Betrayed! — Wayne A. Sturgeon — (2009) — [Oahspe-Spiritualism-Mysticism –Anti-Religion-Anti-Cultism

Betrayed!

Wayne A. Sturgeon (2009)

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Table of Contents Introduction ……Page 3 Forward……Page 6 Chapter One: Catholic Church Devotion……Page 9 Chapter Two: Jumping from one frying pan into another frying pan……

Page 40 Chapter Three: Married Life……Page 50 Chapter Four: A Turning Point……Page 68 Chapter Five: Our New Cult and New Church……Page 92 Chapter Six: Old House in Addison……Page 103 Chapter Seven: The Walls Round Us……Page 115 Chapter Eight: The Light of Oahspe Dawns……Page 138 Chapter Nine: The Tree of Life…… Page 158 Chapter Ten: The Ice Storm……Page 171 Chapter Eleven: Fighting to Stay Alive…… Page 177 Chapter Twelve: My Hospitalization……Page 182

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Introduction Betrayed is one way to explain my feelings about how a good religious up-bringing can be sometimes extremely destructive to many people trying to live a life according to Jesus. What could cause such destruction within a relatively good Christian person? Any religion uses words of fear to control and to deceive its members because the brainwashing keeps the elite in power while controlling people’s minds throughout their lives.

It’s imperative that people “wake up” and “open” their eyes and become aware of this charade. Betrayed was written strictly to help all people of any religious belief to support them in their times of confusion of going forward or giving in and living in the past with the ancient beliefs of our ancestors. If I can help in any profound way, then my words may save a lot of people from dark thoughts and dark behavior. Once the darkness has entered once pure thinking then there is no turning back from the destructive forces used by all the major religions. Even though the messages from the pulpit are supposedly filled with love, it is the intent of all religions to control a person through the very clever use of words and phrases.

Again, Betrayed, was written as a testament as to how this “trickery” is brought about by the use of words and the slight of hand so that people only see what they want to see. This deceit is brought about by those in power to control the weak so as to get what they want. This has been proven for thousands of years. We must stand together and over throw those mind-controlling individuals who set out to destroy an individual. How is this done? It is done by filling a person’s mind with partial truths and lies and eventually that person “wakes up” to reality that there is something more than what is found in the ancient teachings of any religious book.

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Disclaimer Betrayed is about my life. Hopefully, it will expose some of the tactics used by so many in the name of religion to control and manipulate all people who have, for whatever reasons, lost their bearings in finding their path in life. It is not my intention to single out any individual, and I have tried to use fictitious names that I was associated with throughout the pages of this book. It is the principles used and not the people that I was dissatisfied with. This book will bring some negative reactions and I expect this. I, also, expect people will defend their beliefs as I did for so many, many years.

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FORWARD My family history is probably the best way to start you through this book.

Religion has been the basis of so many family decisions that have affected my life even before I was born. Mom and dad came together and there was an older brother waiting for me. My mother came from a staunch Catholic family, and my father came from a Wesleyan Methodist family. Due to these rigid beliefs, there must have been an extreme burden for the parents of my mom and dad. As young as I was at the time, I felt the feelings of hatred that were “boiling” close to the surface. The following was told to me many years later that there had been a letter that was sent from one grandmother to the other. Now the chemistry of love was far superior to the doctrine of religion and my mother became pregnant with my older brother. The details are a bit sketchy for me but I know that my mom had to go away to have the baby, as it would have been a disgrace to become pregnant in those days without a proper marriage. Through some arrangement made back in those days my older brother spent about six years of his childhood with my grandparents on dad’s side. My earliest memories were without my older brother, but he became known to me when I was about four years old. We moved into another house and my brother just seemed to appear on the scene. He was my friend for the next ten or twelve years.

He was killed in a car accident about1954. This was the point of no return for my mother. She became so guilt ridden that she never recovered from his death.

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“God took my son because we were not married when I gave birth to him!” These were the words she told me a few years after his death.

One of the priests told her that God punishes people for sinning; therefore, my brother was taken. My brother’s life was gone and my mother was never to regain a normal life. One day we drove around the town where my brother had been living and she asked the people if he had attended church and if he was in the “state of grace”, which is a term used to say that you would get into Heaven at death. Religion ruled our lives and our deaths and I believe it became a weapon.

There was another incident at this time concerning a boy that would become a friend to me. He was unable to do anything for himself as he had the disease called cerebral palsy. Whenever I was visiting my grandmother, I would go and visit with my friend. He was so happy that he writhed out with joy and squirmed around displaying in the only way he could that he was my friend. Why did God do such a terrible act?

The act of having a child with such a disabling disease was an act of God. Not long after this the mother of that boy left the Catholic Church and married a Protestant. What do you expect? The priest said that this is how God punishes a person that has sinned. The parents of that boy were burdened with the responsibility of looking after a disabled person and then to top it off they inherited the curse of the church. Their children were not Catholic so I was not allowed to play with them. It is 7

this very example of how the powerful position a religion has over its parishioners that I write this book.

I know that I will bring on harsh remarks and make an enemy or two by taking a stance against an established religion, and hopefully a few friends who will be joining me in agreement. And I know that I will be making these enemies because it is the truth that I am writing. I am angry, but not at people anymore but at the powers and principles used to control the minds of people. Mind control is the tool used to this very day. Fear is the next greatest tool of control and guilt all combined to take complete control over the lives of people. For two thousand years religions of one kind or another have ruled us. After this length of time the track record of religion shows its bloody colors. I, for one, refuse to let religion control me. I have found their doctrines have many holes in it.

To get people thinking is what I want. To somehow have a thought or two of their very own is my purpose. So if I grind some teeth and boil some blood, I hope in the end that it will do some good.

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CHAPTER ONE Catholic Church Devotion I would like to address something of the utmost importance to my friends. This is what the matter is. The amount of devotion one should give, in their life, to the belief system of religion. I can speak from experience about this, as religion has been a very important part of my life; that is, until I started to figure it all out. During the first part of my life the religious standards were set for me. There were no, ifs, ands or buts: just go to church and shut up. Listen to the priest’s sermon, say my prayers each night and try to be a good boy. Well, that worked for a few years, because I was brought up in a Catholic Church and attended a Catholic School for boys. Yes, we got it coming and going. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were like aunts and uncles in my family. The Catholic catechism was the big book for us, because it had all the answers, or at least most of them. The teacher or sometimes the priest answered the rest of the questions. We could always tell if the parish priest was going to pay a visit because the teacher would be hyper for a few days before the visit. We learned about sin and the Ten Commandments and the story of Noah’s Ark. Just going about my life and always being cautious not to play with non-Catholics. Most of the school days had a few prayers and usually a trip or two over to the church. This I think is where I first learned to giggle, sometimes uncontrollably, yes near pants 9

pissing giggles. They told us about God and the Son of God, Jesus and even tried to tell me about the Holy Ghost. Now this was a little iffy, but we believed it because we were told to. It was in grade one that Miss O’Brien sat beside me, and she tried to tell me that God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost were all one person. She said that they all lived inside of one another and they could change places any time they wanted except for the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost was invisible. That was a little hard for me to accept but I did for quite a while.

In grade two things got a little more complicated. On December 8 th the church had a special feast day, it was called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and it was a Holy Day. They tried to tell us about the virgin nonsense but I think the teacher gave up on it. This time in my life the word sex was a sin, and little boys like me didn’t know which end was up, let alone anything about getting pregnant -- and by a Ghost? Now Holy Days were a good thing I soon found out, because we didn’t have to go to school. The problem was that we had to go to Mass, but that was only about an hour out of the day and the rest was fun time.

Grade five came along and we had a Brother for a teacher -- my first kind of man teacher. He wore all black clothes like a priest and even had that white collar and some kind of an apron that was like a cape in the back. Then, anybody that wore a cape was something a bit special.

It turned out that this Brother/teacher was indeed a very special person.

He loved children.

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In the spring, when I was in grade five, something happened to me. It was an illness that the doctor picked up during a blood test I had during a physical examination. I didn’t know that I was sick or how very sick I was. The blood tests showed that my white blood cell count was getting higher. I had to go to the doctor now every Friday for a blood test. The only thing that I can remember about the illness is that I would get tired easily and run out of energy. In a few weeks I was taken out of school and kept at home. It was March now and the snow was melting. There were little streams of water running down the road at the curb. I floated a matchstick down the make believe river as a make believe canoe. It was my entertainment for sunny afternoons. My mom was crying a lot and I didn’t know why. They got some special food for me, it was called Neo Chemical food, and it tasted like corn syrup but not as sweet. I had to take this three times a day. They prayed for me at school and at church but I didn’t know this as I didn’t really know just why I was taken out of school.

It was a Thursday afternoon and I was running the imaginary canoe down the curb river again. The river trough was cutting out the ice.

There were rapids and whirlpools and jam ups with other bits of dirt and debris. This is where my imagination would run wild and I would be in that little canoe desperately keeping it straight within the narrow ice walls of the river. I looked up, and down the street came the Brother.

He said, “Wayne, I want you to be back in school next week”. He picked 11

me up in his arms and gave me such a wonderful hug that he squeezed my ribs. He looked at me and said to not let him down. He said, “You’re not sick anymore”.

We went to the doctor on Friday for those blood tests, which hurt with the needles in my arm. I stayed home with my mom on Monday but the doctor called her to bring me back in. We went down later in the afternoon. He took my blood again. I overheard that something happened and the blood now had the right amount of red and white blood cells. The doctor wanted to confirm this with another test. He said he didn’t know what went wrong because everything was normal. The following Monday I returned to school and felt just great. I was full of the Devil again as usual. I did not know that a very loving person had healed me. This man loved all people, especially children. The disease that I had was called Leukemia. Now grade five was a pretty big jump for me as I was too big for grade three and they thought that I would get along quite well. I continued to learn all the ins and outs of that religion, and started to think that I might as well make the best of it and be a real good little boy. I knew that being good would get me a lot of praise from my mom and most other people.

The devil, Satan, soon made his presence known through all the Catholic teachings at least as far as I could see at the time. Just about everything that was told ended up talking about the devil and the snares that would befall us. He lived in Hell; that place of big hot fires made to 12

warm and burned the sinners forever. Wow!! That was sure one Hell of a place. At my age it scared the devil out of me; and I guess that was the idea behind all of that propaganda. Well, we learned just about as much about Satan as we did about Jesus.

We also found out that this guy was invisible, and always and forever just around the corner leading all of us into temptation. The threat of temptation was easily overcome by repeating the Lord’s Prayer several times. It was sure exciting all that new information that I learned at that very young age. Prayers were part of my life now, with the beads being the most boring but most powerful tool against the Devil. The beads or the rosary as it was called was just a string of beads of ten with a blank and another bead then a blank that was followed by another trail of ten beads. With this device you could keep them in your pocket and thumb all the beads through one at a time and say the proper prayer at each bead. This way no one would even know that you were praying. It always seemed to me that the beads were mostly for women because they always had them in their hands at church. Sometimes when I would have to attend a wake I would see the rosary wrapped through the fingers of a dead lady. The nuns were the ones that had real big beads, sometimes almost touching the sidewalk when they were walking to church. The rosary always had a cross at the end of it.

I remember once, at recess, one of the guys asked me. “Do you know what Jesus was saying?” Then he held the crucifix close to me.

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“No!” I said.

Well, it was HELP! And he took the rosary and swung it around his head and said, “Hang on Jesus here we go again!” This was kind of funny but deep within I just knew that the devil was somehow involved in this.

Grade six brought me to a new school for boys and run by brothers.

This was a major turning point in my life because of two things. One was that I was twelve years old, and I was allowed to wear long pants instead of those short ones with the brown ribbed stockings held up by garters on a belt. The other thing that I started to notice was that Gordon Miller had a real big dink, like twice the size of mine. I knew this because in the boy’s washroom there were troughs to pee in and after recess we would all go there and line up and leak away. What a shock that was! But Gordon was a couple of years older and well into puberty and I had no idea why. There was just NO sex education at home or school. Anything along that line of thought was talked about in whispers only and a lot of times another giggling session in the corner of the school yard at recess. One morning in the winter there had been a new snowfall and the play yard was a blanket of new snow. Stanley and I were over in the corner talking about girls. Yes, quite frankly, we were talking about what the girls had in their underwear. We weren’t too sure but the word cunt came to mind. This was the real word for what I later 14

found out to be a vagina. Now this word was never to be uttered out loud because it would turn a venial sin to a mortal sin. Anyway Stanley and I trampled a long two hundred foot long pathway in the snow the shape of a rather slender football. Then we walked straight through the centre of it and there it was, a two hundred foot long vagina complete with hairs trampled evenly about the center split every foot or so. It was a masterpiece of snow art that made us laugh so much we just about pissed in our pants.

Each school day was started by some class prayers which sometimes included saying a decket of the beads. Then we had at least an hour of religion and after that we learned about the power of the Pope and the Church. We were told that those lost souls were Protestants and they had the audacity to protest against God. All Protestants were doomed to Hell, so we were to keep away from them and that was what I was taught then. We learned about the sacraments of the Church and all the whole kit and caboodle of it all. It was starting to get complicated. The power of the Church was impressed into my mind always with the fear of Hell. It was: be good or perish in Hell fire forever and ever, to never see the face of God. Purgatory was something that I learned about at this time in my young life. It was my only possible escape from Hell.

Limbo was another place that God had reserved for un-baptized babies so that they would not burn but would never see the face of God. Grade two started the path to Heaven, guaranteed. But you had to have 15

a scapular medal around your neck. Now a scapular medal was about the size of a quarter and had a picture of Jesus on one side and a picture of a human heart on the other. Now these items were free but you had to bring a dime for the chain. The chain was what some bathroom sinks have to hold the little rubber stopper in place. Well, everybody wore this. It was a sure way to be saved and protected from the wiles of the devil. A guarantee for heaven should we die for some reason. The cross on top of St. Columban’s Church was a sign that it was a house of God. The word was that when you passed a church sporting this big cross on top of the steeple you would either bless yourself or genuflect. Personally, I was happy with the sign of the cross.

I remember a couple of times when I passed the church on my way to school and forgot to bless myself. I got as far down the street as the fire station and remembered that I forgot to bless myself. So I turned back and ran the half block back to the front of the church and blessed myself.

I was safe now and well on my way to school.

Whenever we entered a church we first remove our hats but the girls and women had to put one on. All catholic women and girls always had a hat or a kerchief so they could get into the church. It was simple: no hat, no church. How many times, I wonder, did I see women with a Kleenex on their head? Once there was one that had a piece of newspaper stuck on her head with a couple of bobby pins holding it on.

This morning the church had some drafts or a little breeze was blowing, and the newspaper that was on the woman’s head had an ad on it. The 16

ad was a picture of a coke and every time the paper moved it looked like the coke bottle turned upside down. With all grade two sitting in church that morning in the pews and that flapping paper hat in front of us going up and down, the right conditions for a giggling contest was set.

During the Mass there were bells that rang during the service and people would stand up and kneel down and then they would sit. Now Stanley started it, he giggled first, then it was me, then the whole row of grade two was into a pants pissing giggling contest. Then Mrs. Miller would look over and give us that look of “I’ll kill you later” with a loud “psssssssssst” every couple of seconds. We knew that we were terminated when she finally got about six of the worst offenders lined up on the church steps and made to sit there until mass was finished.

Wow!! Terror had struck. We were all marched very quickly back to school and all promptly got a good strapping. One by one we got that strap on the hand, and when it was Stanley’s turn, I caught his eye and started to giggle again. This giggling now seemed to be an inherent part of my life or some kind of a devil’s trap, because giggling to me was something funny but just to me and another boy namely Stanley.

The Host was God, with Jesus inside of him. It was a round white piece of some kind of a wafer biscuit that had the taste of flour. There were big ones for all the church to see and smaller individual little Gods for personal communion. At that time we all called it the Host, but nowadays it is called the Eucharist. But it only has God in it if a priest or anyone blesses it in a special way higher up the ladder. This is what is 17

given to Catholics during the communion service. It represents and becomes the body of Christ during the sacrament of the Mass. The bell would ring and the people would start their way to the altar rail and kneel down before it. The Priest would then go down the row dispensing these little wafers on the tongues of people kneeling there ready to receive Jesus. An altar boy would then follow the priest along holding the “Patten” which was a highly polished piece of silver with a gold handle suitable to catch any crumbs of Jesus that may fall from someone’s tongue. Now at some of the special Masses there would be a seat for Altar Boys just up on the altar area behind the altar railing.

Stanley and I a few times would be sitting there as we became altar boys for St. Columban’s church. I think it was an Easter Sunday Mass and we were watching the communion service, and there was a whole row of people with their tongue’s sticking out. No need to say that when I caught Stanley’s eye another soon we began another giggling match. I swear to God that the giggling is caused by some demon that lives around the church. Each time that I have ever giggled was at a church service. So, I decided that the school must also have some Giggle Demons.

One Sunday morning a newly transferred priest said the Sunday mass.

He was good looking and about thirty-five years old. He got through all the basic prayers in Latin, as it was only Latin then, and proceeded to take a rather large Chalice full of hosts from the altar to the communion rail. We could hear the click-click of his little black polished shoes going 18

across the freshly waxed floor of the altar area. No need to say that he slipped and fell over the teakettle, chalice and all. Now this was a major catastrophe. Father Pellon was not hurt but I never, ever saw such a red face on anyone before. Now there were a few nuns in the church and they all started to cover up all the little hosts with Kleenex. There were blessed hosts and the real body of Jesus Christ was strewn about the altar and the nuns and priests were panic stricken. An emergency call had to be made to the Bishop. An announcement was then made that the mass would be continued at the altar of the BVM which means Blessed Virgin Mary. This church had three altars and a couple of spare altars for times for special moments.

Through the eyes of a young boy the meaning of the religion was very deep because it was handed to us to grasp without question. It was to be taken with blind faith, and not questioned. The Catholic Church became a haven for me with all the doctrine I could not go wrong. I was going to Heaven. To rest, fast and abstain from meat on Fridays and Holy Days of obligation, and days appointed by the Church, was the way for me. No meat was to be eaten on Friday; it was the law of the Church and of God. There were no ball games and even swimming was curtailed on the Sabbath, which was Sunday. We learned of the seven deadly sins and the meaning of a “High Mass” and a “Low Mass”. To this very day I fail to see the difference in it other than the low one was two dollars and the high one was five dollars. We learned the Creed and memorized it and I can recall it today.

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"I believe in one God, Father Almighty, and Creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages: Light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; who was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried; who rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and is enthroned at the right hand of the Father; who will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; and of whose kingdom there shall be no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets. In one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church I profess one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." Amen.

The length of the Nicene Creed and being memorized by a mere child was brainwashing in the first degree. Confession was a necessity before receiving Holy Communion except in special cases. Yes, we had to confess our sins before God. Now to do this meant the confessional was soon going to be my most dreaded confined area. To go into that darkened chamber and seeing some old man’s face through some kind 20

of rattan screening, was like going to the hangman’s platform. But we did it. We did it because it was do or die. It became like some strange ritual to confess your sins to a priest. Bless me father for I have sinned.

It went, on as an act of contrition before God. Then I would try to reason a little and think that if Jesus gave his life for my sins then what is all the commotion about? Now lying was simple and stealing not too bad but penance had to be done. It usually came in the form of prayers. We say three Hail Mary’s, three Our Fathers and three “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit”, and go and sin no more. Also, we say the prayer “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” Amen The Prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Amen.

The Prayer: “For thine is the Kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever.” Amen. If this prayer were ever recited, it would be a sin because this was the Protestant version of the Lord’s Prayer.

The Prayer: “Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost as 21

it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end.”

Amen.

Now go and sin no more meant that next Friday evening would find me back in the confessional. Stealing, lying and basics were indeed simple and a part of my life at times. The words fart, shit and poop were in the Ninth Street vocabulary as everyday words. For a while I thought that the cops were a division of the priesthood because they were always referred to as the “God Dam Cops”. The confessional now was going to be my downfall, because I would rather burn in hell than to tell that old priest that I played with my dink and white juice came from it and it made me feel good. And “how many times” were asked slyly from the voice behind the rattan screen. Well, I started to get fast at arithmetic and would peep out squeakily from my quivering lips “two and a half” because my mother was coming, was my answer.

First communion time, I think, was about grade two. The idea that we could eat a piece of Jesus and in that way have God come into my stomach was an okay idea at my very young impressionable age. They had some practice sessions with some of the unblessed hosts. I guess just to see the reaction in the classroom. This was more of a play, like a movie production, so it had to be right on. We marched single file to a make pretend altar rail and kneeled down and stuck out our tongue. Mrs. Miller then had a teacup full of unblessed hosts and she put one on each of the kid’s tongues. The procedure was to say amen and make 22

the sign of the cross when the teacher put the host on our tongue, then stand up and walk orderly back to our seat. The host, as I recall, tasted like what I would call today, nothing. I secretly thought that if it was blessed it would taste like meat, such as a piece of chicken or ham or something like that. Practice for weeks before the big day, to get a performance suitable for a Hollywood pageant was what the teacher wanted. It was competition between two grade two boys’ teachers and between two grade two girls’ teachers who were nuns. We practiced for communion and for confession, and all done to perfection complete with make pretend sins for the practice.

A nine year old, at that time, was not what you would call a sinner in my books. So for the practice we just made up some with Stanley and I trying to out do each other when we would meet at recess and discuss the whole matter. One sin that Stanley had was that he tied his mother to the railroad tracks and the train runs over her. But I only stole Mr. Burnet’s horse and went into town and robbed a bank. So my relationship with the Catholic Church and the school was forming, rather soundly, within my little mind. It was not too bad a set-up if you didn’t think some of the ideas through, because just do it, have some sins, and be forgiven. Eat the host but not touch it with your teeth and do it on an empty stomach, because it would not be very nice to have Jesus’ body go into your stomach with a hamburger or a hot dog.

Well, here I was now, a young boy with a powerful religion engrained in 23

me. All the rituals were memorized and all the many prayers were repeated over and over so many times that it was just base memory.

One day at recess Stanley and I had a contest to see who could say the most Hail Mary’s in the shortest time. Sometimes some of the other kids would join in and for a while it was a game the same as playing marbles or allies. The schoolyard was a place to express your innate personality.

It was of the utmost importance to get ahead of anyone else no matter what the challenge. It was the Olympics, and we outdid each other with speed praying and marbles and to see if anyone was brave enough to stick their tongue on the steel post on a cold morning. I did it once or twice. It was scary but it could be done. The secret was to just quickly touch just the tip of it and pull away. One cold morning the teacher saw a couple of us giggling at the window. She went over and saw that poor little Teddy was out at the gate with his tongue frozen to the steel post.

She evoked a terrorizing scream for all of us to sit down and she ran out to the steel post to try to free up poor Teddy. This was another pants pissing and laughing match for the entire grade two.

We always had a spy; therefore, one carefully chosen by the group to be the one to trust. The spy would look out the door to see when Mrs. Miller would be coming so we could all jump back to our seats and appear, as if we never left them. But it didn’t always work because she said she could hear the noise from the street. An incident like this was a serious matter and the teacher would find out the cause of the commotion if it took all day. The trial began and each row was asked 24

one by one “Who did it?” The routine was that the first run was no one would admit to anything. The next procedure was to start by saying to the children that the whole class was going to get the strap if no one admits to starting the ruckus. The pattern was that when she started the line-up, Stanley or I and some of the others would then admit to starting it. But it never was anyone’s fault because someone else always made him do it. We knew that it would be terror in the schoolyard for us if the truth were not told because the forty-four kids would have our hides at the next recess.

My formative years were then in the times from my birth, to the times of grade six and seven. But I was a fully programmed Catholic. I was full of the religion and full of God and full of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Now as a companion for all the wonderful virtues I was also full of the Devil. At least my mother told me so quite a few times. I could recite many prayers from memory. I was baptized, circumcised, confessed, said communion, confirmed and thoroughly confused by the invisible God called the Holy Ghost that was some kind of an invisible shield that would somehow be within the other two invisible Gods that I also could not see.

ALTAR CALL

It is because of the powerful position that religion has over people that I 25

write this book. I know that I will make some enemies by writing this, and hopefully a few friends. And I know that I will be making these enemies because it is the truth that I am writing. I am angry, but not at people anymore but at the powers and principles used to control the minds of people. Mind control is the tool used to this very day. Fear is the next greatest tool of control and guilt all combined to take complete control over the lives of people. For two thousand years Religions of one kind or another have ruled us. After this length of time the track record of Religion shows its bloody colors. I for one refuse to let religion control me. I have found their doctrine has many holes in it. To get people thinking is what I want, and to have a thought or two of their very own is my ultimate goal. If this then is upsetting a few people then what I want to say is that the truth can indeed be very upsetting, but by being upsetting it may lead some to search out this great Christian myth. Now I was ripe for the altar call. I got my call to the altar from my mother. The call sounded like this “Wayne I want you to be an altar boy.” It was at that instant that I learned about mixed emotions, apprehension kneeknocking fear religion was born. At least that is what it seemed like to me. About fifty young boys were selected to go to the church hall one Saturday and get trained for altaring.

As in all the levels of the church there were levels in this group also.

