Happy New Year

I was going to try to have my 500th post on this blog by the end of the year but I'm too far behind on my writing to make that happen. I've been pushing myself too hard to finish projects and I find myself so tired that I'm going to sleep my way into the new year.

As my last post I have this above photo of my two grandchildren, Denver and Cordelia to give hope to the new year.

The Big Drop

As a boy I loved to ride trains. Having the best parents in the world, I got to do this many times as a child. The above photos show one of the ticket stubs from a trip from Holden Missouri to Kansas City's Union Station.

I can never set foot in Union Station Kansas City without being arrested because I dared to video tape balloons falling from the ceiling on New Years Eve 2006. I did nothing wrong but tell the truth about the management at Union Station in a movie I worked on called Begging For Billionaires.

I can never ride the rails to Union Station with my Grandchildren but on April 13th 2002 I helped rescue a young girl from a near tragic mishap on a badly designed exhibit. They can't take that away from me.

I wonder if the powers that be in Kansas City will try to censor this post? Will they try to hack my computer again? The Big Drop in ethics is something I regret seeing in my lifetime.

Notes on The Three Deaths Of Robert Andrew Vollrath

Did my soul leave my body three times and return?

Do I trust my own mind?

What is death?

I don't know what I was going to write here. April 11th 2010.

World's Greatest Grandpa

The best gift I received was this bit of fun with my Granddaughter and Grandson hand prints on this Certificate of Achievement.

A very Merry Christmas.

Empire of Ego

I am the center of the universe, well so are you. We all find ourselves at the center of the universe.
This cosmic joke on every living thing makes for a empire of ego in each of us.

My empire of ego must fall if I'm going to make something out of my life this late in my life.
I must be what I was meant to be and not what I want to be. Letting go of a lifetime of negative emotions is the first step.

Trying to forgive and not feel hate is a struggle. So many of my family are waiting for my parents to die to try to steal what money they can from me. I'm trying to turn my anger against my aunts and uncles to pity.

I know my sons will help me fend off these thieves as I grieve but I fear my own ego will unleash all the ugly family secrets at my aunts and uncles without my parents to stop me.

Buying too many presents for my grandchildren has made me see how out of control my ego is.
I didn't want my ex-wife and her husband to have better presents than me. I didn't realize why I was buying all presents until I had already wrapped all the toys.

I wanted this to be a big Christmas because I feel my health may limit how many more Christmas holidays I'll have. My third near death experience only a few days ago has made me take a hard look at my life. Do I let my ego rule me or do I try to become the best person I can be?

My ego doesn't want to know the answer to the question; Did I have a heart attack in my sleep?

I should have gone to the hospital that night but I don't trust doctors. As a child a sadist doctor tortured me ( I'll be telling this tale in a post called 'Bully Doctor') both mentally and physically.
I didn't get the help I needed after my car wreck and the doctor that rebuilt my nose almost killed me by accident.

I know there are many good doctors in the world but I've meet so many bad ones. I must keep my ego as small as possible and go see a doctor. I hope the doctor doesn't have an ego problem like me.

My Mother's Vote was Stolen

My mother's vote was stolen in the last election. Someone used my mother's name and the rest of her ID to steal her vote from Holt County Missouri. My mother lives in Johnson County Missouri.

Her vote didn't count. She was treated like a criminal and the person that stole her vote got away with it. The election was fixed in Missouri but who did the fixing and why?

Eleanor Jane Vollrath had the right to vote but now she says she'll never vote again.

To the person in Holt county that stole my mother's vote, you have my pity.

To the party that stole my mother's vote, you'll never get my vote again, unless you steal it.

Unwrapping my ego

I bought too many presents for my grandchildren. I bought those presents for me.

I feed my own ego with those presents. My grandchildren only need time with me to be happy.

There goes that ego again. My grandchildren only need to be with the family they love to be happy.

Christmas Card

My son Micheal wanting to have his own Christmas Card like his big brother. Well his older brother as Micheal is stronger than both his brother and I put together. Anyway Micheal made this card on his computer.

Printing the card isn't necessary.

All Christmas cards should only be in cyberspace.

Save a lot of trees and spare no electrons.

The Three Deaths of Robert Andrew Vollrath

1975

2006

2008

Three different years, three different deaths.

1975 and I was scared of death.

2006 and I was concerned for my mother.

2008 and I was fearless.

More to come...

Love is........

Love is everything. Hate is self love with a small L. Fear is a worry of the lost love of one's self or the lost of those we love.

Love is everything. I love my enemies more than I love myself. I face all the evil in the world and all the evil that dwells within me. I am part of the one soul and I love all the good and forgive all the bad in that one soul.

Love is my one year old grand daughter taking care of me for 20 minutes when I was too tired to take care of her. Her father needs to pay a bill leaving me alone with his daughter and I turn to the little girl and said;

"Oh Cordelia what am I going to do. I'm too tired to watch you."

I was lying on a couch too tired to stand. Cordelia first brings me a pillow and then a blanket.
She tucks the blanket around my legs and when she is finished with that good deed she walks over to me and holds my hand. She makes soft sounds in an imitation of a lullaby.

Cordelia stands by me holding my hand for over 15 minutes till her father returns.
I have never felt so loved.

More to come.......

Notes on Rivers of Nothing

I believe my concept of making a model of the universe began in 1976. I was trying to deal with the pain of my head injury from my car wreck a year earlier. The more complex I made my thoughts the less pain I had. I'm not sure when I came up with the concept that the universe was created out of nothing by imagination.

Books like Hyperspace by Michio Kaku and Surfing Through Hyperspace by Clifford A. Pickover feed the science side of the equation. My spiritual side of my equation was given to me by the five women I have loved in my life. Each lady showing me a different part of my soul.

The below post is the final brushstroke on this artwork of the mind's eye.

Rivers of Nothing

Hang on I'm working on my belief system. I've got two Bully Tales in the works and I'm trying to get back to more normal fair but for this post I'm trying to explain it all.

Rivers of nothing run through my mind. I was trying to sleep when all my belief systems became one. All is paradox, all is nothing and all is light. Everything is nothing and that nothing is owned by one soul. We are that one soul. By we I mean everything that will be or has been. Our lives are but pinpricks in the fabric of the universe and we are the fabric too.

When I was a child I was told there were things we couldn't imagine and I shouldn't try.
I ignored everyone and keep on going. Now I'm at this wonderful mindset that should be disturbing but isn't.

Finite and infinity are twins of reality but neither can be captured, only approached.

The need for sleep calls....more to come.....

Imagine that all of reality is a single tread and all the fabric of the universe is made out of only this single tread. Different knots in this tread are the elements and the bigger the knot the larger
the scale till we have planets and stars and you name it.

Now imagine you could somehow untangle this tread and it was a giant circle with the size approaching the infinite growing at the speed of light. Imagine this tread is getting thinner approaching the finite at the speed of light.

All this driven by one soul that binds us all and is all of us. Now imagine the hardest part.
That tread is made out of nothing but the imagination of that one soul. That one soul our soul jumps in and out of that tread of reality until it knows how to be a mountain or a flea. It is a star made out of diamonds and we are that star. We are all the good and all the bad in everything.

Look in the mirror and see that one soul, our soul.

