"Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?..."

STEVE--

WHERE WERE YOU?

Well, without any intention to do so, I just did not blog yesterday. And, you know...that's OK. Because I have learned, finally, the hard way (God had to 'use' someone to awaken me from the deep sleep of childhood) --that it REALLY is not "all about me." In fact it is not at ALL...about me! What a burden has been lifted from my shoulders, to know that I can now be just myself--like it or not--and not constantly and continuously be "someone else" to you, my real world.

However, it is difficult to not cheat just a tad, when blogging, because y'all don't really know me. I could be a bank robber.

So when someone wrote "Where is Steve?" it reminded me of one day in the winter of 1948, at inner-city St Xavier High, when I decided to be AWOL. The next day I was ordered to write 500 words relating my downtown experiences, of the missed school day.

500 words--What did I do instead of show up for class?

Write 500 words, oh, my!---What DID I do when I didn't show up for school? How about:

"Well, I met this sales person on a street corner in the seedy part of town. He was well-dressed, wore several thick gold chains around his neck. But it was those shiny shoes that hollered out, "Look at us!" I had never seen patent leather like that pair, which seemed as if they might walk by themselves. But, let this parody on the 'poem?' SIMPLE SIMON speak for me.

"Simple Steve met a dealer going to his lair;
Said Simple Steve to the dealer "Let me taste your ware"
Said the dealer, "Simple Steve, show me first your dough, Sonny"
Simple Steve said to the dealer "Sir, I have not the money!"

So, we glided away in his Citroen, to the bank for some money. The teller was very courteous to me as she kept eyeing the gun that my new friend, 'sales person' was holding...

(I will not bore a reader with the next 400 words HERE............................................................)

And so that is how I came to be wearing these extraordinary patent leathers to school this morning.

NOTE: The sales person (dealer) really wanted me as a 'regular', a pot-headed customer. However, I wished to remain lawfully careful, a law-abiding Freshman at St X--who drank only legally (except for my age), the booze which gave me courage, self-esteem, security, and that instant good feeling we know so well. A polite tall glass of White Port in the morning, and nothing until 4 PM--then, whatever I could find in the barns around the farm.

Hired hands left their half-emptied bottles lying around in the horse barn and the maintenance shed, forgetting usually where they hid bottles, and how much was left in them. DUMMIES! They were probably some stupid Alcoholics!

So, as the memories return, they do not haunt me now. The above story is not altogether true...the dealer really drove a Ford Pickup!

And, looking back (only momentarily), I find it the one TRUE miracle in my life--that I have not had a drink since the day before my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, March 18, 1974. and believe me, at least for this day, (sigh!) I feel the Power of God everywhere around me. I'm going over to a 5:30 meeting...it's where I need to be. Love you ALL!

BTW, I was NOT involved in a bank heist--all fabrication--thought ya knew that...

atpeace-a-roni