First, being the acolyte, then incense bearer then the master. The master altar boy was the one with the power and the most proficient with the new language, Latin. We were given a prayer book for a 26

minimal fee. It had all the mass sections written in red both in English and Latin. My mother was a proud woman; her prayers had been answered. I was well on my way to being a Priest then a Monsignor then a Bishop then arch Bishop followed by a Cardinal then eventually the Pope. On that Spring Saturday there were forty altar-boys selected, yes, Stanley was there, too. We together were the only happy part of fear religion. Then I happily went along enjoying the position of altar-boy for a couple of years. We learned how to light those tall candles and how to dispense the wine and the water. On a few rare occasions there would be some wine left in the serving decanter, which we were supposed to dump down the drain with the water and rinse out the vessels. Stanley and I thought it to be a terrible waste so we used to finish up what was left from the Mass. On more than one occasion we left the church a little tipsy and giggling all the way home. The wine used for the Mass was the best quality money could buy and had high alcohol content. At that time we didn’t know much about wine but it made my face feel warm and I laughed a lot.

There was an incident that happened with my older brother that I recall as something quite bad that happened in the church with one of the priests. What I remember is that when my brother got home from serving mass very early in the morning at maybe 6:00 a.m. There was one hell of a ruckus downstairs and my mother and father were screaming at one another. I was scared. I heard my father say that he was going to go to the church and shoot the priest. My mother finally got 27

him calmed down. Mom informed me that I was not going to be an altarboy anymore and she washed the altar clothes we wore and my father took them back to the church. My mother called me to the altar but my father called me back. My office with the church was now closed. To this day I do not know what happened at the church but it was bad enough for my father to get out the gun and think of shooting the priest. Mom, dad or my brother never mentioned those times ever. Now, I would like you to read the following poem:

RUMOR

A rumor was heard the other day That caused me much dismay About the Catholic Church.

And a priest to come our way.

I heard it from a friend.

The ones that I can trust.

This old priest likes little boys.

Or a clean old man as much.

Now this little rumor Struck terror in my heart Because I walk by the church a little after dark My mind now starts thinking About precautions I will take 28

If it happens on some dark night That I pass that priests gate Now I know this isn’t like me But the only way I’ve found To never take a bath again Until a new priest comes to town Wayne Anthony Sturgeon I was active in the church with Sunday Mass being one of the highlights of the weekend. We went on picnics now and ball games were allowed on Sunday. I was growing up and soon ready for high school. Church activities changed somewhat for me because there were a few other interests for me now. One of the last times I remember that was a frightening experience with the church was one spring Saturday when a Jesuit Priest was to give a sermon. The command was given from the pulpit the Sunday before for all the male parishioners to attend the lecture next Saturday. All I knew about this kind of a Jesuit Priest was that they wore a brown uniform with a hood something like a monk would wear. Saturday came and I attended with my father. This sermon was about sin and the many ways that sin would foul up our lives. It was a sermon of doom for me and about the sin of adultery which meant the sex sin. Sex was a forbidden word classed as a sacrilege along with the words hell, damn, bitch, fuck, fart and all the regular schoolyard slang common today. Sex education came from Stanley, Bob’s Pool Hall that was on the forbidden list and general street talk under the street lamp at 29

night. The Jesuit told us of how we were guilty of the sin of adultery when we would have any kind of sexual excitement that happened when we looked at a girl or a woman. Now this meant I was guilty of adultery before I even knew about girls because I was having erections and what we called in those day’s “boners”. This was a kind of a happening that was hard to suppress, especially when I was entering puberty.

There were several kinds of boners for me, and I think most boys, during puberty.

The list follows, (1) Sleeping Boner, which happens a lot of times during the sleep period. (2) Deliberate downright evil thought boner that we bring on by ourselves with the helping hand of Satan (3) The girl in the green sleeves walking down Sydney street boner. That happens because she looks just so beautiful from behind with nice shaped legs and her little bum wiggling down the street to school.. Well, here I was now sporting the three deadly boners of the underworld. Yes they were like the blessed trinity of evil and I was harboring these three evils. This I think is where I first heard the word masturbation. At first, I thought that it was some level of the Priesthood, a degree or something of that nature. When I went home, I looked it up in the dictionary and there it was. It was the same as jerking off. It was clear now that the discussions under the streetlight were a place where evil of the lowest nature dwells. But I grew older and sported the three boners from time 30

to time. It was just something that had a way of not being suppressed. It was within my being; it was part of me. Even when looking at the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary for a long time my mind would wander to the thought of “I wonder what kind of underwear she wore, “Maybe none.” I thought which brought on a giggle boner caused by excitement. Girl’s underwear is what I believed to be usually dark blue bloomers that had elastic at the leg slightly above the knee. And sometimes you would see them when they rolled around the grass. The girl’s skirts or dresses were always at the knee or modestly below the knee. Now this, for me, was the mystery of the hidden world. The area contained within the underpants and that area within the brassiere. They were off limits but for discussion purposes only under the street lamp. I got through grade school and now ready for the high school.

Opening day in September brought me to this high school. It was about three times the size of the old separate school that I just left. The signs pointed the way for all the newcomers and we met in the auditorium. We were given an introductory speech by the Principal and then directed to our Home Form. Here I was in grade nine general, sitting in a room with several girls attending. It gave me the creeps; cautiously looking to my left was a girl who I will call Anne. She was enormous. She had her knockers hanging down over the inkwell. She wore a bra because I could see it through her white silk blouse. It was scary for me. I had no boner. It brought to mind the sermon given to the entire grade eights about entering a Protestant and public school. It was given by a priest, 31

and informed us that there would be all kinds of temptations in the new school and that the devil lurked everywhere to snare us. Well, he sure was right because the chest that that Anne had was obviously a work of the devil. It was my first experience seeing a woman’s body and up close. I was about fifteen then and entirely uneducated about the female person. Anything we knew was from the gang under the street lamp or that forbidden pool hall or from the back yards of Ninth Street.

A few years before, I was asked by one of the locals if I had ever seen a bare naked girl? I said, “No.” Then he said, “If you look into this thing, you will see one.” Wow! I thought this is a must for me so I took the device, which was like a long mailing tube and put it to my eye, and I looked as hard as I could, but there was nothing. Garry said try looking at the sun with it and it might show then so I pointed the tube to the sun; until there was nothing but darkness. I tried the same thing with the other eye and suntil nothing but blackness. I was disappointed but shook it off quite well even with all their laughing, yes hard laughing. I left and wandered around the block so I would get home from the opposite direction. This was the plan so mom would not know that I was on Ninth Street. It was dinnertime and I went to the table and my mom was shocked. She asked, “What happened to you?” I said, “Nothing.”

You go up to the bathroom and wash your face and hands and look in the mirror. Knowing she was upset I ran upstairs and to my surprise both eyes had these big black circles around them. It was black shoe polish and the answer to all the laughing on Ninth Street was now clear.

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Growing pains and the Catholic Church seemed to be there for quite a while. Sunday Mass was a necessity for Heaven. I sure was under the spell of the Catholic Church. There was no alternative. The Church knew what “was right for all”. We were like little slaves to this belief system. We couldn’t dive into the pool without first making the sign of the cross. We didn’t dare get into a real fist fighting ruckus without first blessing ourselves. I had a wonderful mom and dad. They were very sincere people. They did as good as they were capable of because we were what you would call poor people, at least by today’s standards.

There was little money to spend and no holidays for many years. It was hard work. There were five children, two brothers and two sisters, in my family. My dad and I joined the Holy Name Society and dad also became a member of the Knights of Columbus. The Catholic Church was a very important part of our lives during my early years. Church parades several times a year. Marching and proudly displaying that Christian Banner and viewing the extra large host that always accompanied these events. Religion was very well ingrained in us.

There was NO escaping. We couldn’t leave the church. The only exit was through the gates of Hell. We did not have to think, because it was all done for us. Some days I felt so trapped and restricted I had to tow the line, or else. But there were a few good things and a few good people within the walls of the church and one was a Brother teacher that for some reason loved children and I will include a poem that I wrote about him on the next page.

33

WHEELS

What a day it was back then When grade five I arrived My teacher was a loving man That rode his bicycle to school When he came into class that day And brought his special case We knew that it wouldn’t be long For smiles and laughter upon our face Time for music now my boys The accordion flowing in and out We will sing this song together

Our voices billowed out Now summer time was on its way And June was round about Tomorrow is Friday And we all are going out A day of natural science To study our outdoors And don’t forget your swim trunks boys Or a pair of old drawers Away we marched on Friday morning 34

To the forest we all went But soon we heard him call us now To the old swimming hole we were sent One by one he took us On his back across the bay We all then had our lunch together It was such a beautiful day Now Friday soon was over He took us to the road And sent us running safely home His bicycle he then rode Wayne Anthony Sturgeon There was no stopping me from growing up, but my mother worried that I wasn’t interested in girls. By fifteenth birthday I became very interested in girls, but I was a lot more interested in cars, so that is what occupied most of my time. Also deep within I knew that having a car was a sure way of getting girls. I remember my mother buying me a skin-tight bathing suit that sure enough showed that I indeed had all the necessary equipment that was meant to attract girls. There was hair growing in all the designated places and the beginning of a man was walking around. Another positive shaving was now something that came about every once in a while. The pimples were on the decline at this time. Yes, I was growing up. Stanley was not in the same neighborhood and I never saw much of him in school at this time. Most of the giggling had subsided and there was closeness to Jesus in my life, at least on 35

Sundays. Confessions were not quite as critical now as they were when I was younger. The communion rail was before me fewer times in the year.

Other than the sacramental wine that Stanley and I got into at church there was very little alcohol in my life. After I turned seventeen, everything that I had known in my life was about to change. There were places that would serve you alcohol as long as you had the money. I was gradually slipping into the snares of the devil. But, nevertheless, I continued to live with this terrible boner infliction and not knowing that it was a very normal event in any man’s life. The high school that I attended had a session, for the recreation period, that taught us how to dance. They had a record player there and they were playing a tune on it that I remember today. It was called Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom Time, a waltz song with the trumpet being in the foreground. Now there I was with the boys on one side of the gymnasium and the girls on the other. The teacher soon got us all paired up and we learned to waltz.

Now it was a new experience for me. They showed us how to hold each other and where to put our hands and the different paces required for waltzing. I was so stiff with fear that I know I had to look stupid.

We held each other. She was so soft, and I was constantly making sure that my hand was between her waist and her bra. Yes, my arm was frozen in that position, but not frozen enough to see just how soft a girl’s body was. It felt wonderful, and we waltzed the night away. We ended 36

up changing partners a few times, and I felt like Pinocchio made of wood. Due to my stiffness I had a sore back for a week. But I did it, and it was not such a terrible adventure.

Now some of the girls seemed to be a little more pleasing to look at than some others. Yes, they were interesting all right. Sometimes my mind would wander to the seam in their stockings. I guess at that time to have those nylon seams perfectly straight was an art. But now the trouble being that my mind would wander all the way up the stockings to where the legs are fastened to their bum. Now that Jesuit’s sermon would start to ring in my head and the three boners would also rear its little head.

So here I was trapped by the devil so bad that Jesus could not help me.

What went wrong I would think? Why am I constantly fighting something that I had absolutely no control over? Was I sick I thought? I had a lot of questions but very few answers. Soon though there was, in our health class, some good information given to us about puberty and the art of being a man. It made me feel kind of normal for a change. The three boners now became friendlier and were more like the Three Musketeers than the evil wiles of Satan. So, I was a normal young boy after all. That Jesuit Priest had triggered a chain reaction within me, because whenever there were any normal sexual desires that came forward, I was an evil person.

To this day the scars remain. I was a victim of the Catholic Church and it did an enormous amount of damage to me and many other growing 37

boys. God cheated us. We were sold a bill of goods that was as wrong at that time, as it is wrong today. That church took control of my mind with words from someone else’s mind which said that this is best for all young men and that sexual desires are the snare of the Devil. I was damn well cheated and I want my money back. Dominminus Vobiscum rolled out from the priest, followed by Eccum Spiritutuo from a man that replied to the Priest. At this time I am not even sure if it is spelled correctly. Then, when the echo’s stopped, there was a small but clear and concise voice from behind me that said “Dominus Nabisco Shredded Wheat”. The row of guys, all of us teenagers by this time, burst out into a laughing and giggling match that got us into a lot of trouble. The church had a balcony with a stairway at each side.

There was room for about a hundred people. The large church organ was also up in the balcony. Saint Joseph’s statue also found its way up there. When I turned around, there was Burt beside the statue with his fedora on Joseph’s head and a cigarette in the mouth. Now this was Sacrilege and deserving death or at least excommunication for sure.

Eight of us were now in trouble. We had desecrated the church. The Monsignor was coming up the west stairs as fast as his little fat legs would carry him. All eight of us were now heading down the east stairwell making a beeline to the car and immediately driving away from the church. Not only were we driving away from the church, but also out of the country and over to Massena. We made the decision to stop at Massena so that we could proceed to get drunk. We were doomed. Now Massena was a village in New York State just over the international 38

bridge and it was our Heaven away for home. We could drink there if we were seventeen, but in Ontario we had to be twenty-one years old to be served. I don’t blame anything on my drinking. Drinking too much alcohol caused it, and I crossed over the line into an addiction. It controlled me for about six years and that was a long time when you are only twenty-five. It was a necessary part of my spiritual growth and I had to experience this. My freedom was curtailed by a creed. My right to think was removed from me without ever having any say in the matter. I was judged from my baptism as an infant to this very day.

39

CHAPTER TWO: Jumping from one frying pan into another frying pan When I got to my late teens and out of high school, Mass was part of my life. Attending Mass started most Sundays. I was programmed for it, and it was not easy to break. My thoughts now started to change into a more adventurous lifestyle and Mass was a hindrance by times, so a plan had to be made. When we went over the border to the US, we would have someone that went to Mass that day tell us, on Monday, some of the details of the sermon. Then if we were asked by our parents about going to church on Sunday, we would have a general idea of what the sermon was about.

Soon there were many other things and activities that held more importance than Mass. One of them was a fishing trip, but more accurately described as a drinking trip with a couple of fish. Alcohol soon became my manager. It managed me because I had to plan my day around where there would be some alcohol. Girlfriends were few except for one that ended because I rationalized that a non-Catholic would just not do. But Lonny was a little more advanced than me and a marriage for her was her only goal. I put her off for five years then she dumped me. My relationship now with Lonny and Jesus was about the same and that question was who could I trust? God and the Holy Ghost somehow didn’t cut it with me anymore. I felt like a loser and started to romance alcohol quite regularly. I was becoming an alcoholic. Just like 40

the Jesuit said, another snare of Satan. So I dated randomly for a while and got interested again in machinery because I could reason with an engine better than a female, or so I thought.

My drinking increased a little each year. But then Cupid’s Arrow struck me, and my life took a turn into an adventure that is second to none.

Yes, I was in love. She was from another town quite far away. I had met her one time before, when I attended the wedding of one of my best friends. She seemed, as I recall, just a little teenage sister of my friend’s new wife. That day there was a lot of unseen chemistry happening, because there was the chemistry of losing one girlfriend and finding another. Yes, the love potions were boiling. Chemistry in this case was mostly within the female domain, as the girl that I had been with, for four years, had gotten tired of waiting, but that brought me to my knees. The adventure had started and a plan was in motion that would bring us together for many wonderful years. She lived a hundred miles away from me. And I wondered why any friend of mine would find a girl so far away from our hometown, Cornwall. The many miles we drove to court our girls got us so that we became pretty good mechanics. The wear and tear on our cars was tremendous. I made that trip to Quebec on a regular schedule, sometimes to Montreal and sometimes to St. Paul or Rawdon, Quebec.

My first solo trip to visit with this girl was a real eye opener. I had to go to Montreal. That proved to be quite an accomplishment, as I had never 41

driven there before. In 1960 this was a four-hour trip for me. Along the old number two highway was the only road. It was a long trip especially during the winter. I found her apartment and went inside. I was so nervous because she was not really known to me. She looked so small and tiny, with her green sweater on and one of the felt type skirts that were common in those times.

“Shall we go for a drive?” I sputtered to her. It was my first conversation, in person, other than that phone call, about two weeks before. She was nervous, too, I could tell by her voice.

We went to a restaurant on Decarie Boulevard in Montreal. We ate, we made eye contact, and the chemistry was working but not her stomach.

She couldn’t eat. She was so beautiful that I fell in true love immediately.

She was it. This is what had been missing, and it was love. I was hoping that she felt the same about me. After finishing our first meal, I asked her if she would like to go for a drive, and she said, “Yes.” She was so pretty. I wanted to tell the whole world about my beautiful treasure from Montreal. We drove to the mountain in the city that had a beautiful park.

The park was called Beaver Lake Park. Anxiously, I took my camera with me and held her hand for the first time. We found a nice place under the trees on the lawn and we sat together. At the time I worked for a photographer in Cornwall. And all my skills now were going to be tested with color film for the first time, and the color slide type. I took the whole roll of film on her and treasured these prizewinning photos for 42

many years. She posed for me and I snapped the shutter and reposed and I ended up with a few real nice photos. One of them seemed to show up her chest in such a beautifully enlarged way, the green soft sweater embracing those hidden treasures, at least hidden at this time.

The photos were developed and I had a couple of them plasticized so they would keep forever. They were in my wallet and special they were, as I boasted about her to my friends and had the proof in my wallet. On the mountain that day, we kissed each other and hugged and embraced each other. I gave her my school ring to keep. All this was to be because we were meant for each other. Distance would not separate us, because I loved her and she loved me, and it was the beginning. The phone call came two weeks before. There was a dance at her workplace and she asked me if I would go with her to the dance. At that time I was not dating any other girl on a regular basis.

I panicked, and I said, “Well I will have to let you know”. I think that Cupid’s arrow hit me through the phone and stunned me. But I got her number and the address, then I thought; how stupid I was. So I called her back the next night and said, “Yes, I would be delighted to take you.”

She sounded so nervous when she called me, as, in those days, girls did not do the asking out. I think her older brother and sister talked her into it saying, “It’s okay, because he doesn’t know about the dance. He’s in another province”. I was like a man that had been hit in the face by a frozen trout. That Cupid’s arrow hit me hard.

43

After our visit to Beaver Lake Park, we started to date on a regular basis.

The dance was the first formal outing. I met her sister and brother at that time. My life was changed now and for the better. It was Margie, Wayne, God, Jesus, Mass, confession and communion and in this order.

The Jesuit, I thought, had to have a few marbles missing. If love came complete with boners, then someone was wrong and it was the Jesuit.

All week long I waited for the bus to come to the stop as she was coming to meet my parents and stay the weekend. The nights in between were now filled with a lot of drinking. The pictures became known throughout the local beverage rooms that I frequented. It was a week filled with drinking, loneliness, excitement, boners and love.

Religion now was not as important anymore because I could not believe some of it. It just didn’t make sense. I believed in Jesus and kept a line open to Him. Missing Mass was now quite common as I was working and somewhat grown up. The drinking continued with some control used during our dates. I was living at home with my mom and dad and two sisters and only one brother as my oldest brother was killed in a car accident a couple of years before. My mother never recovered from that loss and would cry each time a tune that was popular at that time was played on the radio. I remember her wanting to drive to Lancaster and ask the local people if he had been at church recently. Mom lived with the burden of Hell on her all her life. It was a violation of human rights to impose the fires of Hell on my mother. She was a very devout Catholic and had her life screwed up by the Catholic Church.

44

The Church was losing Latin, it just was not acceptable anymore and not even reasonable. It had to change, but did it in slow motion, and that was wrong. As I look at all these matters and when I start to reason a few things through, the whole Christian story is flawed throughout the whole system.

Fighting the alcohol problem that I was reluctant to believe was also hard. Fighting the Church and the teachings was easy because none of it made any kind of sense at all. I was starting to see the bill of goods that I was sold as a load of garbage. When the weekend arrived, I would go to the station an hour early because I didn’t want to miss a minute of the time that Margie and I shared together. Our time was always spent together. We would drive around during the day, and in the evening we would drive to a favorite parking place. I was a frustrated young man being forced to suppress natural sexual desires that were normal made for mankind. We could hug and kiss and caress but God forbid having sex in the full beauty of it. Every time I had an erection that God forsaken little Jesuit bastard Priest would come back to my mind and spoil everything. It was like living constantly on a bungee cord that you always were snapped back just short of the end.

Yes, you could go just so far, but snapped back by rules and regulations set forth by some ancient oracle a thousand years ago.

One Saturday afternoon we found this little road that went along the 45

lake. There was a nice place to park by the water’s edge. A nice lawn beckoned us and we lay down together. It was just so nice the two of us together alone, in the sun, on the fresh green grass. We hugged and petted and were oblivious to the world. We kissed and wished we were married. We then got back in the car and drove back on the highway that went along the water. After a while the road seemed so close to the lake. We could see the spot that we were just in a few minutes before and it was so close to the highway that we were red faced for quite sometime. We thought that we were in such a secluded spot by the lake.

We chuckle about this place whenever we drive by fifty years later.

Another time when we were at the cottage we went out in the big rowboat and after rowing for a while, came to the leeward side out of the wind and just relaxed in the back of the rowboat. Soon we were engaging into pretty heavy necking, petting and all the accessories short of having intercourse. The sound of engines and that big fog horn from big Jims cruiser startled us so much that I just about fell out of the boat.

They must have had a good laugh at us as we tried to resume a sitting in the back seat position in a hurry. Our faces were so red that we could feel the heat. Our romantic interludes brought us to the edge all the time, to the edge of sex, the edge of the road, the edge of the boat and the edge of our nerves. It was bungee cord sex and romance all those times for a year.

Cupid also hit Margie, but the chemistry is different with girls and women. When I looked into her eyes I could see a ring and she was 46

waiting for THE RING. It was the engagement ring that led to a wedding ring. But I was not making a lot of money and I had to change my job to get a little larger pay check. Also alcohol was starting to take its toll with me. My financial condition was always lacking. I was courting Margie, alcohol, the three boners and living in the shadow of a religious system that warped my thinking.

I had no money to buy an engagement ring. She knew that and she was able to put aside some money to purchase one and it was a dandy for those days. I contributed very little to the ring purchase. I also was acquiring an amount of debt from my last steady girlfriend. Items that I had purchased for her had to be paid. These debts followed me right into my marriage with Margie and she, a little at a time, was able to get the bills paid for me.

Sometimes I feel that it is some kind of a destiny that brings two people together, perhaps some guidance from some source that we just don’t see. Maybe a plan of the Angels that saw the qualities we both had and were able to join us together. Margie was a very sincere and spiritual person and so was I, and it took a woman like Margie to be strong enough to put up with all the misery that I would put her through. I believe that if it had been any other person, my marriage would have been very short lived. Our courtship went very well and not many disagreements between us. We went together for a year before we got married. It was a wonderful time. I loved her so much and I knew that 47

she loved me. We had our family planned and where we would live and the careers that we would follow.

Margie had some very excellent business skills, and I was into mechanics. Margie was twenty, and I was twenty-five. We married at that time. It was my nature to do anything to the fullest including drinking, photography, and my own business in later years.

The plans were set in motion and there was a wedding in our future, but I don’t believe that I was ready for that kind of responsibility. What man is? One time while visiting at Margie’s home her mother and father called me aside and showed me this beautiful engagement ring, it was a beautiful solitaire mounted on white gold. It was given to me with a gentle hint that wedding plans were in the making. We were engaged in March and a wedding was set for September 2, 1961. The six months went by quickly. Yes, too quickly it seemed. It happened that the date was the same day as my birthday, and a church wedding and a big one to boot. Now the weekends always had some extras to be done. Making a list of guests and finding a best man for me. And Margie also had many items that to be attended to. One of them was to book the church for the wedding. Margie and I went to the parish church in her hometown and we saw the Priest. We looked at the appointment book and 11 AM was free. Upon putting down a deposit for the service, Margie noticed that there was a booking at 10 AM the same morning.

On our way out she said to me in her anxious little way “Gee, I hope that 48

was not a funeral booked at 10:00 the same morning, it would spoil the wedding.” I also hoped not but going home in the car, it hit us that funerals are not usually booked ahead four months. To this day it is often remembered with all the excitement that goes with a wedding. We laughed about this many, many times.

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CHAPTER THREE: Married Life The shower and the stag party all took place as usual which gave me an opportunity to have lots of drinking. Alcohol was now controlling a lot of my life. Unfortunately, I did a lot of things that caused me much worry and disappointment. But regardless, the arrangements were made and the invitations were sent out and all the plans went ahead very well.

There had to be a lot of planning done as a lot of my family and friends had a good four hours drive to get there. Arrangements for accommodations were made. The wedding day came on rather fast now.

The priest had to be consulted as the day before the wedding there was a practice for all the wedding party. The day was Friday so all the sandwiches were made and a lot of them had meat in them. Those days meat was forbidden on Friday, but a visit to the parish priest gave us the necessary dispensation and we were allowed to eat meat on this Friday.

The church seemed to bend somewhat with the rules for these occasions. The day arrived and after the practice ceremony there was a little reception and I was taken away from Margie’s place to the Motel that had been reserved. Several of the fellows and I were really drinking it up, especially me. I over did it again and in the morning my head hurt and my nose was bleeding and I was a sick man but I was to be married in a couple of hours. Somehow I sobered up enough to get to the church but I was just shaking from within, but because as my bride was 50

my idol, I managed to live through the ceremony. When you’re young, there is strength available to repair the hangover. Thank God, at the reception a couple of drinks made me feel just great. The marriage ceremony finally took place and that ever so desired wedding song was played. Arm in arm we marched slowly, leading the wedding party to the front door of the church. She was so beautiful as she stood there in all her magnificent splendor. I was pleased and happy. A proud man I was, standing there with my trophy. This was a much greater event than even coming home with a nine-pound pike that I had caught in the Rideau River the summer before. A birthday to remember forever and a gift of unending love stood beside me. I’m sure that if she knew the disasters that lay ahead for her, she never would have made that walk down the aisle. The wedding reception was held in a little village nearby. It had about eighty-five people attending. I was careful about my alcohol consumption for two reasons. One was that I just didn’t want to make an asshole of myself and spoil the wedding. The other reason was that it was honeymoon time and we were going to be driving for a while.