Just the beginning......

Burn all the Golden Parachutes

The title says it all. Why reward failure at the highest level?

I've meet good Chief Executive Officers of companies and I've meet bad ones.

The best are the founders of their company. They are inventors and hold patents.

The worst are criminals stealing the company assents as they receive huge bonuses.

Pay for Play

Have you taken the bribe? I have. I've done pay for play.

Oh, my bribe was on such a small scale that I can't be compared to those bribe masters that hold seats of powers or can I? Does it matter how small the bribe is? I was a divorced single father and I needed the money. That's why I did it.

I took a $2.00 an hour raise to keep quiet about how a supervisor got his job. Pay for Play.
I played the game but we all lose when we play that game. I should have quit and never looked back.

If we are to end this system of bribery we pretend to be a form of government then we must look at what part we hold in the world wide cycle of pay for play.

False Visions

I knew Ronald Regan was going to be killed in office, Didn't happen.

I knew my second child was going to be a girl, Micheal was all boy.

I'm sure there are many more that I don't remember.

What are visions? What are false visions? I have no answers.

When we know something about the future that turns out to be true, it's a miracle.

When we know something about the future that turns out to be false, what's that?

The truth is I have no answers, only questions.

Is everything the same?

Are we all one tread of reality woven from the fabric of time?

Has everything been everything and will be again?

Is the soul just one soul?

Do we dare think it?

Are we one?

Forever Family

My son with a big heart Micheal, my wonderful Daughter-in-Law Amanda and my favorite little girl Cordelia.

Stay Warm Grandson

My favorite little boy on his three wheeled snow machine. Stay warm Denver.

Spirit Dream

"Patty is that you?"

I called to the energy field floating above my bed. The tan energy field danced on my ceiling in the darkness. The energy field fell upon me. I thought some how Patty had projected her soul to me in the twilight between wake and sleep but it wasn't her.

I woke the next morning with more energy than I ever felt in my life. What was the mystery spirit? Just a dream or something else? After the dream I began to wear tan clothes most of the time.

I worked so hard the following two days that I broke a rib and went into a kind of shock.
What was the spirit dream, I don't know?

Notes on You know things don't you?

In a future novel the post below this one will be combined with "A Simple Wish" and "The Bean" to be a single chapter called "The Journey of the Bean." Road trips often turn into weird otherworldly experiences.

In life you sometimes are the puppet and if your lucky you get to be the puppeteer. I felt like a puppet on that trip.

I'm not sure if I should write these tales about the spirit world blending with my reality. I go weeks, months and sometimes years without visions and then I have times when the world feels like its falling on me.

I had to write the ending twice as I lost power in a ice storm.

You know things, don't you?

"You know things, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

Becky's grandmother asked me the question but my answer was a lie hidden in a question.
I knew exactly what she meant. I need to tell her the truth, I thought. She is the Great Grandmother of my Grand Son, I had to tell her the truth.

"You know about the spirit world don't you."

"How did you know that?"

"I could just tell."

The knowing was upon her. My happy world of my Grandson's Birthday party began to shatter at that moment. She told me about her visions and I told her about my visions. The sharing of the knowing.

I liked every member of Becky's family. I had fun at my Grandson Denver's birthday party.
I talked too much and made silly jokes that embarrassed my son Mark but all in all it was a wonderful time.

As everyone said their goodbyes at the party I began to feel guilt. A young boy was missing.
I had heard the shots that killed his grandmother and uncle. His father took him from the murder scene. What could I have done? I didn't have a gun. Chicago the murder capital of the USA. I heard those shots. How close was I to the murder scene.

Stay another night with your grandson, I told myself but the endless road was calling to me.

I saw how tired my son was from the party and used it as excuse to leave and not spend the night. I drove off into the night with an impossible mission. I was going to try to find a boy kidnapped my his murderous father. It was insane, mindless, stupid but I was compelled to do it.

The only person that would understand this feeling was Patty and soon I wouldn't even have her to talk about it. I decided to stop at most of the rest stops along the way on my way home.

No wild night visions this time just the pain of lost sleep. I stopped at one rest stop after another, catching a little sleep at each one. Sometimes my rational mind would win out and I would pass by a rest stop and then I would feel over whelming guilt. What was I hoping to find at these rest stops? A connection between the recent past and my present. A place where I could have a black void vision and somehow save a child's life?

I don't know how many rest stops I went to before I gave up hope. The boy was dead.

I crawled in the back of my car at four in the morning and passed out. I fell into the black void and was nothing. Happy that my ego was empty. Happy that I tried. Happy to pay the price of coming back.

I woke to the rumble of big rigs and got back on the road. I felt rational again. I drove south to Missouri. Two days after I got home I saw on the TV that the child was dead. I had heard the gunfire that killed his Grandmother and Uncle. That was my only connection to him.

Beyond a Billion Dreams

Beyond a billion dreams I seek a soul mate fair.

With hearts entwined we would face our fears.

Nothing could stop the magic mirror of love defined.

Not even these never ending silly rhymes.

I find I miss the dance of romance. Time to put my heart and soul into my writing.

The Red Boot

The above scan is of one of the sacred relics of the Vollrath family, THE RED BOOT.

Lost for many years the RED BOOT was found by the Knights of the Red Boot.

Sir Robert Andrew Vollrath

Sir Micheal Serling Vollrath

Sir Mark Andrew Vollrath

Brave Knights one and all. The time has come to think of the new Knights of the Red Boot.

Upon their tenth birthdays the Princess of Dreams and Prince of Imagination will be given a task to find the Red Boot in a woods of my grandparents.

Pain Versus Imagination

I find I'm full of anger. The pain has found the blame game hiding in a dark corner of my soul.

You know the blame game dear readers don't you? You know that game where you blame everyone but yourself. Well I playing the blame game all the way to that bottomless pit we call the human ego. My ego the root of all my evil. The coward that won't say he's sorry. I've been that coward and I've seen that coward in others.

What of pain? I know all the colors of pain. I walk and talk in pain. That car wreck in 1975 ate me whole and spit me back to this Earth as a ball of pain. No one to blame but myself. All my fault.

Emotional pain? Oh yes I've known every color of that pain too. I give my heart to easy. I won't change. I've tried to harden my heart but love owns my soul and I can't turn into something I'm not.

My imagination can always cool the pain. The pain is a weak foe to my imagination.

I blame no one not even myself. I cool my soul in my dreams and work through the pain.

Notes on I was a Heart Broken Zombie

I was going to finish my 500 post by the end of the year but I can only type with one hand now.
for that reason i won't be using capital letters in my writing anymore and 'notes on i was a heart broken zombie' will be my last post of the year. questions won't end in a question mark and anything that needs that shift key won't happen.

my broken rib is an old injury that you'll read about in the previous post. under stress my rib broke in the same place as it dislocated itself. i may be going to the hospital soon if an infection sets in.
i will write through the pain as best i can.

more to come........

I can type with two hands now. The rib still hurts but it is no longer the mind shearing pain it once was. What I find incredible is I was in emotional and physical pain and I didn't for a moment get depressed. As you'll read below I thought I was going to die at one point and I wasn't scared at all. I just accepted it.

more to come........

