The Poorest I've Ever Been So Rich

I was the poorest I’ve ever been but I didn’t know it at the time. I had no home, no car, no savings, few clothes and fewer friends. What I did have was the promise of a job once I returned back to the states in three months’ time. Meanwhile, I was back wandering through Europe without a care or a clue in the world.

It would be three months of rediscovering Europe and myself at the same time. From the welcoming arms of the Amsterdam whores in the Red-Light District to passing acquaintances in Danmark, there were chance encounters never engaged. Finally meeting up with a pen pal who was as charming as her letters and just as unavailable. Fleeting encounters (drinks and promises) with troubled, itinerant women up in Nordic Country. But for the most part, I was pretty much a lost soul in need of little and wanting more.

A year earlier, my first sojourn to Danmark had only lasted six months before the Nordic winter, summer clothes and a boring job at a laundry sent my fleeting feet south toward the French Riviera. I never made it that far. Paris was supposed to be a temporary respite from the bitterly cold winter winds that swirled around my hitch-hiking thumb. But fatigue, hunger and loneliness drove me to a TWA store front and tickets back home.

This time around would be different. My internship at the Public Television station in town had ended with a job offer, commencing three months hence. I said yes, bought my ticket and headed back to Europe. A chance encounter with an artist at a Dutch coffee shop/pot shop cemented two months of living the life; if only in my mind.

John, an art student and artist, was about my age, finishing up his college degree and anxious to practice his English on any tourist he could engage. I’m sure he spotted me as an eager American, unsure of himself, but open to adventures that leaned to the mild side. We connected immediately.

John’s goal was to, one day, get to America and enjoy all the fruits that the movies, television and the rag trades had layered on his eager imagination. I was the key to the truth of what America was really like. In turn, John introduced me to the real Netherlands; its culture, people, political leanings, sub-culture and a world I didn’t know existed. It was our mutual master’s degree in learning about ‘the real world.’

The entry point to this subculture of unemployed, social misfits who didn’t fit in was John’s good friend, the potter. I can’t remember is name but his intellectual prowess ignited a thirst for future salons in me that has never died. He was at once; brilliant, confusing, mad, insightful, and a font of knowledge that even AI today would have a hard time competing against. I became his eager student and he my willing teacher.

The potter lived in government housing on the outskirts of Amsterdam. He was unemployable and living on a government stipend and government housing. Social services were then and are much now more generous in Holland than anywhere else except Scandinavia.

The potter lived with his vivacious, outgoing and brilliant Malaysian wife. They had a daughter who could charm the skin off a cobra. They made a fascinating couple drawn together by their love of the arts, the eccentricity of their native country and adoration of their beautiful daughter.

As is so customary with that unique group of people, I was immediately welcomed into their home and made to feel like an old member of the family. I lived with them for almost two months and became totally ingratiated into their lifestyle. It felt like a home I’d only seen in the movies. An outlaw’s enclave welcoming all the oddballs in the neighborhood.

We slept in late, read (he did) the morning newspaper, listened to jazz, folk and rock and roll music all day long, painted, and made pottery (I watched.) I did try sketching and failed miserably. I tried writing poetry and only scratched the surface of what I was trying to say. It was a salon inside my head; safe, secure and open to the wonderings and wanderings that only a twenty-five-year-old can muster up.

For me, it usually meant long solitary afternoons meandering around the neighborhood, taking pictures, observing daily life and wondering about my future life back in the states. Gradually, there came this strong urge to chuck it all and stay. I didn’t have a visa, a work permit or a sponsor but the thought of living the life, off the grid, was sorely tempting.

A couple of times a week, John would come to take the potter back into town and I would tag along. Dropped off at the main train station, I was given free rein to wander and take pictures with a time to be picked up by one of the canals near the Red-Light District.

I’d learned early on to pretend to be Canadian. Americans were highly suspect because of the Vietnam War and it was just so much easier to play the red cloverleaf card. I even got a Canadian patch for my backpack. Fortunately, we all talked the same rock and roll language. Pot was king and legal in Holland. It worshipped in Amsterdam.

The back rooms of most coffee shops were where the action happened. There were titillating sexual images everywhere, sex toys for sale, magazines and friendly women. I was like a dumb lamb in the slaughter house. Back then, we all pretended we were doing it but few of us were. Fortunately, I was spotted as an American backpacker as soon as I entered that fog-filled abode and ignored for as long as I lingered there. Message received.