Arrangements were made about the suitcases and the car so not too much tampering would happen. The car had been decorated with ribbons streamers and tin cans trailed behind. They put stones in the hubcaps and wrote with red lipstick on the back window “JUST MARRIED.” We said our good bys to the family, my best man and all our friends. We drove away proudly as Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Sturgeon, into the setting sun towards Ottawa but stopping at Rigault for our first 51

night sleeping together. I pulled into the motel and we registered as Mr. and Mrs. Sturgeon, two kids playing the big time. A room was allotted at the very end of the motel. The last three rooms were all honeymooners.

There is no need to discuss the intimate details of a honeymoon at this point but I will comment like this. Bungee cord sex was over and we didn’t sleep much that night. Somehow the thought of that little Jesuit just didn’t come.

Our first full day of married life was on a Sunday and Sunday would not be complete without first finding a Catholic Church to attend Mass.

Somewhere between the motel and Ottawa we found a Catholic Church and attended Mass. Margie was so upset because she had only sandals and no high heels to wear. We drove out through Ottawa to Campbell’s Bay, Quebec, and a short visit with my grandmother. Yes, it was short but not short enough that Margie didn’t see the photo of Aunt Ruby hanging on the wall. This started a series of explanations from me to save my marriage and my life. Aunt Ruby was a black person and a nurse and so very black she was. Why she was called aunt I don’t know.

But I do know that my grandparents were very devout Wesleyan Methodists. Ruby was a foster child that they supported each month with a donation to help her through school. Well, Ruby’s photo hung on the wall and it hung in Margie’s mind for many years and I was questioned occasionally just to make sure that there would not be a chance of a snowball in Hell, that there would be black blood show up in the kids. (You must remember that racism loomed very large in North 52

America in the early 60’s.) We left Grandma’s place and drove to Algonquin Park with my new wife and I in our little 1958 Morris Minor with $1,200 in my pocket. Proud I was. I had it made. My sex life was fulfilled, gasoline was twenty-five cents a gallon, and I had two bottles of rum hidden away. This was not a welcome sign for Margie, but it was something that she would live with for the next five years. I feel that if she knew the misery that lay ahead she would have walked away and never returned.

We were happy most of the time and the honeymoon went very well.

We visited her two sisters in western Ontario and drove home. Home was a little apartment on Forth Street in Cornwall. It was just what I could afford and not what you would call a splashy mansion. I went back to work and when I came home she was crying at the kitchen table.

Holding her little hands together she told me that she had just about lost her fingers because she got them caught in the blender while trying to make me a cake. She was so sweet as the story came through her tearing eyes. My wife, the love of my life and so small and vulnerable she seemed. In about three weeks she gave me some wonderful news.

She was pregnant! And yes, it worked, because the love potion connected and she was carrying my child. We were married for real now.

It was a big responsibility for both of us. On the weekends we went to her home in Quebec and returned home on Sunday night. Many times we stopped for fries and a steamed hot dog to happy up the trip home. It was a long trip home before the new superhighway was completed, the 53

four-o-one. We settled into a routine and her pregnancy soon became a table topic and we wondered just what the little package would be. A boy or a girl and names were selected and yes there were many names that came to mind. Also the threat of that picture of aunt Ruby had to be assured safe many, many times.

The church was there and we sometimes would go together to attend mass. I liked to go to an early one so I could get it over with and have a full day together. My priorities now were drinking any chance, Margie complete with child, my job, Church, God, Jesus and the Jesuit. She is to be praised for the way she took on her part of marriage. She learned to cook and she was making me a home to be proud of. I didn’t appreciate her because I was ruled by alcohol and it was destroying me.

In our new little home we needed an oil heater, so off we went. We made our purchase along with the new stovepipes. Well, we were one pipe too short so I told Margie to hold the pipes in place and I would rush out and pick up the needed one. True to the form of a heavy drinking man I thought, I’ll just nip in for a quick brew and then hurry home. An hour later I walked into the kitchen and there she was, holding the pipe on the ladder and in tears. Talk about mad. I tell you I had some tough explaining to do. But proudly I tell you I made it good.

Nipper was our first family dog. Spaniel, jet-black, complete with wavy hair. He was one of the many dogs that would be part of our lives.

Margie needed a companion. I was out so often Nipper filled my spot.

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Pioneers of marriage brought us to making home made bread. It would be set by the space heater on the stairs to rise. First, after Margie setting me straight about what punching down meant, (when I read “punching down” I, thought it meant what it said. Punch down the dough) I started in on the kneading, as it was a man’s job and required strength to perform. Strange happenings began to show with the rising bread. It would rise nicely but the edges seemed to be stringy. We found after a couple of attempts the reason for the stringy edges. It was that little Nipper would get on the stairs and be able to reach up and pull the rising dough for a snack. It was funny for us. It was a real family now, pregnant Margie, Wayne and Nipper. I was a proud man with the makings of a most beautiful life regardless of the pitfalls of our early marriage years.

One day when I got home from work there was a package for me from the church. Margie said that a man had delivered it in the afternoon. I opened it and found that it was two little boxes of Church Offering envelopes. One box had fifty- two envelopes, one for each Sunday of the year. The other one had about fifty or so different colored ones for different special offerings in the year. The church was able to keep in touch and we were designated to be in the same parish as my childhood. It was St. Columban’s Church. We attended regularly except when we would go to Margie’s home in Quebec. There we would go the local church or the one that was in Rawdon where their summer home was.

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The church, a lot of times, had me sitting there with a hangover. Oh, God, how I would hate myself, and sometimes hated going to Mass.

There always had to be something put into that little envelope. This always seemed to add to my sickness because most of the money was spent the night before. The confessional now was rare, and communion was also, except when other family members attended.

One Saturday night Margie and I went to church to go to confession. I watched her go into the confessional and in less than a minute she would go back to her seat and kneel in prayer, or so I thought. When I went for the first time after our marriage I found out that there was a whole new list of sins for the married. If there was a dick jerking sin now it became worse because I was married. That little bastard Jesuit now was on the scene again. He was the one that specifically screwed up my life as a mortal. I hated him and the church but I never told Margie about any of it. She was so business like and going to confession like a virgin that never had much to say because she was in pure mind and with our child. It was quite a few years later that she told me. She finally confessed to me. She said that she would go into the confessional and tell the priest that she had a bad headache and return to her seat. And here, I thought she was so nice and pure without much sin or unacceptable sin thoughts. My idol and she had lied. We laughed about it many a time since. We laughed about it because it was so funny. She played the game second to none. She played the same game as the 56

Church. Was I ever naïve? Sometime around the beginning of March the Church would send out a bulletin with the amount of money contributed by each parishioner. It would have all the names listed by the amounts given. It was always easy to find our name because it was for many years at the bottom. We seemed to be lacking in church contributions. We were told this out loud because everyone had a copy.

This was intimidation at its finest. It was the abuse of our freedom to privacy.

One Sunday I remember the priest gave a sermon on giving. It was about the time that King George VI was sick and dying. The priest was telling us that we should be ashamed of the little amount that was in the collection plate. He was trying to be funny by saying that the King was sick because all the people of the parish squeezed their pennies so hard that it caused the King’s illness. He went on to say that envelopes that had a quarter in them were not enough to buy a gallon of gasoline let alone a decent meal. This was just after the war and people did not have money. Those bastards from the pulpit battered us. The ones that lived off our scanty wages intimidated us to death. The church was a business and they were the best at of any business there is. My affection now to the church was being questioned from within. Some of the things did not quite make sense. There were sermons every week or so about our Catholic Faith and how important it was to have faith. Most of us fell for it and we tried to be nice and go to church. But we were being sucked into the biggest swindle on the face of the earth that is 57

going on to this day. I thought a lot back then and I was interested in many things including my job.

I liked my job as a mechanic and I took every opportunity to learn with any course that was available. I was able to trouble-shoot many problems with engines and I specialized in the tune-up section of the trade. I was liked as a mechanic and had many customers that would request that I did the work on their vehicles. I was proud about this but the ego became inflated and I soon had little control over my drinking. I was rapidly becoming an alcoholic. I refused to believe it. I was too smart for that. Some weeks were very sparse, and my pay check was getting smaller because work was slow. An opportunity comes but once I heard my mom say. She said it many times. An opportunity came to me as well. It was to change my work from the automotive to the industrial mechanics.

I took the opportunity but it required a move to Montreal and some planning was needed. Our first son was now in the cradle. Things were different now. I needed to be more responsible. Thinking back I recall that I had thought all newborn babies looked like little monkeys BUT when I looked on my new son, it’s strange but I had never, ever seen such a beautiful, unique child.

We lived in two places in Cornwall and I was nervous about moving to such a large city as Montreal. The small town atmosphere will now be 58

gone for quite a while in my life. I was going to be a success and nothing would stop me. The move went very well and was not a costly undertaking at the time as a small truck moved all we had in one day. It was an apartment in Montreal’s north end and the rent was double that of Cornwall. But my wages also took a big jump so financially we were balanced. It brought Margie closer to her two brothers and sister now.

She liked the move and I did after a while. Montreal can fit into an alcoholic’s life style very well. My drinking had increased a lot and, with every opportunity now, I was gone. I never knew when I would get home.

Margie became pregnant again but I was oblivious to many things in my life. I was like two different people. One was the big time spender when I drank and the other was the dad that was usually hung over from a drinking bout the days before. I would come home to nurse my head. I was not capable of giving out the love that I had so very much wanted to give. That love was exchanged for an alcoholic way of life. I was in love with alcohol and it near destroyed my family and me. It was terrible the things that I did to my wife. Margie was having depressions from my drinking. She was not having the loving husband in her life that she married me for. When I was home, I was miserable and I made her miserable, too. It was a lot worse than I imagined.

Our second child was born now and the house was full of baby equipment with cribs and carriages and bottle sterilizers and all the items that are required for rearing children. I was not even capable of realizing what a beautiful baby girl I had. This all happened around the 59

time of the starting up of the FLQ in Quebec and the mailbox bombings.

It’s strange how one can adjust to fear. To mail a letter, my wife would go past a mailbox with the baby in the stroller, leave the baby and then go back to mail the letter. She was making sure that if it blew up the baby would be safe even if she and our unborn baby died as this happened before our daughter was born. I was able to function at work and fit in very well with a few others that drank very heavy. My supervisor drank and the manager drank also. The men that I worked with also were drinkers. One day I got a call to go home because there was some kind of an emergency. When I got home, the neighbor woman was babysitting the two children. She showed me the empty bottle of pills. They were tranquilizers. Margie had tried to take her own life. She had attempted suicide and at that time I was sure she had become successful. I drove to the hospital and the doctor was there and he said that they pumped her stomach but it was not likely she would survive. I had to go home and attend the children. The doctor said to check out the name of the pills. I called the name into the hospital. I had the neighbor lady baby-sit. She was a good friend of ours. I was going to the hospital but I stopped at the church first. I was crying and tried to go inside the church. It was called Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church.

The big oak doors were so massive. I was crying and pounding at the door. I needed to pray to God or Jesus or someone. I needed help. My wife and my family now were at risk “OPEN THE GOD DAMN DOOR!!”

I yelled. It was locked. In a minute a little priest came from a small 60

building beside the church. He told me to come back in the morning because they locked the church at night. I cried and I went home. I was awake all night but the kids were very young and they didn’t seem to know the seriousness of what was happening. She smiled at me the next morning as I entered her room. She was alive. She was not dead.

She would come home now. The doctor called me aside and told me that she must have flushed the pills down the toilet because for some reason nothing showed up in the blood tests. Six of these little pills would have killed her. She went into the hospital on the brink of death and all of a sudden she was all right. This is what I had prayed for the night before when the church was closed and I went home. My prayer was “Oh God, if by some miracle Margie will live I’ll quit drinking”. We came home and I did manage to control my drinking for some time. One day I went to the main office of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was on Sherbrooke St. I talked to one of the members and he gave me the twenty questions and some of the literature that they had. A meeting was in my part of Montreal the following night and two members that took me there.

Actually, I was very impressed with the meeting. I thought that it was a good way for people that had a problem with alcohol to go but it wasn’t for me. I was not drinking now so I did not bother going to the meetings.

I was controlling my drinking. Once an alcoholic pattern is set it is very hard to break a drinking habit. A lot of help is needed both with fellowship and within our spiritual makeup. Alcoholics Anonymous is a 61

spiritual program and it works if you let it. My job was starting to be under fire by times and I continued drinking more. The pattern now was that I would find a job that was different. I changed jobs and worked with another fork truck company in Montreal. I was a good mechanic and I liked the electric vehicles. The company was expanding and asked me if I would transfer to Ottawa. I started to travel each week to the Ottawa area and soon the drinking pattern was there again. It was impossible to control. God, Jesus and the church were now very far from my mind.

Mass was not an every Sunday happening. I loved my wife and two children so very much and I was hurting them but I was not able to stop the hurting. The company paid all my moving expenses and we moved to a small town west of Ottawa. It was the village of Stittsville. The drinking now was causing blackouts. Many times I would arrive home and not be aware of where I was earlier. The first thing in the morning I would look out the window and see if my truck was there. That pattern was now just about a daily happening.

I would go to bed late and I would feel the bed shake. Margie would be sobbing and her sobbing shook the bed. I wondered why she cried so much. My God, I hated to see her cry. I must have known deep within that it was my drinking. Yes, I was an alcoholic but didn’t know it. But there were times that were funny, yes hysterically funny.

Many times she threatened me with “If you come home drunk again, I will cut off all your hair.” But so many times I would get home and be 62

drunk, staggering drunk. One morning I woke up and I was sitting back in a lazy boy chair. This was a common thing, especially on the weekends. This one morning when I awoke, there was something wrong.

Yes, something terribly wrong had happened. I couldn’t move my arms; the pain was just too great. I thought that I had gotten Polio or some kind of a disease that restricted my arm movement. The pain was terrible when I tried to lift my arms up. I was in panic and I called out “Margie, Margie Help Me”. I heard her coming down the hall from the bedroom. She sat across the living room from me and crossed her legs and asked me “What’s wrong dear?” I told her something really bad is happening and I may have to go to the hospital. “Yes,” she said, “It looks quite serious. I’ll get dressed and take you down.” She was smiling now and I was having double thoughts about going to the hospital.

I was sure that I heard laughter coming from the bedroom. You know, the kind of laughter that comes with “I got you good, you bastard”. But I had a headache so bad and I needed to go to the bathroom but I could not get out of the lazy boy without my arms. In a couple of minutes she came from the kitchen with a basin and some hot soapy water in it and she started washing around my armpits. She was hysterical with laughter as she washed away the Le Pages Glue from the hair under my arms. This was the unforgivable sin in my books but it has sure brought some laughter in those days, as there was not much to laugh about with my daily drinking. Later on I was telling her brother what had 63

happened to me. Boy, he said, you must have been so mad at her. I said, “Not that much really. I was just so glad that I didn’t have polio.”

We had planned a nice picnic for Saturday to go to the Madawaska River with the two children and do some fishing. This I wanted to do so much, to have a family life with my own family. Saturday morning came with a phone call. It was one of my customers that needed a small job done on his fork truck. I told Margie that I would be back in a couple of hours and we would go to the river. I finished the job and started home anxiously waiting for one of the few family times that I had. The light was red at the corner where the beverage room was. Compulsion made me turn right and I was at the parking lot of that place. I thought one beer and home I go. Alcoholics cannot have just one beer, because they are alcoholics. We cannot control our drinking--period.

This is the start of the most terrifying day of my whole life. I got drunk again and I bought some wine to take with me. I drank all day and I got home at seven that evening. My marriage looked to be over. She told me to get out and threw my clothes at my feet. Well, I was not going to go anywhere without the two children. But I lost out on that one as I blacked out. I came to and was driving somewhere unknown to me until I came to Kemptville then I realized what had happened. I looked back and the car was empty except that pile of my clothes in the back seat. I was beyond drunk and not able to keep my car on the road. I blacked out. I crashed my car quite far done an embankment. I was stoned drunk and partially blacked out. Totally out of control, I threw out the 64

bottle of wine that I had beside me and I saw these four young men come in front of my car.

One of the men reached in the window and put his hand on my head and said, “You are going to be alright now mister.” The next thing that I remember is that the flat tire had been changed and my car had somehow gotten back up to the highway. It is a mystery to this day. How that happened without a tow truck is impossible to me to this day. The car was setting there in neutral and the engine running. Naturally, I started to drive but the steering was hard. A cop pulled me over and asked me if I had been drinking. I said that I had a couple of beers in the afternoon. I guess that he could smell the alcohol on my breath so he made me get out of the car and walk the white line on the highway. I did this for about thirty feet and turned around. He told me that I could drive to the next town and call a tow truck for my car. Slowly I drove into the next village and went into the hotel beverage room. There was a pay phone in the hall, but I thought that I would just have one more beer. I did and forgot to phone for a tow truck and was going to go home. The flashing beacon of the cruiser blinded me. I was pulled over again and, I ended in jail. I remember what the door sounded like. That clank of metal that only a jail cell has. My heart sank. I had finally arrived. I had hit my bottom and I was starting to become conscious.

Inside the cell I was saying, “God help me.” Yes, if ever there was a time that I needed a God this is it. God help me because I can’t help 65

myself. I sat on the rubber mat that was on the bed within the cell and held my head with my hands. Wanting to cry out loud was broken by the cop telling me that if I wanted to use the telephone that I could use the one in the office. I assume that the cop thought that I would call a lawyer or for someone to help me out of this mess. They were dealing with a very sick man. I was an alcoholic that was completely out of control and a very dangerous man. He pointed to the telephone and the phone book under it. I called a local Chinese restaurant and ordered Chinese food for six people. Then I was taken back to the cell. There was a hell of a ruckus now at the front of the jail. The order of Chinese food had arrived but no one had ordered it. Boy was the Chinese man ever angry. The noise lowered and then I heard the cop on the front phone. It was a one sided conversation that I heard and it went something like this. “Is this Margie, Wayne Sturgeon’s wife, pause, would you please come and take him home, pause, I DON’T CARE IF YOU DON’T HAVE A LICENSE, JUST GET HIM OUT OF HERE. He said that you have the truck and the keys were in it”.

About an hour had passed and the cop came in and said that I was going home. He brought me to the office and my brother in-law was there to meet me. It was two thirty in the morning. Margie called him to get me out of jail. This was a friend, and now a relative, that I had from grade school and he had done something similar another time a couple of years before. He drove me home and stayed until he saw that Margie would really let me back in. I am so grateful for having this man as my 66

friend. When I fell asleep he went home. Sunday morning brought some serious discussion between us. She said that I was going to call AA. I said for her to call them. I was so sick that I wanted to die. I lay on the couch all day. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. At seven thirty that evening a knock came to the front door and two men came in. It would happen that these two men would become powerful friends of mine for many years. I heard Margie questioning them and wanting some kind of a guarantee of me being sober all my life. There are no guarantees with AA. They mostly talked with Margie. They shook my hand. My hand was sweaty as I remember now. Margie made some coffee and she continued to question them about the program of AA. When they were leaving they said to me, “Wayne, if you want to do something about your drinking problem then meet us at a church in Eastview.”

I had the shakes and I was so sick. My car was damaged in Kemptville and I thought that I had been charged with careless driving. Margie and her silence were deafening, that cold stare and the kids kept away from me. I was an unfit father. I was an alcoholic.

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CHAPTER FOUR: A Turning Point Monday morning I went to work but my thoughts were not on the job I was doing. I was wondering if there were any charges on me, and if I would lose my license again. God I have to do something with my life was the words from within all day. At seven thirty that evening I pulled in front of the Church where they said they would meet me. They pulled up at the same time as I did. I was scared but I went with them. We went to the back of the church and went down stairs to the meeting room. I was in the basement of a Protestant Church. You know, the ones we were told were evil work of Satan in my youth. Not only had I hit bottom with my drinking but also now I was in a sacrilegious place of evil. I didn’t want to stay but I did and they got me a cup of coffee and introduced me to some of the regulars. My hands were sweaty when I shook theirs.

They welcomed me. They were my friends. At least in time I would know that. If I can just get my boss and my wife and the police off my case I would be okay. My mind was made up. I would stay with AA until things cooled off a little. That was my plan. The meeting was called to order and they read the preamble of AA, and the steps, and the members picked to do so also read the traditions. The words Higher Power were heard for the first time. Interesting, I thought. God as I understand Him was also used. A different twist for sure. The speaker told his story and I remember very little other than he was in the Army 68

and he used to get drunk on trains. He would cross the country in the lounge cars of the passenger trains that were very much used then.

The meeting was over about nine-thirty. There was a one-year cake and a celebration at the man’s house. I went with them. What a party, there were sandwiches and all kinds of goodies, with coffee and soft drinks but not any beer or alcohol that I could see. It was very nice and I drove home about 1:00 p.m. I told Margie about this meeting and the party that followed. She listened to me and after the meetings this became a pattern. I would always tell her about the speakers. After the meetings there was always some gathering either at the coffee shop or at someone’s home. Meetings were every night and three on Sunday. For five years this happened and a new pattern was set. Alcohol became a memory, both good and bad. But the memories were always in my mind.

Sobriety and Higher Power now were new words for me. The pressure eased. I had no charges on my driving record. My boss was a little more reasonable I thought. Margie was also changing to that wonderful person that I met years ago. I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol and that my WIFE had become unmanageable, but the real word was LIFE. So many times the first step of AA was altered to bring us a laugh. Religion and I were a little mixed up. I was mixed up because of a religion that was mixed up. My relationship now with God had turned into my Higher Power. God as I understand Him made so much sense to me.

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God now was not that white wafer that is kept in the tabernacle in the Catholic Church. That was the little place that always had a curtain in front and a lit candle to tell us if Jesus was alive or dead. That would tell us if the Eucharist had been blessed or not.

I went to meetings and I started to take Margie with me. There was always somebody that would baby sit the kids for the meeting, usually another member’s wife. AA now was so meaningful another pattern formed the pattern that broke me from the grip of alcohol. The pattern was a meeting all the time. One day I told one of my friends that I didn’t think that I could get to the meeting because it was freezing rain. He replied to me “Did you ever get drunk in bad weather?” I went to the meeting. The old God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost now were put on the sidelines and my Higher Power ruled. I now frequented the church a lot, but it was the meetings in the basement where I was. The basement of the church was where the good they were preaching about upstairs was being done in the basement. The groups of alcoholics were in the basement of the church because it usually cost very little to have our meetings. We always contributed to that church from the collection money. AA is a self-supporting organization from our own contributions.

The members were down there practicing the words that streamed from the pulpits above. Yes, we practiced what they preached because this is how it worked. We learned that we could keep our sobriety a little easier if we helped others to get sober. We received this wonderful gift by giving of our time to those that needed help. May God bless Alcoholics 70

everywhere.

Somehow things turned for the better and I became at last the father that I always wanted to be. I spent time with my wife and my children.

The first couple of years my time was spent at the meetings in the evenings but weekends in the summer were spent with the kids and picnics and fishing. Many great weekends were spent together. Along about this time Margie found that she was with child again. We were to be blessed again with another child. And grateful we are to this day for all of our children as they have fulfilled our marriage and brought us so much happiness. Those days family planning was a new development and only recently was the cause found. If you were a Catholic then the family planning had been done for you. You just kept having children until the factory shut down. Birth control was a mortal sin in the eyes of the church. I guess that having all those kids was a way to gain numbers for the Church. Well, there was no way in the world that I ever would go into the drug store and purchase a condom. It just was beyond me. And it certainly was not Margie’s place to do this task either. Now birth control was not impossible, because we knew that if I withdrew before a complete ejaculation, then there could be no conception. The birth control pill at that time was not reliable and was also dangerous for some women. So here we go again with that bungee cord sex life that was short of torture to me. Sex was not talked about very much, it just happened. There was a built in guilt trip with every erection. I was controlled by the church through my sex life and to the grave and 71

beyond that with the possibility of Hell fire always lurking somewhere around the next corner.

It was Halloween and my next little girl entered the world. It took about three attempts at birth to get her born. I guess it was her that was undecided or that doctor had had this magic pill that would stop the labor and could resume at a more convenient time for him and the hospital. Well, at least it seemed that way to me. But the third trip my youngest little girl entered the world. I took courses and improved my skills in my fork truck trade. There would be success. I was sure of that.

As long as I had my higher power and my sobriety there would be no stopping success. I learned about the spiritual part of my life through the AA program. Religion now was in the background for me. I learned to meditate.

“We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him” Those words became so important to me. My life had now turned around and I was close to my God and my family and I was sober. We moved to Ottawa and I changed jobs. I studied the lift truck business and I became unsatisfied with the job that I was holding. Margie and I became close again and of course, in the passing of time, she became pregnant again. My world was being filled with love. Our interests came into the Occult and I bought some books on different topics about it. One night we watched a movie about vampires and how having garlic hanging in the house could 72

ward them off. In fun I got out three big ones and I hung them over the door of the front porch and promptly forgot about it.

There was a knock at the door a couple of weeks later and a policeman came. He asked us some questions about a previous tenant that lived here. We told him that we didn’t know very much about him but he had a lot of people coming as though he lived here. Every minute or so the cop would look up at the ceiling. He seemed to be getting edgy and I thought that he needed a leak or something. Anyway he looked behind us one more time and said. “Never mind, no further questions” then quickly ran down the front steps to the cruiser. We looked up behind our heads and there they were. The three garlic bulbs hanging down on that string that I put had put there a month before for a joke. Needless to say we laughed ourselves silly about this incident. There would be quite a few more funny happenings in the future for us.

