Secret shrine of a son killed during world war I and bricked up for a century discovered

Here is a very nice and interesting story that I discovered while “surfing the internet”. (Which is a quaint saying, don’t you think? It’s so 1995.) Anyways, there’s this house that has been bought and sold, then bought and sold, then bought and sold. Finally, the third owner wanted to see what was behind that bricked up wall at the end of the hallway upstairs. For after all, there were two shuttered windows on the outside behind that bricked up enclosure, and he was rightfully curious. And this is the story of what he found.

He found a shrine.

Ah. World War I. Everyone was going to fight those pesky Huns. You know that ones. They were going to steal our “democracy” away, and enslave us by their culture, their clothing and abuse our woman folk! And everyone was up for it, too. Everyone wanted to fight. To right those steeds, brandish those shiny swords, wear those colorful uniforms and ride into battle with horns a blazing!

For “freedom!”

For “democracy!”

And you know…

People die during war.

Sometimes glorious. Sometimes from something as trivial as an infected cut. But it’s not all glory in battle. Because, everyone, war is ugly ant it happens when the leaders of nations are unskilled for their role. They are unsuitable. They are megalomaniacs, and evil.

The people who caused, fomented, and profited from World War I continued to live their cushy lives inside their mansions, while the “common folk”, the “commoners” marched right up and into the inferno…

The following is a complete reprint of an article titled “Secret Shrine to Son Killed in WW1 Bricked up for a Century Revealed”. It was written on 20APR20, by Craig Bowman and found on Historythings.com. It is reprinted as found with editing only to fit this venue. All credit to the author.

Secret Shrine to Son Killed in WW1 Bricked up for a Century Revealed

Second Lieutenant Hubert Guy Pierre Alphonse Rochereau, the warrior son of a distinguished military family, whose ancestors had served under Napoleon, it ended for him in an English field ambulance on April 26th, 1918.

The accomplished graduate of the elite Saint-Cyr Military Academy had been wounded while engaged in fierce fighting for the village of Lokers, in Flanders, Belgium.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

While his parents were informed of his death his body went missing for four years before it was finally discovered in a quiet corner of a British war cemetery in 1922.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

Rochereau was later reinterred in the graveyard in his home village of Bélâbre, East of Poitiers in the Brenne National Park.

His parents then took the decision to leave his room in their house exactly as it had been when he left to go to war.

Rochereau was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d’Honneur for his valor in battle and these were placed carefully on the lace counterpane and then the room was bricked up and sealed as a permanent memorial to the young soldier.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

A century later and the current owners of the property decided to remove the bricks from the doorway at the end of the upstairs corridor, intrigued by what may lay beyond.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

What they found has shocked and delighted historians “it’s as if time has stood still,” said the local Mayor Laurent Laroche.

Rochereau’s schoolbooks sit on shelves alongside military manuals. His pipe filled and ready to light sits on his desk alongside two Gold Flake cigarettes, his pistols, a knife, notebook and keys.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

In the corner is his military jacket and feathered dress helmet, beneath his bookcase two pairs of boots wait, polished and ready to go.

On the desk is a small vial of grey dirt with a handwritten label that describes the contents as, “the earth of Flanders in which our dear child fell, and which kept his remains for four years.”

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

The Mayor of Bélâbre said of the find, “I imagine it’s how the explorers felt when they opened the first pyramid or ancient tomb.”

The room has lain untouched since 1922 and there are no plans to change anything following the opening of the room.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

There are concerns over the curation and preservation of the room and the Mayor is keen to find a benefactor who might be persuaded to take on the responsibility of the project.

It might have been less of an issue had the house not changed hands on a number of occasions following the original sealing of the room.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

In 1935 the Rochereaus left the house to a military associate, General Eugene Bridoux on condition that the room remain undisturbed for five-hundred years.

General Bridoux agreed to these terms however he lost control of his assets after World War Two due to his direct responsibility for the transportation of French Jews to Nazi concentration camps while he was a minister in the Vichy government.

His bedroom left intact since his death on the Belgian front. Rochereau was born in this room on October 10, 1896, and since his death on the battlefield at 21-years-old on April 26, 1918, the room has been kept intact as it was on his departure for the Great War. GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images

During the Allied liberation of France Bridoux escaped to Germany and then, as Allied forces crossed the Rhine into Germany, the General was able to flee to Franco’s Spain.

He was condemned to death in his absence by the French government and eventually died in exile in 1955.

The house in Bélâbre was confiscated by the authorities as it was the property of a collaborator and rented out to a family of solicitors until the 1950s when General Bridoux’s granddaughter reclaimed the house.

The current custodian of the house, Daniel Fabre, husband of the General’s granddaughter has said he respects the wishes of the Rochereau’s and intends to honour the promise in the original contract of sale, even though it has no basis in French law.

He confirmed it was out of a sense of respect for the dead soldier, the Dragoon who died for his country more than one hundred years ago.

Conclusion

It’s pretty cool to find a “time capsule” of what life was like one hundred years ago. We open it up and see what “home life” was like for a soldier when he marched off to war. We can look at his pipe, at his uniform, at his bed, and the swords hanging from a strap on the wall. We can look at the large picture over his bed. We can look at his Dragoon cap. We can deduce his life.

We can get a glimpse of him.

Which is pretty cool.

But, being an older man, I can also see the “bitter-sweet” side of all this. How his loving family must have felt. To have their 18 year old son (maybe 17, or maybe in his early 20s) killed at such a young age, in a far-away land. Fighting a in a war that had no bearing to their family personally. But rather to be an instrument of others, for other purposes.

You raise someone, and right before they get to experience life; meet a girl, fall in love, get married, and raise a family…

…they die.

What a waste of life.

But that is the story of humankind. It’s been a battle between sentience for centuries. One sentience takes control, which is almost “service for self”, and drives the rest of their community into conflict. The “service for others’ sentience follow their commands and directives so they can “help others for the greater good”.

Stop allowing psychopaths dictate what “the greater good” is. They might tell you one thing, but they actually mean “for their greater good”. Not yours.

Anyways, it’s a cool discovery. And sorry that I am so morbid about it.

Do you want more?

Do you want to see similar posts?

I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…

SHTF Articles

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.

COVID-19 coronavirus videos collected by 1MAR20 – 4

Here’s a bunch of videos that I collected during the (so far) six week long quarantine that everyone in China experienced. The videos are a selection of virus related subjects but generally relate to how China handled the biological weapons attack, and how society adapted to it. As of this writing, things have stabilized and people and companies are cautious and careful in their actions and movements.

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

Video 1 – Airport Screening

While there are all sort of roadblocks and check points in China at this time, there are multiple stations at airports. This is what it looks like.

One thing, notice the lines… yeah.

They are not absurdly long like they are int he United States. When I left the USA, I had to wait in a line for three hours while TSA processed me. In China it is professional, quick and of short duration.

Video 2 – What it was like when China went into DEFCON ONE.

When China announced that the nation was under a biological weapons attack and that everyone should stay in their homes under “lock down” conditions, it was eerie. It was like a horror movie.

Suddenly sirens were blaring, messages were popping up ont he televisions, and on all the social media. Drones started to fly about telling people to stay inside and the various police, military, and militia were called up to secure roadblocks and quarantine regions of society.

It was like this…

Video 3 – Inside of one of the quarantine facilities

The Chinese government has set up large containment facilities for people who were collected at roadblocks or who have come to the hospital for treatment. These facilities are policed and maintained by hospital staff and nurses 24-7. Here is what it is like at night…

Video 4 – Hitting in Italy

This COVID-19 broke out of China and has mutated to attack other races aside from Asian. It is active in Iran, Korea (both North and South) and Italy. Here is a news-woman on Italian television reporting the news before it was publicly known that the coronavirus exploded in Italy.

