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

STEVE THE HERMIT! YEAH.....RIGHT

This is a two-year-old re-posting

--part of "my story"...

On the "Sugar Lump"

This scene is almost a replica of where I spent my 10 days.

Found out I am not cut out for "HERMIT" material!

(NOTE: I did NOT have a boat.)

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

The year 1966 is one which lives in my memory, mainly for the events here described. Since I had come to Florida to 'be a hermit', for my vacation during the summer of '66, I determined to get a taste of the hermitage. So, for my two weeks in the sun and fun, I chose to get myself planted on a small spit of an island south of Marco Island--the objective, to 'play hermit' for a week or so...I think it was ten days?

I rented a tent, and all the equipment which could fit on a small boat, and hired a fellow to float me down to this 'sugar loaf' spit of sand in the Gulf of Mexico. And of course, it goes without saying that I loaded onto that little runabout several cases of beer, one case (12 quart bottles) of my favorite (the cheapest) vodka of the day and six quarts of Early Times (to compensate for my bland vodka dietary choice). Ice, many cans of tuna, some boiled eggs, heck I don't know what else, it didn't matter. Ants got to the food before me, since I mostly drank the first couple days.

As soon as my guide dropped me, and helped to unload my gear (don't break the bottles!), he sped away, maybe glad to be rid of me--with the promise that in ten days he'd return. Well, I was ecstatic!

I was in HEAVEN! I ran around like a crazed child, alone on his private playground. Me, the hermit! My dream of thirty years had come true, at least in "trial" form. I cavorted (yes, cavorted) in the water, bare-footed, and bare-ass'd. I really thought maybe the water there was contaminated, because it had a certain foreboding red color, all around me was this red-tinted water. It was THEN, that reality set in. I had been cavorting on an old oyster bed, and the "red" was my own blood. Yep, my (by now!) VERY sore feet bottoms were shredded.

Now I became scared...no doctor, no medicine, no First Aid kit...so first I took a huge pull from a vodka bottle, and knew that I was going to soon be wasting some of the precious liquid on my FEET. If whoever reading this is an alcoholic, they will immediately KNOW what absolute TRAUMA it was for me to pour vodka , AND Early Times (forgot to mention the Whiskey!) onto my feet. I cried then. Not the burning, but OH! the wasted booze, Oh! Woe is me!

So, for the next days (daze!) I walked about wearing a tee shirt wrapped around each foot, using a makeshift cane for support. I did not acknowledge God at that time very well, I mean He and I were at odds, at least I was.

Now, back to my first night. On the radio, it was announced that a Tropical Depression had formed over Everglades City, about 10 miles from where I sat, painfully nursing myself with the only anesthesia I knew, in the darkness of a warm, June night. Well, that storm came thundering full blast at my island, the water kept rising, I'd check it every half hour, and moved my tent several times that night, walking on two bloody stubs. I stayed very drunk, but could not avoid the dangerous situation which was before me. There was nowhere to go, no hills, and the water kept rising. In a drunken stupor I fell fast asleep.

You'd think my 'First-Night' story might end here. Wrong! Since this blong has become waaay out of bounds for a simple daily log reading, the "rest of this story" will be on my next posting. It's much more interesting than today's, so don't miss it. I promise!

CUT BACK AND CUT OUT!

POEM???


Take away my shoes
Take away my socks
Take all of my toys
Even my building blocks

I'll keep my Hershey bars.
Drive away my two cars
Take away my favorite bike
Help yourself to what you like

Carry off my so precious fiddle
On the hill play "Hey Diddle Diddle"
If you dare touch my Hershey Bars
You'll be the first on Planet Mars....

S'pose you know by now
That I've gotten fat--even how.
(By eating lots of cacao bean
Hiding it, so's not be seen)

So never ever even think
Offering me spicy food or drink
Will wrap me up and tie me in a knot
To loosen the hold on my chocolate.