The Occult was a fascinating adventure and we learned a lot by delving into its walls. We bought books and we read what we could. We had a ghost on the stairs at the first landing. Many times I would go up or down stairs and get this kind of a chill. All I can think of is that it felt creepy. I said nothing until one day Margie felt the same thing and asked me about it. The answer was plain when we learned that the original owner died and his body had been found on the landing. Ghosts, but not the Holy Ghost, now were kind of interesting and we learned about ghosts and witches and banshees and so many more interesting 73

things. Occult I think has a similar meaning to something that is forbidden, at least, by all the religions. Yes. The Occult scared the true Christians because it was such a threat to Christianity. We were tapping into the strange and the uncanny and it was such an interesting subject that I think it should be on everyone’s bookshelf. I don’t believe for one minute that Satanism is much different than that daily obligatory sacrifice of the Mass. A Jesus that is bloodied and eaten before people is nothing short of devil worship and is a disgrace before mankind and it should be stopped. It is fear tactics that has been used for two thousand years that are the chief cause of the wars today. It is a bloody sacrifice enacted each day and falls within some of the satanic rituals that we read about.

The candles were flickering off to one side of the altar and Margie and our eldest son went where the big stand of offering candles were. My little boy wanted to light a candle but he only had seven cents. The priest came by and said that it cost a dime and wouldn’t let him light one.

My son was disappointed so much and so was Margie. Boy was she mad. She kept saying that the purpose of the candles were for a prayer.

They just blow them out as soon as the people leave so what did a few pennies matter. Wasn’t it the thought that counts? You would think that I was the one, not the priest who wouldn’t let him light one. I had some thoughts about this a few times and I always wondered why these deep thoughts made their presence known mainly during the winter months. I finally figured it out that with about two hundred candles that would burn 74

for about twenty hours or so there would be enough heat to take the chill off the big church. Our offering candles and prayers were used to heat the church as well as provide some false hope for devout parishioners. But that didn’t matter because it did give some comfort to those people that used these candles. Flickering candles and incense, combined with organ music, was a setting that would put anyone to sleep. If that didn’t then for sure the sermon of some old sex starved priest would. A few times, while in that kind of relaxed atmosphere, I would find that I was drifting out over the people. I think it must have been some kind of a hypnotic condition that came over me. But it was either this or watch the dress get caught in the big lady’s bum crack each time she stood up from kneeling in front of me. I went to church, by times, on special occasions but my heart was not in it anymore.

Something just didn’t jell about the whole Christian and Catholic Church.

Yet within me there was a strong connection forming with my Higher Power. This was something that I could accept. A God as I understood Him. We stayed in Ottawa for another year and the children were in a Catholic school and had made their first communions and confirmations.

I attended church only on essential occasions. An opportunity to move to British Columbia was taken that would more than double my salary.

Somehow we just wanted to do something different. A move to BC is not a simple task and there was a lot of planning that had to be done. A trailer was bought from Sears and I built a box on it so we could take 75

just what could be fit in the trailer, including my tool box which was a couple of hundred pounds. My mother was so upset that we were moving away. First she lost me to Margie, (which is an entire story in itself. She made Margie pay dearly for that) and now Margie has enticed me to move away all together. We sold all our furniture and kept just the family treasures that we could not be without.

The trailer was prepared and my notice at work was given.

Arrangements were made for me to start work as soon as I arrived in BC. We said our good byes and we had some money put aside for the trip. The three children were about five, four and the baby about one.

The car was packed and the trailer loaded and away we went. It was out west at last. We stopped in London to say our goodbyes to Margie’s mom and dad and headed through the state of Michigan to Sault St Marie, Ontario. The old car that I had was on its last legs but I knew that it would get me to BC. The motor sounded good and it used little oil. My intentions were to buy a new car after I worked for a while in my new job.

Passing from Ontario into Manitoba seemed to take forever. The land was flat and we could see Winnipeg for hours before we got there. The gas gauge showed over half full. Surely there was enough to make the next gas station. We drove and the horizon showed Winnipeg for another couple of hours. I was near out of gas when we came to a service station. It was getting late and we were tired so we started to look for a motel. We found one just before Winnipeg.

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We registered in the room and it was starting to get dark. We were completely exhausted, hungry and tired. There was a little puddle of oil on the fresh snow under my car and I looked at the engine and found a bad valve cover gasket. Not too serious, I thought, and we were off to get our supper from the restaurant out front. We left the kids in the room, after telling them not to open the door for anyone and to keep it locked.

We told them that we wouldn’t be long and would bring back supper. We went over to the restaurant and ordered. We were gone no longer than ten minutes. The children were safely in the room so no need to worry.

When we got back to the room, they were gone. My heart sank and that lump came in my throat. We were both totally devastated. We thought that the three children had been kidnapped. There was not a car around and ours was the only one there. Looking out the front we saw a pair of footsteps on the fresh snow. We run along the tracks and it led to the restaurant. There they were, all three of them, the baby in my boy’s arms. He had rolled her up in a blanket to keep her warm. She had come down with Red Measles on the trip and had been quite sick.

Thank God was uttered aloud and within from the two of us. The reason that they went out was the baby was crying and they knew we were in the restaurant so they thought they would come along.

Traveling took us four days to get to BC. It was an adventure. We were young; the car’s oil leak had the new gasket installed in it and was running well. The view was magnificent driving through Crow’s Nest 77

Pass. It is something I will do again sometime I hope. We pulled into Fernie, BC. The little mining town was just full of people. We barely got a room. The condition imposed on us was that we had to be out at the first of the month because the room was reserved for the unemployment man. The next day I started my job. It was working on big equipment and I mean really big. There were Unit Riggs, Euclid’s and P&H shovels.

The job was a challenge as it was new equipment for me. The work site was up the mountain at sixty one hundred feet above sea level. It took forty-five minutes to drive up the hill by bus. When I arrived up there, I was exhausted because of the rather thin air. After the first few days I went to the office and asked them about the trailer that was supposed to have been waiting for us. They said that there were trailers but that we would be put on the list. There were forty nine ahead of us. They suggested we purchase a new house. Well, this was just out of the question for us and we were rapidly running out of money staying in the motel. I came home on Thursday and Margie was crying. She said that she was told we had to be out of the room the very next morning. The employment man was arriving. Everything was tumbling down on us, three children and literally having to live out of our car. I needed to get to a meeting. I was three years sober now and my world was crashing.

Decisions had to be made, as I was not going to have Margie go through any more hell. We packed our belongings on Friday and I called my mom and told her the sad story and I asked if we could stay with her and dad until I got a job. There was just enough money left to get us 78

back if we were careful with it. I never returned to the job. My tools were left there and we drove to Calgary. Yes. We drove back with the same old car that was just supposed to get us there. It was snowing and the roads were icy in places and snow-covered in others. We had to drive a little longer now each day to drive the necessary miles to fit in our budget. Mixed emotions were the feeling of the day. I was happy to be with my family and I was terribly disappointed about my job. When we got into Calgary, I called AA and found the location for a meeting that evening. Oh God, did I need a meeting. I went to it and it gave the boost that a meeting always does. I called the office from Calgary and told them to forward my tools and my paycheck to my address in Cornwall.

Three days of driving and we were in London, Ontario, with Margie’s parents.

It was a little breather for us for sure. Finally, we could get the baby to a doctor as her fever had gotten quite high. Margie’s dad and I got along quite well and he greeted us with “Stay here a while and cool your heels while you decide just what you are going to do.” I thought that was just fine as I needed a few days to recover from everything. The next morning as we were feeding the baby and having our breakfast Margie’s mom placed the newspaper before me with about six places to look for jobs, all circled with a red pencil. Boy, there was no “just cool your heels for a few days” from her mum. I could just feel her thinking, no sponging here. Get to work. Well, mixed emotions hit me again and I did look around and put in a few applications. After several days there, we just 79

had to decide on something. One evening after the children were in bed, Margie and I want to the donut shop. It was called County Style Doughnuts. To this day it is there at the same intersection. That evening we grew up. We decided that we would go back to Cornwall and stay with my folks until I got started in my own business. It was a time that started a new adventure for us. We were going to be successful and there would be no stopping us -- period! All my thinking now was about the welfare of my family. This was a responsibility that I would take to do the very best that I possibly could, for I loved them all and things were mostly happy.

I went to a store that made rubber stamps and I ordered one. I had one made with the words “Sturgeon Lift Truck Service. Repairs to all makes of lift trucks”, followed by my mom and dad’s phone number. We bought some cardboard and an inkpad and we cut out business cards and that took us quite a while but they were quite nice looking. We were in business but I had no tools. I had left them all up on the mountain in Fernie, B.C., but I had a brother in-law that loaned me his full toolbox and that got me started. A friend and a relative, he was indeed the one that took me home from the jail on more than one occasion, and now he loaned me his tools. The old car now was my service truck and was running quite well for its age. I had the borrowed toolbox in the trunk and some business cards in my shirt pocket. I went knocking on the doors of the businesses in the Cornwall area. A business takes some time to establish and there was just no big rush to get my services. I did 80

go to one customer in the west end and I landed a job. It was to change some parts on their fork truck. The parts came in and the next day the job was complete. That was my first billing. The next week there were two calls for me, and more bills to make up. The business, after a couple of months, was producing enough money for us to leave mom’s and find a place of our own.

We found a house that was furnished with a garage and a basement. It was on the outskirts of Cornwall on Toll Gate Road. It was a nice but small bungalow. It had some weeping willow trees there and a nice yard for the kids. Somehow, at this time, I felt that I was a successful businessman. Margie was at home and she took any service calls. Soon there were several regular customers that I was doing work for, and there was just enough money come in to pay the rent and buy groceries.

I was happy and so was Margie. Before a year went by we had enough money to buy a small mini-van as a service van as well as our personal vehicle. That old car now was traded in. It had served me well. The salesman took me to the garage area where they were removing a sign from the van that had been put on by the previous owner. It would be painted and I would have it tomorrow, he said.

The next morning I drove into the driveway with my new minivan. Well, it was like new to me. We put some lawn chairs in the back and went for a drive. A proud man I was, with my wife and three children, driving around the town. Soon the van was filled with tools. Stock of lift truck 81

parts filled the shelves that I built. Business was good and increasing as there was just no competition for me in Cornwall. Margie told me that she was pregnant, but she didn’t know just how far she was along in her pregnancy. For me it was the end result that really mattered and another child would be at my table to be fed several times a day. We were at the point of wanting to own our own home. Shortly after that we were approved for a mortgage thus we owned a new, small threebedroom bungalow. It was in the north end of Cornwall. We were getting to be known in the community. This is where the Catholic Church once again came into our lives. Margie and I had always been what you might call good people or “do-gooders” as we were sometimes called. We knew that it was important to help those less fortunate, and we did what good we could. We did become more active in the church because of the children.

My heart was not in the Catholic Religion anymore. The main reason was because it was so phony and money hungry. One day I got home from work and we had a visit from one of the pillars of the church. We were told straight out that we had a responsibility to contribute to the church each Sunday. If not, then we shouldn’t take part in the church at all. I knew that they were on to me and that they were aware that I had a successful repair business going. They were on to many others, me included, because the church was running out of money. The baby finally appeared at the hospital one October morning. As the nurse handed him to me, all I could think about was another baby that looked 82

at me and said to hang on dad, with that look in his eyes. He came home but there was something about him that Margie thought was not right. It was the mother instinct that told us to get him to the doctor.

The very next day we were in the hospital. I thought that he was going to die. His head had been shaved and a needle was inserted into a vein on his head. They had to operate on him because there was no stomach opening formed in him. This operation provided a passage into the stomach that food would stay for the digestion and then on to the intestines. God help me I cried, “Please let my little man live.” Margie and I were devastated. We had to leave him in the hospital and we were sure that his tiny life was over, and we prayed each in our own way. We prayed for God to help us. Our prayers were answered because in a couple of days he was home again and able to digest a couple of ounces of milk from his bottle every couple of hours or so. We were young and had four children now. It was a big responsibility but the woman to manage this family was a strong woman. Margie was the one to get it all together.

Margie was a multi-tasking person who also ran the office part of my business, took the service calls and raised the children in a wonderful manner. I was a very proud and a very lucky man to have such a wife.

When the kids were in school or we had a babysitter, she would go and visit with the old people in the Convalodge. She just would go visit and chat with them. Sometimes she would read the mail for them, and 83

sometimes she would rub their feet with a lotion. She organized entertainment for them. The nurses always welcomed her. Many of them would wait for Margie’s visit each day. They were not all old people, because there were many young men and women that were handicapped with many kinds of illnesses. There was a priest that held a Mass service each day for any of the Catholic residents. Margie was aware of this and she would take many of them down in the elevator to the service. Every day she would have an extra person wanting to attend Mass. One day she had eight residents attending Mass. It was quite a chore to get all of them down by the elevator and sit in the Chapel for the Mass. At the communion part of the Mass Margie would push the wheel chairs to the communion rail and the priest would dispense the Eucharist. It seemed that someone told the priest that some of them were Protestant and wondered why they would receive communion with the Catholics. Well Margie was questioned severely about this as a Catholic ritual had been violated. They found out that only one of the old men was a Catholic. What a disgrace it was.

In the priest’s brainwashed religious mind, a Sacrilege a sacrilege definitely had been committed. Margie was asked why she would do such a thing. Margie replied, “Is the communion service not a good thing?” Are some old men not as worthy as others to receive the Body of Christ? They’re all old and ready to die.”

When I got home from work she told me the tale of woe and the terrible 84

thing that happened today. And to top it off she said, “I’ve been doing this for two months. All I was trying to do was to be nice to people and let them have communion. I didn’t think that it was wrong, she said a little teary eyed by now. I held her in my arms and said not to cry. The fault lie with the religion because it put a wonderful woman in tears and that was the sin; that was the Sacrilege. She visited with them every day but she didn’t take any of them to Mass anymore. I can visualize the little priest looking from the chapel with his robes on and the chalice in hand, and wondering where in hell his little flock went. It was soon found out by the Church that Margie was doing such wonderful work. She was a Saint someone said, like the Mother Teresa of the Convalodge. She was their hero and mine, too. Many other Catholic women then soon started to show up to visit and get the “Catholics Only” group to Mass.

Soon the place was overrun with do-gooders. Margie laughed with me about this event; the crime that shook the very foundations of the Catholic Church. We laughed ourselves silly many times about the times she took all the Protestants to Holy Communion in a Catholic Mass.

When our youngest boy was a few weeks old we were asking about Baptism. Since we were not active anymore with the Church, the priest refused to baptize him. Now thismade me mad. I was furious about this.

I was clinging on to that old trick of the Church, which if you were not baptized it would be hell, purgatory or limbo for that person. It was a disgrace they wouldn’t baptize the little fellow; however, Margie was a 85

smart and clever person and she checked around and located a priest that was more than willing to baptize him. Apparently that priest called the one that had refused. A bit later she got a call from him asking why, oh why would she have told me about what he had said instead of talking it over with him and why, in heaven’s name, would she call another parish to have the baby baptized? He would have done it, he said. My Aunt Fanny would have done it. My smart wife just put one over on him. That’s what embarrassed him. Anyway, the water got poured over his head and the service was done and I was somewhat satisfied with the baptism. I was satisfied but somehow it didn’t make much sense to me when I reasoned it through. What was this original sin? And why would God inflict a baby with this terrible burden? Why was a child born with sin? It just did not make sense to me. I was beginning to see that we were being sold a bill of goods that was not real. It was a big lie, I thought, but the power of that religion gripped me.

But it was losing its grip and fast.

That little church on Toll Gate Road was in deep financial trouble and a new priest was commissioned to it. He knew how to raise money and that he did. It would have been easier to raise Lazarus from the dead again but this priest did it. The winter carnival took place and in the evening was a big dance. It was Saturday. I worked the night before and early on Saturday I was finishing up a job in the old cotton mill. I was tired and I got careless. I got myself into a lot of problems that Saturday.

I could feel that my finger was caught and badly cut. I was working 86

alone and trying to fit a hydraulic pin into a cylinder and the truck was running. Slowly I felt the piston move into place and I felt the hole with my finger; then pop, the air had pushed the piston out and my finger was crushed.

I was trapped. “Help!” I yelled, “Help! Help me! Oh God, help me.”

I was able to reach around with my right hand and slowly pull the lever to retract that piston rod. Slowly I felt the pressure lessen and grabbed a clean wiper rag to wrap my finger and hand with. Just then there was a man that came by and took me to the hospital. My finger was just about cut completely off but was hanging by a small piece of skin. After sewing it back on the doctor said I think there is a reasonable chance that it may be okay but to keep it bandaged for a few days. Go home now and rest and get these pills for pain.

I went home and told the long story but my wife was getting ready to go to the winter carnival. She had to go because she was active now with the Catholic Women’s League. My finger was throbbing and although bandaged up, it truly stuck straight out like a sore thumb. I got dressed and soon we were in the church basement. The music had just started and they had a local singing group. The bar now was a busy spot and the stream of people bringing the drinks back to the table. Yes, and I am an alcoholic complete with a broken finger and a church resentment so large it was terrifying. I just got a few ginger ales for me and a few 87

drinks for Margie. She needed to have this night out. She needed it out because she deserved it. She worked hard to organize this dance and I was not going to let her down.

The music was Blue Spanish Eyes and we started to waltz and my hand now had no feeling and the dance floor was packed and we waltzed to the music. It was a bit blurry because the painkillers were kicking in now.

Somehow my big-bandaged finger, with no feeling, would poke into some of the ladies bums that were close to my hand. The finger was not choosy about whether it was a man’s bum or a woman’s but I was starting to get a lot of looks. Kind of like “you just goosed me” type of look. As the evening went on the music got louder. A steady stream of people was going and coming from the bar. I danced with Margie a few times but I was feeling some throbbing in my hand now. I sat down for most of the balance of the evening. I wonder how much it weighed, I thought. The altar was just above the basement where this festival was taking place. It was marble and I thought, probably solid marble. I knew that in the center there was a place that some relics were inserted. Yes, all the altars in the world had some relics under the altar stone. That center part in front of the tabernacle. Someone once told me that the relics were from the Saints belongings. It was the Apostles of old that had some of their stuff in each altar. They must have had an awful lot of belongings I mused.

A priest told me that it was some slivers off the original cross of Christ 88

that was buried under that little marble slab. I thought then that the original cross must have been getting kind of spindly. Thinking what would happen if the altar came crashing down into the basement was on my mind. It was getting rowdy. If that happened how many would be pinned under that massive altar? Would it hit the bar and squash fifty people? Did God really know just how wild the church basement could get? If it did crash through, would I be lucky enough to save Margie and pick up the relics that would be strewn about? If there really was a God, then how come He depended on this new priest to resurrect the finances of the Church? So many questions ran through my mind. Was God invisible like the Holy Ghost? Was Jesus here with the water jugs just in case the bar ran short? I think I had taken too many pain pills.

You have to take it on faith the priest said when I asked him about it.

And take the Bible with a grain of salt was his answer. Margie asked a question. (It was shortly after her father died and her mother was paying to have all these masses said for his soul.) She asked “If two men, identical in every way except one had money for masses to be said for him and the other was very poor. Both had the exact same sins on their souls. Now, if God said, every man is the same unto the Lord and it was harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle because of his wealth, who got to heaven first? The poor man or the rich man, whose widow was spending thousands of dollars for the church to have many, many masses said for him?” Absolutely no answer came from the priest.

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Finally, he said “Well, you just have to take it on faith, aye?” Margie just smiled and walked away. She really didn’t have to say another word.

He told me one day, “What else can I do? I’m not trained for anything else.” I felt sad for him. He was preaching a lie and he had to live with it.

This faith thing was another kind of an invisible tool the Church used.

Moses had faith that if he struck the rock just the right way, and in the right spot, water would flow forth. So I was, at this time, lacking in faith; but had faith that any of my own reasoning was taken away. The old “Faith can move mountains” should have added also “It can also remove any kind of reason.”

The Bible now was part of our reading and it fit in nicely with the occult.

But when I read the Bible for the first time, there was some kind of a connection made with Jesus. When I heard the story, and not filtered through the Vatican, it was somewhat different. The part that Jesus played, to my way of thinking, was a man that came to have people look into the law. His words were “I have not come to abolish the law but to magnify the Law.” Soon it was obvious that he wanted people to look closely and see the sheer fallacy of some of the laws. He said, “You strain at a Nat and swallow a camel.”

Margie had an inner moving compulsion to help people, and that we did.

If there was some need for a family, and she knew about it. She would 90

get some groceries to that home so at least there would be food. We both tried in so many ways to be the people that God would be proud of.

It was Saturday and I was having a snooze in the afternoon. Margie came into the bedroom and said that there were two men there to see me. She said she thought they were Mormons and should she get rid of them. Part of me said yes, but another part said lets find out about these Mormon people. They read some scripture and told us about the Holy Spirit and that He was not called the Holy Ghost any more. They said if you want to know the truth then just pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance while reading the Book of Mormon and the truth would be revealed to you. I looked into their religion because I was looking for something solid and that I could trust. Margie and I had made arrangements to take out some underprivileged children for an overnight stay on an island in the river.

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CHAPTER FIVE Our New Cult and New Church We had a houseboat that my brother and I built, and we shared the use of it for the summer. A priest was going to go along with us to help out.

We asked the two Mormon men if they would like to join us this weekend, as it took a lot of planning to get this project going. They told us that they would help us out for sure. We told them that there would be a Catholic Priest there as well and that it would be so nice to bring these kids to the island for the weekend. They said that first they would check out with their elders and let us know. (This is the same priest that was so flabbergasted because Margie was taking Protestants to the mass at the Convalodge.) Margie got a phone call from them on Monday morning. They said “We are not allowed to take part in any activity that a Catholic Priest is involved in.” That ended my first encounter with the Mormon Church. It was short and sweet and their true mission was not in the helping out of the underprivileged.

We had the weekend with the kids. There were seventeen of them. It was just a great fun time for them. We had a campfire with the hot dogs and marshmallows. One of them was just so fascinated by the campfire, because he had never seen a real one in his whole life. Another child played with a flashlight all night. It was so nice to see these kids enjoy themselves. At mass one day the priest started his sermon with a dire warning to all his parishioners. There is a new movement starting within 92

the Catholic Church, and I am asking you to be very careful about joining into it. It was the Charismatic Movement. It finally made its way to town. I was just not too interested in it, especially when people were saying, “You have to take part in the Charismatic meetings for your spiritual development.” Margie attended a few times but just couldn’t seem to be able to burst into tongues like all the others when “the spirit would hit them” no matter how they all prayed over her with the laying on of hands. Finally, in frustration, they told her it was because she was blocking the spirit.

She told me about all this after meetings. Finally, she said to me. “You know, if the Holy Spirit was so strong as to knock Paul off his horse and change him into a Christian, how come I’m not knocked off my chair or something?” Confidentially, she said they all sounded so silly, and bursting into garble. The priest looked absolutely obscene when he did.

He was sticking out his tongue and yelling nonsense. She never went back. This was about the time that a spiritual awakening was something that I looked for. I looked through all avenues of Religion and the Occult.

It was constantly drawing me to something, yet unsure.

The lift truck business was growing and within a few years I had several employees. It brought me to several cities away from Cornwall, and the men were very busy doing service calls for several customers in and around Cornwall. I was growing and word got out. In a short time I became a partner in a company that was trying to get into the 93

equipment of industrial fork trucks and they needed my expertise. A partnership was formed and a move to Brockville was coming for us.

We were able to find a new home in a nice area of Brockville. Margie was happy with everything and she did a lot of babysitting while we were there, she was good with kids and she made a little money also.

We settled in the new surroundings quite well and the company was expanding rapidly. I worked hard back in those days.

In the evening at bedtime we listened to a program called the Haven of Rest. Some preacher was on every night with a beautiful message of peace. It was so soothing to listen to and the preacher had a voice just made for it. One evening we also heard on the radio the voice of Herbert W. Armstrong and the World Tomorrow. He is the one that was pushing the magazine called The Plain Truth. Herbert and his son Garner Ted had a knack for drawing people into the “True Church”. Yes, the Plain Truth was absolutely free. It was full of wonderful stories about God’s chosen people and the coming Kingdom.

The secret about religion finally was revealed to us and about the true Sabbath. They had about fifty Bible quotes as to why the Sabbath was on Saturday and why this flock was the Sabbath keepers. We were on holidays but I had to return home for something that we needed. As soon as I got in the door there was a phone call. It was from this man in Kingston. He was a minister of the World Wide Church of God and he made arrangements to come and see us the next week. Somehow I felt 94

that it was some kind of a miracle that the moment I got into the house the phone call came. It was like a call to God I thought. It was such a wonderful group of people and so sincere. These people were God’s Chosen people. At least this is what they said. Now I was going to be with that group come Hell or high water. This was the true Church of Jesus Christ and I, at last, was at the door. The Catholic Church had it all wrong and it was called the “Whore of Revelations”. We were told and that I was chosen by God to bring my family into this church. What a feeling it was, going to Sabbath services on Saturday.

All the others were blind and their eyes were not opened yet. Yes, they were to be pitied, especially with the wrath of God that was going to be on mankind in a few years. We swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Margie looked so nice in her mini skirt because she had the type of perfect legs that suited a short skirt. Her make up was exact and fitting for a mother of four children. I was proud of, because she was like my walking trophy. I liked to be with her especially when we went out in public.

It was our first time going to Sabbath Services on a Saturday. I had on my suit for the first time in years and the children were dressed up looking just great. We had directions to the school that was used for our services. The World Wide Church of God didn’t have buildings because God had better places for his money. We drove around the school and parked in a parking lot. We were beckoned to come into the school by 95

some of the church members. The Minister had just arrived as well, so we knew some of them.