The mind shearing pain is back and I find my mind isn't focused enough to write. No depression just a broken rib over my heart. I don't feel the emotional pain of being dumped anymore.
Strange I'm not afraid of anything anymore and I feel happy through the pain. I don't understand it either.

more to come.......

Pain sometimes makes you forget that you're a being of pure light. That post below this one is going to be finished tonight or this morning or before dawn breaks through my east bedroom window. I mean if you can't write through pain then what is the point of being a writer anyway?

more to come......I didn't finish it last night......I'll keep pushing forward.....

I finished the previous post with pain to spare.

I was a Heart Broken Zombie

Before I start this story let me explain something. I'm indestructible. The most you can do to me is kill me and I've been dead before, many times. So when you read this don't feel sad just let the story take you to a silly place in a big man's heart.

Try not to trip over my ego.

Backache and Heartache. What a weekend. Last week my father decided to finally buy that HDTV for my mother. With the help of my friend Jeff I set them up with a new HDTV. Moving their old broken TV out of the house I dislocated and broke a rib over my heart.

Why did I move a giant piece of junk TV by myself?

More to come, work in progress.......

I moved the TV by myself so my father wouldn't try to help me and hurt himself. The TV should have been destroyed years ago but my father is not one for giving up on old technology.

Flashback 32 years ago as I water ski for the last time with my Uncle Ed. He didn't want to pull me behind the boat he just wanted to throw me off into the lake and make me pull him all the rest of the day. He opened the boat up and pulled me into a cove full of drift wood. My right ski plowed into a floating log. I went flying head first into a floating tree stump. I over shot the tree stump with my head but my chest slams into one big hard twisted root and I hear my rib break as I plow under the water.

The hard life vest saved my life. Flash forward to age 50 and I am trying to move a giant piece of junk, heavy as a baby elephant, projection TV down a few stairs and I hear that same rib break for a second time. I go one better this time and dislocate the rib too.

Four nights ago I wake up and my whole body feels numb. My head hurts like the 20 year headache I had after my car wreak. I can't feel my heart beating with my left hand and I can't feel my pulse. I brace myself for death as I think I'm having a heart attack.

Flashback to my Grandfather Vollrath's death. He had several heart attacks and the last time I was alone with him he showed his blacken legs from clotting blood. I was all of ten. Two weeks later he is at home and couldn't feel his heart beat. He stood up and called my grandmother to him. He told her he had no pulse and fell over dead.

Two weeks ago my mother tells me this story. It is fresh in my mind as I set up in bed thinking I'll die at any moment.

Pain is too much.....more to come when I feel better.

I don't die at that moment. I can't find my heart beat or my pulse no matter how hard I try.

I put my right index finger in my ear hoping to hear the roar of my bloodstream in my inner ear.

Nothing.

Maybe I have enough oxygen in my blood to stand even take a few steps like my Grandfather Vollrath.

Pain owns me now.....be back soon

I find I'm not scare of death but I don't want to die in my room because it is full of a small part of my empire of junk. I decide to get dressed and go to the living room. If I'm going to die I'll just die in my favorite chair. I turn on a light and look down at my chest as I put on a shirt.

My chest and left arm were swollen to cartoon proportions. I couldn't feel my heart beat because of my swollen chest. My left hand was swollen so I couldn't take my pulse. I don't know why I couldn't hear my blood running through my inner ear. Using my right hand I push into my swollen cheat and find my heart beat. My heart was beating incredibly slow.

I guess my body was in shock from the amount of hard work I did in a very short time. I decide to go living room and wait to see what happens.

The pains back...more soon.....

As I walk through the dark hallway to the living room I think I'm a heart broken zombie.
I'm the walking dead with a broken heart. Why did Patty dump me over the phone? What did I do to deserve that? A broken rib over a broken heart, how ironic.

I make it to my favorite chair and sit down. I think of how my Great Grandfather English died.
He died with a smile on his face sitting on his front porch swing. He died with a summer wind blowing across the porch of a house he built with his own two hands. A good way to die.

Now I sit me down to die.

No more time to tell you lies.

I'll find the truth in my death.

I only hope I'm heaven blessed.

Why is my heart beating so slow? Then I remember a trick I can do. I could always make my heart beat slower. I wonder if I could make it beat faster? I have grandchildren, I can't die yet.
My heart beats faster and I watch a new dawn.

No more time to tell you lies, the truth will always be my guide.

The End

I would like to say I'm sorry to all my readers. I lied in this post. My heart wasn't beating from the time I got out of bed till a short time after I sat down in the chair. I thought the tale was too fantastic and yet I claimed to be telling the truth in the story. Another thing that is missing in this story is the dream that woke me up. A double of myself came to me in a dream and said;
"Wake up dummy, your heat has stopped."

My cousin Monroe died in his sleep of heart failure. He was my Grand Father Vollrath's other Grandson. 4-12-2010

Peace for my Granddaughter Cordelia

I love her more than the numbers of stars in the heaven. My heart can never stay broken long when I have a dream of a granddaughter. What world will I leave her? She is truly my little Queen of Dreams. I want to leave her a world of equal rights and equal pay.

I want to leave her a world where a woman can be the most powerful person on earth or better yet, a world where no one has that much power. A world without men thinking they own women.
A world where a woman keeps her last name for life and passes that name to her daughters.

A world where no woman is forced to do anything against her will.

Peace for my Grandson Denver

I love my grandson with all my heart and soul. What world will I leave this gem of the Vollrath family. Will I leave him a world of peace? Who am I to think I could bring peace to the world?

Anyone of us can bring peace to our world. It is our choice. Endless mindless war or the cool waters of the blue green dream. Shall we feed the power hungry madmen their ego rich diet of death and destruction or will we feed each others imaginations with starlight, moonbeams and the red sands of Mars?

Will a single nation's flag be planted on new worlds or the flag of the United Nations? Shall we create more wilderness graveyards and call them cities or will we build green pyramids of terraced gardens to live in, giving back most of the land to the wild.

Will we poison the seas or return lost life to the seas? Will floating cities orbit our skies or will all the ego towers crash to the ground? The choice is ours for all the grandchildren of the world.

To Those That Would Kill

I want peace. I want peace in my lifetime. I have been where few dare to go. I have left what few dare leave. I want the murders to stop. You gain nothing but feeding of your own ego by murder.

When I was a small child a woman that I' loved was murdered. She was my aunt. I spoke to her murder a few days ago on the phone. My uncle cast a net of hell on my family. Will he read this someday and hate me for it? Is the teller of sins worst than the sinner?

To those that plot to stab at the heart of my country by bombing a train I ask you to stop this act of wholesale murder. Do not cast a net of hell upon your families.

Let peace know your names and love sing in your souls for an eternity of truth.

Notes on The Bean

The post below this one is the hardest bit of writing I've ever done and I havn't even finished it yet.

I'm trying to get the courage to finish it.

Patty handed my heart back to me over the phone last night.

My weekend was backache and a heartbreak.

Time to finish The Bean.

I only tell you about my heartbreak here because five hours ago, after I talked to Patty I put this post on my other blog Atomic Toy Spaceship and it didn't belong there.

To much heartache to write anymore. I'll be back in a week or less.