I do hope that this poor girl is going to be ok.

Video 5 – Quarantine in a hotel

Not all quarantines are held inside retrofitted stadiums and public schools. Hospitals have also been converted to quarantine stations in the smaller towns and communities. Here’s one where everyone is outside the door waiting for the thrice daily medical checkups and supplies.

Video 6 – Locked inside your home

If you are ordered to be quarantined within your home, special precautions are taken. Here we see that a police official marks the door with a notice that people inside are possibly infected and the at the entire home is under quarantine. Then they put on a alarm, where any removal or movement will trigger an alert. Finally, everything is connected via WeChat and QR code so that the quarantined people have instant access to the police and hospital if they need anything or are having an emergency.

Video 7 – A reminder that this is not the flu.

To this day, even now in March, the American media is still proclaiming that the flu is far worse. Donald Trump is calling the COVID-19 a “hoax” and has put off the responsibilities for dealing it to his vice President Pence. Such is the American bubble of ignorance.

I think what is happening is that American media is a propaganda arm of the “deep state”, and now even the American leadership believes the lies and twisted narrative. It’s a dangerous situation.

Meanwhile, how in God’s Green Earth can you possible believe that the Flu is anywhere near as bad as this? You never see people collapsing on the street from the flu. Never.

There are more videos to explore…

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you would like to check out the full index of the Trump Trade War activities, you can go here…

Trump Trade War

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

To go to the MAIN Index;

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE .
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.

Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.

Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 12.

More stories of personal heroism in China. This is part twelve.

Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.

Make a difference. Be like Rufus!

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

These are all micro-videos of very short duration. From ten seconds to three minutes. I would suggest that you, the reader, allow them to load to get the full experience.

Video 1 – Police take down a dangerous man.

This is the kind of things that policemen are trained for. But, I’ll tell you what, if no police are around, it will be up to you to step in and save the woman. Would you be up for it?

Video 2 – Man hanging off the side of a bridge.

So here is a man that is hanging off the side of a very, very tall highway bridge. Why is he there? What is going on? He’s got to be either crazy or in distress. What are you going to do?

Video 3 – Capture a purse thief.

Purse thief’s and purse snatchers used to be very common in China. Today, with all the video surveillance, it has pretty much eradicated the crime. But, not completely. These criminals know where all the blind spots are. They have mapped them out, don’t you know.

However, outside of the blind sots you can sometimes observe people chasing after them on foot. As in this video.

Video 4 – Lost little boy.

Here’s a young boy. He’s lost. Terribly lost and he needs help. Lucky for him that there is a police man nearby and he know that when he is in trouble to turn to the police for help. And thus…

Video 5 – Passed out from exhaustion.

The work of a fireman is very difficult. They take every ounce of energy that they have to just keep going. Then, when they are back at the station, they can relax and release…

Video 6 – Produce driver lends a helping hand.

Heroes come in all forms. Even if all you are doing is transporting sugarcane to the processing factory, or shrubbery to a new housing development, you can lend a hand. Such as this fellow does…

Video 7 – Kitten training to be a good mouser.

In functional societies every one does their part. In traditional conservative societies, like communist China, everyone has a role.

The two family types and how they work.

Here, we have a young kitten learning to be a good mouser. This what I call “on the job training”…

To understand the concept of family roles within society, the link above, and this one below (they open up in a separate tab) would be able to help a lot…

How to manage a family household.

Video 8 – Don’t jump, girl!

Saving others. It’s the way of the Rufus.

Video 9 – Help the ambulance get on its way.

This is common in the USA where it is the law!

It isn’t elsewhere in the world. In China there aren’t laws all over the place telling you what you can or cannot do; what you should do or should not do.

To learn more (opens up in a separate tab)…

Freedom & Liberty in China

Anyways, in China, all citizens are expected to do their part to make society better.

Be the Rufus. Not because you are obligated though the force of law, but because that is who you are. Be the Rufus.

Video 10 – Fire alarm!

Whether you are in the USA, Australia, Canada, Russia or China the situation is the same. When your name is called, you leap into action!

Thank you for reading this.

God bless.

Conclusion

We do not know when the calling will come.

However, when it calls, you must take action. It will not make you wealthy, rich, famous, or attractive. But, it will make a difference when you are judged upon death. Be the Rufus. Make a difference. Help others. It’s our highest calling.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Some of my favorite links and browser bookmarks.
Here are just some pretty decent websites, bookmarks, URL's and sites that I would like to share. I think that there is something here for everyone. These, in my mind, are the "cream of the crop" of underappreciated websites, and some places that you all might want to visit.
Mongolian Women under Genghis Khan
The history of how Australia obtained Sheilas; the story of The Lady Juliana, The 18th-Century Prison Ship Filled With Women.   This is the story of the Lady Juliana. This was a special ship designed to convey female convicts from England to Australia. The idea was that a boat load of female convicts would happily link up with a colony of convicts in Australia. Thus making everyone very, very happy, and reform the colony in New South Wales.
What is going on in Hollywood?
Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Gaslighting
Link
Link
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
The Navy is scrapping the F/A-18 Hornet.
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
How to manage a family household.
Link
The most popular American foods.
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Asian Nazi Chic
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
The Confederados
Democracy Lessons
The Rule of Eight
What High School taught me about Diversity.  Here we look at idea of "diversity" from the point of view of what it was like in my High School years. For my High School was fully and intentionally diverse. And at that time, there were two techniques of grouping people.  These techniques were by [1] merit, and [2] by random association. Or in other words; "diversity". Thus we can compare diversity against merit as the criteria used in a selection process.

Funny Pictures

Picture Dump 1

Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.

Be the Rufus - 1
Be the Rufus, part II. More tales of heroism.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 3.
Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 4.
Here are some more fine, fine videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 5.
Here are even more fine, fine videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like int he same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 6.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 7.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 7.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 8.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 8.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 9.
We all have a need to participate within our communities, to have a role, and to give meaning to our lives. This role is important, and it is such that it often can call upon us to be heroic in acts and deeds. This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 9.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 10.
We all have a need to participate within our communities, to have a role, and to give meaning to our lives. This role is important, and it is such that it often can call upon us to be heroic in acts and deeds. This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 10.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 11.
Here are some more stories, videos and micro-movies of personal examples of heroism, and being a Rufus. They all take place in China, because, that is, well, where I live. Here you can see that personal heroes come in different sizes and shapes and that being a hero is our highest calling in our world. Be the hero. Be the Rufus.
Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
It is our highest calling to help others in need. Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Be the Rufus and make the world a better place.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 14.
It is our highest calling to help others in need. Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Be the Rufus and make the world a better place.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 5.

More stories of personal heroism in China. This is part five.

I have just posted parts 3 and 4 and almost immediately were besieged by a few trolls that thought that I was "unpatriotic" because all the videos are from China. 

Well, the videos are from China because that is where I live, and that is what I have. 

If you are in the United States and have USA videos that are not copyright protected, then you can certainly go ahead and post those ones. Please do so. 

I would welcome them, and so would the rest of the world. We need to see that there are good people all over the world!

People! There are good people all over the world. And you, yes YOU! are one of them!

Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.

Make a difference. Be like Rufus!

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

These are all micro-videos of very short duration. From ten seconds to three minutes. I would suggest that you, the reader, allow them to load to get the full experience.

Video 1 – Child stuck while egressing from a window in a residential apartment.

There are a reason why there are bars on the windows in many Chinese houses. It is to keep the young children from climbing out the window and plunging down 10+ stories to their deaths. Never the less, the children don’t really understand fear, and pain and death. They don’t know, and they can really get into trouble if not attended to.