Other times, my hosts would take me some local attractions the tourists never saw. Swap meets and the zoo. The local shopping plaza and churches we never attended. It was a simple life and a good one without all the trappings of ‘so-called’ American success. Few of our neighbors had cars, none owned their own home and fewer yet had a clear pathway to retirement. It was living  life on a day-by-day basis and making each one memorable.

Then it all ended. I still had London and the British Isles to explore. The fleeting thought of staying in Amsterdam gradually evaporated with the harsh reality that my life back home would be a thousand times easier and more productive than trying to make a hard-scrabble life there. I opted out for American ambition and imagined images of me as a business owner and entrepreneur; whatever that was going to be. So, I said good-bye and grabbed the tram for the airport.

Gradually, those memories of the wonderful times I had with John and the Potter’s family began to fade away. My new job in public television was exciting and time-consuming. Thoughts of a new girlfriend (the blond receptionist) began to consume my every day. Then there was the ocean between me and my old European-self.

I’m sure John and I promised to write one another. I never did. Like two wanderers on a mountain trek, we passed on some rocky trail, exchanged pleasantries and went on our way. Before the internet, cell phones and Facetime, it was American Express or expensive international correspondence. So, like the self-absorbed kid I was back then, I opted out to make the effort and those friend-ships were lost to time.

Now, some sixty years later, I still regret that I didn’t take the time to hold on to that connection with like-minded people who showed me a whole different way of living and loving and taking in all that life had to offer. Lesson learned and I’m still learning.

Thanks, John. Thanks, Potter’s family, thanks Amsterdam. I love you guys, all of you. With few pictures and fading memories, it’s still fun to go back to a time and place where welcoming smiles took in a naïve wanderer and showed him a slice of life he hasn’t seen since.

Sister Dorothy; the one who liked me

Give them credit. Kids instinctively know if someone likes them or not. It has nothing to do with words spoken or gestures made. If an adult doesn’t like, can’t stand or barely tolerates children, their actions come forth in a myriad of ways. Seldom subtle or camouflaged, kids know what adults think of them.

My sister and I knew at a very early age that my aunts and uncles truly believed in the axiom ‘Children should be seen and not heard.’ It was neither a distain for nor prejudice against the younger set. In their mind, it simply meant we had nothing to add to the conversation and wouldn’t for years…if ever. Being raised in a rural Germain Catholic cult can do that to a person.

I’ve often thought it had to do with my father. His name as never mentioned by my relatives other than a couple of times when they assured me, I would be alright without him around. Go figure? What the hell is a five-year-old supposed to do with that piece of elder wisdom? It took me years to finally get the message that his absence and final demise never registered on their emotional radar.

Yet somehow amid the cold disregard for my sister and I as real people, there was one person who treated us with respect and kindness. I went to her 50^th anniversary a couple of years ago and finally was mature enough to regret that I hadn’t seen her kindness earlier in life.

Melanie and I and the kids drove up to the campus of the College of Saint Benedict in St Joseph, Minnesota. My sister Marlene and some other family members were already there when we arrived. I didn’t expect to find anyone else. Sister Dorothy was a nun who had spent almost her life toiling in anonymity in the mailroom on campus.

Yet I had to be there. Not to fulfill some family obligation or to congratulate someone I hardly knew very well. Sister Dorothy was my cousin. But I hadn’t spoken to her for three years and much longer before that. Over the years, there had been a steady stream of Christmas cards exchanged and lately pictures of the grandchildren included. Her cards were always full of cheerful tidings and promises of prayers. But I never really knew the woman very well aside from the platitudes my mother used to heap on her simply because she was a nun.

I simply wanted to pay homage to someone who embodied the true ideals of what it means to be a good person…without the label of Catholic or Protestant or being a member of any organized religion.

It turns out there were a lot of folks in the Gathering Place just outside of church. Besides the full cadre of her fellow nuns, there were close family members, extended family, relatives and friends. I was surprised at first but upon reflection it made perfect sense. Although she spent her life in quiet service to the Lord, Sister Dorothy touched a lot of lives through her simple life and kindness toward others. Simple acts of kindness can be a very powerful tool. Kindness and concern, the hallmark of these nuns, can trump a facade of ostentatious generosity anytime.

