HERMIT STEVE-- PART 2 RE-POST FROM JULY 2008

This is my SUNDAY post. 

I am leaving now for a meeting 

and will return rather late. OK?


Today (Sunday) is Part 2 of 

"Steve the Hermit" story.

Part 3 will air Monday. 
Tuesday will describe my 
first AA meeting,

eight years after "Hermit".

VISION AT 3 AM IN TOTAL DARKNESS

STEVE THE "HERMIT" 
 STAR DATE 1966
 PART TWO (of THREE)

The BEETLES sang it best:

"Yesterday.......(parodied)
...all my troubles seemed so far away,
...as I returned from comatose;
...and I began to breathe again."

A tropical depression had just moved onto my (sand-spit) island and my tent was blowing around--and there I lay, fairly oblivious to nature's powerful forces all about.  I was abruptly awakened from a deep, deep drunken stupor--into which I had poured myself--by terribly frightening (to me) noises of growling, crying, and hissing sounds VERY close by.  

When my eyes began to focus, I saw this MONSTER, this horribly ugly head, about the size of a football, beak-mouth wide open, snorting, snarling, and...and what? of all things...CRYING! Our heads were separated by six inches. I was lying there on the tent floor, looking into the gaping mouth of a giant sea turtle, a real live nesting-straining-and-egg-laying Loggerhead! Right in my TENT!

A week later I was told that she likely did her nesting every YEAR on the very spot I had carefully (Ha!) chosen to erect (Ha!) my tent.. (Sorry for the "Ha's", they express better than ever could I). 

Anyway, I did what ANY normal, sane human would do in this scary situation--reach beside me for my bottle of Early Times 86 proof!  What else?  After a few swigs from my bottle, I might better deal with these events.  The turtle kept on huffing, puffing, crying, putting out and burying her eggs as if I was not there.  Finally she left, dragging her hefty body over the few feet of remaining sandy beach, to water's edge. All this lasted a half hour.

I DO believe I heard her singing, in the sweetest Loggerhead voice..."I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky...and all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by..." --SEA FEVER, by John Masefield

--and I was again safe, hurting (in real pain: bottoms of my feet shredded and bloody, now becoming infected, weary mentally and physically--called 'bone tired'--so I "made a decision" to put some calories into my body, and so I opened a couple beers, and chased down each swallow of the Golden Brew with my favorite 'wonder drug' of the moment, vodka.

Please note that my answer to ANY question, ANY situation, ANY happening, ANY prayer event...was to become annihilated with my drug, alcohol.  It was my answer for anything and everything. Alcohol had become my GOD. Drinking had become my way of life, the only life I would know--for eight more years.

This ten-day period of my life needs ONE MORE BLOG (tomorrow?) to complete--it just became much too lengthy to finish now.  Hope you will be back next time, for the finale!

Yesterday (continued):  "Oh I be-lieve in Yes-ter-day..."

(Yesterday brought me here for today!)

steveroni