The Bean

As I drove into Chicago I heard on the radio that I was entering the murder capital of the United States. This negative news didn't bother me at all because I was going to see the bean.

Here are some photos of the sculpture Cloud Gate, nicknamed by the people of Chicago as The Bean.

As I stood taking those photos the knowing came upon me. Reality is a reflection of a reflection of a reflection bleeding off into the infinite and finite. The dream burned brighter in me than it had in years. Then the dark vision filled me with dread. People are going to die, I must get out of this city. For years I've had a vision of a railroad bombing in America. Maybe that's what was going to happen. I know it won't happen on the East or West coast. Somewhere towards the middle of the USA.

I had trouble getting out of the parking garage, I couldn't get the parking garage to take my credit card. I was putting it in upside down and backwards. I was in the broken mirror universe, so very close to the spirit world. I got out of the parking garage and tried to get out of the city.

I pulled into busy streets of Chicago and made one wrong turn after another getting more lost with each turn.

"I'm in the BROKEN MIRROR UNIVERSE, I must do the reverse of what I'm seeing!"

I made two turn against the puppet masters pulling my strings from the other side of death and then I heard two gunshots. I knew two people had died. The broken mirror universe shattered and I was back in this universe.

I could name drop here but I won't. I won't use the dead that way. The murderer had taken a child and it was soon all over the radio. The guilt set in. I had failed again.

There is never enough good in the world as the evil swallows it up. All my fondest wishes had been granted. I had a grand daughter and a grand son, no man could know a greater gift.
I had failed. I found my way out of Chicago. I had failed.

I drove into the night.

I had failed.

I drove onto the endless road.

I had failed.

A thousand angels flew behind me.

I had failed.

A billion dreams shattered before me.

If only I had made those last two turns.

The Demon of the Night jumped on my window.

"I no longer believe in demons of my own mind. I' am a being of pure light and you are nothing!"

The Demon exploded into embers and flew off behind me and behind me flew ten thousand angels.

"I'm coming Denver, Grandpa is coming. I'll be there for your first birthday."

I drove into the night past the Dells in Wisconsin. Monsters fueled by imagination melted off trucks and cars and flung by invisible hands at my windshield. I turned them all into rose petals.

"I'm coming Denver, Grandpa is coming."

An army of hell that I had created with my own mind came towards me.

I turned them into butterflies.

"I'm coming Denver, Grandpa is coming."

A hundred thousand angels flew behind me and one whispered in my ear.

"Time to sleep."

All the angels flew away and I was on my own. I pulled over at the next motel.

The next day I played with my grand son Denver Vollrath. It was a good birthday party the following day.

Ernie and Sid

Ernie is a cigar smoking earthworm and Sid is a little green snake with a heart of gold.

Nuclear Cow Dog

Nuclear Cow Dog is the silliest bit of story telling I've ever done. Created with my friend Cris Lloyd when we worked at Artworld many years ago it still makes me laugh.

In the above comic book art Nuclear Cow Dog eats the universe.

Copyright Robert A Vollrath and Cris Lloyd 1992

The Roses

We no longer spoke with our minds. The magic was gone. There was no half speak in our conversations and long moments of silents filled the time we spent together.

She had grown so much in the short time I knew her but she was still in that moment of death.
I had long ago left that echo of forever behind me and was content to be in the finite of this life.

I was a few months younger than her in the flesh but my spirit was truly ancient and my imagination was boundless in the ways of people.

The Roses I gave her sat on a table and her brother surprised us has he walked through the front door. I stood up and he gave me a cold stare. She introduced her brother to me and he took my hand in a firm grip. As I looked in his threatening eyes with compassion he became nervous and released his grip as he looked away.

He saw the roses on the table and I saw a flash of anger on his face. I meet that quick look at me with the slightest of smiles.

How long had he been spying on his sister and I? With that silent thought I sat back down.
After some confusing talk between a brother and sister he left.

I talked to Patty tonight. I must have sounded like a fool. I've been having backwards days.
I don't know if our relationship has any future and my mind hops from one memory to another when I think about her. She is a miracle of courage and faith.

I think of the roses I gave her and the look of anger when her brother saw the roses. Later she tells me about the meeting her father and brothers had with her about me and other things.
She tells me how protective they were when she was a teenager. Her father was part of Air Force Intelligent. One of her brother's was a policeman. All the boys her age were afraid to date her.

In the meeting about me, a younger brother tells her, he spied on us when we were roasting marshmallows over a small fire pit in her backyard. I laugh as all this makes me fell like a teenager at 50 years old. Her family decides I'm not a bad person as Rosemary (my grand daughter's Great Grandmother) has vouched for me.

No matter how old you get, dating never gets any easier.

I wonder how hard it is for Patty? Being two years in a coma, learning to talk and walk again.
She had to learn how to live alone again. How did she get the courage to date again?

the artist

I was a failure as an artist. I put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger.

Echos of my death followed me into a burning blue light that shredded my soul and feed my life force to an unknown number of new humans in a single moment of eternity.

the blade

The blade came down upon my neck and I should have died but I didn't. A toothless fool pulled my head out of the basket and showed me to the mob of cruel people laughing at my death.

I tried to scream my hate at them but I had no body and knew death in that moment.

No eternal light beckoned me or mean embrace of hell to claim me. I was but a whiff of nothing full of rage.

Years pasted and I tired of cruel jokes only a ghost could do. The hate left me and I found the light.

the scribe

I would be dead soon. The pain was too great. My flesh was tied in knots and I could no longer carve the glyphs. I had no wife or children, so all my wealth would go to my Scroll of Eternity.

"What of your body?"

Asked my friends.

"Let the desert preserve me and my good deeds embalm me, for soon I will be the wind."

Such talk shocked my friends and they thought I put a curse upon my glyphs. After my death none would finish my glyphs and none would destroy my carvings.

Death wasn't what I knew it would be. My soul was never weighted. Many lives and deaths passed and one moment in eternity I looked at my glyphs with new eyes in a tomb of knowledge.

A Simple Wish

I couldn't find the toddler car I wanted to get my grandson but my time was up and I had to go on the journey to his birthday. I needed to pick an item in Chicago so I headed east.

I was traveling down the endless road on I-70 East in Missouri just 50 miles from Saint Louis when I made a simple wish.

"I wish I could have found a little play car for my grandson Denver."

With that spoken thought an invisible hand grabbed the top of my head and turned my field of vision to the left. On an outer road running beside I-70 West was a thrift store with an orange and yellow toddler play car sitting in the parking lot.

I turned at the next exit and bought the tiny ride in foot powered car.

A day before my grandson's birthday party I gave him his first used car. In a house in Bloomington Minnesota , a grandfather pushed a little foot powered car around with his grandson.The two bonded with that little car.

When the play time was over Denver was held in his Grandfather Vollrath's arms.
The little boy kissed his grandfather twice on the cheek and put his head on the old man's shoulder.

"Thanks the powers that be for a simple wish granted."

Happy Halloween Grand Da Da

Tonight was the best Halloween I ever had.

I gave my Grand Daughter her first Halloween candy.

I took her Trick or Treating to her first three houses on Halloween.

She called me Grand Da Da for the first time. Close enough to Grandpa for me.

I was treated to pizza by my Daughter-in-Law and Son Micheal after Trick or Treating.