Here, we have a small boy that tried to climb outside of his barred window, and luckily got stuck, instead of plunging to his death.

What would you do if you witnessed this? Would you walk by? Play on your cell phone, or wait for the police? Or would you be the Rufus?

Video 2 – Dog defends a woman from a mugger.

Here’s a local village dog. Minding his own business. Probably doesn’t know this woman at all. He’s just going about his way, smelling things, eating trash and prowling for other dogs to play with. Then suddenly he sees another woman being mugged.

What does he do?

Watch…

Video 3 – 14 year old boy saves an infant.

Being a hero can happen at any time to any one. It might be big and important or not. You might be ready or not. You might know what to do or not.

Here we have a 14 year old boy who volunteers to save a tiny baby stuck in a very tiny hole in the ground…

Video 4 – Accident in front of a police station.

Accidents are terrible things. People die. Or you could get wounded in a way that your life is forever changed. Well, what happens when you smash up in front of a police station…?

Video 5 – Cleaning up after protestors wreck the street.

Everyone in the Western news knows about the “pro democracy” protests. They want “freedom” from China. Except that is not at all true. They are protesting because their future prospects are collapsing by a handful of super-wealthy people that own all the property in HK, and are slowly turning into serfs. It’s a legacy of Britain, and China has inherited it.

Anyways…

Most people deeply resent the protestors, and view HK as their home, where they live, and where their friends and families live. They do not want it destroyed by some teenage punks. So they help clean things up and set things right.

Like this businessman…

Video 6 – Rescue of a baby that rolled on to the train tracks.

This is like one of those old Hannah-Barbara cartoons turned into a real-life nightmare! A baby in a stroller rolls off the train station and onto the tracks where a High-Speed Train is fast approaching. You only have seconds. What would you do?

You’d be the Rufus.

Video 7 – Rescue of a girl being mugged.

China is a very safe nation. One of the reasons for this is that the people are empowered to take action. They will never worry about being sued by some high-priced lawyer for helping someone, or risk arrest because they broke some obscure law.

Here we see a girl getting mugged, and a businessman, who takes action!

BE . THE . RUFUS !

Video 8 – Woman tackles a dog that decides to attack a small child.

No dog is going to attack any child in my town, I’ll tell you what. It is unacceptable behavior and whether or not you love that rottweiler is of no consequence when the well-being of a child is of concern…

Video 9 – Woman collapses in a parking lot.

When someone is in distress, what do you do? Would you stare into your cell phone and keep walking? Would you pretend not to notice? Would you worry what your boss would say when you arrive to work late?

You be the Rufus.

Video 10 – Guy falls out of a window and needs immediate rescue.

It’s not just children that fall out of windows, it can be adults as well. We do not know what the story is here, but obviously the fellow is in distress and needs immediate assistance.

Good thing that Rufus is around.

Conclusion

We do not know when the calling will come. However, when it call, you must take action. It will not make you wealthy, rich, famous, or attractive. But, it will make a difference when you are judged upon death. Be the Rufus. Make a difference. Help others. It’s our highest calling.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Some of my favorite links and browser bookmarks.
Here are just some pretty decent websites, bookmarks, URL's and sites that I would like to share. I think that there is something here for everyone. These, in my mind, are the "cream of the crop" of underappreciated websites, and some places that you all might want to visit.
Mongolian Women under Genghis Khan
The history of how Australia obtained Sheilas; the story of The Lady Juliana, The 18th-Century Prison Ship Filled With Women.   This is the story of the Lady Juliana. This was a special ship designed to convey female convicts from England to Australia. The idea was that a boat load of female convicts would happily link up with a colony of convicts in Australia. Thus making everyone very, very happy, and reform the colony in New South Wales.
What is going on in Hollywood?
Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Gaslighting
Link
Link
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
The Navy is scrapping the F/A-18 Hornet.
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
How to manage a family household.
Link
The most popular American foods.
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Asian Nazi Chic
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
The Confederados
Democracy Lessons
The Rule of Eight
What High School taught me about Diversity.  Here we look at idea of "diversity" from the point of view of what it was like in my High School years. For my High School was fully and intentionally diverse. And at that time, there were two techniques of grouping people.  These techniques were by [1] merit, and [2] by random association. Or in other words; "diversity". Thus we can compare diversity against merit as the criteria used in a selection process.

Funny Pictures

Picture Dump 1

Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.

Be the Rufus - 1
Be the Rufus, part II. More tales of heroism.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 3.
Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 4.
Here are some more fine, fine videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 5.
Here are even more fine, fine videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like int he same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 6.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 7.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 7.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 8.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 8.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 9.
We all have a need to participate within our communities, to have a role, and to give meaning to our lives. This role is important, and it is such that it often can call upon us to be heroic in acts and deeds. This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 9.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 10.
We all have a need to participate within our communities, to have a role, and to give meaning to our lives. This role is important, and it is such that it often can call upon us to be heroic in acts and deeds. This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 10.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 11.
Here are some more stories, videos and micro-movies of personal examples of heroism, and being a Rufus. They all take place in China, because, that is, well, where I live. Here you can see that personal heroes come in different sizes and shapes and that being a hero is our highest calling in our world. Be the hero. Be the Rufus.
Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
It is our highest calling to help others in need. Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Be the Rufus and make the world a better place.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 14.
It is our highest calling to help others in need. Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Be the Rufus and make the world a better place.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

The Cask of Amontillado (Full Text) by Edgar Allan Poe

This is a full text version in HTML for the short story by Edgar Allan Poe titled “The Cask of Amontillado”. I consider it one of his best stories.

The story is set in a nameless Italian city in an unspecified year and is about the narrator’s deadly revenge on a friend whom he believes has insulted him. Like several of Poe’s stories, and in keeping with the 19th-century fascination with the subject, the narrative revolves around a person being buried alive-in this case, by immurement.

What is Immurement? Immurement (from Latin im- “in” and murus “wall”; literally “walling in”) is a form of imprisonment, usually for life, in which a person is locked within an enclosed space and all possible exits turned into impassable walls. When used as a means of execution, the prisoner is simply left to die from starvation or dehydration. This is different from being buried alive, in which the victim typically dies of asphyxiation.

Please enjoy.

The Cask of Amontillado

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled – but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

     It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

     He had a weak point – this Fortunato – although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; – I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.

     It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

     I said to him – ‘My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking today. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.’

     ‘How?’ said he. ‘Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!’

     ‘I have my doubts,’ I replied; ‘and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.’

     ‘Amontillado!’

     ‘I have my doubts.’

     ‘Amontillado!’

     ‘And I must satisfy them.’

     ‘Amontillado!’

     ‘As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me -‘

     ‘Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.’

     ‘And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.’

     ‘Come, let us go.’

     ‘Whither?’

     ‘To your vaults.’

     ‘My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi -‘

     ‘I have no engagement; – come.’

     ‘My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.’

     ‘Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.’

     Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

     There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in hour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicitly orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.

     I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

     The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.

     ‘The pipe,’ he said.

     ‘It is farther on,’ said I; ‘but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls.’

     He turned towards me, and looked onto my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

     ‘Nitre?’ he asked, at length.

     ‘Nitre,’ I replied. ‘How long have you had that cough?’

     ‘Ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh!’

     ‘My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

     ‘It is nothing,’ he said, at last.

     ‘Come,’ I said, with decision, ‘we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi -‘

     ‘Enough,’ he said; ‘the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.’

     ‘True – true,’ I replied; ‘and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily – but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.’

     Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

     ‘Drink,’ I said, presenting him the wine.

     ‘He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

     ‘I drink,’ he said, ‘to the buried that repose around us.’

     ‘And I to your long life’

     He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

     ‘These vaults,’ he said, ‘are extensive.’