Most of the other nuns were older and frail like Sister Dorothy. Sadly their numbers are steadily declining. The mass was your standard affair replete with all of the vestiges and pomp and ceremony accorded to a soldier/sister in the army of God. It was a fitting tribute to a woman who had spent her entire life serving her lord and was pleased to do so.

Sister Dorothy spent most of her adult life at the College of Saint Benedict, a small liberal arts college for women. It’s a great school. Melanie went there and got a wonderful education. But it’s not Harvard or Yale or any of those other icons of higher education. Yet in its rural setting, it embodies the true meaning of truth and simplicity.

Sister Dorothy was always an icon for my very religious mother who saw the good Sister as a child of God called upon to do his work on earth. Much like my other cousin, the doctor, my mother felt these two were among the ‘blessed people’ on earth. I didn’t quite see it that way.

Sister Dorothy never married, never had kids and certainly didn’t swim in social circles or any political arena. She led her life simply and honestly, sorting mail and praying every day as most nuns still do. Sister Dorothy wasn’t a CEO or a statesman or a philanthropist. She wasn’t awarded the platitudes normally associated with great accomplishments or wealth accumulation. She didn’t leave a legacy at the college other than her steady reliable service in the mailroom and her ever present smile to anyone and everyone around her. She was satisfied with her place in life as simple as it was.

She wasn’t a prefect or a manager or a higher up in her order. She hadn’t moved up the ranks not that I think she ever wanted to. She was married to her church and what it represented. She hadn’t accomplished great things in her life. The mail would still be delivered tomorrow and no one, aside from her close friends, will even know the good sister had retired.

Yet in her own very simple way, Sister Dorothy embodied the true ideals of what it means to be a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist or a Muslim. She is a sterling example of true Catholicism.

The myth of Catholicism today is that it has gotten caught up in the politics of the moment. Catholicism is not supposed to be a game of political one-upmanship. It is supposed to be about embracing all of mankind no matter the gender, social or sexual orientation or political disposition. It is supposed to be about feeding the poor, clothing the naked, healing the sick and giving shelter to those without a roof over their head.

Isn’t that the reason God put us on earth, to help one another. The church is supposed to be all-inclusive and not exclusive based on how the political winds are blowing at the moment. Sister Dorothy embodied all of those principles and more. She was true to the main tenants of her faith. She was what community is supposed to be all about.

It was so fitting that Sister Dorothy spent her life at the College of Saint Benedicts, a school where women are recognized for their individuality and uniqueness and intellectual capacity. It’s a breeding ground for alpha females who truly believe they can change the world…and often do.

So often, the nuns seem to understand it better than the church fathers do. Isn’t that just like a bunch of women to cut the heart of the matter and see clearly their mission on earth without the constraints of conventional wisdom or politics of the day.

While we were at Sister Dorothy’s fifty-year anniversary, Marlene and I met a lot of our distant cousins. Those folks that only death or Christmas cards bring together. They all represented my youthful years and as such are a part of the past that I left behind a long time ago.

Yet the gathering was a good thing because it forced me to go back to a time and place where the simple things in life and kindness toward others triumphed over personal achievement and wealth accumulation. It reminded me of my rural roots, generation’s back, where hard work and labor were the hallmarks of a man and returned kindness was a gift not an obligation. Sister Dorothy symbolized that and even more. She took the time to care about two urchins and their widowed mother. I never forgot that or her.

A while back, I returned to campus for Sister Dorothy’s funeral. It was a simple affair. Many of those attending her 50^th anniversary had already left the planet. But I had to be there. To return her simple acts of kindness. The way she did toward me a very long time ago when I needed it the most. Good people do that for others. Sister Dorothy taught me that too.

Eating An Elephant

When I used to give my workshop on ‘How to get Started Writing’ I always had a cute opening. Perhaps not cute but truthful and to the point. I told the class: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Then I added: “How do you write a book?  One page at a time.” That has been the story of my life; one plodding step followed by a pause then another step in (hopefully) the right direction. Steven King I am not but I can still produce stories….and have for some time now.

My first novel was written in 1973 over a period of one year. Five days a week after a long day at the office (marketing and selling television programs) I retreated to my office (second bedroom) and pounded away on my trusty old L.C. Smith typewriter.