DIETING:  DYING OR LIVING

For a week now I have been trying to "watch what I eat" read: not eat.  Just want to lose a few pounds, say 20-30 or so.  Anyway, I am only FOUR fewer than when I started,  according to some.  But I see it as a total loss of EIGHT pounds, because had I continued on my  ch-ch-ch-chocolate-and-cheese diet I would have gained four pounds. Is 4+4 not 8?

If anyone has bothered to read that paragraph...does it make sense?  I mean, my arithmetic!

After years of becoming and achieving the status of a stark-raving-raging-mad  chaos-driven (and fat!) alcoholic, the arithmetic I learned was 0 drink + 1 drink = Total drunken wreckage!  Because one drink ALWAYS (I NEVER had "just one") led to another and another, until...sweet oblivion. Understand that for YEARS it was not like that...but, little-by-little my body adjusted to the drug amounts, and I had to keep having more and more...just in order to get the "effect", to "again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once from taking a few drinks...".

If I went to a party, I ALWAYS brought my own bottle, so I would not be embarrassed to drink whatever I (by then) needed, to be really and truly what I determined as social.

AND...I was forever the great pretender, pretending that I was shober-ash-a-shJudgeh in any situation. I prided myself on my capability--capacity--to drink more than anyone, and be able to "hold my liquor". What a farce! The few Peeps who cared at all wondered, "How long before he dies?" (I was age 38-40 then.) And I guess I was really trying to kill myself with alcohol.

Well, in AA I found out that I had ZERO tolerance for alcohol.  The only way I could live was to NOT take the "first drink". Finally that made sense to me.  Simple, yes.  Easy? No!  But anyone will have to admit this works...if I don't take that first drink I will never get drunk.  For me it is the only thing which works.

Soooo, back to my diet.  If I stop eating, I'll never get fat and I'll die!  On the other hand, when I stopped drinking, I THOUGHT I was dying...and soon began to live, and later to really live, and now--sometimes--to be blest with a peacefulness beyond understanding.

Go figure!

Meanwhile, will you try please, to:
Stay sober with me today?
Smile today, with me?
Harbor no ill will or resentments today?
Be at PEACE today?
Be full of LOVE today?

TAKE CARE!

I NEVER HAD ANY FRIENDS!

NO WONDER I NEVER
HAD ANY FRIENDS!!

This past week, I have got so serious,
that I really needed an emotional break,
and so I'm blogging today a poem I wrote
in 1959 while I was drunk out of my mind.
I hope and pray that your sensibilities may
not be offended. It will never be my wish
to alienate anyone here.

This is a warning--the following
is NOT the usual "steveroni" fare. This was
actually written on the 24th Anniversary of
Alcoholics Anonymous...but CERTAINLY I
was not aware of that fact!
--Steve E.

HOT EVENING IN JUNE 1959

So glad I'm not a dog
With families of fleas
Would not be a flower
And get stung by bumble bees
But wish I were a bird
So I could shit on everybody.

Would never be a lion
With all that fluffy fur
Cannot see myself a cat
Afraid of every Grrrrr--
But I wish I were a bird
So I could shit on everyone.

A horse? Never!
Work, work, work all day
And not either a fish, just
To be caught in the bay
But I wish I were a bird
So I could shit all my "friends".

I will not be a cow
And have you pull and tug
You won't hit me with your DDT
'Cause I will not be a bug
But I'd LOVE to be a bird
So's I could shit on you.

A duck I will not be
'cause he can't fly high
A 'Zookey'---nosiree!
You may be one, not I
But when I'm a bird
I'll first shit on you

Not a cow, lion or cat
Not a bug, horse, or 'Zookey'
But let me tell you, my friend...
When you look up to see----
Tweet-tweet, splat...splat
.........................think of me!

-Drunk Steve E. 6/10/1959

In love and service (Somehow that line doesn't seem to fit?)
Steve E.