrested for hiring someone to kill the previous mayor of Quartzite. Never a dull moment in the Grand Canyon State! The previous mayor owned the land on which Santarra and I had camped. Santarra had told me that he was the most disliked man in town. He had lost a recall election the year before.

I arrived unexpectedly in Quartzite but Santarra was glad to see me and it was great to see her. I hadn't seen her since she had left Sedona two years ago, six weeks ahead of me. She was sponsoring Michael Big Bear that weekend to do a firewalk. Michael used to have a New Age music show on the local radio station in Sedona which I really enjoyed. I had met him three times but had never been able to get to know him. So I was excited about the firewalk.

I had heard about firewalks before but had never seen anybody actually walk on coals before. Michael asked me to help with the fire. I kept it stoked up and shoveled the coals into a 30 foot strip for people to walk on. Michael does a talk about letting go of fear and embracing God in whatever form you choose. Then came the walking on of coals.

The coals started out as about one fourth of a cord of wood so there were plenty of coals. Before I laid them out Michael put anybody who wanted to through a dry run (or walk.) I did participate in that. When I was "in state" I KNEW I could walk on coals or do anything else I chose. But, later, after laying down the coals, I got cold feet (instead of coaled feet?) and didn't walk the coals. But I did see several people walk the coals without anyone getting their bare feet burned. The coals were so hot that in some places they flamed up. It was quite an experience.

During the weekend I did get a chance to get to know Michael and once back in Sedona we have become friends. We occasionally hike, hang out together, and go for rides on my motorcycle. It is nice to have a male buddy to do "guy" stuff with. Michael and I have hiked together many times. Once we hiked a trail in Boynton Canyon, one of the vortexes. On the way out of the canyon, I realized that I couldn't remember hiking in. I remembered being at the beginning of the trail and then at the trail cutoff to the ruins and nothing in between. When I related it to Michael, he said that we had been in a space/time warp. I don't necessarily believe that, but I don't know how to explain that fact I couldn't remember two miles of the hike. This was my only possible mystical experience in Sedona except for the "alien poop" of a couple years ago, mentioned in my last letter.

Before this experience I had heard a story of Michael. He used to be a professional hikers' guide and take people on hikes. One day he was taking a woman on a hike and they had been gone a long time and the sun set before they got off the trail. In the dark they walked down a slight decline. The next day they went back to the "slight decline" and it was now a sheer cliff. Believe it or not!

After I got back from Quartzite I went back to camping in the National Forest. It was still getting into the mid 20's at night which is too cold for me since I am not really prepared for such cold weather. On March 1 I moved into the Hawkeye RV Park for $330 per month. It is located at the north edge of "Uptown" Sedona (which is really the downtown area. I told you Arizona is a trip!) on Oak Creek. It is a very pretty location with the creek in the foreground and the red hills all around. I stayed there for a month before moving back out into the forest.

The RV park has just been sold out of bankruptcy. I am told that the new owners intend to close the park and build a small shopping center there. The owner is a large investment firm specializing in commercial properties. It is sad because what Sedona needs least is more shopping.

Sedona is growing fast, unfortunately. It is surrounded by National Forest but the Forest Service trades National Forest land around Sedona to developers for land elsewhere. I hear that some of the lots are selling for over a quarter of a million dollars for a third of an acre So if you want to visit Sedona, do it soon. The traffic is already bad on the only through road in Sedona. It can only worsen. Unless, of course, they decide to dynamite the red hills to build an interstate highway spur.

I watch a lot of movies and hike whenever it is dry. The weather warmed up nicely for the first two weeks of March before cooling off again. The few deciduous trees are beginning to green up. Sedona is a very colorful place. I love to be out hiking on a sunny day. The blue sky, the yellow sun, the green pine trees and the red rocks always bring me delight.

For the first time in three and a half years I have been able to lose weight. I have lost all the weight I gained in Lincoln and have lost half of the weight I gained while in Chicago in November, 1990. I came to Sedona to totally relax and to lose weight. I guess one out of two isn't bad.

In mid February Santarra and I went to the Phoenix Renaissance Festival. I love the one in KC but had never had the opportunity to see another one. It was a lot of fun. My brother's wife's brother does a skit at this and other Renaissance Festivals called "The Ded Bob Sho". Ded Bob is a skeleton puppet through whom Clark reacts with the audience. It was very funny. I was very impressed with how Clark got the audience involved. He had a standing room only at every one of his shows.

One day Michael and I went for a ride on my motorcycle. He drove and I rode behind him on the bike. Although I had ridden behind him a couple times in town, I had never before ridden behind someone on the highway. I took the opportunity to sightsee. I felt somewhat unsettled when we went around corners since I felt the bike move and I hadn't done it. But I wasn't worried even when we took the curves at 75 mph since my Spirit Guide always enjoys going with me on these rides. I always picture him sitting on my luggage rack with arms and legs crossed and a smile on his face. This time when I remembered him, I had the instant picture of him holding onto my luggage rack by his hands while his hair, robe and body were blowing in the wind behind the bike, and a forced smile on his face!