This is the best of all lifetimes!

the laughing warrior

"No mother, I don't want to fight."

"You shame me. How did I give birth to such a coward?"

"The whole village should run away we can't defeat them."

Mother slaps me hard and I begin to laugh that insane laugh I laugh when I'm scared.

She slaps me again and I stop laughing, numb with the knowledge I'm going to die soon.

I walked outside my stone and straw home. I picked up my weapon, a long wooden pole sharpen on one end. I began to laugh again. I laughed a mindless fearful laugh. As I marched towards the Roman Army I laughed. As they killed me I laughed.

I moved towards the light of the heart of the Earth Mother and laughed with joy. I would know the light by many names in many deaths but this was the the only time I came to the light as a laughing warrior.

Past life or just another dream?

like a stone

Death is starting to lose any meaning to me. No I'm not thinking of suicide but of past lives.

I skip like a stone on an eternal pond.

Peace is with me now and no one can hurt me anymore. No one can hurt my ownership of nothing.

My soul is the only thing I ever owned or ever will.

Life is like a stone thrown by the eternal one.

The stone flies through the air as my soul flows through the void.

The stone impacts with water and skips. My soul impacts with life and skips.

I skip in and out of life like the stone skips on and off of water.

a note to a friend

a note to a friend,

We're all overwhelmed. We are infinite souls given finite centers of our universe called life.

We have lived more lives than we could count and know every hell reality can serve.

To save all living things from eternities of insanity we are given the twin gifts of forgetfulness and imagination.

We seek infinite knowledge but the finite can't be infinite.

Imagination is the only road to enlightenment.

Robert Andrew Vollrath 10-21-2008

Little Bee Girl

She came to me without hesitation. I became emotional and tears swelled in my normally dry eyes.

Amanda was planing to open a used clothing store for small children. I had bought my Daughter-in -law a box of clothes at a yard sale for her store. In that box was a bee outfit.

Cordelia ran across the room in that silly costume. I love that little bee girl.

Roses

I decided to do something romantic. I left roses on Patty's front porch. I didn't leave a note for her father or brothers to read. I just left roses for her to find.

The Red Army

The Red Army marched towards me but I stood before them without fear. The red ants marched across the road single file. Their colony had been poisoned by our neighbour when his grand daughter had been bitten by the ants when she played to close to the large ant mound.

I was five years old when the Red Army invaded my family's back yard. On the north side of an old storm shelter was the ant mound of the black ants. The red ants home was poisoned but they didn't lay down and die, they picked up their colony and went on a quest for a new home. They had no time to dig a new home in the spring rains so they would take the black ants home. As a five year old you had to respect that.

My little gang of friends were all preschoolers except of course our wise leader Brad. He was a first grader and knew almost everything. Our toys became boring as we watched the war between the black and the red ants. The black ants were only a third the size of the red ants but they were in greater numbers. For three days we watched the war play out as we could all see the black ants were going to lose.

We debated among ourselves if we should help the black ants then Brad spoke up.

"It's best to stay out of these things. We should let nature take its course."

The wisdom of a first grader could not be questioned and we watched the war till its bitter end.

I remember the last moments of the war when the black queen was pulled out of what was the black ant mound and tore to pieces. The red queen moved in and the war was over. As the red ants moved in to their new home my father saw all the red ants in the back yard and told my little gang of friends to go home.

I watched from my bedroom window as he poured poison into the ant mound. This time all the red ants died.

Death of a Stream

Behind Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City Missouri is a little woods. I think it's still there. I once lived near the stadium and spent many hours walking that little woods with my sons.

In that little woods somehow spared from the giant parking lots of twin stadiums was a beautiful little stream filled with tiny fish. Our dog Sonny would drink from the little stream on our walks through the woods.

Sundays the boys, the dog and I would always walk in that woods. One Sunday we found ourselves in that woods and Sonny ran to the stream to get a drink. Sonny stopped on small hill before he got to the stream and froze like a statue. The three of us reached the top of the hill and looked down on the stream. All the tiny fish were dead in the stream. A film of gas from the run off of a Monster Truck show in one of the stadiums had killed the stream.

We never walked in that woods again.

Toxic Barrels

I remember the first time I saw the barrels. The barrels were in a lot next to the house I was renting an apartment in Holden Missouri with my newlywed wife Jackie. I remember looking at the barrels through a fence and wondering what was inside the mystery drums.

Then there was the stories in the local newspaper about the barrels being full of toxic waste.
The local paper said the toxic waste in the barrels had been dumped in ponds, lakes and streams.
I never fished in the area around my hometown again.

Years passed and I didn't think about the toxic barrels. Halfway between Holden and Kingsville they built a facility to deal with the toxic barrels. I remember I heard the rumble in the distance one night. My sons were teenagers then and my oldest son Mark had climbed a near by water tower with his friend Jeff.

Mark and Jeff watched the facility burn from a distance. How the fire started is an unknown.
I remember later that night Mark describing the barrels exploding up into the night sky like some kind of giant toxic fireworks.

The Building

I saw it in a dream. I was in an office building. I was sitting at my desk. I was an army officer with ribbons on my chest. There was an explosion and the building fell on me. My neck was broken and my eyes were bulging from the pressure of the concrete slabs baring down on me. My rib cage was broken and with one last exhale of air, I spoke two words.

"Federal Building."

I died.

I woke up in a cold sweat. I knew a Federal Building was going to be bombed but where?
I told a few friends not to go in the Federal Building in Kansas City Missouri.

I began to get restless and planed a trip to Oklahoma City. I never went on that trip because I had no reason to go there. If I had went there would I have known what was about to happen in a vision. What would I have done if I had?

The Fire

I was 17 or 18 and was dating Jackie Allen at the time of this story. Jackie would become my wife and I had fallen in love with her in a very short time. Her home life was terrible with an abusive father and a mother that didn't protect her.

Jackie was going on a trip to Colorado with her mother and some friends. I picked her up at the farm house her family was renting. Inside things were bad. Her father and brother were drunk.
I don't blame her brother Jeff for anything as he was a teenager raised to drink booze but her father Benny was another story. Benny had lost his job for going to work drunk and the power had been shut off in the house.

The house was full of lit candles when I arrived that night. Jackie called for her hamster Sam. Whenever her brother and father got drunk one of them would let the little hamster out of his cage and he would go hide till Jackie called his name. He would only come to Jackie.

As she put her super smart hamster back in his cage I grabbed her suitcase sitting in the center of the living room.

The moment my hand touched the handle of the suitcase, I had my first Black Void Vision.

In that black void I saw a single candle surrounded by the walls of the burning living room.

When the vision ended I felt the urge to tell Jackie to get all of her belongings and Sam the hamster because the house was going to burn to the ground that night. I didn't say anything and the house burned to the ground that night. Jeff saved his father pulling him out of the burning house. Benny had second degree burns on his head and back.

Someone called and told me about the fire. I tried to reach Jackie at her friend's house but they had left their phone off to get a good night's sleep before the trip to Colorado. I drove out to that farm house and told Jackie and her mother. I drove out to where the farm house was and watched the burning embers with Jackie.

Jackie fell into my arms crying, thinking of her little hamster Sam. The poor creature was trapped in his cage.