     ‘The Montresors,’ I replied, ‘were a great and numerous family.’

     ‘I forget your arms.’

     ‘A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.’

     ‘And the motto?’

     ‘Nemo me impune lacessit.’

     ‘Good!’ he said.

     ‘The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

     ‘The nitre!’ I said; ‘see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough -‘

     ‘It is nothing,’ he said; ‘let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc.’

     I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

     I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement – a grotesque one.

     ‘You do not comprehend?’ he said.

     ‘Not I,’ I replied.

     ‘Then you are not of the brotherhood.’

     ‘How?’

     ‘You are not of the masons.’

     ‘Yes, yes,’ I said; ‘yes, yes.’

     ‘You? Impossible! A mason?’

     ‘A mason,’ I replied.

     ‘A sign,’ he said, ‘a sign’

     ‘It is this,’ I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.

     ‘You jest,’ he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. ‘But let us proceed to the Amontillado.’

     ‘Be it so,’ I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

     At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

     It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his full torch, endeavoured to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.

     ‘Proceed,’ I said; ‘herin is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi -‘

     ‘He is an ignoramus,’ interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

     ‘Pass your hand,’ I said, ‘over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.’

     ‘The Amontillado!’ ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

     ‘True,’ I replied; ‘the Amontillado.’

     As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.

     I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The nose lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

     A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I re-approached the wall; I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.

     It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I paced it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said –

     ‘Ha! ha! ha! – he! he! he! – a very good joke, indeed – and excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo – he! he! he! – over our wine – he! he! he!’

     ‘The Amontillado!’ I said.

     ‘He! he! he! – he! he! he! – yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.’

     ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘let us be gone.’

     ‘For the love of God, Montresor!’

     But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew inpatient. I called aloud –

     ‘Fortunato!’

     No answer. I called again

     ‘Fortunato!’

     No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. Of the half of a century no mortal had disturbed them. In pace requiescat!

The End

Movies that Inspired Me

Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
Jason and the Argonauts
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
R is for Rocket
Space Cadet (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Link
Link
Link
Correspondence Course
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger
Life-Line
The Tax-payer
The Pedestrian
Time for the stars.
Glory Road by Robert Heinlein
Starman Jones (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein.
The Lottery (Full Text) by Shirley Jackson
The Cold Equations (Full Text)
Farnham's Freehold (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Invisible Boy (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury
Job: A Comedy of Justice (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Spell my name with an "S" by Isaac Asimov
The Proud Robot (Full Text)
The Time Locker
Not the First (Full Text) by A.E. van Vogt
The Star Mouse (Full Text)
Space Jockey (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
He who shrank (Full Text).
Blowups Happen by Robert Heinlein
Uncle Eniar by Ray Bradbury

My Poetry

My Kitten Knows

Art that Moves Me

An experiment of a bird in a vacuum jar.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

The Cold Equations (Full Text) by Tom Godwin

The Cold Equations appeared in the August 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. I can do no better than John Campbell’s original preface to this story: “The Frontier is a strange place – and a frontier is not always easy to recognize. It may lie on the other side of a simple door marked ‘No admittance’ – but it is always deadly dangerous.” — ed, N.E. Lilly

The Cold Equations

by Tom Godwin ©1954 (Public Domain)

He was not alone.

There was nothing to indicate the fact but the white hand of the tiny gauge on the board before him. The control room was empty but for himself; there was no sound other than the murmur of the drives — but the white hand had moved. It had been on zero when the little ship was launched from the Stardust; now, an hour later, it had crept up. There was something in the supply closet across the room, it was saying, some kind of a body that radiated heat.

It could be but one kind of a body — a living, human body.

He leaned back in the pilot’s chair and drew a deep, slow breath, considering what he would have to do. He was an EDS pilot, inured to the sight of death, long since accustomed to it and to viewing the dying of another man with an objective lack of emotion, and he had no choice in what he must do. There could be no alternative — but it required a few moments of conditioning for even an EDS pilot to prepare himself to walk across the room and coldly, deliberately, take the life of a man he had yet to meet.

He would, of course, do it. It was the law, stated very bluntly and definitely in grim Paragraph L, Section 8, of Interstellar Regulations: “Any stowaway discovered in an EDS shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery.”

It was the law, and there could be no appeal.

It was a law not of men’s choosing but made imperative by the circumstances of the space frontier. Galactic expansion had followed the development of the hyperspace drive, and as men scattered wide across the frontier, there had come the problem of contact with the isolated first colonies and exploration parties. The huge hyperspace cruisers were the product of the combined genius and effort of Earth and were long and expensive in the building. They were not available in such numbers that small colonies could possess them. The cruisers carried the colonists to their new worlds and made periodic visits, running on tight schedules, but they could not stop and turn aside to visit colonies scheduled to be visited at another time; such a delay would destroy their schedule and produce a confusion and uncertainty that would wreck the complex interdependence between old Earth and the new worlds of the frontier.

Some method of delivering supplies or assistance when an emergency occurred on a world not scheduled for a visit had been needed, and the Emergency Dispatch Ships had been the answer. Small and collapsible, they occupied little room in the hold of the cruiser; made of light metal and plastics, they were driven by a small rocket drive that consumed relatively little fuel. Each cruiser carried four EDSs, and when a call for aid was received, the nearest cruiser would drop into normal space long enough to launch an EDS with the needed supplies or personnel, then vanish again as it continued on its course.

The cruisers, powered by nuclear converters, did not use the liquid rocket fuel, but nuclear converters were far too large and complex to permit their installation in the EDSs. The cruisers were forced by necessity to carry a limited amount of bulky rocket fuel, and the fuel was rationed with care, the cruiser’s computers determining the exact amount of fuel each EDS would require for its mission. The computers considered the course coordinates, the mass of the EDS, the mass of pilot and cargo; they were very precise and accurate and omitted nothing from their calculations. They could not, however, foresee and allow for the added mass of a stowaway.

The Stardust had received the request from one of the exploration parties stationed on Woden, the six men of the party already being stricken with the fever carried by the green kala midges and their own supply of serum destroyed by the tornado that had torn through their camp. The Stardust had gone through the usual procedure, dropping into normal space to launch the EDS with the fever serum, then vanishing again in hyperspace. Now, an hour later, the gauge was saying there was something more than the small carton of serum in the supply closet.

He let his eyes rest on the narrow white door of the closet. There, just inside, another man lived and breathed and was beginning to feel assured that discovery of his presence would now be too late for the pilot to alter the situation. It was too late; for the man behind the door it was far later than he thought and in a way he would find it terrible to believe.

There could be no alternative. Additional fuel would be used during the hours of deceleration to compensate for the added mass of the stowaway, infinitesimal increments of fuel that would not be missed until the ship had almost reached its destination. Then, at some distance above the ground that might be as near as a thousand feet or as far as tens of thousands of feet, depending upon the mass of ship and cargo and the preceding period of deceleration, the unmissed increments of fuel would make their absence known; the EDS would expend its last drops of fuel with a sputter and go into whistling free fall. Ship and pilot and stowaway would merge together upon impact as a wreckage of metal and plastic, flesh and blood, driven deep into the soil. The stowaway had signed his own death warrant when he concealed himself on the ship; he could not be permitted to take seven others with him.

He looked again at the telltale white hand, then rose to his feet. What he must do would be unpleasant for both of them; the sooner it was over, the better. He stepped across the control room to stand by the white door.

“Come out!” His command was harsh and abrupt above the murmur of the drive.

It seemed he could hear the whisper of a furtive movement inside the closet, then nothing. He visualized the stowaway cowering closer into one corner, suddenly worried by the possible consequences of his act, his self-assurance evaporating.

“I said out!”