During my two previous sojourns to Sedona I had heard much about Secret Canyon. There was a hiking trail in it. I had heard people tell how they were unable to hike there because they became confused and disoriented (would you say that a Chinaman who became a US citizen was disoriented?) and had to turn around and leave. There were supposed to be little green men running around there. Aliens were supposed to have a secret UFO base there. UFO's were routinely seen flying out of Secret Canyon. Black, unmarked helicopters were seen flying in and out of there. (Black, unmarked helicopters are supposed to be part of the UFO mystique. Later I was told that they were part of the Special Services branch of our armed forces. I have seen them myself many times in Sedona. In late March I was finishing a hike near Uptown Sedona and saw three black, unmarked helicopters flying overhead, not more than 100 feet above the ground in a line toward Secret Canyon.)

Secret Canyon trailhead is accessible by means of a four mile dirt and rock road. When I was here before it was too rugged for either my van or my motorcycle. In places the dry, powdery dust was as much as six inches deep and there were dropoffs drivable only by four wheel drive vehicles. This year, however, it has been much improved. My friend Ray and I hiked the trail one day, walking over six miles back into the canyon. Was I disappointed! No UFO's, no disorientation, no lost time, no little green men. All I saw was a beautiful trail, combining a red rock canyon with ever increasing alpine features. It was by far the prettiest hike I had found in Sedona.

I also reconnected with another New Age female friend whom I met two years ago here in Sedona. I thought we had had a good, platonic friendship based upon mutual respect. After I had been back here a month or so she told me she wanted me to be more emotionally and physically intimate with her. I told her that I wasn't interested in changing our relationship. I respected her and enjoyed her companionship just the way it was. She said that she felt good when she was around me and could think more clearly when we were together.

But that if I weren't interested in a deeper relationship, she didn't want any kind of relationship. I didn't know people who were just friends could break up. I offered unconditional love and friendship but I guess that wasn't enough. I would like to learn something from the experience, but I'll be darned if I know what there is to learn from that.

Just recently I had a massage from Candace, whom I met in San Diego almost two years ago and have not seen since. She has lived in Sedona for three years. Of course, I did not meet her until I left Sedona. We talked during the massage and I am pleased to report that she is as open, aware, loving and wise as I had remembered from my first impression.

On March 21 I had a strange experience. I felt like a black hole had opened up in my gut and no energy could escape. It was as though my chakras were spinning in reverse sucking the energy out of me. I went for a hike on an easy trail that usually takes me two hours. It took me an extra thirty minutes because I had to sit down and rest so many times. I was physically weak and had no strength. This gradually lessened in severity over the next several days, but three weeks later I still have not recovered from this. I have no idea what it was.

I don't feel that I have gained any insights into myself or life in general or learned anything during the last three and a half years. I have been through a lot, most of it unpleasant, but haven't been able to figure out why. Or, more importantly, how to avoid it in the future.

I do my best to have as much fun as possible down here each day. Since I am resigned to always having to go back into the insurance world to make money, I am looking at this time off as a vacation rather than retirement as I have before. Consequently I am spending money faster and enjoying it more.

I have always felt that the Earth was created as a recreational planet. We are not here to work, but rather to play. For when we play, the child in us comes out. And I remember that Jesus said that unless we become as little children we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. If we play or work at whatever makes us happy, if we are expressing the creativity in us in any form, we are doing what we came here to do.

I am reminded of something I received in one of Bill Bauman's World Peace Meditations. I have always gone much deeper in meditations he lead than in my own by myself. In this meditation the Spirit of the Earth came and spoke to me. He/She spoke in words and pictures. "You puny humans. You think you have to save me. I tell you that I am quite capable of saving myself. If you want to help, then stop the pollution and begin to respect the earth which gives you life. Change the consciousness of the humans on the planet. Save yourselves, not me. If you wish to help, then play."

(I saw the pollution and the consciousness which produces it as a foggy energy surrounding the planet. I saw the earth open up and swallow the pollution and bring it to the molten core of the planet to purify it. Then I saw a group of men, women and children barefoot in a grassy glade, laughing, talking and playing. The energy of this playing acted as a scouring pad which cleared up the negative energy all around the planet. This was similar to a copper domed capital building which was filthy with green crud being scrubbed clean. And all we have to do is play and enjoy ourselves.)

Four years ago in Oregon I was camped in a state park called Silver Falls State Park. A creek runs through the park and on the creek are seven waterfalls, ranging from a drop of 31 to 178 feet. A trail runs (or walks) along this creek. At times you are deep within a crevice of the earth. It was a very beautiful hike. I got to thinking, an occupational hazard of my hikes. It had been a state park for maybe 25 years. The first American settlers had seen this beauty a hundred years ago. The Native Americans had been around for perhaps 25,000 years before that. Yet this beauty had been around who knows how many hundreds of thousands of years without anybody being able to see and appreciate it. What a waste.

I thought about that for several weeks before I decided that the purpose of the Earth was creative self expression and it didn't need any human to see it to give it meaning or appreciation. The Being who is the Earth is in the process of expressing itself as the physical planet; creating mountains, lakes, deserts, rivers and plains; deposits of platinum, gold, silver and other beautiful minerals and precious stones; oxygen, plants and animals. It didn't need us to validate it.

Furthermore, perhaps that is why we humans exist on this planet, also: to creatively express ourselves. To sing, to dance, to draw, to write, to build, to love, to feel, to share, to touch, to learn, to understand to do and to be. To express and refine whatever is within us. To express our Souls through these physical bodies. To be who we are, to express that individuality which makes us uniquely who we are. We are, at once, the artist and the medium.

If you move, you must let me know, or I will lose track of you. You can always write to me at my parents address of 7730 Howe Dr, Prairie Village, KS 66208. Don't forget that I also accept audio and video cassette letters.