A week later Benny came by my house. I hated that man like no other. He asked where Jackie was and I didn't tell him. I looked at his burned arms and head and I couldn't help but feel pity for him. I gave him my little black and white TV. He thanked me and left.

As he left with the first TV I had owned, I thought that pity was better than hate.

The Vision

My ex-wife Jackie Goss asked me why I hadn't told this story before. I'm not sure why this story scares me so. The following story is true and my ex-wife is a witness to a moment in our life together when I predicted a future event in stunning detail. This is my 400th post on this blog and if you choice to do so, you are about to read about my strongest vision in a life of visions.

I use to enter any contest that had to do with costumes and the strangest of these contests was the Weird Sunglasses Contest in early summer of 1981. I don't remember the name of the radio station that held the contest but I do remember where it was held.

I won that contest with my sunglasses with 23 lens and frames made out of 3M 3-D material.
First prize was a free weekend at a nice hotel in Kansas City Missouri.

I remember the argument I had with my wife Jackie about going to the hotel on July17th.

"I need to go that weekend! I want to go that weekend! Why can't we go that weekend?"

"My brother Jeff might be in town for his birthday. Why are you yelling at me about this?"

"I don't know........ You're right, we need to be here if your brother comes by. I'm sorry I don't know why I was yelling at you. I'm going on a walk. I'll see you in a few hours.......I love you.
I'm really sorry I yelled at you."

I rushed out the door and got in my car and drove to a wildlife park. In my twenties any walk for me was a ten mile hike in the woods.

In the woods I felt at peace. I thought how selfish I was to be married when I had seizures everyday and couldn't remember my own name on a bad day. Now I had a son and that made me even more selfish. How was I, the brain damaged fool going to raise a son?

A sense of dread came over me and I knew something bad was going to happen.

Two weeks later and we were entering the Hyatt Regency at the Crown Center Complex in Kansas City Missouri. After we checked in for our free weekend we decided to go swimming.
As my wife and I walked across the upper sky-walk in the hotel lobby I thought about my only child Mark. This was the first time we were away from him for a weekend. I hoped he wouldn't miss us too much.

Suddenly I felt the sky-way flex up and down an inch over and over again. I turned to see three other people walking on the sky-walk. Only three people walking and the sky-walk flexed that much? For some reason I felt compelled to put my hand on one of the red support rods.

The moment I touched that rod I found myself in a black void watching the top sky-walk splitting in half and pan caking the lower sky-walk with the result of both sky-walks falling to the lobby floor. I came back to this reality and turned to my wife Jackie.

"This sky-walk is going to fall soon!"

After our swim we didn't walk back across the sky-walk and looked rather silly walking across the floor of the lobby in swim suits and towels.

"Sir, could you please use the sky-walk after your swim?"

Said one of the hotel staff. I stopped walking and looked him straight in the eye.

"That sky-walk is going to fall in two weeks and it scares me to walk across it."

The man gave me a dirty look and walked away.

That afternoon dressed in normal clothes I spoke to the front desk clerk and he dismissed my vision as a vertigo fantasy.

That night Jackie and I went swimming again and I saw why the sky-walk was going to fall.
Hundreds of people were dancing on the sky-walk in a event called a Tea Dance. As the big band played I became sick to my stomach.

Two weeks later I'm driving in my car when I hear the news on the radio. I begin to cry.

I pull the car into a strip mall parking lot. Turn off the engine and lay my head on the steering wheel and cry like a baby in deep sobs.

To this day I feel guilty I didn't tell more people about this vision when it could have saved lives.

Next Post; The Fire

Thanks goes to Jackie Goss, my then wife for helping me write this story.

Fishing with Grandfather Vollrath

I followed my cousin Monroe and Grandfather Vollrath to the fishing pond across the gravel road to the other half of his farm. This is the past and I miss them both. Both died too soon.

I follow my son Mark and his son Denver to another fishing spot. I am Grandfather Vollrath now and I'm carrying cane fishing poles. This is the future. I must live to make it come true.

Grandfather Vollrath, Monroe and I are fishing with cane poles. We capture grasshoppers near the pond for our bait. This is a happy memory but I can't recall if we caught any fish. It doesn't matter.

I am with my son Mark and grandson Denver in the future. It doesn't matter if we catch anything just as long as Denver has this memory of me. Someday he too might be a Grandfather Vollrath.

Next Post; The Vision

Blue Green Dream

I'm a protectionist as was Abraham Lincoln.

I know next to nothing about the world of finance.

I do know that rich spoiled brats are running the world and haven't a clue how to fix the mess they created. They have built an empire of false knowledge in oceans of arrogance. They let the children of the Earth breath polluted air from the greed that owns their souls. They want a world of wage-slaves (low income workers) and sign up-slaves (volunteers that do work they should be paid) while their lust for power and money knows no bounds.

I believe in unions. They are corrupt imaginary constructions but they are less corrupt than the corporate imaginary constructions.

I believe in green technology. The polluted air is slowly killing me. I don't care about myself as much as I care about all the children of the world.

I believe in the Blue Green Dream.

Denver or Bust

Under the same number of stories about grand children protection act, I am required by a law I passed between my ears to write an equal number of stories about my Grand Son Denver Vollrath. Seen here with his beautiful mother Queen Becky the two are either in Asia or Minnesota.

"Denver this is your Grandfather Vollrath calling by the Imagination Network. Can you imagine what I'm thinking?"

"Yes Grandfather, I'm reading you imagined and clear."

"I'm coming to see you Denver. I'll be there soon to know the joy that is you. I love you Denver with all the love a Grandfather can give. I'm sorry I haven't seen you more in this first year of your life. I look forward to the remaining years of my life to weave a thousand dreams with you and to be your friend."

How To Fix the U.S.A.

I don't know what to do. Our system of bribery is very complex and I'm sure all the experts will say I'm wrong. Well here goes nothing.

1. It's the manufacturing jobs you elitist arrogant aristocratic fools! You can't turn a whole country into a bedroom community. You must have good paying blue collar jobs to support the housing market. You can't run a country on bean counters and paper pushers. You must make something that has value. How many children half a world away will die because of pollution made from your mindless greed manifested into a reality of toxic hell?

2. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Bribery should not be the same thing. The wealthy of the country should not decide which American can run for office. Elections should last only six weeks and all ads and travel is banned in those six weeks. A series of nightly debates plays on public radio and public television for those six weeks.

3. Term Limits for all. One term for all political offices in the United States. One year terms for all political offices in the United States. No woman or man could hold any office after five years.
The end of the career politician.

4. Change the Constitution and get rid of the Senate. The most elitist and corrupt organization in the country.

5. Create Blue Green Factories and pass a law that 80% of all goods sold in the U.S.A. are made in the U.S.A.. Blue is for Union and Green is for zero pollution. Don't believe the lies as zero pollution is possible with current technology.

6. Break up the oil companies and make all next years car models run on Compressed Natural Gas. Convert older cars to Compressed Natural Gas in five years. Run taxis on compressed air and bus lines on hydrogen fuel cells. Phase out Compressed Natural Gas in ten years and replace with hydrogen fuel cell cars.