He heard the stowaway move to obey, and he waited with his eyes alert on the door and his hand near the blaster at his side.

The door opened and the stowaway stepped through it, smiling. “All right — I give up. Now what?”

It was a girl.

He stared without speaking, his hand dropping away from the blaster, and acceptance of what

he saw coming like a heavy and unexpected physical blow. The stowaway was not a man — she was a girl in her teens, standing before him in little white gypsy sandals, with the top of her brown, curly head hardly higher than his shoulder, with a faint, sweet scent of perfume coming from her, and her smiling face tilted up so her eyes could look unknowing and unafraid into his as she waited for his answer.

Now what? Had it been asked in the deep, defiant voice of a man, he would have answered it with action, quick and efficient. He would have taken the stowaway’s identification disk and ordered him into the air lock. Had the stowaway refused to obey, he would have used the blaster. It would not have taken long; within a minute the body would have been ejected into space — had the stowaway been a man.

He returned to the pilot’s chair and motioned her to seat herself on the boxlike bulk of the drive-control units that were set against the wall beside him. She obeyed, his silence making the smile

fade into the meek and guilty expression of a pup that has been caught in mischief and knows it must be punished.

“You still haven’t told me,” she said. “I’m guilty, so what happens to me now? Do I pay a fine, or what?”

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Why did you stow away on this EDS?”

“I wanted to see my brother. He’s with the government survey crew on Woden and I haven’t seen him for ten years, not since he left Earth to go into government survey work.” “What was your destination on the Stardust?”

“Mimir. I have a position waiting for me there. My brother has been sending money home all the time to us

— my father and mother and me — and he paid for a special course in linguistics I was taking. I graduated sooner than expected and I was offered this job in Mimir. I knew it would be almost a year before Gerry’s job was done on Woden so he could come on to Mimir, and that’s why I hid in the closet there. There was plenty of room for me and I was willing to pay the fine. There were only the two of us kids — Gerry and I — and I haven’t seen him for so long, and I didn’t want to wait another year when I could see him now, even though I knew I would be breaking some kind of a regulation when I did it.”

I knew I would be breaking some kind of a regulation. In a way, she could not be blamed for her ignorance of the law; she was of Earth and had not realized that the laws of the space frontier must, of necessity, be as hard and relentless as the environment that gave them birth. Yet, to protect such as her from the results of their own ignorance of the frontier, there had been a sign over the door that led to the section of the Stardustthat housed the EDSs, a sign that was plain for all to see and heed: UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT!

“Does your brother know that you took passage on the Stardust for Mimir?”

“Oh, yes. I sent him a spacegram telling him about my graduation and about going to Mimir on the Stardust a month before I left Earth. I already knew Mimir was where he would be stationed in a little over a year. He gets a promotion then, and he’ll be based on Mimir and not have to stay out a year at a time on field trips, like he does now.”

There were two different survey groups on Woden, and he asked, “What is his name?” “Cross — Gerry Cross. He’s in Group Two — that was the way his address read. Do you know him?”

Group One had requested the serum: Group Two was eight thousand miles away, across the Western Sea.

“No, I’ve never met him,” he said, then turned to the control board and cut the deceleration to a fraction of a gravity, knowing as he did so that it could not avert the ultimate end, yet doing the only thing he could do to prolong that ultimate end. The sensation was like that of the ship suddenly dropping, and the girls involuntary movement of surprise half lifted her from her seat. “We’re going faster now, aren’t we?” she asked. “Why are we doing that?”

He told her the truth. “To save fuel for a little while.” “You mean we don’t have very much?”

He delayed the answer he must give her so soon to ask, “How did you manage to stow away?”

“I just sort of walked in when no one was looking my way,” she said. “I was practicing my Gelanese on the native girl who does the cleaning in the Ship’s Supply office when someone came in with an order for supplies for the survey crew on Woden. I slipped into the closet there after the ship was ready to go just before you came in. It was an impulse of the moment to stow away, so I could get to see Gerry — and from the way you keep looking at me so grim, I’m not sure it was a very wise impulse. But I’ll be a model criminal — or do I mean prisoner?” She smiled at him again. “I intended to pay for my keep on top of paying the fine. I can cook and I can patch clothes for everyone and I know how to do all kinds of useful things, even a little bit about nursing.”

There was one more question to ask:

“Did you know what the supplies were that the survey crew ordered?” “Why, no. Equipment they needed in their work, I supposed.”

Why couldn’t she have been a man with some ulterior motive? A fugitive from justice hoping to lose himself on a raw new world; an opportunist seeking transportation to the new colonies where he might find golden fleece for the taking; a crackpot with a mission. Perhaps once in his lifetime an EDS pilot would find such a stowaway on his ship — warped men, mean and selfish men, brutal and dangerous men — but never before a smiling, blue-eyed girl who was willing to pay her fine and work for her keep that she might see her brother.

He turned to the board and turned the switch that would signal the Stardust. The call would be futile, but he could not, until he had exhausted that one vain hope, seize her and thrust her into the air lock as he would an animal — or a man. The delay, in the meantime, would not be dangerous with the EDS decelerating at fractional gravity.

A voice spoke from the communicator. “Stardust. Identify yourself and proceed.” “Barton, EDS 34GII. Emergency. Give me Commander Delhart.”

There was a faint confusion of noises as the request went through the proper channels. The girl was watching him, no longer smiling.

“Are you going to order them to come back after me?” she asked.

The communicator clicked and there was the sound of a distant voice saying, “Commander, the EDS requests…”

“Are they coming back after me?” she asked again. “Won’t I get to see my brother after all?” “Barton?” The blunt, gruff voice of Commander Delhart came from the communicator. “What’s this about an emergency?”

“A stowaway,” he answered.

“A stowaway?” There was a slight surprise to the question. “That’s rather unusual — but why the ‘emergency’ call? You discovered him in time, so there should be no appreciable danger, and I presume you’ve informed Ship’s Records so his nearest relatives can be notified.”

“That’s why I had to call you, first. The stowaway is still aboard and the circumstances are so different—”

“Different?” the commander interrupted, impatience in his voice. “How can they be different? You know you have a limited supply of fuel; you also know the law as well as I do: ‘Any stowaway discovered in an EDS shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery.’”

There was the sound of a sharply indrawn breath from the girl. “What does he mean?”

“The stowaway is a girl.”

“What?”

“She wanted to see her brother. She’s only a kid and she didn’t know what she was really doing.” “I see.” All the curtness was gone from the commander’s voice. “So you called me in the hope I could do something?” Without waiting for an answer he went on, “I’m sorry — I can do nothing. This cruiser must maintain its schedule; the life of not one person but the lives of many depend on it. I know how you feel but I’m powerless to help you. You’ll have to go through with it. I’ll have you connected with Ship’s Records.” The communicator faded to a faint rustle of sound, and he turned back to the girl. She was leaning forward on the bench, almost rigid, her eyes fixed wide and frightened.

“What did he mean, to go through with it? To jettison me… to go through with it — what did he mean? Not the way it sounded… he couldn’t have. What did he mean — what did he really mean?”

Her time was too short for the comfort of a lie to be more than a cruelly fleeting delusion. “He meant it the way it sounded.”“No!” She recoiled from him as though he had struck her, one hand half raised as though to fend him off and stark unwillingness to believe in her eyes. “It will have to be.” “No! You’re joking — you’re insane! You can’t mean it!” “I’m sorry.” He spoke slowly to her, gently. “I should have told you before — I should have, but I had to do what I could first; I had to call the Stardust. You heard what the commander said.” “But you can’t — if you make me leave the ship, I’ll die.”

“I know.”

She searched his face, and the unwillingness to believe left her eyes, giving way slowly to a look of dazed horror. “You know?” She spoke the words far apart, numbly and wonderingly. “I know. It has to be like that.”