There they were, the chosen flock, not a sign of lipstick or earrings. The ladies all had their skirts below their knees, gently swirling around when the turned and the men were like soldiers standing proudly like guards for Christ. Something welled up in me from within. It was a lump in my throat. My wife was tugging so hard on her mini skirt trying to get it pulled down at least a little. She was struggling with the skirt and with the idea of this so-called chosen flock of Jesus. Then I heard it; it had ripped. The miniskirt had come apart at the seam. She was so embarrassed she sat down with her purse over her knees. She was visibly shaken and quivering lips were wiped with a Kleenex to remove all that so nice lipstick that brightens up her face in such a beautiful way.

We were made to feel just so welcome it got us over any embarrassment. Margie now knew the dress code for the future. God’s chosen people did not smoke cigarettes, they did not eat pork and the Bible told us so. The Bible was the written word of God and only to be translated by the ministers of this church. They were the Sheppard’s and we were the flock.

Jesus now had entered into my life again and through the door of this church. The old Jesus was just not right. The minister now went up on the stage of the school gymnasium. He called on one of the elders to begin the service with an opening prayer. It was a long one for sure and 96

included Abraham, Isaac and Joseph and about a dozen other well known biblical names. Finally, it ended in, “We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” This was so important at that time for me, that I thought every prayer had to end like this or it was no good.

Christ was the word and everything had to be filtered through Him to get to God. We were now Brethren in Christ again but the real one this time.

Oh Yah?

The piano rang out a wonderful hymn, a hymn that I had never heard before and it was a beautiful song. Everything was so different with this church that I knew it was for sure the only true Church.

To have Christmas was an abomination before the Lord the minister said and it was a pagan celebration that the Great False Church had instituted. We were not to take part in anything Christmassy. Oh God, I thought how in hell am I going to get through this one. I was like a Jehovah’s Witness. Margie, as usual, came through with a good plan.

We wouldn’t keep Christmas but nothing said we couldn’t go out on Boxing Day and buy the kids all their toys. This saw us through. Thank God for her wisdom I thought.

Gradually, we were removed from our families and did not realize what was happening. Anybody that puts mother or father before me will enter the fires of Hell the minister quoted the Bible. Jesus Christ did not come to bring peace on the earth; he came to set man at variance with one 97

another. God’s Chosen had a few problems ahead for sure. Was it worth all this big change? Were we really going to be blessed because we were tithing? Was the Bible truly the written word of God only to be understood by this church? God! Were we gullible?

My sister joined the church with her family. God is calling all His People fast now. The membership of the church was increasing because the end time was nigh. The four horsemen of the revelations were surely riding their little horses to death. The seven plagues were half started and the world was in a lot of shit. And, again I was swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

We tithed to the work of God’s chosen. We second tithed for the purpose of the feast. Yes, ten percent for God and another ten percent for the Feast of Tabernacles. Righteous I was and so was my family.

We were chosen and we were going to be placed in a place of protection. We would be carried into the wilderness on silver wings, and these silver wings were on an airplane. Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong had a Leer jet. They had to fly around the nation bringing the wonderful news of the world tomorrow to the people and this was the purpose of this beautiful airplane.

In the parking lot I parked my 1973 Ford. It looked not too bad but was rusting some. The engine had high mileage and used some oil. It was nice, or nicer, than what most of my brethren were driving. Many were 98

driving run down old trucks and cars that had seen better days. The minister had a new Buick Park Avenue, and justly so he said, because he had a big flock to attend and a lot of miles to cover. We were reading the labels on the loaves of bread in the supermarket. Holy shit it had lard in it I said to Margie, but she came back with a good one. It says it MAY contain lard but it might not have any in it. Oh no, I said and put it back and found one that had no lard on the list of contents. I was not going to forsake my soul and the soul of my family because of a bit of lard in the bread. Lard was pork, I told her, and we can’t eat any pork.

She sighed and we went on our way.

No Christmas but Holy days. Yes, Holy days abounded and different they were. Now we celebrated the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, The Night to be much remembered and the Day of Atonement, just to name a few.

As I write these words today I shudder to think of how stupid I could be.

I was being brainwashed by this church and didn’t even know it. I was being sucked in fast and bad. Some of the scripture was a little hard to understand so I asked the minister and he would, after a lengthy discussion, finally show me what it really meant. After all, I was not the head of a flock.

I was only a member of the flock. The girl at the piano started to play a favorite Church Hymn. “NOT MANY WISE MEN NOW ARE CALLED— 99

NOT MANY NOBLE BRETHERN—ONLY THE BASE THINGS OF THE WORLD –NOW WILL BE YOUR BRETHERN.” So many times I would get choked up when they played this song. There were going to be some major decisions now made in my life. It is like swimming against the current the minister said; it was hard to be a chosen member of God’s Church.

My sister came over and gave me the news. Her husband was going to lose his job she said and she was crying I thought, Oh God, this is terrible. He refused to work on Saturday and that was it. Saturday was the Sabbath and my brother in-law was strong with his beliefs. He worked for a large corporation that couldn’t give benefits to one employee and not the others.

Soon he was given a chance to transfer to Ottawa and a job that had no weekend work within the same corporation. This same thing was going to be my fate as well. I also was strong in my belief. Soon my partner’s wife found out that I was a Sabbath keeper. I used to work on Sundays to make up for the time lost on Saturday. One of our major customers complained to my business partner. I will not work on the Sabbath Day I said to him. Sunset Friday until sunset Saturday was for God and no work will be done on that day. I came in one day and found that my office was gone. I was told to either sell out or my partner was going to open up a new business and leave me with nothing. So I was forced to sell.

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That day the control I had was gone. Business was about making money, and making as much as possible, was the whole idea. Anything that would hamper the accumulation of wealth was frowned upon. I was in the office and gave my notice to my business partner. He said, “Wayne, you’re walking out on a million dollars.” I was a good mechanic and he knew it and I was a hard worker, spending many, many nights working until the wee hours of the morning. My home life was rare. I was married to my job. We built up a business from scratch with all my resources now being part of the whole deal. Yes, even my toolbox with my jackknife was part of it. It had to go. My beliefs were stronger to be in that Church than to be a business partner. I now walked out the door and settled with an amount the lawyer decided on and that was final. My name was on the many lists of names that were required to build a successful business. Yes, I had been part of a major corporation’s success. Weeks before that he had placed an article on my desk that said “Tunnel Vision” and that is what I had. I was an honest man as well, and that also has no place in business.

I was never so hurt in all my life. I had only Jesus now and the church was even a little shaky for me. I was like a parasite in a tree now looking for nourishment spiritually instead of financially. I didn’t realize that the tree I had grabbed onto was a parasite to my wallet. With no job now I thought. To hell with them, I’ll start up all over again. I talked Margie into selling the house and buying an old house in the country. It had a large 101

shop on the property and that’s all I could see. I couldn’t see the badly slanted floors or the garbage strewn all over the place. It took three loads to the dump to clean out the house and from around the house.

When we moved in Margie just stood there and cried. She was moving from a brand new house into a dump. Well, she squared her shoulders and started cleaning. I will say she backed me all the way.

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CHAPTER SIX OLD HOUSE IN ADDISON I will add at this time that there were some other events happening on the sidelines. It took a full year to finally connect the place we now lived to some visualizing that was done several years before. A few years before when we lived in Cornwall, we had these aspirations of doing some good for the under-privileged children. Margie and I were very intense with our prayers and our desires always came to the same picture. If we could just have an old house in the country, with a few acres of good land, and a few outbuildings we could do so much. This was our heart’s desire at that time, because we sincerely wanted to help people especially children.

One day as I was remodeling the kitchen of the old house, I got thinking back a few years and it just dawned on me that this is exactly what we had envisioned several years ago. It was here just as we wanted. An old house for sure, when I first checked it out the age was estimated at about one hundred and sixty five years old. It was old and had a great assortment of old ghosts within the walls. Everything was old including all the outbuildings. There was an attached carriage house and a small barn. There was the newer building that was to be my shop and my experimental room for meditation and seeing if witchcraft really worked.

The whole hidden world of secrecy mystery and magic now opened up before me. This was to be a learning process that I was to have. It was 103

forbidden knowledge and I had to know.

I was quite comfortable now with Bible scriptures and belonged to the church spokesman group of men. We attended Bible study classes every week. We had gone through several Passovers. We both had been baptized by immersion. The three musketeers were completely under my control and there were just no giggle boners by that time. My thoughts were pure and as far as I was concerned the women in front of me at Sabbath services had no bum crack to get my attention. Smoking and pork eating were out of the question. Giving to the Church was a sure way to be blessed and to attain that heavenly crown. That throne was for us. The unchosen were our footstools and the rest were to have coals of fire heaped on their heads. And I bought it. That same story as the Catholics, but twisted through the minds of Herbert W. Armstrong.

Decisions had to be made. I was struggling within with lacking spiritual fulfillment. I was treading water with my thoughts. I was, again, treading the water of other people’s thoughts. The layers of religion were now controlling my thinking. The doctrine that accompanies each sect was what I thought was right. But it was not my thoughts at all. I didn’t believe it or at least most of it. I had fit myself into a religion that was close enough to the truth for me. I stretched myself into their belief system and tried to become comfortable in it. There were a lot of questions not answered.

The minister called me aside one Sabbath and said, “Wayne we want 104

you to become a Deacon in the church”. As I look back at this now I think they knew that they would soon lose me. I was asking too many questions and getting to few answers. They were bribing me into a position within the Church. If I stayed, then my monthly contribution of about a thousand dollars would keep coming. Several times I gave lump sum contributions as much as five thousand dollars at a time. They were parasites at my wallet and I was stupid enough to let them. A new minister was assigned to the church and all God’s chosen were quick to impress him. We were asked to make the lunch for the minister on the Sabbath because he had to be at two churches on that day. He was busy on the Sabbath, but after all, we only had to get four children ready for church and drive the fifty miles to the church in Kingston. But different people were selected to do this little extra so it was only once every month or so for us. Margie, bless her, thought they were just too lazy to make their own lunches so when it came to her turn, she made pork sandwiches. That’ll teach them she said and never said a word.

She just smiled at me while they munched away on their lunch.

Finally, I opened up a business and had one of the church brethren as a partner with me. He was a good mechanic and was excellent with farm machinery. I stuck with the lift trucks and he did the tractors. He read the Bible on his knees at five in the morning every day, so he said. I was close behind with a sense of righteousness that was to be desired. All I could see was that he was like a saint. I kind of secretly idolized him.

Yes and I wanted to be good like him. I took him in as a partner but he 105

did not have to put up any money. I was going to out-righteous them all.

But Margie was the one that soon saw a pattern that was not very good.

She said he is not bringing in any money and the bills were mounting.

The farmers were waiting for their tractors and, as earlier stated, we did not work the Sabbath day. We paid his wages and got a truck for him, paid the insurance and we treated him the very best. I knew deep down that a big decision had to be made. Margie was the wise one now. She saw it all, because she did the books.

The company now was getting into quite a debt. The shoe was now on the other foot and I had to get rid of this man. He was my partner but I was paying him. I let him go and all hell broke loose in the church. I was like Judas. I was called to see the minister to sort things out but it was done. He was fired and that was it. There was a debt accumulated by him that mounted to thousands of dollars. I had to pay off this debt and it took us a long time. He said that he was not a real partner as nothing legal was drawn up. The two ministers sided in with that man and I was the loser. I was a loser two fold now, because I was losing the support of the church and my business also. The decision had been made but months too slow. If I had listened to Margie then things would have worked out sooner.

But I was blinded to the truth. Yes, the Plain Truth about this Church was coming out.

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The scandal started months before with Herbert wanting to get married again. A divorce neither was just not allowed nor ever heard of then.

He married a young woman. About fifty years younger. He was in his eighties and she was in her thirties. The church was visibly shaken up and there was a schism being formed. There was a split coming in the Church that would be bigger than the crack in the ladies bum in the Catholic Church years ago. It was Saturday morning and we were sitting by the cedar trees out back. I was in shock as I was out of the Church and my salvation now was doubtful. We were dis-fellow-shipped. We were shunned and outcasts in the eyes of the Church. I cried a lot then.

There was no way for me to turn. Margie kept saying, “Wayne I don’t believe we were in the wrong.”

They are. Our salvation is not in their hands, it’s in God’s hands. We’re okay. It’s just that now we have nobody to talk to. No friends. That’s where the feeling of loss is.”

There’s a comic strip, “The Born Loser.” I really felt that I was that poor sap. Yep, the born loser, it seemed to me I had lost out on whatever I had tried to accomplish. I would work so hard but I kept losing out. The born loser — that was me. Another man previously left the Church and this caused quite a stir among the Brethren. He came to visit me one evening as he had learned that I also had left it. He told me that there was another group of people that were on the “right track.” He was 107

going to find out about them and let me know. We were lonely indeed but I read the Bible and kept my sanity as much as I could. Soon there was weekend camping again and, yes, on the Sabbath and we had fun and we were happy doing it. We checked out the Seventh Day Adventists and attended a couple of their services. They were very similar to the World Wide Church of God. The first time we went there was an offering envelope given to us, and that was okay by me because I didn’t mind contributing at all. I was used to it. On the back of the envelope there was some writing about giving over your estate to the church when we died. Now that little written message struck terror in my heart. I thought that these bastards were even worse than the WWCOG and they were not going to use my wallet as intravenous for a sick church. I was out of there and fast. Time has a way of making you feel better and in time we adjusted to no church.

There was something from within that was starting to come out.

Witchcraft was fascinating and it was not uncommon to see a bar of soap full of needles tucked up somewhere in the shop. It was a lot of fun and we experimented with it. About this time I heard a little voice chanting out in the dark of the night. “Darksome night and shining moon, hearken to the witch’s rune”. It was just too bad that that person my wife experimented on was admitted to the hospital with severe headaches.

Only coincidental I thought. My dear wife even went to the hospital to visit this person and when she came home she was so excited. It worked she said, “That’ll teach her to tell one of my kids that she wasn’t 108

to play with hers and not to come over there any more!” I think that was the end of those experiments. We read, we experimented and then moved onto something else. No better way to learn than to try. They worked and that’s all we needed to know so we then moved on to other things. Always looking. Always thinking. Our minds never seemed to stop. There IS a force out there, we would say but we just didn’t know what it was. We laugh about all this even to this day. It’s a wonder our children ever grew up normal but we sure had fun and an interesting life.

Even now my wife’s laughing as I write this. I think she’s a little embarrassed but the things you do when you’re young.

THROUGH THE FLAMES

One day I got the courage But not without much strife To face this fact of wisdom That was given to me for life Now I am not a very smart person But what the pastor said Was not many wise Are now called To do this work of God Now deep down inside me 109

A little voice was heard Be cautious now because Deep is where you tread But the voice of God was louder And from pulpits it was read And I made by others To bow my humble head The Pastor said the lord loves a cheerful giver But these words made my wallet quiver Then I said, well ten percent That is not a big price to be heaven sent But then he searched the scriptures And found another verse That said a second tithe is even better That made it quiver worse Trust the Lord he said And you will be well blessed You will escape the lake of fire And will not be distressed But now to Jesus you must turn And learn for us to trust

Then he read me Matthew twenty-four

And then my chin touched the floor Now that my eyes were open 110

I shed a little tear But he said don’t fret my child No need to have fear For Jesus is the Sheppard And He is always here He sent me then on my way Back to work to earn more pay But now to go to church My car was hard to start The Pastor though drove a Buick big Skylark When looking at the parking lot That little voice came to the top The parking lot was the key for thought It made me think of this That the pastor was the Sheppard And his ass do we kiss Does not the Sheppard tend his flock?

And give them what they need?

Again that little voice within Came up to the top And this is what it said to me This nonsense must now stop In the pulpit was a culprit And I plainly told him so I was now in hot water 111

And it was very deep For the devil now had my soul And it was his to keep But now I didn’t really care I was wearing fireproof underwear The parking lot is where these things Came in to light When one is preaching God And living on others wages And then when they are caught It is time for wisdom to take hold And leave that untrue flock I leave you a message and it is very true That what you do for others Will be done for you Now that is the message to be preached But practiced it is not But now I have to leave you For your own most inner thought Wayne Anthony Sturgeon My psychic abilities now were unfolding and there was something new happening. A realm was opening to me that very few people want to see or believe. It was a God send because it gave me the stability that I needed, to see that there were real spirit beings that were helping me 112

with my clairvoyance. This filled the vacuum created by leaving the church.

Religion now was a past part of my life. It was not that the people were really mean or different but it was the burden of the book that was held over my head. By this, everything had to be done according to either the Creed of the Catholic Church, the book of Mormon, the Bible, the Plain Truth writing, or other scriptures that were given as The Law and Best for All. Somehow the religions have taken these scriptures and made them into “The word of God.” An all-powerful God was admonished but left to the mortals on the earth to tell us what to believe and what each scripture means. If the Bible were the word of God there would only be one religion. If Jesus was God, then He couldn’t die on the cross because God cannot die. If the Bible was the all-highest word of God then God was somewhat stupid because the Bible says that the earth was flat. Somehow the priests, the pastors and ministers were beyond any reason in their thoughts and it was this way or Hell Fire.

That book was placed over everybody’s head and it sucked them of their very minds.

At one of the picnics there was a little girl that had gone into the swimming area and stepped into a hole. I was back quite a bit and I heard a woman screaming for help. I looked and I saw that a little girl was going under the water. Immediately, I ran and jumped into the water and grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out. She was choking 113

and coughing up water so I knew she was going to be all right. It seemed that about twenty people only a few feet from this child all seemed frozen. My wife included.

They were all dumbstruck at the side of the swimming area like a bunch of zombies. They were waiting for the minister to do something to help.

They were so used to having any decisions made for them that they all just stood there. What the hell was wrong, I thought, did they not see what was happening to that little girl? Mind you, when I ran in, I made sure my camera, which I had in my hand, was well out of the water. I mean, after all, first things first. (A little humor goes a long way.)

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CHAPTER SEVEN: The Walls Round Us And the walls came tumbling down but this was a job that took a long time. Those walls were so high that it was very hard for me to get over them.

To this very day I am climbing walls. Walls that were built by the innermost thoughts of other people that said, “This is best for all.” Every law and commandment is but the thoughts of other people and a way to regulate the masses. Man is now able to live in complete harmony with one another if only he was allowed to use the power of reason. Man does not need to be regulated. Laws are not necessary, but are used as a binding tool to get control of people. It is a guilt imposed on man that is not required anymore. Man will naturally live in peace on this planet when the power of reason is not stifled any more by the law, which is touted as best for everyone.

I know that God did not give any law or commandments because there is NO GOD. There were ideas given by some of the leaders of old because man was primitive then and this kind of GOD LOGIC was used in those days. Man’s evolution was just beginning from animal into man.

The elders were enlightened more than any of the population. Not like today. These men gave us the commandments and it was necessary, at that time, but not anymore. We have our “Elder Brothers and Sisters” 115

today, from the higher realms that can help us with higher levels of understanding through inspiration and contact by the modern day Prophets that are what we call psychics. In the old days they brought laws for that time in man’s understanding but now they bring a time of man’s self regulation, The Creator is but the thoughts of people combined that has the power of creating.

If you want to see our Creator, you can look in the mirror and you will see your Creator. Look at your neighbors. You will see the Creator. If you say NO then you are behind the walls of the thoughts of others. As you read in the Bible or most other spiritual books you will see where the Creator sent His Angels down to the earth but admonished them NOT to have intercourse with the earth people. But, of course, they found that mankind was fair and they fell in love with them and, in due course, children were born. Now these children were half angel and half man. Because of this we also now inherit the spiritual world just as the angel parents did. (The Bible says it something like this: Do not partake of the tree of life). So now, here we are, part human, part spirit. The Creator is now WITHIN us.

This is the interesting part that most people don’t get. When the mortal part of us dies, the angel part of us continues to live. When psychics (now I’m speaking of true, sincere psychics) tell you about past relatives and events that have taken part of your life, they get it from your friends and relatives that have passed over. Not everyone, by a long shot, can 116

see or enter into the spirit world to get this information but once you have seen a spirit (or a ghost as some people call them) then no one on earth can dissuade you from your conviction.

My life as a psychic has been very fulfilling. I have had people come to me and say, “Just tell me the good things. I don’t want to hear anything bad.” I tell them. Go home then because half a reading is only cheating you and that’s not what its all about.

I had one lady and her daughter come for a reading. They wanted to know if I could see the daughter/sister that had died. They gave me something of the girls to hold (this is called psychometry). The first thing I saw was a lovely young girl. She said “Tell them my favorite color is green and that my new purse I bought, the nice leather one, I want my sister to have.”

I related what I was told and the faces on these two people were so amazed. Yes, she bought most of her clothes in different shades of green and her room was painted a light green. The sister said, “I know the purse.” She was so proud of it. It was expensive and very, very soft leather. Then I told them that she said that she was very happy and for them not to be sorry anymore. They were quite happy with their messages and, I guess, I hit the nail on the head.

Another one was as follows: A woman and man (brother and sister) 117

came and asked me if I could tell them anything about their mother.

Apparently, she had disappeared. I described the lady and told them that she seems all right. I see her looking at the water. Anyway, that spring they pulled their mother out of the St. Lawrence River. She was dead, and while in the water her eyes were open. All I could see was her eyes open and looking at water. I must say this kind of reading makes me feel bad. I want so much to tell them that everything is okay.

But, unfortunately, life is not like that.

I did psychic readings for about 20 years. From the feedback I got from repeat clients and referred clients was that I was about 75%-80% accurate. Why the other percentage didn’t work out, I don’t know. I just tell it as I see it. There were always people that classed psychic reading as being the work of the devil and to be avoided at all costs. Quite a few times the clergy ridiculed me about this practice. My personal feelings on this matter are as follows. If I can bring some hope to a person, by seeing into the future for them, then it is a good work and helpful for them. People came from all over and a lot came from the USA. They heard of me from friends and many of them would find the way to my house even in the winter with bad driving conditions. I had a good reputation in this field and I was sincere about what I did. I wanted, first, to be helpful.

Many times I had doubts about this gift that came into my custody. I was very nervous, at first, when I did it in front of strangers. I sometimes 118

refused to believe what was said by me during a reading. The first few years had a lot of doubtful readings in my estimation. In time I would find that I was so accurate with what I saw that it was uncanny. Some of the events that I told people did not happen until a year or so passed.

Then some of it would start to happen. Even to the last little detail like the color of the telephone. For a psychic to predict the future with any accuracy, at least for me, I was limited to a series of seasonal events.

Now these time frames were like the time of the spring daffodils or the Halloween pumpkin. The Christmas tree would tell me that time of the year and when the oak leaves turn brown was another time. One reading I told a man that they would sell their house and on that the day they moved they would see rose petals on the ground in the flower garden. They came back to see me later on and told me that the petals had indeed fallen in the garden.

A girl brought her friend from Lebanon for a reading but he was an unbeliever, but not for long. I described the beautiful blonde housekeeper that his father had back home and I described a scene wherein he was hanging on a bus with a rifle slung over his shoulder. At this he freaked out. He left the house calling me a devil and Satan and nothing short of a very evil man. The young girl, during her reading, told me that he wanted to marry her and take her back to Lebanon. I looked into it and what I saw terrified me. I told her that if she married him and went to live in his country, she would be treated like a possession with no say whatsoever and she would be very, very unhappy. That, once 119

there, she would have an extremely hard time to ever get back to her own country. I don’t know whatever happened to her. I never saw her again.

Sometimes there would be up to six people that would come for readings. This always was done on a Saturday or Sunday because I took at least an hour to read people, as I wanted them to see all that was in store for them. I stopped doing so many people in one day as I found it to be very tiring. I had to limit the readings to four or less and in the evenings during the workweek it was two or three only if they all really needed a reading.

We kept an appointment book and depended on the people to show up for their reading, but sometimes they just forgot or for some reason or other just did not show up. This became a problem because it spoiled my day, as I could not plan anything. After a while we took their names and telephone numbers so we could check with the person if they were not on time or coming.

FORTUNE TELLER They find their way to my house Their path in life is led To ask from me if I can see Their future in the leaves I’ve read 120

Yes I can see their future And also see their past But how I tell this story Now becomes my task They also see their lives to be But I look a little further To bring them through the rough spots And a better future for them To help them make decisions Cause I can see ahead And get them past these problems Within the tealeaves that I’ve read.

Wayne Anthony Sturgeon

So being a fortuneteller became a very big part of my life. There are many areas I had yet to explore. The attraction to the occult opened my eyes to a similar condition used in any, so called, Pagan organizations.

(White magic, black magic etc.) It is an avenue taken to free them from Religion only to find they are under the scriptures of some other ancient doctrine and not able to use reason or to think for themselves. When I wanted to find out about future matters concerning myself, or members of my own family, it was a matter of using intense concentration so that the barriers of the mortal world would be removed. It was through practice that this was accomplished.

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Psychic abilities are but an extension of our five senses and each sense has been limited through our learning. These, day to day, teachings of the five senses took over in our daily lives. One of the greatest accomplishments in the psychic realm is that language is not used. The messages given are in a universal language understandable throughout the entire venture into its realm. It is a language of feelings, symbols and emotions that can bring truth without the error of language. It was Saturday about 10:00 a.m., and I was on the roof on the back porch.