The Knowing

I first heard about The Knowing when I was a small child. The person that told me about The Knowing doesn't wish me to tell their name. This family member was hit by a car and knocked out.
That person died and in that moment of death knew everything. That love one couldn't bring The Knowing back and believes the human brain can't hold infinite knowledge.

I don't remember all of my time in the boarder lands between life and death. I would like to think I would reject infinite knowledge.

Sometime I just know things, like my half speaking with Patty.

In her two years in a coma she found The Knowing. The question I ask myself is; did I find The Knowing in those twenty minutes in the boarder lands? I find that I don't care.

Super Normal

For 33 years I chased the dream of becoming Super Normal. A place inside your mind where your imagination rules your emotions and put an end to the bi-polar cycle.
I only give six minutes to my depressive/manic cycle a month. When I was young I gave the whole year to that cycle. Six months depressed and six months manic was my childhood.

We are all given gifts beyond all the riches of the world.

Imagination approaching the infinite.

The ability to love our enemies.

Each of us has the power to change the world.

I am a being of pure light and I say to any that suffer from the bi-polar cycle that the strongest medicine is your imagination. I am not a doctor and you should listen to medical advice but your imagination is a powerful weapon against depression.

If you are depressed and you think no one believes in you then you are wrong.

I believe in you. I believe in every human soul on the planet. I believe that hell can have redemption. I believe that love can always win. I believe in you.

Grand Daughter Versus Grandpa

"In this corner weighing 250 pounds is the Champion Baby Wrestler of the Vollrath Family, Grandpa Vollrath!"

All the talking Elmo toys in the little house goes wild!

Then the Imaginary Announcer points to a little girl in the opposite corner of the house.

"In this corner weighing under 30 pounds is the Challenger Cordelia (The Cookie Monster) Vollrath!"

Not just the Elmos but all the toys go wild for their favorite little girl.

Grandpa ponders this for a moment;"Home court advantage, I didn't think of that. I must be careful, you never know when a favorite toy will jump in and try to rig the match."

The two titans of family love come to the center of the house. A big furry frog chair is the Ref.

"First no eye gouging and that means you Cordelia! I saw that scar on your mother's eyelid."

Cordelia gives the Frog Chair Ref her most innocent look.

"Second Grandpa, no silly faces, bad jokes or weird noises."

With that said Grandpa knew this wasn't any ordinary Furry Frog Chair Ref.

"Now I want some nice clean silly whatever this is."

Cordelia started the match with a hug and a giggle. Grandpa went for a belly tickle but got his hat stolen before he could complete the move. Cordelia ran off with the hat on wobbly legs.

Grandpa faked super sadness for the lost hat and fell on the floor. Cordelia sat on Grandpa's head and the match was over. Cordelia was the winner and the toys of the house sang with joy.

Grandpa was a good loser as he had been Champion Baby Wrestler of the Vollrath family from the time his sons were little and that was a long time. He was just glad Cordelia didn't have a dirty diaper.

Hospital Visit

Cordelia and I playing our game of (Where is grandpa's hat?) at her birthday party.
Photos by Jackie Goss. Used with permission.

My son Micheal called me and asked me watch Cordelia my one year old grand daughter while he had a checkup at the hospital.

Cordelia had gotten four vaccine shots that day and when I got there was asleep with a small fever from four weaken viruses racing through her body.

Micheal went for his checkup while I watched the sleeping Cordelia in the waiting room. She sat in the stroller I had picked out and my parents had bought her. While Micheal was gone Cordelia woke up for a few seconds. I talked to her and she looked at me with a weak smile and went back to sleep. Micheal returned and said we got there too late. The out patient office was closed.

We went down to the hospital parking lot as I had the great honor of pushing Cordelia in her stroller. Micheal was putting the stroller in the back of the car when Cordelia woke up in her car seat. I began to talk to her and showed her that I had remembered to bring my hat, so we could play a game of where is grandpa's hat. She looked at me with a weak smile and slowly reach for my hat. She put her arm down and smiled at me. I went to my fall back game of peek-a-boo and again she flashed me a weak smile. Cordelia went back to sleep.

Then I realized that Cordelia wanted to make me smile and laugh as much as I wanted to make her smile and laugh. She was just too sick and tired after her hospital visit.

Late Night Shopping

I was at my youngest son's house on a Friday night just before he was to go off to work.
My son Micheal is a male nurse working with the mentally challenged in group homes.

My daughter-in-law was becoming nervous as Micheal was getting ready to leave and said she needed to go shopping. I volunteered to be Amanda's and Cordelia's bodyguard for this late night shopping for the essentials. Amanda drove since the world looks like a broken mirror to me at night.

I love shopping with my daughter-in-law and that little bundle of joy that is my grand daughter.
Of course I take turns pushing the shopping cart and then there is the game of where is grandpa.
This time I even showed Cordelia I know how to juggle.

As we were leaving the store Amanda gave me a wonderful compliment;

"You make the ordinary, extraordinary."

The Smile Behind the Pacifier

The above picture has nothing to do with the following story but this is the used car I bought Cordelia for her birthday. I think that's Cordelia in the car but her best friend was at the party and from a distance you can't tell them apart.

I can't remember why I was in the north land (I do now but that's a secret). On the way back I drove by my son's house and saw Cordelia and her daddy starting to go for a walk.

"Hi Cordelia, can I go for a walk with you?"

Cordelia was sitting in her new wagon her other grandpa bought her for her birthday. She looked up at me with the biggest smile behind her pacifier. I parked the car and went walking with her and her father. I pulled the wagon until I got too winded and then my son took over.

My asthma was beating me up that day but that beautiful smile behind the pacifier was all the medicine I needed.

Photo by Jackie Goss. Used with permission.

The Great Firewall of America

Electronic lying seems to be popular among the aristocratic families of the world.

Where ever you live in world, the aristocrats rule. They want to own the Internet but they lack the imagination to capture it in any real sense. They own most of the traditional media but that media is dying a slow death. How will they control the flow of information in the future? Big lies wrapped in small sound bites? Short video clips as reality? Parades of polls without the methods of the polling? All these are in the here and now.

Do we have a Great Firewall of America? We know there is a Great Firewall of China but what if a group is monitoring our Internet activity from an USA perspective?

I first suspected this at the beginning of this year when my first five posts were removed (or censored as I see it) by Blogger for what could only be political reasons.

Then after talking to some blogger in the Middle East a map widget showed all international visits to my blog were coming from Virgina in the United States. After I commented on that fact on a blog the widget went back to normal. I took down the map widget later and haven't put one back up.

Whenever I think my blog is being hacked, I talk about it on my blog and all my problems go away the moment I put the post up.

I think we'll never know how much our writing is monitored but I'm sure it is in a limited way.

Forever Fish

Has my blog been hacked? I can't edit my blog anymore. I can't save drafts of my posts.
Has this happened to anyone else?

The Forever Fish swam into my imagination.

"Aren't you being a little paranoid Robert? Come on, who would want to hack your blog?"

"I'd answer that Forever Fish but then I'd sound more paranoid."

Is Blogger having these problems on a larger scale?

"Come on Robert just swim with me in a sea of dreams and forget blogging for a while."

I begin to swim with the Forever Fish and hope for the best.

I just read that blogger is aware of this problem and I'm not the only one. My problem started when I got Myspace IM.