“You mean it — you really mean it.” She sagged back against the wall, small and limp like a little rag doll, and all the protesting and disbelief gone. “You’re going to do it — you’re going to make me die?” “I’m sorry,” he said again. “You’ll never know how sorry I am. It has to be that way and no human in the universe can change it.”

“You’re going to make me die and I didn’t do anything to die for — I didn’t do anything—” He sighed, deep and weary. “I know you didn’t, child. I know you didn’t.” “EDS.” The communicator rapped brisk and metallic. “This is Ship’s Records. Give us all information on subject’s identification disk.” He got out of his chair to stand over her. She clutched the edge of the seat, her upturned face white under the brown hair and the lipstick standing out like a blood-red cupid’s bow.

“Now?”

“I want your identification disk,” he said. She released the edge of the seat and fumbled at the chain that suspended the plastic disk from her neck with fingers that were trembling and awkward. He reached down and unfastened the clasp for her, then returned with the disk to his chair. “Here’s your data, Records: Identification Number T837—” “One moment,” Records interrupted. “This is to be filed on the gray card, of course?” “Yes.” “And the time of execution?” “I’ll tell you later.” “Later? This is highly irregular; the time of the subject’s death is required before—” He kept the thickness out of his voice with an effort. “Then we’ll do it in a highly irregular manner — you’ll hear the disk read first. The subject is a girl and she’s listening to everything that’s said. Are you capable of understanding that?” There was a brief, almost shocked silence; then Records said meekly, “Sorry. Go ahead.”

He began to read the disk, reading it slowly to delay the inevitable for as long as possible, trying to help her by giving her what little time he could to recover from her first horror and let it resolve into the calm of acceptance and resignation.

“Number T8374 dash Y54. Name, Marilyn Lee Cross. Sex, female. Born July 7, 2160.” She was only eighteen. “Height, five-three. Weight, a hundred and ten.” Such a slight weight, yet enough to add fatally to the mass of the shell-thin bubble that was an EDS. “Hair, brown. Eyes, blue. Complexion, light. Blood type O.” Irrelevant data. “Destination, Port City, Mimir.” Invalid data.

He finished and said, “I’ll call you later,” then turned once again to the girl. She was huddled back against the wall, watching him with a look of numb and wondering fascination.

“They’re waiting for you to kill me, aren’t they? They want me dead, don’t they? You and everybody on the cruiser want me dead, don’t you?” Then the numbness broke and her voice was that of a frightened and bewildered child. “Everybody wants me dead and I didn’t do anything. I didn’t hurt anyone — I only wanted to see my brother.” “It’s not the way you think — it isn’t that way at all,” he said. “Nobody wants it this way; nobody would ever let it be this way if it was humanly possible to change it.”

“Then why is it? I don’t understand. Why is it?” “This ship is carrying kala fever serum to Group One on Woden. Their own supply was destroyed by a tornado. Group Two — the crew your brother is in is eight thousand miles away across the Western Sea, and their helicopters can’t cross it to help Group One. The fever is invariably fatal unless the serum can be had in time, and the six men in Group One will die unless this ship reaches them on schedule. These little ships are always given barely enough fuel to reach their destination, and if you stay aboard, your added weight will cause it to use up all its fuel before it reaches the ground. It will crash then, and you and I will die and so will the six men waiting for the fever serum.”

It was a full minute before she spoke, and as she considered his words, the expression of numbness left her eyes. “Is that it?” she asked at last. “Just that the ship doesn’t have enough fuel?” “Yes.” “I can go alone or I can take seven others with me — is that the way it is?” “That’s the way it is.” “And nobody wants me to have to die?” “Nobody.”

“Then maybe — Are you sure nothing can be done about it? Wouldn’t people help me if they could?” “Everyone would like to help you, but there is nothing anyone can do. I did the only thing I could do when I called the Stardust.”

“And it won’t come back — but there might be other cruisers, mightn’t there? Isn’t there any hope at all that there might be someone, somewhere, who could do something to help me?” She was leaning forward a little in her eagerness as she waited for his answer.

“No.” The word was like the drop of a cold stone and she again leaned back against the wall, the hope and eagerness leaving her face. “You’re sure — you know you’re sure?”

“I’m sure. There are no other cruisers within forty light-years; there is nothing and no one to change things.” She dropped her gaze to her lap and began twisting a pleat of her skirt between her fingers, saying no more as her mind began to adapt itself to the grim knowledge.

It was better so; with the going of all hope would go the fear; with the going of all hope would come resignation. She needed time and she could have so little of it. How much?

The EDSs were not equipped with hull-cooling units; their speed had to be reduced to a moderate level before they entered the atmosphere. They were decelerating at .10 gravity, approaching their destination at a far higher speed than the computers had calculated on. The Stardust had been quite near Woden when she launched the EDS; their present velocity was putting them nearer by the second. There would be a critical point, soon to be reached, when he would have to resume deceleration. When he did so, the girls weight would be multiplied by the gravities of deceleration, would become, suddenly, a factor of paramount importance, the factor the computers had been ignorant of when they determined the amount of fuel the EDS should have. She would have to go when deceleration began; it could be no other way. When would that be

— how long could he let her stay? “How long can I stay?”

He winced involuntarily from the words that were so like an echo of his own thoughts. How long? He didn’t know; he would have to ask the ship’s computers. Each EDS was given a meager surplus of fuel to compensate for unfavorable conditions within the atmosphere, and relatively little fuel was being consumed for the time being. The memory banks of the computers would still contain all data pertaining to the course set for the EDS; such data would not be erased until the EDS reached its destination. He had only to give the computers the new data — the girl’s weight and the exact time at which he had reduced the deceleration to .10.
“Barton.” Commander Delhart’s voice came abruptly from the communicator as he opened his mouth to call the Stardust. “A check with Records shows me you haven’t completed your report.

Did you reduce the deceleration?”

So the commander knew what he was trying to do.

“I’m decelerating at point ten,” he answered. “I cut the deceleration at seventeen fifty and the weight is a hundred and ten. I would like to stay at point ten as long as the computers say I can. Will you give them the question?”

It was contrary to regulations for an EDS pilot to make any changes in the course or degree of deceleration the computers had set for him, but the commander made no mention of the violation. Neither did he ask the reason for it. It was not necessary for him to ask; he had not become commander of an interstellar cruiser without both intelligence and an understanding of human nature.

He said only, “I’ll have that given to the computers.”

The communicator fell silent and he and the girl waited, neither of them speaking. They would not have to wait long; the computers would give the answer within moments of the asking. The new factors would be fed into the steel maw of the first bank, and the electrical impulses would go through the complex circuits. Here and there a relay might click, a tiny cog turn over, but it would be essentially the electrical impulses that found the answer; formless, mindless, invisible, determining with utter precision how long the pale girl beside him might live. Then five little segments of metal in the second bank would trip in rapid succession against an inked ribbon and a second steel maw would spit out the slip of paper that bore the answer.

The chronometer on the instrument board read 18:10 when the commander spoke again. “You will resume deceleration at nineteen ten.”She looked toward the chronometer, then quickly away from it. “Is that when… when I go?” she asked. He nodded and she dropped her eyes to her lap again.

“I’ll have the course correction given to you,” the commander said.

“Ordinarily I would never permit anything like this, but I understand your position. There is nothing I can do, other than what I’ve just done, and you will not deviate from these new instructions. You will complete your report at nineteen ten. Now — here are the course corrections.”

The voice of some unknown technician read them to him, and he wrote them down on the pad clipped to the edge of the control board. There would, he saw, be periods of deceleration when he neared the atmosphere when the deceleration would be five gravities — and at five gravities, one hundred ten pounds would become five hundred fifty pounds.

