THE POEM
OH! The wind in my face
Wet, dry, warm, cold
Big trucks want to race
I tell them, "I'm too old!"
So, off and riding I go
Eye on odometer
Speeding at a hundred or so
Racing to my sepulcher.
This Bergman, so nifty
Rides up a steep mountain grade
Passing trucks doing fifty
And I watch their images fade.
Passing, I focus on the rear vision glasses.
I'm seeing behind.
Suddenly, unexpected, a thought passes.
I'm being...blind.
Racing, facing, bracing
for the great inevitable shock
Dreading, praying, praying
Even the mountain is about to rock
Cannot see in front or around
I did not, do not feel a thing
What is that light...and sound?
It is my God--and His angels sing!
"We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness"
One of the "promises" in our "Big Book" Alcoholics Anonymous. P 83
THE STORY
As a child on the farm, I remember owning a dog "Lassie"--yes, named after the Roddy McDowall-Elizabeth Taylor (sigh!) movie "Lassie Come Home". And I WAS Roddy McDowall, and my Collie--Lassie--and I celebrated many moonlit late evenings behind the horse barn plotting our escape from home, family, friends, school and mates. Of course, Liz Taylor figured prominently in our plans.
We looked at all the angles--I shared all this with Lassie. All would have been OK, except for one real real problem, money. The salary of a fellow age 10 in 1943 living on a dairy farm was wayyy below poverty level. A whole week's salary for after-school work netted me enough for 2 candy bars and 2 dog biscuits. We were in trouble. I do not know what became of our Lassie.
But.....Dear soul! I believe she was trained to find half-full bottles of Muscatel hidden around by the hired hands. She brought them to me, or me to them. I can still taste the Muscatel of those years, especially its pungently-flavored uniqueness as it came back up and spouted out from my ten-year-old stomach--grin!
The wanderlust which I shared with Lassie never left. It has become a character defect--not an obsession, but a need, a necessity, to GO somewhere, to be a gone guy. "Where'd he go? I dunno"...and I have found that very few give much thought as to where someone disappeared, and those few forget in a matter of days or weeks.
Outside of Alcoholics Anonymous there is no happier activity I could entertain than carrying my bag on a bus, Suzuki Bergman, train or plane, and up, up, and awayyyy! It is more a "coming to" somewhere than a "getting away" from something. There is nothing I do not LIKE (love!) where I live, there is just so much to discover where I've not BEEN. I would have a sort of goal, but not a map of how to get there.
When I traveled with an orchestra, the guys would complain when we were four weeks out, saying they wanted to be home. I complained because there were only two weeks remaining out on the road.
Whether in India or Indiana, Paris, Kentucky or Paris France, Dublin, Ohio or Dublin Ireland there is ALWAYS nearby an AA meeting, a "home", Peeps who know me, Peeps who are kind, considerate, giving, and loving. I am still learning how to respond to that love, and life is simply fabulous!
Let's be kind, considerate, giving, and loving today...and sober!