Blog Dog

I blog because most days I don't have the energy to do anything else.

Nah, that's not it! I love to blog. I'm sick but drawing takes less energy than this.

Some days when I'm down as far as I can go I just live for the comments. I don't even think that's silly.

I love reading other peoples blogs. I love the artwork posted and even the You Tube videos.

Between Imagination Vendors and The Rant three Bully Tales will pop up in the days to come.

Skateboard Bully Finished Story 9/22
Mugger Bully Finished Story 9/22
Movie Bully Finished Story 9/23

I do stupid things in all three stories and become a bully myself as I fight against bullies.

All three stories are as true as I remember. I won't paint myself in a positive light in these stories. All three stories deal with sensitive issues in our world so I'm going to work hard on these stories to keep stereotypes from being reinforced by the telling of the tale.

Reinforcing stereotypes is a form of lying. Many people don't seem to care who is hurt by their blogs but I do. If any of my stories can stop some one from making the mistakes I have then this blog has worth.

Health Careless is the next short story I'll be finishing before I move this blog forward again. 9/23

Imagination Vendors

I have dreams but I don't want to sell them. I've never been any good at that. No money in that want of given things freely. Oh, I have a beat up old dream around here somewhere that I'll sell but my heart won't be in it. I guess I'll never be an Imagination Vendor. Those people with names like Disney and Lucas that sold their dreams so well. Still when my asthma isn't bad like it is today I have hope. Sometimes I think I have asthma because I have dusty old dreams.

Then again I'm a being of pure light and my imagination has no bounds. My dreams burn like white hot stars made of diamond dust! We are a web of imagination in an echo of nothing! My dream is no more important than the largest or smallest of anyone's dream!

Keep your prepackaged dreams you vendors of a thousand hollow tales I have a few of my own!

The above post is what happens when you write when you're sick.

Movie Bully

"Hey you, you move to the front of the theater! I don't like you little whip business men!"

The five punks in the back row began to violently kick the back of the row seats ten seats above us.

I sat with my family and watched as people moved to the front of the movie theater to get away from the gang of five.

"That's right move to the front where you belong!" Said one of the five.

I thought to myself; "Don't say anything, just let it go."

"Hey you people three rows ahead of me. I need you to move too. You smell bad."

The other four laughed at there gang leaders comment.

"They don't have to move!"

The gang of five was shocked and so was I. It was my voice but it was like someone else had spoke the words. The leader of gang looked down on me from the high ground and spoke.

"There is five of us but only one of you. Are you sure you want to mouth off to us?"

"There only needs to be one of me."

Again it was as if someone else spoke through me but it was my voice.

I turned around and watched the movie that had been playing for five minutes. I was going to die so I could see Gremlin's 2 in peace and quiet. I was the greatest of all fools. My sons and their mother with a friend were going to see me beaten to a bloody pulp after the movie ends. I could leave before the movie ends but that would be a sign of weakness and might invite the attack.
I had to let this play out and pretend to be brave.

The movie ended and the gang of five almost ran out of the movie theater. I chuckled at this.

The young punks must have seen too many Kung Fu movies and thought a lone fighter could take five on at once.

When I got outside I couldn't remember where my car was parked. With my family and a friend in tow I began to look for my car. Then I saw the gang of five huddled together in a group of old cars. With my exceptional hearing I could just make out their conversation 500 feet away.

"There he is. Don't let him get you alone or he'll kill you. That's the way they always do it."

I couldn't help it. I started laughing as loud as I ever laughed. This scared the gang of five even more. Which made me laugh even louder. Finally I found my car and drove off.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I honked my horn and waved at the gang of five.

They didn't wave back.

Mugger Bully

A young woman walked towards me.

"My boyfriend says that you are to give me some money so we can go to a movie or he'll shoot you."

I was in Westport an old neighborhood of Kansas City Missouri.

"I don't see a gun. Where is his gun?"

I've never been scare of any man that threatens by sending his wife or girlfriend over to me.

"You better believe he has a gun! He has it in the pocket of his leather jacket."

"Tell him I'll give you the money if he shows me the gun."

She walked back to her boyfriend and told him what I said. He looked angry and sent his girlfriend back over to me.

"He says he's going to shot you through the pocket of his leather jacket if you don't give us money to go to the movies now!"

"I don't think so. It's his hand in the pocket of his leather jacket. Now you two need to find someone else to mug because I'm going to go buy an art book at that bookstore."

I began walking to the bookstore and those two Westport muggers followed me.

I keep looking around for a policeman to flag down but couldn't see any. The couple was walking 30 feet behind me. I walked into the bookstore and they stopped following me. I could see the couple waiting for me just a few steps from the doorway through the big bookstore windows.

The art book I was looking for was sold out. The only two other costumers in the bookstore left through the front door running the mugger gantlet without a reaction from the couple. They were waiting for me. I must have hurt their mugger pride. I went to the check out counter.

"I need you to call the call the police for me. That couple just outside your front door is threatening to kill me if I don't give them money."

"I don't want to get involved. You need to leave my store."

"If you have a back door I'll be glad to leave your store."

"I don't have a backdoor, you'll need to go out the front door."

"I can't go out the front door or I'll get mugged. Besides you're lying as I know you have a backdoor."

With that the clerk ran into the backroom. He yelled at me from the backroom.

"Leave my store now or I'll call the police!"

I yelled back.

"Fine with me, I want you to call the police!"

The bookstore was empty except for me. A couple of would be muggers out front and a cowardly bookstore clerk in the backroom. I watched the boyfriend mugger through the front window give evil stares to anyone approaching the bookstore. It was comical how you could see people change their minds about going into the bookstore by body language and the expressions on their faces.

I yelled back to the store clerk.

"Hey Mr. Bookstore Owner how about closing your eyes and letting me run out your backdoor?"

"I've got a gun and I'll shot you if you come back here!"

"Great, everyone has a gun today but me."

All I wanted to do was buy a $20.00 art book, how did I become part of a three way book store stand off. That thought gave me an Idea. All of us in this little reality play were cowards at heart.
I could use that and the ego of Mr. Boyfriend Bully.

"I'm going to try something Mr. Bookstore Owner. If I die I'm going to haunt this bookstore and if I live I'm going to tell everyone what a coward you are!"

I walked over to the big window by the front door and tapped on it. Mr. and Mrs. Mugger turned and looked at me.

"I love books! I can stay in here all day. You two are going to miss the early show."

I turned and walked away like I wasn't scared at all. I just started shopping for books. I saw the mean stare from Mr. Mugger out of the corner of my eye. Mrs. Mugger was pulling on his arm begging him not to come into the store and beat me up. After a few minutes of this she won and the couple turned and walked away. I left the bookstore in stealth mode. The front door didn't have a bell on it and I opened and closed it as quiet as I could. I wanted Mr. Bookstore Owner to stay in the backroom for as long as possible.

I went directly to were my car was parked. I had somehow lost my parking ticket and the parking attendant told me that would cost me twenty dollars.

"See if you can read my license plate!" I said to the parking attendant as I speed off without paying. I looked in my rear view mirror as I speed out of Westport and thought to myself;

"Still no policemen to be found."

Note; This all happened before the age of cell phones.