The technician finished and he terminated the contact with a brief acknowledgment. Then, hesitating a moment, he reached out and shut off the communicator. It was 18:13 and he would have nothing to report until 19:10. In the meantime, it somehow seemed indecent to permit others to hear what she might say in her last hour.

He began to check the instrument readings, going over them with unnecessary slowness. She would have to accept the circumstances, and there was nothing he could do to help her into acceptance; words of sympathy would only delay it.

It was 18:20 when she stirred from her motionlessness and spoke. “So that’s the way it has to be with me?”He swung around to face her. “You understand now, don’t you? No one would ever let it be like this if it could be changed.”

“I understand,” she said. Some of the color had returned to her face and the lipstick no longer stood out so vividly red. “There isn’t enough fuel for me to stay. When I hid on this ship, I got into something I didn’t know anything about and now I have to pay for it.”

She had violated a man-made law that said KEEP OUT, but the penalty was not for men’s making or desire and it was a penalty men could not revoke. A physical law had decreed: h amount of fuel will power an EDS with a mass of m safely to its destination; and a second physical law had decreed: h amount of fuel will not power an EDS with a mass of m plus x safely to its destination.
EDSs obeyed only physical laws, and no amount of human sympathy for her could alter the second law.

“But I’m afraid. I don’t want to die — not now. I want to live, and nobody is doing anything to help me; everybody is letting me go ahead and acting just like nothing was going to happen to me. I’m going to die and nobody cares.

“We all do,” he said. “I do and the commander does and the clerk in Ship’s Records; we all care and each of us did what little he could to help you. It wasn’t enough — it was almost nothing — but it was all we could do.”

“Not enough fuel — I can understand that,” she said, as though she had not heard his own words. “But to have to die for it.Me alone…”

How hard it must be for her to accept the fact. She had never known danger of death, had never known the environments where the lives of men could be as fragile and fleeting as sea foam tossed against a rocky shore. She belonged on gentle Earth, in that secure and peaceful society where she could be young and gay and laughing with the others of her kind, where life was precious and well guarded and there was always the assurance that tomorrow would come. She belonged in that world of soft winds and a warm sun, music and moonlight and gracious manners, and not on the hard, bleak frontier.

“How did it happen to me so terribly quickly? An hour ago I was on the Stardust, going to Mimir. Now the Stardust is going on without me and I’m going to die and I’ll never see Gerry and Mama and Daddy again — I’ll never see anything again.”

He hesitated, wondering how he could explain it to her so she would really understand and not feel she had somehow been the victim of a reasonlessly cruel injustice. She did not know what the frontier was like; she thought in terms of safe, secure Earth. Pretty girls were not jettisoned on Earth; there was a law against it. On Earth her plight would have filled the newscasts and a fast black patrol ship would have been racing to her rescue. Everyone, everywhere, would have known of Marilyn Lee Cross, and no effort would have been spared to save her life. But this was not Earth and there were no patrol ships; only the Stardust, leaving them behind at many times the speed of light. There was no one to help her; there would be no Marilyn Lee Cross smiling from the newscasts tomorrow. Marilyn Lee Cross would be but a poignant memory for an EDS pilot and a name on a gray card in Ship’s Records.

“It’s different here; it’s not like back on Earth,” he said. “It isn’t that no one cares; it’s that no one can do anything to help. The frontier is big, and here along its rim the colonies and exploration parties are scattered so thin and far between. On Woden, for example, there are only sixteen men — sixteen men on an entire world. The exploration parties, the survey crews, the little first colonies — they’re all fighting alien environments, trying to make a way for those who will follow after. The environments fight back, and those who go first usually make mistakes only once. There is no margin of safety along the rim of the frontier; there can’t be until the way is made for the others who will come later, until the new worlds are tamed and settled. Until then men will have to pay the penalty for making mistakes, with no one to help them, because there is no one to help them.”

“I was going to Mimir,” she said. “I didn’t know about the frontier; I was only going to Mimir and it’s safe.”

“Mimir is safe, but you left the cruiser that was taking you there.”
She was silent for a little while. “It was all so wonderful at first; there was plenty of room for me on this ship and I would be seeing Gerry so soon. I didn’t know about the fuel, didn’t know what would happen to me…”

Her words trailed away, and he turned his attention to the viewscreen, not wanting to stare at her as she fought her way through the black horror of fear toward the calm gray of acceptance.

Woden was a ball, enshrouded in the blue haze of its atmosphere, swimming in space against the background of star-sprinkled dead blackness. The great mass of Manning’s Continent sprawled like a gigantic hourglass in the Eastern Sea, with the western half of the Eastern Continent still visible. There was a thin line of shadow along the right–hand edge of the globe, and the Eastern Continent was disappearing into it as the planet turned on its axis. An hour before, the entire continent had been in view; now a thousand miles of it had gone into the thin edge of shadow and around to the night that lay on the other side of the world. The dark blue spot that was Lotus Lake was approaching the shadow. It was somewhere near the southern edge of the lake that Group Two had their camp. It would be night there soon, and quick behind the coming of night the rotation of Woden on its axis would put Group Two beyond the reach of the ship’s radio.

He would have to tell her before it was too late for her to talk to her brother. In a way, it would be better for both of them should they not do so, but it was not for him to decide. To each of them the last words would be something to hold and cherish, something that would cut like the blade of a knife yet would be infinitely precious to remember, she for her own brief moments to live and he for the rest of his life.

He held down the button that would flash the grid lines on the viewscreen and used the known diameter of the planet to estimate the distance the southern tip of Lotus Lake had yet to go until it passed beyond radio range. It was approximately five hundred miles. Five hundred miles; thirty minutes and the chronometer read 18:30. Allowing for error in estimating, it would not be later than 19:05 that the turning of Woden would cut off her brother’s voice.

The first border of the Western continent was already in sight along the left side of the world. Four thousand miles across it lay the shore of the Western Sea and the camp of Group One. It had been in the Western Sea that the tornado had originated, to strike with such fury at the camp and destroy half their prefabricated buildings, including the one that housed the medical supplies. Two days before, the tornado had not existed; it had been no more than great gentle masses of air over the calm Western Sea.

Group One had gone about their routine survey work, unaware of the meeting of air masses out at sea, unaware of the force the union was spawning. It had struck their camp without warning — a thundering, roaring destruction that sought to annihilate all that lay before it. It had passed on, leaving the wreckage in its wake. It had destroyed the labor of months and had doomed six men to die and then, as though its task was accomplished, it once more began to resolve into gentle masses of air. But, for all its deadliness, it had destroyed with neither malice nor intent. It had been a blind and mindless force, obeying the laws of nature, and it would have followed the same course with the same fury had men never existed.

Existence required order, and there was order; the laws of nature, irrevocable and immutable. Men could learn to use them, but men could not change them. The circumference of a circle was always pi times the diameter, and no science of man would ever make it otherwise. The combination of chemical A with chemical B under condition C invariably produced reaction D. The law of gravitation was a rigid equation, and it made no distinction between the fall of a leaf and the ponderous circling of a binary star system.

The nuclear conversion process powered the cruisers that carried men to the stars; the same process in the form of a nova would destroy a world with equal efficiency. The laws were, and the universe moved in obedience to them. Along the frontier were arrayed all the forces of nature, and sometimes they destroyed those who were fighting their way outward from Earth.

The men of the frontier had long ago learned the bitter futility of cursing the forces that would destroy them, for the forces were blind and deaf; the futility of looking to the heavens for mercy, for the stars of the galaxy swung in their long, long sweep of two hundred million years, as inexorably controlled as they by the laws that knew neither hatred nor compassion. The men of the frontier knew — but how was a girl from Earth to fully understand? h amount of fuel will not power an EDS with a mass of m plus x safely to its destination. To him and her brother and parents she was a sweet-faced girl in her teens; to the laws of nature she was x, the unwanted factor in a cold equation.