There was a leak and I was trying to fix it. I heard a car pull into the gravel driveway so I went over to the edge of the roof along the driveway. Two ladies got out of the car. I said, “Up here!” As they looked up they said that they came for a reading. I got down from the roof and told them that usually I make appointments. One of them said that they had an appointment for last Saturday but they were not able to make it. I said that it would have been nice to notify me because I stayed home all day and you never showed up. She replied, “Well, I thought you would just know that we changed our minds and decided to come today instead.” It’s funny what some people think a psychic can do. I told them I’m not a mind reader. Just a simple psychic.

The power of a psychic is sometimes far more powerful in the eyes of others than in my eyes. I laughed and told them to come on in and I got down to their readings. There are just some things that a psychic can’t figure out and that was one of them. My clients sometimes would find me at their door just as they were going to phone me. This happened 122

several times with a couple of friends that I finally stopped following that gut instinct to be at a certain place on a certain day.

One was actually afraid of this, as I would freak him out at times. About three times in a row, just as he was going to call me, I knocked at his office door.

The old house in Addison was a haven for spirits, and I had many instances where the resident spirits loved the readings that I did. The house was getting on to about two hundred years old and originally was the main house on a hundred acre allotment that was given to the settlers in those days. It was on good farmland and had about three acres of land with a barn on it as well as a shop for my lift truck business. Our children were raised in this place as we lived there for thirteen years. Yes, thirteen years of memories both good and bad. We tried our hand at farming and the raising of chickens. We started with two goats that I bought. The local farmers told me to put the goats in the field, and they would eat the weeds, which were good for them, so that we did. Another farmer told us to get the goats close to the house and they would live on the grass around the house. We did that also. About every week some farmer would tell me to move the goats to a different area. After about four moves, I knew the farmers were playing games with me and having a good laugh at my expense. It was a fun time.

Thirty-eight little chicks now blessed the barn. With a brooder and some feed, we were into farming. Yes, this spring was going to be a great 123

start for our egg supply. Soon there was the odd egg but I soon realized that it required a lot of special feed to get the eggs. I would spread out a whole bag of it and it would be gone by morning. It was costing quite a fortune just for a few eggs. The children had rabbits and a horse named Chester. All in all it was a good time with the child rearing.

One day I went into the little barn and picked up a couple of eggs, took them into the house and painted them a gold color. I waited for the kids to come home remembering the time they had read the story of the goose that laid the golden egg. The paint had dried good now and the kids were on the way home from school. I hid the two gold painted eggs in the barn with some of the other eggs. Soon the yelling started and my little son and daughter came running into the house carrying these two gold eggs. Margie was babysitting a couple of kids their age so, of course, they were just as excited. Yes, we were rich they said. Now we have all the money we will ever need. We all held hands and jumped around in circles, saying, “We’re rich! We’re rich!”

I have such a sick sense of humor that it worries me by times. (Well, not that much actually. Maybe just a pinch now and then.)

You would find me reading the Bible a lot. It consoled me and confused me at the same time. Some of it seemed to be plain but some of it was just beyond any reasonable thinking of mine. Religion and the Bible were not quite enough to satisfy the spiritual thirst that I had.

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The Occult and the study into the unknown seemed to satisfy it in some ways. There were Psychic Fairs that went on but I never attended them very often. Readings were something private and I felt uncomfortable with that idea of reading in public. It now was a life of studying into all the books that I could find and to determine which contained something beneficial to me. There was so much material written about the Occult that I soon found that many authors wrote books with the material within the covers tailored just to sell books and may be altered from the real truth.

God was an important area of my life and I became determined to figure it all out. To be able to come to grips with this invisible force was high in my priorities. I had to know more. There was nothing that satisfied my thirst for the truth. I knew that the truth was at the door of the church but on the going outside, not the coming inside. This was a sure thing now.

A church will not quench my thirst for truth. I even had doubts about the Occult being able to give me a much better drink of truth. I was on my own because the thoughts of others were not quite my cup of tea. I sat on my rocker one afternoon when I got home from work and tried to meditate on many areas of my life. We were in the process of selling this house and were starting to build a new house on Lake Eloida. A cold chill came upon me and I broke into a cold sweat. It came down through the kitchen ceiling. It was like some thick, black, oily smoke. A cloud about three feet around now dissipated into the room. It was 125

something evil but I didn’t know just what it was. It was so strange; it gave me the creeps. For quite a while I didn’t say anything to Margie about this because she was working so hard to help pay our debts and raise the kids. There were two of them left at home now.

The next few months were filled with more problems than we could imagine. It was as if the resident spirits called reinforcements to have us stay there. The property had been sold to us so and we had the papers to prove it. But the lawyer that was doing the search for the new owners found that there was a discrepancy in the property. This now, was enough to put the whole sale on hold and it did for quite some time.

Here we were. In the midst of building a new house but now being told maybe, we can’t sell our present home because of a mix-up in acreage.

It seemed the old owners had sold us a piece of property that was not theirs to sell. What a schmozzle. It took quite a bit of scurrying around before we got it all sorted out. I thought my poor little wife was going to have a nervous breakdown.

I kept telling her, “It’s going to be all right mum, because I see you smiling in our new home.” Somehow, it didn’t seem to cheer her up. She kept saying, “Yes but, maybe you’re wrong this time.” To make a long story short, I wasn’t. Certainly we both were at our wits end from all the real estate and lawyer commotion. Each attempt at settling the matter was met with another quirk to tie knots again. If the worst came to the very worse the matter would be settled in court. Our lawyer finally said 126

here are the sale papers.

Your property is sold. Our new house was to be completed by October of that year. However, we soon found out that it was no way near completion even at the middle of November. The deadline for our move was on our mind and the move had to be done by Saturday. The truck was rented and the dumpster in the yard to handle that which was just junk. That morning the weather turned so cold it was below zero by quite a few degrees. The rental truck had to be boosted to start and the car was hard to start. It was just an abnormal cold record-breaking day that we moved. Well Moved? More like storing our furniture in the basement of our unfinished home. We had to live with my oldest daughter for a couple of months while the contractor finished the work.

From the time that cloud of darkness came into the kitchen, until months after we moved into our new home, was like living with a curse. I sometimes wonder if, maybe, the brethren could have done such a thing.

We had no Church now and we were free from the binding religion that had screwed up many of our younger years.

I started to do readings again and things seemed to be a little better for us. The home was indeed found, with Margie smiling within its walls.

Yes, she was happy now with our new home. It was on the shore of Lake Eloida and there was a solitude that beckoned us many times. The view and the water made us have comfort for the spirit.

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LILLY OF THE LAKE

When I lived on Lake Eloida A treasure blessed the shore A world of little creatures Frogs, turtles, snakes and more Rimmed with cat tails Otters, beavers and ducks And water life so rich and fair A wonder to explore and share These all have their beauty A blessing for the eye But most of all the one I liked Was the Lilly pad by the shore It seem just like a water flat With rims up to keep the water back A blossom sat upon its leaf And spread its yellow petals A long root holds this pad in place But gives it room to move Like a shade tree for the frog The minnow and the snail Bulging from the other side A bullfrog blinks his eyes 128

Then gives away his secret Of hiding in disguise A mood reflected to my eyes When looking at this lake Beauty there along its side With the Lilly pad of the lake Wayne Anthony Sturgeon After a few months of rest, from readings, I started doing them again.

Our house was big and had quite a few rooms suitable for doing them. It became part of my evenings as there was always someone wanting a reading. About fifty percent of my clients now were regulars.

My reputation became well known and many times there would be a carload from Kingston or Cornwall. Once you start this they will find you wherever you move to. A lady from Western Ontario was impressed and asked if I do readings by mail. Well, I wasn’t sure about this, as I needed an article of theirs to hold. I told her to have her friend send me something that she wore, like a ring or an earring, but not something expensive, as it had to go through the mail. Soon there was a package with a small necklace in it; there was a note saying, “Tell me what you see.”

This was a test of a true clairvoyant. A test that I must have passed because soon after this each week there would be several parcels come 129

in the mail with “Tell me what you see.” written on plain paper.

Usually on Sunday morning I took the packages to my reading room and I would have a tape recorder running. I held the objects and soon pictures would start coming and I just translated the pictures to words on the tape. I didn’t know the people and didn’t know their ages, names or anything about them. But soon their histories were revealed to me. It was both the good and the bad that were occurring within their lives.

This kind of reading was done for a few years but I was nervous about them sending expensive jewelry in the mail so I let it slow down.

Seeking what was true became part of my life. I learned that I was able to channel. I was a channel for messages from spirit beings that would use my voice to bring messages to people. This became a major turning point in my search for truth. When I say the search for truth, I mean that the truth was not always given by the spirit beings by a long shot. Some of these entities were just people in an advanced state of death that would say what they wanted to say, even if it was not true.

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Being a liar doesn’t stop at death. It can continue through the centuries.

I soon found this out. There were many that would give some information that would be just a little off to gain our friendship. There were many that used the name of some renowned person or angel from the past, such as Gabriel.

A good friend was with me a lot of times when I channeled. He was always looking for information about Atlantis or about UFOs. I started to do these sessions on a regular basis. Most of the sessions were taped on cassette and I would listen to them after the session. This was the only way that I could recall any of what had been said through me. Only a few times would I wake up with words coming into my head that I was saying. I sometimes would remember something about the first part and about the last part of the session but any real information I had to hear from Margie or my friend.

He and I became best friends and shared a lot of things in common. We each had our own business. We each had an interest in short wave radio and we had a very deep interest in the Occult or the many related matters that go along with it. We experimented with infrared film and tried to get spirits to show up on film. We held trance sessions with sometimes about twenty people attending. One time there was an entity that gave some health advice about diet to one of the women that attended. She had been bothered by a very bad rash, which covered 131

most of her body. In a few days it all cleared up because of the advice given through me. We organized a group of people to meet at regular times on one day of the week and sometimes on Saturday afternoon we would gather. We had a Herbalist with the group and I only wish that I had paid more attention to him. He had a wealth of knowledge about using herbs for healing and the making of tinctures with some of them.

Others were interested in the power of crystals and some of the trance sessions were entirely about crystals and their healing and amplifying properties. Many hours were spent relating the strange experiences that we all had in our lives. It was a group that shared with each other. There were psychic tests done and for quite a while we all contributed two dollars and decided the winning numbers for those million dollar lotteries.

Our psychic abilities were lacking in the lottery category as the most we ever won in two years was a couple of free tickets, but it was fun.

This experience with the psychic filled the vacuum in my life that was left by the church. This was a fellowship that brought many new experiences to my life. My thoughts of Jesus now were more along the lines of “The Christ Principle” And the God was more like “The Creator” principle. Religion, now, was just not meaningful anymore. The search for truth continued and does today. I don’t lock out anything that is new but I do find that the message in any Religion is, for the most part, just a way to bind up our thinking. It was Thursday evening in the spring. I was lying down on the lawn chair that I used for the trance sessions.

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Sometimes I would drift into a trance in a few minutes and other times it may take up to twenty-five minutes. I was out of it. My next conscious awareness was of choking and finding it hard to breathe. By now I was fully awake.

“GET OFF ME I CAN’T BREATH!!” I screamed. Something went wrong -- terribly wrong. I was scared and I thought that for some reason my best friend had sat on my chest. My mind knew that no one would do such a thing but it happened; at least it seemed like this to me. Was I having a heart attack? He and Margie were completely startled also and it took a few minutes for us to all calm down. Should I try one more time? Part of me said don’t be stupid and the other side of me said that we might find out what had happened. I rested for a while and attained a trance in a few minutes. There was an entity that conversed, through me, and an apology given to all three of us.

It said that an unsuitable spirit had tried to gain entry to my system and had caused a physical disturbance within me. They said that they should have prevented it and they were glad that no real physical damage was done. The session, as I remember, was a short one that evening. I learned that the unseen world could be a very dangerous place to delve into.

At about this time Margie was trying to quit smoking and would go into a depression. She was praying one day. With a feeling of despair that 133

comes from being in a depressed state, she told me that she told her God that she didn’t even know if there was a Jesus and wanted only to go to her Creator. She then said that suddenly she felt better. Like a weight was lifted from her somehow and that she knew, really knew, that there was only God, the Creator. No middleman was needed. I was constantly battling within regarding the existence of God. It was Margie that told me that we could go directly to the Creator or God the Father, as we believed at that time. Somehow she was able to see that a direct connection can be made without the middleman Jesus. This was worth a try and we tried this method of prayer. The results were astounding and very soon there was a direct line of communication right to the top.

The business had slowed down some and the cash flow just trickled in for a couple of months. The bills and the electricity had to be paid.

There was no leeway with these guys. It was pay the bill or lights out. I, myself, was deeply depressed that afternoon. After lunch I went into the bedroom and said, “God Help me!, God Help me! God help me!”

Then I fell into a deep sleep for about three hours. “WAYNE” a voice said. I asked “What do you want?” I got up and sat at the edge of the bed and the voice again said “WAYNE”. I yelled out “Margie are you calling me?” She said no dear, not me, why do you ask. I said, didn’t you hear my name being called? By this time I was dressed and heading to the kitchen.

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“WAYNE” the Voice called again. I was dumbfounded. I was hearing my name called now three times and so plainly. As I sat down with a cup of coffee, the phone rang. I picked it up and what a pleasant surprise. I had been awarded a contract that I had bid on three months before and was to start on Monday. It was somehow a prayer answered. I had asked God to help me, and the help came when I awoke with my name being called three times.

It was times like this that reinforced my belief of God. At least the Creator made sense to me. Margie had been right. We could go directly to the top it seemed. And, yes a prayer was answered. It was happenings such as this that would excite my thirst for more knowledge.

Books were certainly a good source of knowledge but come tainted by the people and their thoughts to control. Many books that were written and showed man a way to freedom came with writings within that took away the very freedoms that the book was intended for.

An example of this follows: Jesus the so-called person, if there ever was such a person being doubtful, came with a message. The message was to take the law and have a good look at it. See what is good about it and see what is sheer nonsense. He said, “You strain at a knat and swallow a camel.” and he was trying to convey a message that would unlock the freedom that man was to have. The Law within the Bible had removed man’s freedom. With all the words of the ancients written within its 135

covers.

So the message that came from Jesus, in time, would be written into a new book. It was called the “New Testament”. Now this book was misused so much that the whole Christian Religion came under its spell and became more binding than the “Old Testament”. This book came to mankind with the idea that man could go directly to the Father and Jesus gave this example to all. But, somehow it was made that Jesus was now “The God” as well as “The Son” so the Trinity had to be fabricated to justify all the Gods. Man has to control others. It seems to be in our nature but to do this we have to convince others that what WE want them to believe is their own real thoughts. They are OUR thoughts that fit close to that person’s beliefs but are not exactly his true beliefs.

But he will adapt them to fit, or better said, will adapt himself into the framework of that book be it the Bible or the Churches creed or the many written so called Holy Books.

Man had not yet come to the age of reason. He uses the words of others that have said, “This is Best For All”. In this day and in these times if man were to use reason there would not be war on the earth.

There is war because the “Thoughts of Others” have justified war. It is a disgrace to mankind that we use the old scriptures as guidelines today.

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HOLY BOOKS

As soon as man could write And learn to mark his words A trip of power he was on A master of control He thought he wrote the word of God The direction for the soul But all he did was write those words That brought attention to his goal Lets place the books on show In cathedrals so we’ll know The word of man is not the way Another direction we must go Such a powerful lesson These books did bestow They told us of the way that man Was surely not to go So if we must open them To console our hearts Make sure you take the time to read The most important parts Wayne Anthony Sturgeon

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CHAPTER EIGHT: The Light of Oahspe Dawns “Knock and the door will be opened.” The verse said. I needed to learn about the Heavens and the Hells and if they’re even be such a thing.

Margie and I wrote a document that was called the “Second Passover”; it was about the Bible where Moses saved the Israelites. The writing was with the intention of making people see that there was only one God and that was what we called “Our Creator” and there were no other Gods. The document contained fifty-seven scriptures taken from the Old Testament that said “There is but one God and I know of no others.”

It was along this same thought that all the fifty-seven scriptures had.

Why was the Old Testament not good enough for man I thought? Why did Jesus have to get His nose in all of this? There were a lot of questions that were not answered to my satisfaction in the Bible. I had the original copy in my hand and about ten copies that my friend photocopied for me. I went out the door of his shop, it was late at night and I wondered if what we got was proper.

I needed a sign that what we were doing was right. I would only accept it if there was some sign given to me. I looked up to the west sky and there was a brilliant shooting star or a comet. It was just magnificent. My friend and I both saw this, and there was no doubt any more about this document; it was proper and justified. It also was a document that 138

would not; it was proper and justified. It also was a document that would not be readily accepted by those that we sent it to namely family.

The Last Passover was written by Margie and was channeled through me. Gabriel was the one behind it and I was not going to argue about it.

For several evenings there would be a book from the Old Testament quoted with the number of the scripture given. After the session was over we would write up the notes and check out the scripture and soon we found that this So Called Gabriel was a whiz at the Bible. After several weeks we put together the Last Passover written in our own words and made about ten copies of it. Little did I know that even an angel was using me at this time. Gabriel no doubt was that great Ark Angel that is so often heard of in the Bible. I was not going to question the authority of an Angel. I was going to do just what we were told.

Final. Gabriel was only one of the entities that used me to express their voice. There were others too, such as The Searchers and the ones that used just numbers for names. Yes, there were many of them. We learned a lot from some of them but the most important lesson was this.

Can Angels be trusted? Not anymore than the writers of the Bible.

What Happened to Wayne?

This is a true story of an incident that happened in the summer of 1994.

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I went to sleep about 10:00 p.m. During this sleep, which lasted until about 1:00 am the next morning, the following happened: Now this started in a dream-like condition. I was with my wife; Marjory and we were both in spirit. At this time there were two Angels that came to us and said, “We have a few things to show you”.

We were taken into a tunnel, and the Angels held us arm in arm, all of us together. We seemed to increase our speed and there was a certain chill that encompassed us. We accelerated with such speed that when there appeared a door at the end, I thought that this would be our end.

Somehow we went through this large door like it was not there yet. It had the resemblance of a heavy oak door with heavy metal hinges and locks. The Angels then said, “When we want to travel in the spirit world, we just have to think where we want to be then we will be there instantly.” This was new knowledge for me. The Angels seemed to have a slight sense of happiness about them. They were always smiling, and they were getting quite a chuckle when we would experience these events. Like a man teaching his child to ride a bicycle, then soon the child is riding without knowing that the father is no longer holding on to the bike. Everything now seemed to be in order. There was a sense of safety with these Angels and I started to appreciate their humor. They said that they want to show us a place of interest. “Hang on!” They said, and we were taken again arm in arm to a strange place. It was like a desert with sand and rock. There were pyramids with the tops flattened.

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As far as I could see there were these pyramids, by the thousands. It was not very bright as the sky was somewhat dimly lit in amber. I don’t know if there was a sun here. It seemed a little bleak and desolate. The only scene that I can relate it to is somewhere in a desert, perhaps on some other planet.

Again the angels smiled and said, “Tell us what you see.” I said, “I saw pyramids.” They said to go up a little closer. I then walked up to about 100 ft. from this one pyramid that seemed to be the closest one. Smiling they said, “Now tell us what you see.” I said, “I saw a mantle about half way up on this pyramid.” It looked like a mantle that you would see on a large stone fireplace. They asked, “Is there anything else there?” Then I walked up a little closer. I would say that I now stood about 20 ft. from the base of this pyramid. There was something else there underneath the mantle.

To my amazement I saw some kind of a plaque. It had a strange writing on it like Russian or Hebrew. Now the Angels had a hard time not to laugh out loud. They seemed so excited with what I saw. They said, “You will not understand what these words mean, so we will help you to understand”. Then a bright light shone so brilliantly that I could hardly open my eyes. The message was revealed to me in English. It said Wayne and Marjory, sons and daughters of Jehovih. I was crying then and the Angels had such a look of happiness, because of what I saw written. I was astonished by this event. It was tears of happiness and 141

relief that all my prayers were heard all these years. This event has left me in an emotional state to this day.

They took us, arm in arm again, and said there are more things to show you, so hang on. Each time they held us closely as if to comfort us and make us feel safe, as these were quite strange experiences for us. This time we were taken over some rooms. We could see into these places, as they had no roof on them. This was so interesting as I saw some people that I recognize from many years ago. One was a teacher and there were two others that were nuns or sisters, and I just recognized them but couldn’t remember their names. The man, though, I did know his name, as he had been a Christian Brother. He was a teacher in my Old Catholic separate school for boys. There were two of these rooms.

The dimensions were about 30’ x 40’. There were some tables with chairs around them and each room had windows. Now from these windows you could only view the grass that was there, a lawn I think. It seemed that these people could not see the sky or the light that seemed to be there.

While visiting these rooms, it was easy to see just by the expression on their faces that they were in a very troubled state. The Angels explained to me that these people could leave these rooms any time they want to.

All they had to do was to change their opinions. They were free to go, but had to change their way of thinking. I could understand immediately 142

what the Angels had explained to me. These rooms were their own individual hells. It was just like I had been for so many years. I was unable to change my opinion about matters, especially religious matters.

They then said, “There was yet another place to visit.”

As before, they took us arm in arm and in an instant we were standing in space. At least I wasn’t aware of any floor or walkway. Here we were in the Heavens somewhere in the galaxies. The sky was, as best as I can describe it, velvet black. There were stars and planets that were different and multi-colored. Some had rings around them, like Saturn, and others had moons and seemed to be like planets. I had such a feeling of awe that it is hard for me to describe it. It was just like pent up emotion that was ready to burst. It was like being happy and lonesome at the same time.

There was a great feeling of peace that came over me. The Angels stood back and told me to listen to this very carefully.

Then it happened. I heard a voice that seemed to come from the other side of the universe. It became so strong that I thought my eardrums would burst. It seemed that this voice was rebounding and echoing off of all the planets stars and moons. I stood speechless and had such an overpowering feeling of my Creator come over me, that it left me in a trancelike state for some time.

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The Voice said, and I don’t feel worthy to quote the voice of Jehovih but here goes anyway. “Wayne, if you ever want to make a decision and not know what to do, then listen for my voice. My voice will be the one that starts out to be a small tiny voice, but it will ever increase until it is the loudest voice of any and all other voices.” I only wish that I could relive that experience one more time. The Voice said the following to me.

“Wayne the Green book that you have in your possession, is the way that you will START to learn about Me.” At that moment I was aware of something important happening in my life. When I woke up, I was in a fetal position lying at the foot of my bed.

My head was tingling and almost hurting. The hairs on my head were standing straight up. I lay like this for about twenty minutes trying to absorb what had just happened. Finally I got up and went to the bathroom where there was a mirror. I fully expected to see all my hair had turned white, but it hadn’t. The green book was called the OAHSPE. The Oahspe was in my possession at this time, but I hadn’t realized it.

Yes, it sat on a shelf for a few months. The reason being that I thought this was a book of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I was not really interested as I had been through with the Christian Religion for some time.

On the previous April 18, my friend died suddenly. This caused me great pain, sorrow and sympathy, so much so that I would get into crying bouts. Sometimes I would cry for hours at a time. He and I had been very close friends for several years. We both had an interest in 144

spiritualism and we found that it was just a fascinating experience. It was,

by chance as I stated earlier, that I had come to realize that I could achieve a self- induced trance state. This was quite a surprise, as we now were able to channel entities from the spirit world. These sessions would last from a few minutes to up to an hour or more. It soon got to be easy to enter into a trance-like condition by doing some very deep breathing. This would cause a feeling of fainting to come over me, after at which time I would not have any recollection of what happened. At these sessions my wife Marjory and my friend would always be there to ask questions of the spirits. Usually there was a tape of the session or Marjory or my friend would write down what was said.

In the beginning, it was fun. For a while I would listen to the tapes after each session. Soon I lost interest because of the time needed to hear them. This out of body experience was the first contact that I had to any heavenly plateau. It was the spiritual abduction, as I explained earlier, that gave me some very plain information about God, the heavens, the hells, the voice from within and the Angels. The whole scheme of things now was starting to make sense. I had asked and I had received an answer by that visit in the spirit to the heavens and a message was clear and concise.

I had achieved a major turning point in my life, because of that powerful out of body experience. Everything was different now and my spiritual appetite and thirst was being quenched. Religion was rapidly being put 145

on the back burner and was not a major part of my life at this time. The Oahspe that I had was a large book, like a Bible or a history of mankind.

It had about nine hundred and eighty pages. There was an index and a method of reading suggested by the author. I never followed the suggested reading of it. As usual I started to thumb through it where my fingers would open it. Soon I was amazed with it. This book called the shots about religion and did not mince any words at all. Religion it said was the cause of the problems of the world. The sword established religion and the four major religions were nothing short of the four beasts. It sounded something like the book of revelation in the Bible. All my innermost feelings were expressed in this book, in words, that I could understand. The religions were corrupt and did not practice what they preached. The ministers lived off the wages of the parishioners and this was wrong. In my opinion there was never a book that was written with such meaning and surely was not the words of man. It is a wonderful book and I respect most of what was written within the covers.

At least, at that time, I did.

The Oahspe is the most up-to-date book yet to be received by man, in my own humble opinion. There was none other like it to my knowledge.

It became the final word for most of my life for the next ten years. It told of how mankind had become a carnivorous being and had his blood charged with the flesh of dead animals. It told me that we were under the direct influence of the lower grade spirits that roamed the earth seeking whom they could devour by causing addictions. I learned 146

about the organization of the Heavens and the Heavens on the earth, called the lower heavens. It told me so many things in a scientific way that helped me understand many of the scientific principles in a new light. The race of man was described in great detail about how man came into being and it knocked out the old Bible story of Adam and Eve as nonsense. The story of the great flood now came together in a sensible fashion. With new light being shed on the sinking of the mysterious continent of Pan (Lemuria), (Mu) sometimes it is thought of as the lost continent of Atlantis.