Most evenings produced roughly ten pages over the duration of many hours. Then the next night, each of those ten pages were edited and rewritten all over again. On and on it went until the story was completed. A second western was written a year later. Both languished in two binders until 2005 when the first novel was scanned onto floppy discs (remember those?), rewritten on a Mac then transferred to a word document and finally rewritten on a PC. It lay dormant for another year or two and was finally resurrected then as my first serious attempt at novel writing.

After that first novel became ‘Apache Death Wind’, another storyline captured my imagination. ‘Love in the A Shau’ was a semi-autobiographical story of my time in the service and my first love. It first germinated as a 56-page treatment and finally wound up as my second published novel. After ‘Apache Death Wind’ and ‘A Shau,’ another novel entitled ‘Debris’ began to fester in my brain.

After Sharon and I had been wintering in the Coachella Valley for several years, I’d become a native in mind and spirit. The mountains had become background to my early morning runs and afternoon bike rides. Our cache of friends has grown to include folks from around the country. Our neighbors became real people who watched our house and we watched theirs. Downtown was seldom frequented unless company was in town.

L.A. became a two-hour Sunday morning ride to the Pantages Theater in Hollywood and Laguna Beach became a weekend destination for long beach walks and ocean side fantasies. Other times, Joshua Tree and the high desert beckoned us with its vast expanse of nothingness.

Somehow, I knew there was a story there but couldn’t quite grasp it yet. Old Palm Springs had long since faded into a vapid memory to the oldsters still around town and the new Palm Springs hadn’t yet shaken itself out of the recession.

Palm Springs wasn’t the small village as some natives liked to imagine it nor was it a mecca for the rich and famous like down valley. Palm Springs was a storied history book of Hollywood lore, scandal and glamor. But that was its past. Its future was still being debated in the Desert Sun, Chamber of Commerce meetings and during the cocktail hour in many backyards. I wanted to tell the story of old Palm Springs but in the context of a new Palm Springs arising from its ashes. But where and how?

The title came to me several years ago as I was walking by the Greyhound bus depot in down-town Palm Springs. The depot has since been moved to another location but at that time it was a gathering spot for those folks one wouldn’t normally see in Palm Springs. Those were the homeless folks and vagrants as well as sundry folks whose only means of transportation was the bus. A thought jumped into my mind: “They were all just debris from the West Coast.”

Fair or not, the label stuck and I began to wonder about those folks who have ended up in Palm Springs because that was as far as the bus would take them. Or perhaps they came here in hopes of a new career or a new start on life. I began to imagine what kind of folks end up here because there is nowhere else for them to go.

The tall striking blond who claimed to have just flown in from India where she was doing charity work. She kept reappearing day after day at a local coffee shop, always dressed in the same clothes and asking about jobs in town. She was beautiful, mysterious, and probably diseased.

I can’t count the number of older men who came into the place, digging into their torn pockets for change for a cup of coffee. Their odors linger long after they’ve left. Some of them have dogs that smelled better than they do.

The tourists, often foreigners, also looking for their morning fix and a taste of the other side of

Palm Springs. I began to build a cast of characters who would populate my novel. Each would bring a different story to those pages. It would be stories of love, betrayal, ambition, lust, and death.

It would be another side of Palm Springs. The everyday lives of people not associated with the green golf courses, the shimmering blue pools, the magnificent mountains, the glamor of Hollywood and the hedonistic sub-culture of some folks who come to visit.

It would be about real (in my imagination) folks who live in paradise but fight hell in their lives more often than not. But it would also be about the longing for love, the fight for survival, the quest for sanity in an insane world, driving ambition and painful betrayal. It would be the flip side of the Palm Springs that the tourists never see. And I hope it would make for one heck of a storyline. ‘Debris; the trilogy’ was the result.

That then was the beginning. It seems like an eternity ago. ‘Apache Death Wind’ turned into a trilogy as did the ‘Debris’ series. More plays, screenplays and blogs kept piling up. A skinny little hippo named Waleed nudged his way into my writing as did a comic strip featuring the grandchildren.

Each carried the same DNA. Small tentative steps followed by a rough outline that slowly morphed into something more tangible and interesting. Now several novels have their own accompanying mini web sites. ChatGPT is a ready reference to the increasingly complex and challenging craft of story-telling and writing.

It all began many years ago during those long winter nights, huddled over a typewriter and trying to tell a story that captured my imagination and hopefully that of future readers. One step at a time like eating an elephant.