This book is a complete history of man and the history of heaven and earth for the last twenty four thousand years. It was a great comfort and the book had become a great possession for me.

The Oahspe told us that it was man only that was given freedom. It told us that the animals and the birds were not free at all. It reasoned itself to me, by examples. A robin, no matter where in the world it would build its nest, it will always build the same kind of nest. A beaver, no matter the continent builds the same beaver dam. The spider weaves the same web no matter where it resides. Yes, it was only mankind that had true freedom. This freedom is what I am learning about even to this day. It is a treasure for man that is fit for a God. The thought of a diet change now came to me because of this book (and also with my weight problem) that I had I tried a vegetarian diet. After a few weeks on this 147

diet it was noticeable that our moods changed and we were less irritable towards one another. This was especially noticeable when we worked together as we did a lot of times. Another observation was that we were able to see many times the kin spirits that are with people and some of the spirits that come with the badness displayed in children. I was out cutting the grass when I saw the ghost of my deceased brother in-law. It was so plain I was startled by it. He said to me somehow; “You are doing just what I was doing when I had my heart attack”. Now this was strange because I knew that he died from cancer but I just found out a couple of years ago that it was the heart attack that got him to the hospital and that is when they found the cancer.

Soon we purchased a property in the Bancroft area and we were building a cabin on it. We were well on our way to perfection; at least that is what we thought. We had ordered a few Oahspes and we gave them to our friends and those interested. Every week we would gather at my house and study the Oahspe and the principles it gave to us. We had found the most wonderful book ever handed down to mankind. And it has changed my life to this day. We were eager and zealous with the new way. A spiritual road now lies before us. We worked on our cabin on the weekends and I continued with my repair business. Now I took my youngest son into the business with me so he would have an opportunity to get skilled in this fork truck business. It was good for both of us. He got the basic training that he would use for his future.

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Something was happening all this time that I did not believe. I was becoming a sick man and a very sick one with a heart that was in need of repair. My energy levels were reaching all time lows and the tightness in my chest, which I ignored, I put down as just getting older. I worked many long hours and had to do a lot of traveling every day, winter and summer. I traveled each day to where I could find work. I was no longer a young man and the work was hard for me, as some of it required the lifting of heavy fork truck parts.

The signs were there; that pressure in my chest that stayed for such a long time. Not me, I said to myself, my heart is good, but I ‘m just a little tired. There were three trucks to be checked that day. I finished the first two and started the third one. The chest pains were like kind of a pressure that gave me problem breathing. At lunchtime I thought I would feel better after lunch. I wanted so bad to finish the third truck that day, but that did not happen. I drove home and felt pretty good in the van.

The trip was about a two-hour drive or less depending on traffic and road conditions.

I arrived home and had my supper then planned to retire early for the day and get an early start for the morning. A hot bath would be just what was needed. It was hard for me to get upstairs, much harder than usual.

I took my bath and came down stairs and sat in my chair for a while. My chest was pounding and my heartbeat was very irregular. I told Margie that I was going to go to bed but I never told her of the pains and the 149

pounding. I laid there for a couple of hours and then Margie came to bed later on.

I sat on the edge of the bed and I told her the problem. She said to get dressed and get into the car. We arrived at the hospital about a half hour later and they checked me in. The next thing I knew I was in the intensive care unit at the Brockville Hospital. I was stabilized quickly but had to remain there for three days.

“Tell them I have the flu but don’t tell them that I had a heart attack.” I said. This was a risk now for my business. I was a sick man, and I knew it now. I finally was let back to work with a supply of medication to keep my arteries open and I was able to function with this medication for a year or so. There was an angiogram scheduled for me in Kingston and that was the only way they had to explore my heart. The next couple of years now would see me in for tests on a regular basis. There were stress tests and x-rays combined with ever increasing doses of nitro so that I could function. I did function and the angina was a good thing to regulate my activities. As soon as that pressure came then I knew that I had to slow down. The signs were there that my age and health were affecting my business. I was no longer able to compete like I used to. It was a young man’s work and I was rapidly declining in my strength.

By this time I wanted to get my son into a job that had some future, as I

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knew that I would soon have to close my business. It was Friday afternoon the first week in January. I got a call from my biggest customer in Alexandria. The voice said that my services were no longer required as they have contracted with another large fork truck dealer.

My heart sank and the dreaded end of it all was coming close for me. I finished up some contracts with a Brockville company and gradually phased out my business. During this time we had just enough material to complete the cabin. We were behind a month in our mortgage and some of the bills were piling up. That was it. The decision had been made for me. I was no longer able to work. The cabin was a job that now would be completed by my children and their friends and Marjory being the one that did so much. I was not able to do much at all it was an effort to walk across the front lawn. I did any work in little spurts of energy. I was not able to walk up the hill to our cabin without stopping a few times. Margie was the person to dig out for the footings and I helped a little when I could.

Spirit Mountain is what we called our little place. It sure gave us some very spiritual enlighten many times. It also was a place that we learned some very important lessons about life. It was not easy to build on a property so high up the mountain and one this one evening; it was a hard lesson for the kids and us. We were bringing up the last load of building material to the cabin. This was around 10:00 p.m. at night. I used my industrial trailer to do it, as it was large enough to carry a big load. It had rained there and the road up the hill was slippery. It was 151

also narrow. The van pulled the load slowly up the hill but just a little too slow. The wheels began to spin and it got bogged down on the first hill by the smallest rock that jutted out just that much too much. I just could not get over it at the speed I had to go. What a mess, it was dark and raining and we were stuck, badly stuck on a hill with a trailer.

The material had to be unloaded from the trailer and set on the side of the hill. It took several hours before the trailer was light enough to make it up the hill. Finally, I gained enough speed to drive it right up to the cabin. All the material now on the side of the hill had to be loaded into the van a little at a time and after several trips all the material was near the cabin. My oldest son, who was behind us in his car, left his lights on so we could see just what we were doing. It was such a blackness that enveloped us that we couldn’t see our hand in front of our face. Well, naturally as it seemed our luck was running, his battery gave out before we were finished. So that was just another little chore we had to deal with. Ah, yes, such is life. It certainly was a night to be remembered by the whole family. I am sure my children must have thought that we were out of our minds and somehow I partially agree.

During all this work and the seeming struggle of the hill, Margie never complained once about it. Most women would have left this idea as a lost cause by a loser. This is what destiny had for us at that time. It was

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important to both of us, and a lesson well learned. The cabin was well insulated because I knew that the winters here could be cold and cruel.

An insulated floor doubled the costs but proved to be worth the little extra. Now, God, Jesus, Mary and Joseph were on the shelf for now.

The Great Spirit was somehow a name that we used for sometime. It consoled us to think that the Creator was part of everyone and everything. Somehow we were given the strength to pursue our ideals.

With the help of Margie and the kids, a cabin was forming. It was a great place for the grandchildren when they came to visit.

My business now was dwindling and I was finishing up the modifications started months before. I knew that I was just not healthy enough now to continue. The decision was very easy to make when the bank failed to give us any help for the slump we were in. Our beautiful home was for sale now and the bank foreclosed the mortgage. We moved our furniture up to the cabin and sold those items that would just not fit in properly. There were tears flowing inside Margie and I, but we kept up a good front. We didn’t owe enough money to file for bankruptcy. We just closed the business and the bank confiscated the amount of money owing the company. The worst thing, I think, for Margie was the beautiful grandfather clock that we got for our 25th wedding anniversary that had to be sold. I think it broke her heart but, again, she didn’t complain.

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Our dreams somehow turned into our worst nightmare. It had turned to riches to rags story. Humiliation now was at every corner and office.

This was not fair for Margie, I knew, but she clung to me as a loyal partner and stuck with me where most women would have been long gone and justly so. It was early November and the bank had the locks changed at the house. We were locked out in the cold. Anything that remained in the house was the property of the bank. Yes, they owned it all now. All my personal books and my equipment was the banks possession. But I did have the two vehicles and there was no way for the bank to claim them, because they were paid for and not collateral.

They were necessary for us to get to the cabin. The trailer was emptied out as was the van and the suburban was at the cabin with the woodstove in it. The van we now left at the bottom of the hill at the road.

The cabin was far from complete. The roof was finished even though it could have caused the death of the two of us. The month previous we were up at the cabin and finishing up the roofing. It had been raining all that day and only one half of the roof were complete. When we got up to the cabin that day and went in we saw there was at least an inch or more, of water all over the floor. No problem, I said, I just drilled a hole in the floor to let the water drain out. But, low and behold, for us such a simple idea just was not allowed to happen. All the sawdust on the floor would clog the little hole. Margie would just go and clean it out. No problem but a problem for about 500 hundred times until she gave up.

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This left about half an inch or so of water that had to stay there.

The roof was a low slope roof for the purpose of being able to walk on easily because I knew that the chimney would need cleaning frequently during the winter. A clean chimney was a safe chimney.

It was getting dark and the rain was now a downpour. We had no choice but to stop the work. I thought, no problem, a plastic sheet would cover the side of the unfinished part. The wind was strong and I was not. The plastic had to be stapled down to prevent it from blowing off. One of us had to walk to the edge of the roof with the staple gun. It was not going to be me. I was too heavy and the plastic was unbelievably slippery.

There was just no safe way, but it had to be done, as we had no choice.

That was where we were going to have to sleep that night. The side with the new roofing was not slippery and I had a good grip. I had traction on the part of the roof that was completed, so, nothing else to be done, Margie had to put the plastic sheeting on the roof. I held her small legs as she stretched her body down the side of the roof. If she had slipped she would easily have been killed as that side of the house was quite close to a cliff. But, as always, she was game. She was small and easy to hold and she clicked the stapler every few inches to fasten the plastic firm. It was suspense at each click. Margie was not a very strong person and had to use two hands to work that stapler. Oh God, I thought, how my priorities have changed now. We were in a life and death situation 155

and her life was in my hands. My grip was very firm and I held her all the way to the end. Her legs at the ankle were marked by my handgrip and my hands were aching from holding her. The plastic had been conquered and that was going to keep us dry. At least that is what we thought. It was raining very hard now and we were both soaked to the skin.

The kerosene lamps were lit and we were preparing for our first sleep in the cabin. The wet floors had been swept clean, but remember now there was at least two inches of water all over the floor from the very hard rain that was coming down. It had filled rather quickly. But again, there was no problem. I had everything under control. We laid a sheet or two of plywood down to put our sleeping bags on. The lamp flickered and her face was looking at me from deep inside the covers. I could see a tuft of her hair flitting with the breeze that was blowing through some of the unfinished walls. She said softly, “I love you, Wayne. There was not a doubt about this, I knew she did and I loved her too. Soon we were sleeping to the sound of the pelting rain on the roof. We slept for about an hour. We were exhausted. Drops of water spattered on our sleeping bags, which, of course, woke us up. We were getting wet again.

The roof was leaking in a way that it seemed like some kind of an evil entity had taken possession of the whole property.

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The wind had blown the plastic from the roof and it was leaking badly.

We were able to move the sleeping bags over to the drier section before they got soaked. Several holes in the floor soon would dry up the remaining water from the floor, we thought. I asked Margie if she wanted a cup of coffee. She answered through her chattering teeth, “God, please.”

We got up, lit the stove, and I could hear Margie walking over to the camp stove with her cup. She was squishing with every footstep. Feet wet, socks wet, coats wet. We were sopping. She hung our socks up on a nail to dry overnight along with our coats. In the morning it was raining lightly, our clothes were just as wet and dripping as when we took them off. Nothing else to do. We had to put those bitter cold, wet socks and coats back on. Our body heat finally warmed them a little, but it seemed to take forever and Margie said she didn’t think she would ever feel warm again. She said, even my bones are cold and had I ever noticed when you were cold and wet that you had to go to the bathroom constantly. I had to go seven times last night, she said, and if it wasn’t bad enough that I had to climb out of the sleeping bag, I also had to go outside in that damn rain. I thought for sure we would both catch pneumonia, but, thankfully, that, at least, didn’t happen. We continued with the roofing and soon we had a roof that was able to fight the rain.

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CHAPTER NINE: The Tree of Life Winter came fast and furious that year. One morning we woke up to see about a foot and a half of new snow covering the furniture we had stored outside. It’s only early November I cried. But alas, as my luck would have it, I wasn’t prepared. It was a beautiful and a terrible sight for us. The beauty was overruled by the panic of being snowed in up there. The trail was just impassable by now. Luckily we did have a snowmobile so were not really desperate in that sense of the word but we really needed to get our car down so we could go into Bancroft for groceries. This snowfall soon melted enough to get the suburban down the hill. This time the two vehicles would stay below until the next April.

A snowmobile and a three-wheeler, as well as a four wheel ATV my brother in-law loaned us, became essentials for mountain living. We had a solar panel for charging the eight golf cart batteries that provided power.

The wood we purchased in October now lay at the bottom of the hill in front of the van. It was completely covered with snow and we had to dig down to find it. Didn’t I just have all the good fortune, I thought grumbling to myself. The snowmobile worked hard to pull a sleigh full of wood up the hill. Somehow we managed to be happy. We bought a couple of dogs to be company for Tundra. She was our part wolf and Husky mix. She looked just like a wolf.

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Somehow we felt secure with the dogs there and we built some nice doghouses for them and lined the bottoms with straw. They were comfortable but on a bitter cold night you might see all the dogs sleeping on our bed or the couch or in front of the stove for a while. To be honest they were mostly on our bed and we were squashed within an inch of our lives. Our dogs were called Tundra, Spirit, Joey, Angel, Freddie and Buddy and in that order. Somehow we became dog magnets. The whole neighborhood had dogs I sometimes called the area “Dog patch”. It was early December and the little money we had was now gone.

There was no more big spender. I was fighting pride because to go onto welfare was below me. I was just not able to work anymore, as my health was just not good enough. I put it off too long. I had to swallow this pride and go into the welfare office. Margie and I were called in. We had been sitting in the waiting room. The big sign said “ANY DISTURBANCE FROM ANYONE FOR ANY REASON THE POLICE WILL BE CALLED AND YOU WILL BE CHARGED”. This made me wonder why? Were we a threat to them?

Next we were called in by the lady and Margie and I entered the office of the welfare worker. The following hour was the most humiliating hour we have ever spent. We were treated like we were useless vagrants. I felt so guilty that I was about in tears and Margie felt the same. “What was your previous employment?” Margie told her that she had been 159

secretary to the Director of Planning and Community and Social Services. She put my wife down as “clerk”. “And you?” she asked. I have been self employed but had lost my business and my home to the bank. “What are your assets?” “What kind of a car do you have?”

She was barking these questions at us like we were in the army or something quite below her at any rate. I wanted to say that I have a Rolls Royce and a Mercedes but I told her that I had the van and the suburban. She said there would be a check coming in the mail in two days and we were to bring receipts for the firewood and the taxes. She said to come back a week from today with these items and further discussion for our eligibility would resume. We left and she yelled from her office “NEXT”.

We drove home to our cabin. The gas gauge was at quarter full. We stayed at the cabin for the next two days and I went down to the mailbox to get our check. The box was empty. We drove to a small village to the west to use a pay phone. I called the social worker and she assured me that the money was in the mail. She put me on hold while she checked with the post office. It was so cold there in the outdoor public telephone booth. Then I heard her say to go and check the box again because the mail lady said she put it in our mailbox that morning. Again the box was empty; there was no check in it. Back to the phone booth again but this time the voice said that the check was there at the welfare office and I can pick it up any time. The gas gauge was at less than one eighth full.

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Was there enough fuel to get to Bancroft? There was some gas in the generator. About a gallon I thought, so we drove up the hill and put that little extra fuel in the suburban and into town we went. The check was there and never entered the post system at all. I gratefully accepted the envelope from the worker. Got back into the car and opened the envelope. Three hundred and sixty four dollars was written on it and our only money to live on for the next month. We opened up a bank account in Bancroft and filled the suburban with gas and the empty gas can also.

We did our grocery shopping and got some dog food. And there was about forty dollars left for the next thirty days.

It was skimpy living but we did it. We made some wonderful meals with potatoes and cabbage and some onions with seasoning. They really were great. The food always tasted better when we were hungry. The dogs got the cheapest food we could find. In the morning with five hungry dogs around our heels, their feeding was first. Some soup powder with flour and a little salt and pepper made nice gravy to cover their dog food, as it was so cold we thought it would warm them up a little. It smelled so good in the morning, I was temped to try it myself. It was an art Margie and I developed, the knack of putting down five dishes of dog food simultaneously. We didn’t dare get one dish down first, as it would be a scramble to the dish with all the dogs. Margie took two dishes and I would take the three and on the count of three down all the dishes went. Each dog had a different dish and they knew which one was theirs. The food was gulped in a minute or so and each dog 161

would go to another dish and lick what the dog before had missed.

Always the dishes were licked clean. It was play time for about half an hour and we kept their water inside if it was very cold and outside when it was warm enough to stay without freezing. One at a time we took them to their houses and they remained close to each other all day. Any strange noise would result in a chorus of barking that would get us to the window. There was no sneaking up to our cabin, by cracky.

The snow glistened in the moonlight. The outdoors was like daytime at two am. The new fallen snow decorated the landscape in such a fashion it could be only the work of Angels. Margie would get up in the middle of the night and get her snow boots on at which time the whimpering started. The dogs knew it was walk time. Sometimes I would go out with her and walk for a short distance before my angina started. Oh, how I wished to be able to walk with her and the dogs, but I was sick, and sicker than I realized. The trail was about a ten-minute walk to the edge of the hill. It was a ritual. The dogs were running free but they stayed with Margie and they came when she called them. Most of the time they would be back in a half hour or so and if it was very cold they came inside with us.

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Our children worried about us and usually on the weekend some of them would come for a visit. It was quite a chore for them to come because for some of them it was a three-hour drive. Then in the winter the walk up the hill was very hard. Usually one would walk up first then we would go down with the snowmobile and the sleigh to help with their belongings. The summer was a little easier because sometimes they could drive up with their cars if the road was dry. The outside world was connected by a CB radio for emergency. A neighbor also would come up to see if everything was all right if the car hadn’t moved for a few days. The phone calls were directed to a neighbor and they would let us know if there were any calls. With both Margie and I not being in the best of health it meant there were doctor’s appointments to keep and without a telephone it was sure difficult.

In the mail one morning there was a letter for us. It said to report to the welfare office on the following Wednesday for a review. We went to the office that morning and we were told that our worker wanted to come and see where we were living, just for the record she said. I told her that if she was to come to the cabin that I would have to know the exact time and would meet her at the road and take her up on the snowmobile.

She was pregnant and getting close to term and a snowmobile trip up the hill was just out of the question. So no inspection ever came our way.

No social worker wanted to walk up a trail that was mostly uphill.

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We learned a lot about firewood that first winter. Wet or green wood is not good for burning. Many times when the days were nice we would take the chain saw and try to find some dead wood from fallen trees and branches. It was nice to have a few pieces of dry firewood on hand.

With the green wood it meant cleaning the chimney often. Sometimes it was done every two weeks. This was important because a chimney fire was just out of the question. We had to have some safety for our own well being and a clean chimney was essential.

My, but how our priorities had changed. Dry firewood and a couple of good flashlights, matches, kerosene and candles became important.

The car had some blankets and some candles, just in case. Our power supply was able to give us a small TV with two channels and the lights were used with caution. Sometimes we would say; well what will it be tonight, TV or lights. At times like this we would laugh because if we didn’t we would just have to cry. A solar panel charged the batteries each day but about once a week we ran the generator to top up the batteries and to do a washing or vacuuming. Water for the wringer washer was from the rooftop and stored in forty-five gallon drums.

Washday was a lot of work but it got our clothing clean and the bedding also needed cleaning with the dogs and their constantly shedding hair.

To run the washing machine we had to run the generator. Cold water washing was what the clothes got but this was as good as we could expect. We had a clothesline out to a tree about thirty feet long and

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were in business. No more coin laundry because it was too expensive.

Living on the amount that the welfare office gave us was just about impossible, but we existed and made the best of what we had. When I say we existed that is exactly what we did. We existed.

Somehow when faced with our conditions that we had to endure we were able to push most negative thinking into the background. It was so strange and, really, quite adventurous for us. We never ever, ever had to scrimp such as this before. I seemed, at last, to be able to face reality.

I was not a winner but a loser. We had both tried and worked so hard all our lives for what. This? This was poverty on a small scale but now I was able to see so much more. I now was one of the welfare bums that used to be everyday conversation at many tables. It gave me first hand experience. I knew about welfare and the false image that was presented to a society who have it all. During the summer we cut our own wood which was an all summer long project. We needed about twelve cord of wood for a winters heating. And we tried to get ahead with it by cutting a little more each year. This way there would be wood dried for a couple of years, which meant less wood and a cleaner chimney. This was very hard on my wife and she was very thin and had to do most of it, as my heart would not let me do very much. She never complained until the last six months or so. She would ask me about moving from here as she was finding it so hard but I always told her she would have to go alone. To this day I don’t know why. Was I afraid to admit that again, I failed at something I tried so hard to do? I didn’t 165

realize that she was going deeper and deeper into depression until she finally had to go to a doctor and he wanted to put her in the Belleview Hospital immediately. She said she couldn’t go because her husband could not be left alone up there. He managed to get her quickly in to see a professional doctor for her depression. She got the help she so desperately needed. But as for me, I didn’t notice how bad she had gotten. I didn’t realize until we had gotten away from there when I had my heart operation.

The Acorn, Dad and I Quite a few years ago, when I was growing up my dad said “Wayne, I want you to build me a table” I replied yes dad I think I can do that.

What kind do you want, I asked? He then smiled and reached into his pocket and pulled out an acorn. It was an acorn from a white oak tree.

Dad said, go and plant it I’m in no hurry for this table. Come on dad, I said it will take a hundred years to grow a tree big enough. Then we both had a good chuckle. Many years later when I was in the hospital, because of a heart attack,

I remembered that story. I was lying in bed this night because sometimes it is difficult to sleep when in a hospital bed. Then I noticed a white oak tree in the hospital grounds. It was quite large and about a hundred years old, I thought. It was in April and it was misty that night.

The tree was lit up from some of the outside hospital lights.

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As I looked for a long time it seemed that the very limbs, with all the small branches, were connected like a placenta into the night sky. It looked like it was for some reason clinging to the misty night sky. It was beautiful even without leaves. I just knew that it was alive. I saw energy going back and forth from sky to tree and from tree to sky. Now at this time I wasn’t sure just how alive I was as I was on much medication for this heart condition. For three nights I spent a lot of time looking and wondering about this. My mind said, “I am in a similar condition.” I am also trying to reach up to the only God that I could understand at that time.

The tree was part of the whole scheme. The Creator loved the tree and the tree was like a child that was reaching out to its mom or dad and so was I. It was comforting. For the first time in my life I really felt that I too was part of this giant thought of our Creator. From that time until this present day I knew that I am a part of the whole creation. At last some understanding came to me that I had asked for, for so many times. It was beautiful, a prayer answered. Well, I was part of this creation but not on my terms anymore. I was a very sick man One of my pet sayings to my wife went something like this “As long as I have my health I can manage any situation that comes to us”.

Well, not anymore. I had no more strength to give. We got through the 167

winter and fared not too badly.

The following spring, being dependent on a wood stove, caused us to start getting the wood supply done. We cut what we could of some of the dead trees. This was not enough though. There was, west of the cabin, a large oak tree. It had quite a few cord of wood in it. It was huge.

The trunk was about four feet at the base and about sixty feet tall. A beautiful tree and I hesitated to cut it down, but when I looked at it closer, I found that it was starting to show signs of rotting. Now I was justified in cutting it down, because it was going to die anyway. It was too huge for us to cut down by ourselves so a couple of neighbors helped us. We had an old wood splitter my dad left me when he died.

The cutting and splitting took us quite a while, a few months.

Everything was hard for me because of my heart condition. Margie did most of the work but I was able to run the splitter. We rolled a large round to the splitter early one morning and began splitting. We just split one in two and we were surprised to find it just full of black ants. It seemed like there were millions of them. We both watched and decided to wait for another day so these little ants could find another home. As we were looking at these little beings something strange happened. We noticed that these ants were not running away. They were all helping to get the eggs or larva moved to safety. Now these ants were all very well-organized as if they had some kind of a plan. There were several lines of them and they were going one after the other but the bigger 168

ones were carrying all the eggs. It was as if there were evacuation routes for these ants. They were so organized it was just like a community trying out an evacuation plan. We both felt so bad, just like we were the big giants destroying a village of little beings.

Over the next few days the thoughts of the acorn came to me. This was all part of a community, ants and all. I pondered many things that summer. I wondered if that acorn that my dad gave me years ago ever grew up. Why does the tree grow? The roots seem to grow down into the soil and find the necessary nourishment for growing a tree. Yes, this is part of the creation process. The roots know where to go because the minerals are there and calling the roots. They are saying, “Come here, there is iron here and soda and a lot of water over here”. Some are getting the nitrogen and the carbon. The roots get what they are told to get and they get it at the place where they are called. It is carried to the trunk, the limbs, the branches, and the leaves. It is taken there via tunnels and ductwork that only a scientist could explain.

The whole tree is just like a community. The leaves are like little factories that are green and when they shut down for the cold weather they turn gold. They then fall on the ground only to find themselves being transformed again to go back up the tree, defying all the so-called laws of gravity. This tree that started from an acorn, from another tree is part of a major plan. There were squirrels that housed themselves on that tree. They played and grew up on that same tree that now provides 169

the heat in my cabin on a cold winter day. It provided the food for the squirrels and the field mice that lived here. It provided the branch to hang the tire that my grandchildren swung on. It provided us with shade for those few, but oh so hot summer days.

The tree was part of the community that I was part of. It is gone now and so are the ants that used it for a few years. Not as many squirrels this year. They are all gone. Or are they really gone or have they just become a part of this community that we just can’t quite see yet. Well, this little story is never ending. The more I think of it, the more that I could add to it. Thanks for the acorn dad.

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CHAPTER TEN: The Ice Storm January was an interesting month, our second winter now. I was able to get on to a disability pension that gave me three times more money than welfare. It was such a relief to get our first check. We were able to now get a better food for the dogs and they gained in weight and their disposition got so much better. It was a nice feeling not to be on welfare.

I remember in the spring of the year before when I went to cash our check and there was seventy dollars short of the usual. When I complained at the office I was told that they didn’t pay for heating after the first of May. How terrible could they be? It was cold up on the mountain in May and we had snow and a lot of frost. But the heat was cut.

I was gaining in pride now but losing with my health. Everything now seemed as one. I was one with Margie and I was one with my Creator and everything just seemed to fit together as a plan. But it was so different now; not being able to support my wife like I used to and I was ashamed of myself sometimes by this. I refused to think that I was sick and I tried each day to do something even if only a little.

The thoughts came to me about a saying I had years before, “As long as I have my health and my toolbox then I can work my way through any difficulty”. The toolbox was there but I was unable to use it for 171

employment now. I was getting old and I was and in denial. I was told much later that was one of the symptoms of heart failure.

The Oahspe now became daily reading for me and I went through it page by page. Some of it made so much sense and a lot of it was hard to understand. My comfort was now Margie and her being pleasant about our circumstances. She motivated me to keep going and we would make it. We could succeed on Spirit Mountain. All the dogs were also a comfort and I tried each day to and sit with each one of them.

They now were family too. We learned to communicate with each of the dogs in a certain way. Always trying to share out time equally with them.

The spring was the worst time because the spring could turn back to winter and the road washed out each spring. Getting the suburban up the hill the first trip in the spring was a challenge. It may be nice for a few days but could turn to more snow and cold. It was around this time that Margie began not to feel very well. She would go to her doctor and he told her to up her Prozac to two a day. This she did but continued to get worse and worse. It got so bad that she could hardly walk. She would use a sort of a cane she had but she was too wobbly to go very far. She would just sit in a chair, either by a fire outside on nice days, or just inside and she would start shaking. She occasionally would just all of a sudden, without warning, throw up.

This went on for quite a few weeks until I got so frightened I took her 172

into the Bancroft Hospital. She was shipped to the hospital in Peterborough where, after tests it confirmed that she had Prozac poisoning. She also had pneumonia, as she had had several times up there and consequently hospitalized each time, although this time there was the added worry of the Prozac poisoning. She was in the hospital for two weeks this time. While she was in the hospital they took some xrays of her lungs and found a black spot on one of them. She had to go back around a month later to have a biopsy done. Thankfully it turned out to be negative. Apparently she had been having pneumonia so often that one of her lungs was damaged. We bore up under all of this some how.

I had to visit with my heart specialist in Belleville regularly. With no phone sometimes we would miss an appointment, which meant a day lost and the cost of the fuel. After a couple of times, we would confirm our appointments the day before. There were stress tests and many tests with radiation to probe my heart and there were several angiograms also to confirm.

We visited with our children when we could and we made arrangements to have our dogs fed and watered by a neighbor. I didn’t like to leave them unattended for more than two days at a time. When we would come home and the headlights shone at the cabin, we first counted all the dogs and felt happy when the head count showed a full list. The evenings gave us a time to sit out by the campfire. It was time to 173

meditate, relax and console each other. The routine in the evenings was to watch a favorite TV program, which ended at seven PM. We then got on the ATV and went on our evening ride with all the dogs. They ran free and took shortcuts through the bush. And it was the rule that the dogs picked on the little female Angel because she was so small. We would chase them away and continue on the circuit and after about forty-five minutes, it was a race back to the cabin. Margie and I followed the trail but all the dogs just took off through the bush and would all be waiting at the cabin door.

The routine was to come for playtime and a snack then out to the doghouses. The lights were on and the TV turned to one of the two channels that we could get and an evening together. Sometimes a treat of toast and jam or what ever we could have. There was no refrigerator, just a cooler with new ice every three days. So we had milk and butter and the goods that needed to be kept cool in our camp cooler.

The second winter we had added a bedroom with a closet to keep our clothes. There was an inside bathroom with a composting toilet that was more of a bother than what it was worth.

The news said that there was an ice storm now in eastern Ontario. We didn’t make too much of it because we also had some ice form on the trees and the branches drooped down over the trail. The next day the news was reporting a very massive ice storm all through eastern 174

Ontario and western Quebec. Late that afternoon we got a call on the CB radio to call my son in Algonquin. We called him and found that they had been without electricity for three days. He wanted to know if he could borrow our generator. We got a small one from the neighbors and we drove to his home so that at least they could pump water and run the furnace.

All our children now were faced with the most devastating ice storm that we had for the last two hundred years. We drove down highway sixtytwo to Belleville and the roads seemed to be in good condition. We stopped and got some money out of the bank and started driving towards Kingston. Everything appeared normal but some of the trees had a coating of ice. As we drove east the next town was fully lit up with all the streetlights on. But this was the last sign of lights now for sometime. It was our headlights that showed us the sign Kingston.

There were just no city lights at all; it was such an eerie feeling, a city in darkness. One of our daughters was living in Kingston so we drove to their house. There was a note on the door that they were all staying at their relatives on the next street. They were all in that one house because it had a fireplace and there was heat for them. After we found them and knew they were all right we drove to my sons place in Algonquin. There were so many trees down that the city streets were hard to get through. We had to drive zigzag around fallen trees and hydro cables. The four-o-one highway was clear and salted so it was 175

good driving on that road. The Algonquin exit to my sons place was littered with wires and every hydro pole was broken and down with the weight of the ice. The news was not kidding about the seriousness of this. We had no idea of the problems arising from such a storm.

With the generator they were able to return to their home and have the furnace running and the deep well now had water pumping. We stayed with them overnight. They would be safe now with the generator. There were problems getting fuel because all the gas stations were closed and they had to drive to a town north about twenty five kilometers to get fuel and supplies. The bank machines did not work so we left them some cash that we got from Belleville. The following morning it was quite a site — the massive amounts of ice on the trees had broken most of them down and all the telephone poles were all broken. It was a disaster area for sure. My thoughts went back to when I was a child in Cornwall and there was an ice storm. My dad and I made candles with bees wax but there was a furnace that gave us heat. It seems that back in the early forties to lose power was not a critical as these days. The streetlight at night then showed the beauty of that ice storm when they started working again.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN: Fighting to Stay Alive Illness on the mountain was the one great fear that entered my mind on numerous occasions. The following few months would bring this to reality. The tightness in my chest now became an everyday occurrence, and sometimes it happened while I was sitting. Going downtown to do anything left me exhausted and had to rest for the balance of the day. I was able to carry in firewood but one piece at a time as to gather more than a couple of pieces was just too strenuous. The spring arrived in a gentle manner this year with little flooding and road washout. When the ice and snow melted we could drive the suburban up the hill. This made travel somewhat easier. But I did enjoy the three-wheeler every day. It was easy to drive, and start, and proved to be a reliable little ATV. Seeking solitude and seeking friendship went hand in hand these days.

I tried to help out my friend with his building and help him cut and haul a few trees out of the bush. Most of the time my energy level was just a push or hook a rope on to a log then drive the ATV. Many times I would run the dogs in the evening with the ATV. It was good exercise for them and it was a kind of solitude as well. I knew that I was sick and I cried many times in the forest. My health was gone now and no more working my way out of difficult situations. To have a heart operation was just out of the question. I denied that I was unfit.

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I could not accept this burden well. I was lying down one afternoon in the front room in deep depression wondering about this God part of my life. I was in a trance like state with my eyes fixed on the clear blue sky.

The leaves were just baby buds at this time.

I felt forsaken by whatever my God was at that time, and despair was close many times. But God somehow always came through and this time it was just a drop of water that caught a ray of sunlight. My depression was disturbed by such a ray of the colors of the rainbow that snapped into my eyes that I just knew that somehow things would work out for Margie and me. Never was there a depression that was not answered from my surroundings. And in a way that books, words or the voice of another could never answer. The answers came from what I know now as the Ever-Present and my connection to it. Many futile attempts to fabricate a God suitable for me were now changing again. I was getting answers from god but not the God that I had learned about.

It was somehow different now. God was not what I wanted, at least not the one that I thought existed somewhere.

I need to know more, I said to myself so many times. I want to know about this God thing. Where in the hell is that tender ever loving God that we all read about; just where is He. Spring flowed into summer and as I was sitting in my rocking chair one 178

day something happened to me. It was like my arms became weak and they ached. The veins seemed to be getting solidified was the description I gave it. It was not painful but a very uncomfortable condition. This had happened one time before but for a short time. This time it was lasting for about ten minutes. It was something that frightened me because it was a different feeling. I was under no physical strain while just sitting down. The feeling left me after a while and I thought it was something that was a coincidence. I rested as much as I could that day but in the afternoon this strange gripping feeling in my arms and shoulders returned again. I called Margie and she said that we were going to the emergency room at the Bancroft Hospital. I was able to get into the suburban and Margie drove me to the hospital. After a short wait I was brought into the emergency room and hooked up to monitors but the strange pain had left by then.

My family doctor was called and he came in and made a very quick evaluation. He stated that I was suffering from a pinched nerve. This made me feel somewhat better. However the nurse consulted with Margie and the consensus was that it was more than a nerve pinched.

With my history of a heart condition and being on a high amount of daily medication Margie went to the doctor’s office and demanded that I be thoroughly checked in the Belleville Hospital. During this time with Margie across the street seeing my family doctor it happened again.

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This time it was much worse, but I was hooked up to a heart monitor and I was in the intensive care unit of the Bancroft Hospital. I called out to the nurse that it was happening again. I could barely see the monitor when I looked up behind me but the line was flickering some kind of a display that I am sure was not normal. HELP I cried HELP. HELP. I saw the big red emergency button on the wall across the room. If I were closer I would have hit the button with my foot. I called out again and again but nothing. No nurse, no Margie, no doctor, no help and obviously no God. Here I was in the intensive care unit suffering a heart attack and all alone.

As I glanced at the monitor the line was giving a display that would have been new to medical science. I relaxed now and consented to die all alone in the emergency room. I cried a little and many thoughts went through my mind. I looked at the monitor again and it was on a seeming normal pattern as much as I knew. The pain had now left me and I was not flat lined or dead, I was living. Soon the slippery pat, pat of the nurse’s soft shoes and Margie’s sneakers were heard coming down the hall.

They entered the emergency room and smiled to me the good news. I was to go the Kingston General Hospital in two weeks to visit the heart surgeon. The doctor came in after his office hours and told me, like he hadn’t even said, “All you’ve got is a pinched nerve, you’re going to have open heart surgery in three weeks.” I, at this time, was indeed a 180

happy man as I was getting these death notices quite regularly now. Oh God, I thought, will I tell them what had happened in the emergency room while they were consulting with the doctor across the street?

The visit to Kingston was just the beginning of many more hospital visits during the next two months. My history file was getting bigger with all the many tests and angiograms. My heart surgeon was waiting for me when I went in. He told me the main concerns about open-heart surgery and the risks involved. I had made up my mind to get this done and over with.

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CHAPTER TWELVE My Hospitalization Arrangements were made for me to stay at my daughters in Kingston.

There were so many pre-operative sessions to attend and many tests to see my condition and strength to undergo an operation of this magnitude. The day was set for the twenty-fifth of August. Be there at seven am they said. I was there and so were all my children. They all were seemingly being in a good frame of mind and were chatting with me and being positive.

That morning I showered and used the antibacterial soap they gave me with a special brush and I scrubbed my chest area until the skin tingled.

They got me ready and sitting with my family in a special room for immediate members of my family. An hour went by and I waited trying to make friendly conversation. Then another hour was gone and I was waiting.

My thoughts went back to the nurse in the registration room. What religion are you, they asked? This always scared the hell out of me because there are kind of final questions if all goes wrong. I said I am a Faithist, what she said was “I never heard of that one before”. Why I didn’t say that I was a Catholic or a Protestant never crossed my mind, which would be too simple. I gave her the explanation of a Faithist. A 182

Faithist is a person that believes that there is only the Creator and no in between Gods.

The chances were getting greater that somehow I was not going to wake up from this operation. I don’t care, I thought, as I know more about the afterlife than most people, I hoped. The surgeon came into the room and said “Wayne we are not able to do your heart operation today”.

After waiting for three hours with my family that all had taken the day off work to be with me caused some anxiety. The doctor said that there was an emergency operation that has to be done on a little child and that I had to wait until tomorrow. He said be here at 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday and you will be operated on. I could see and feel their faces drop. My family was going through the same turmoil as I was and trying not to show any upset.

The next day I showered again with that special soap. My chest area was rubbed raw. Down to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. and the kids were there again. This time it was no fooling. It was for real. I was shaved on the chest area and lay naked on this mobile bed then taken down to the operating room. Things were happening fast. Within a couple of minutes they had an intravenous line into my hand. The room was so cold and the doctors and the operating team had rubber boots on. This crossed my mind as not being a very good sign for what was coming. Rubber 183

boots??? I was strapped onto a stainless steel table much like a table they used in the morgues. The thought now of dying was prominent and I was not quite ready. One of my last thought was if a Hell really existed.

I was not feeling as comfortable with my thoughts now as I was yesterday, I can tell you. I was seeing blurry now and my thoughts were sure not godlike. I was in very deep now and not feeling too sure if life was over. Everything was quiet now, no nothing.

My next moment of life in a semiconscious state was just terrible. I was coming out of the aesthetic and not able to see very well. Margie was there looking at me and I was able to give a thumbs up to her. The family was all there again looking at me and smiling. I was hooked up to so many lines and breathing tubes with discharge tubes inserted into the chest cavity. I was not all dead but was not all alive either. By this time I was not quite sure just which one I wanted to be. I was in the intensive care unit and I could see my family a couple at a time. Oh God, I thought, somehow you were there for me.

Morphine was my companion for the next few days. Blood tests, it seemed, were given every few minutes. It was a well-organized intensive care room. Constant attention was what happened in there and any fluctuation of the monitors was responded to immediately. After about a full day I was sent to the step-down unit. And another day was spent there and the nurses were nothing short of wonderful people that were sincerely seeing to my well-being. Now the morphine was 184

administered in pills. The pain was very deep and new. And I was sweating with pain until the pills were administered. I felt like my reasons to be living were dwindling. The nurses seemed to be able to get a smile from me by times. God did not seem to be much of a concern at this time and religion never entered my mind.

The next day, after being awake through the night, started with “You are going to walk to your new room this morning, so sit up”. There was no way that this body could even move to a sitting position, but with pulling and prodding my feet touched the floor and the nurses were there to support me as well as that post with assorted fluids with all the lines. It rolled slowly with each step, each small little step.

A long hallway loomed before me. My God was it a long walk. Why did I have to walk when there were wheels on the bed? Why this torture?

Why are they making me walk that hallway? This will be a part of your recovery program they told me. The sooner you get moving, the quicker you recover. This is what was said in the pre op discussions. Yes, I walked. There was no getting out of it, no matter how I cursed silently to myself.

Finally my body lay in a new bed and pain pills were never quite enough.

I lived a minute at a time with little, if any, effort from me. Somehow this operation was just more than I could bear. The pain was excruciating and the medication was only taking the edge from my screaming out.

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Oh God, why did you let me live was a common internal prayer? The minutes turned into hours and days. The nurses were exceptional in their care for me. They must be some kind of special people to attend all these near death beings. They are the angels for mankind, no doubt.

Gradually the pain lessened and strange happenings were coming very fast.

The room was dark except for some light around the monitors and I was at the edge of sleep. The ceiling tile was pushed away and a face came into view. It was Homer Simpson. Is this for real, I thought, trying to blank out my vision? Oh yes it’s me and I have been watching you for a few days, he said to me. I’m losing it I thought, I must surely be hallucinating. I confirmed my vision with one of the nurses and unfortunately my medication was changed at the next pill time. Pain now was intense again and with the morphine gone it was just codeine and barely enough to do much. Homer Simpson appeared now and then for quite some time afterward. He sometimes was sitting on the back of a dragonfly and sometimes just swinging through the room on a vine.

Homer seemed to understand my condition. He was becoming my friend.

Each day it was necessary to remove plastic tubes. The big breathing tube was the first to go. The next one was the one that was inserted into my nose. Then there were two large clear soft plastic hoses just below the chest cavity for drainage. The removal of these required a special 186

nurse that had to show some student nurses just how to do it. They asked me if they could all watch. I don’t know what would have happened if I said no. It was a serious procedure and I was given warning that I may feel some discomfort. “The hospital word” for agonizing pain. Okay, she said one, two, three, go. My God, I thought that those two plastic tubes must have somehow attached themselves to my testicles as the pain felt like they were pulling my whole cardiovascular system through those holes, complete with testicles. The tears subsided and my face relaxed and the nurse said, “There you go.

Feel better now?” My heart told me I was very much alive. It felt like it was rapping out that message on my inner ribs.

The doctor came in the next morning and he leaned over my face and said, “The operation was successful and you have a strong heartbeat.” I smiled at him and thought that I might just keep living. The medication was changed to regulate my heartbeat and I was without any tubes in any part of my body now except two wires that were attached to the heart muscle itself. I called them Just In Case Wires, just in case I needed a jump-start somehow.

It was my fifth day without solid food and I was experiencing hunger for the first time in my life. The feeling that my stomach was healing itself closed was what it felt like. Ice water and the liquid in that IV tube somehow didn’t quite make me a full happy man. Another man in the same ward was having his supper and I was enflamed with envy and 187

wondered if I could just have one bite of his supper. If I could only have walked without some kind of assistance I would have gone over and asked him for a bite. The little bowl of jelly that was for my supper was shaking itself and as it was somewhat semi-solid I could feel it wiggling its way to my stomach. It was good and the next morning some fruit juice and syrup. NO COFFEE for some reason was the command heard from the nursing station, as the aroma filled the room from that little drip coffee maker in the lounge. I wanted a cup of that coffee in the worst way. It was September the first and the next day was my birthday as well as my anniversary. I wanted out of there. If I had to continue living it would not be in the hospital. The nurse said it is better not to rush going home because there may be some side-effects that can occur. I showed her that I now could walk down the hall for about twenty feet all by myself. I was proud of that accomplishment but I didn’t know I was not far from death, as I didn’t realize just how serious an operation I had just gone through.

Happy birthday to you was heard from the three nurses on the day shift and a cupcake with a candle came into the room. After swearing an oath of secrecy a nurse smuggled me in a cup of coffee. I had it made I thought, a little more reason to be alive. The paperwork was all done and I was getting dressed. I was being released on the sixth day after surgery. I now wish that I had taken another few days. Those doctors and nurses just seemed to know a little bit more than I did, at least now and then. They were after all very special people. They were my life 188

givers. I heard Margie and my daughter coming into the room and I was so excited. I was going home or at least to my daughters place for about a week. I sat in the wheel chair and down in the elevator I went to the front entrance. I had my heart shaped little pillow with me that they give all patients to hug for support when they have to get up or to move around.

A week at my youngest daughters in Kingston was necessary because to stay close to the hospital was best. Three steps to the bedroom and they were an effort the first few times. Exercise daily meant to try to walk around the block. That was totally out of the question. Walk around the block? I sometimes wished I could piddle in my pants instead of going up those three steps to the bathroom. But persevere I did. I tried to make it to the corner but not quite reaching it. Those five houses felt to be about a mile apart instead of a few feet. With the help of my grandchildren I got a little exercise each day, then back to bed. Ah, I thought. Bed. No pain for a while. “Dad,” my daughter asked, “would you like to use my computer?” Oh God I am too old for computers I thought. “You can do searches for anything you like.” she said. I said, “Maybe tomorrow.”

In the morning I sat before the computer and the search engine on the screen with a blank space followed by “go”. OAHSPE was the word I had typed in, as it was a book I needed more information on. Sure enough there was the OAHSPE on line. Several pages of OAHSPE with 189

ANTI OAHSPE were being more prominent than all the others. But my interest was not exactly keen about anything, especially computers when I had to ask for help with each finger stroke. Each of my four children took care of me for a week at each of their homes. Each weekend my family gathered where ever I was and gave me courage and a reason to be alive. All my grandchildren were impressed with the big scar on my chest and several times a small visitor would be let in for me to show them my incision. A lot of the kids around the different neighborhoods were graced to view this mean looking scar.

Keeping positive was hard most of the time but I always tried to use some humor when I could. I felt like a lost soul a lot of the times because I made it through the operation but was in such pitiful shape I thought death would have been a better all round comfort for me and my family.

What I didn’t realize was that I was getting into one of the deepest depressions of my life and that it would last for some three years. They told me this could happen at the hospital before the operation. I was at my sons place and was going to go back to the cabin the next day. The cabin was not the place for me to be. It was just too hard for Margie and I with the constant threat of needing hospital attention. Reluctantly I agreed to stay with my son at least until I was feeling better physically.

They knew what was best for me, as they did sincerely love me. All my children did and during my recovery time they let me know this many 190

times. I was now dependent on others and not in control of matters anymore. This was extremely hard for me to handle.

Our remaining one dog Buddy had to be put in the kennels for a long time. It was too long for a dog to be without a friend and for me to be without Buddy. We moved some of our belongings back to my son’s place and he found a place to store most of it including all my power tools. The winter was soon upon us and there was snowmobiling many evenings. The spring weather came and we found a house in Prescott to live in. It was a rented house and within our means and it was close to the post office, banks etc. We set up again and got some furniture and Buddy came home to me. He was so thin and looked so strange and bewildered. The first evening he came and pressed his head against my chest as if he was trying to get inside of me. I made a pledge to my Buddy that I would never let him alone again. To this day I have kept the promise except for a couple of times where he was with my grandchildren for a few days.

My son in-law came one day with a computer and he set it all up for me.

Inside I was saying NO WAY I am too old for this new technology. But I did sit for a while and he showed me the complicated procedure of starting a computer and the even more complicated procedure to shut it down. Now when someone says to stop a computer you must click on the start button then I got thoroughly confused. Now I wrote the functions down and let the machine rest for a couple of days. He told 191

me that I now have the world at my fingertips and that I can search for anything I wished for. Wow!! I thought, is this for real? It was Tuesday morning and I approached the computer. I pushed the ON button and watched the computer come on.

I clicked on the little telephone icons and in a minute I was on line. I did it. I was happy, and followed the instructions for shut down. Click on the start menu was written, set the pointer to shut down but first go off line.

It was so complicated for me but I did it solo on this Tuesday morning.

This soon was to change my life. That son in-law of mine could see something that I couldn’t. He loaned me a machine that would get my curiosity aroused, and that it did.

O-a-h-spe was typed into the search engine and within a few minutes there it was. ANTI-OAHSPE was at the head of the list, followed by a few other related sites. It was enough for me to get started with my search for a true spiritual way of life. The Oahspe became my only reading material at this time. It was the Bible of Bibles as far as I was concerned. It had page upon page of material about the Heavens and the workings of spirit beings that had such tremendous effect on our everyday lives.

This was the knowledge that I had asked for some years before. All within the nine hundred and eighty some pages within its covers. The computer led me to new frontiers of my spiritual pathway and introduced me to many new friends world over. There was an on line Oahspe group 192

that I joined and that got me in touch with many of the Faithists that followed the teachings of this book. Many of them I found were so far advanced spiritually that it made me shrink back in awe. Some of them were vegetarians and some of them only eat nuts and some fruit. So here I was with all my addictions, meat eating and smoking being part of a group of Faithists. They said they were not a Religion as I asked them several times. The computer now has become a valuable instrument for me and it has opened up many new avenues of thought. It also gave me the means to become friends with the people that studied the Oahspe. I did become friends of many of them and they were very wonderful people.

People are wonderful but what happens to them when they become addicted is what is scary.

I have walked the aisles of many religions and in and out of many church doors. I have been there and I was a believer. I now look back at some of the beliefs that I harbored and it gives me a feeling of mixed emotions. Part of me remembers how devout I was and how right I was with the particular religion I chose all those times. Part of me now knows that there is nothing that I can do to enlighten people about their religions, as I was there. I was addicted to belief systems during those times and there was nothing in the world that could release my grip to any religion that I was in at that particular time.

This day has found me in a much better frame of mind. I have learned to 193

place those old belief systems away. At least I will shelve them for the next while, as now I am comfortable with the way that I see and understand God. It is not for me to even suggest that a person leave their present belief system. If they are comfortable within those walls of belief then that is where they belong. But if there are any unanswered questions lurking around your belief system, then may I advise you to seek out the answers from within your own God given heart. Fear is a biggie to anyone that begins to think outside of religious systems. A person begins to ask, “What if I’m wrong?” “What if the devil is using me?” “What if I lose my soul?” And the questions go on and on for many years if not a life time. Use the seat of reason and if the religion you belong to doesn’t measure up then you can change that. KEEP AN OPEN MIND. Don’t close off your intellect to the possibilities. Strong beliefs of a hundred years ago have been shown to be myths and superstition. Take the example of witchcraft, burnings, and human sacrifices. Again, I could go on and on.

This day leaves me a happier man and a happier family. I searched the inside of so many books and religions but found that it is these many thoughts of OTHER people that have been the restriction in my life.

Choosing and following that which I create from my own thoughts is the way that I have chosen. I am not afraid, as there is nothing anymore to be afraid of.

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The Sign of Jehovih as given in Oahspe

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