She stirred again on the seat. “Could I write a letter? I want to write to Mama and Daddy. And I’d like to talk to Gerry. Could you let me talk to him over your radio there?”

“I’ll try to get him,” he said.

He switched on the normal-space transmitter and pressed the signal button. Someone answered the buzzer almost immediately.

“Hello. How’s it going with you fellows now — is the EDS on its way?” “This isn’t Group One; this is the EDS,” he said. “Is Gerry Cross there?”

“Gerry? He and two others went out in the helicopter this morning and aren’t back yet. It’s almost sundown, though, and he ought to be back right away — in less than an hour at the most.”

“Can you connect me through to the radio in his copter?”

“Huh-uh. It’s been out of commission for two months — some printed circuits went haywire and we can’t get any more until the next cruiser stops by. Is it something important — bad news for him, or something?”

“Yes — it’s very important. When he comes in, get him to the transmitter as soon as you possibly can.”

“I’ll do that; I’ll have one of the boys waiting at the field with a truck. Is there anything else I can do?”

“No, I guess that’s all. Get him there as soon as you can and signal me.”

He turned the volume to an inaudible minimum, an act that would not affect the functioning of the signal buzzer, and unclipped the pad of paper from the control board. He tore off the sheet containing his flight instructions and handed the pad to her, together with pencil.

“I’d better write to Gerry too,” she said as she took them. “He might not get back to camp in time.”

She began to write, her fingers still clumsy and uncertain in the way they handled the pencil, and the top of it trembling a little as she poised it between words. He turned back to the viewscreen, to stare at it without seeing it.

She was a lonely little child trying to say her last goodbye, and she would lay out her heart to them. She would tell them how much she loved them and she would tell them to not feel bad about it, that it was only something that must happen eventually to everyone and she was not afraid. The last would be a lie and it would be there to read between the sprawling, uneven lines: a valiant little lie that would make the hurt all the greater for them.

Her brother was of the frontier and he would understand. He would not hate the EDS pilot for doing nothing to prevent her going; he would know there had been nothing the pilot could do. He would understand, though the understanding would not soften the shock and pain when he learned his sister was gone. But the others, her father and mother — they would not understand. They were of Earth and they would think in the manner of those who had never lived where the safety margin of life was a thin, thin line — and sometimes nothing at all. What would they think of the faceless, unknown pilot who had sent her to her death?

They would hate him with cold and terrible intensity, but it really didn’t matter. He would never see them, never know them. He would have only the memories to remind him; only the nights of fear, when a blue-eyed girl in gypsy sandals would come in his dreams to die again…

He scowled at the viewscreen and tried to force his thoughts into less emotional channels. There was nothing he could do to help her. She had unknowingly subjected herself to the penalty of a law that recognized neither innocence nor youth nor beauty, that was incapable of sympathy or leniency. Regret was illogical — and yet, could knowing it to be illogical ever keep it away?

She stopped occasionally, as though trying to find the right words to tell them what she wanted them to know; then the pencil would resume its whispering to the paper. It was 18:37 when she folded the letter in a square and wrote a name on it. She began writing another, twice looking up at the chronometer, as though she feared the black hand might reach its rendezvous before she had finished. It was 18:45 when she folded it as she had done the first letter and wrote a name and address on it.

She held the letters out to him. “Will you take care of these and see that they’re enveloped and mailed?”

“Of course.” He took them from her hand and placed them in a pocket of his gray uniform shirt. “These can’t be sent off until the next cruiser stops by, and the Stardust will have long since told them about me, won’t it?” she asked. He nodded and she went on: “That makes the letters not important in one way, but in another way they’re very important — to me, and to them.” “I know. I understand, and I’ll take care of them.”

She glanced at the chronometer, then back to him. “It seems to move faster all the time, doesn’t it?”

He said nothing, unable to think of anything to say, and she asked, “Do you think Gerry will come back to camp in time?”

“I think so. They said he should be in right away.”

She began to roll the pencil back and forth between her palms. “I hope he does. I feel sick and scared and I want to hear his voice again and maybe I won’t feel so alone. I’m a coward and I can’t help it.”

“No,” he said, “you’re not a coward. You’re afraid, but you’re not a coward.” “Is there a difference?”

He nodded. “A lot of difference.”

“I feel so alone. I never did feel like this before; like I was all by myself and there was nobody to care what happened to me. Always, before, there were Mama and Daddy there and my friends around me. I had lots of friends, and they had a going-away party for me the night before I left.”

Friends and music and laughter for her to remember — and on the viewscreen Lotus Lake was going into the shadow.

“Is it the same with Gerry?” she asked. “I mean, if he should make a mistake, would he have to die for it, all alone and with no one to help him?”

“It’s the same with all, along the frontier; it will always be like that so long as there is a frontier.” “Gerry didn’t tell us. He said the pay was good, and he sent money home all the time because

Daddy’s little shop just brought in a bare living, but he didn’t tell us it was like this.” “He didn’t tell you his work was dangerous?”

“Well — yes. He mentioned that, but we didn’t understand. I always thought danger along the frontier was something that was a lot of fun; an exciting adventure, like in the three-D shows.” A wane smile touched her face for a moment. “Only it’s not, is it? It’s not the same at all, because when it’s real you can’t go home after the show is over.”

“No,” he said. “No, you can’t.”

Her glance flicked from the chronometer to the door of the air lock, then down to the pad and pencil she still held. She shifted her position slightly to lay them on the bench beside her, moving one foot out a little. For the first time he saw that she was not wearing Vegan gypsy sandals, but only cheap imitations; the expensive Vegan leather was some kind of grained plastic, the silver buckle was gilded iron, the jewels were colored glass.

Daddy’s little shop just brought in a bare living… She must have left college in her second year, to take the course in linguistics that would enable her to make her own way and help her brother provide for her parents, earning what she could by part-time work after classes were over. Her personal possessions on the Stardust would be taken back to her parents — they would neither be of much value nor occupy much storage space on the return voyage.

“Isn’t it—” She stopped, and he looked at her questioningly. “Isn’t it cold in here?” she asked, almost apologetically. “Doesn’t it seem cold to you?”

“Why, yes,” he said. He saw by the main temperature gauge that the room was at precisely normal temperature. “Yes, it’s colder than it should be.”

“I wish Gerry would get back before it’s too late. Do you really think he will, and you didn’t just say so to make me feel better?”

“I think he will — they said he would be in pretty soon.” On the viewscreen Lotus Lake had gone into the shadow but for the thin blue line of its western edge, and it was apparent he had overestimated the time she would have in which to talk to her brother.

Reluctantly, he said to her, “His camp will be out of radio range in a few minutes; he’s on that part of Woden that’s in the shadow” — he indicated the viewscreen — “and the turning of Woden will put him beyond contact. There may not be much time left when he comes in — not much time to talk to him before he fades out. I wish I could do something about it — I would call him right now if I could.”

“Not even as much time as I will have to stay?” “I’m afraid not.”

“Then—” She straightened and looked toward the air lock with pale resolution. “Then I’ll go when Gerry passes beyond range. I won’t wait any longer after that — I won’t have anything to wait for.”

Again there was nothing he could say.

“Maybe I shouldn’t wait at all. Maybe I’m selfish — maybe it would be better for Gerry if you just told him about it afterward.”

There was an unconscious pleading for denial in the way she spoke and he said, “He wouldn’t want you to do that, to not wait for him.”

“It’s already coming dark where he is, isn’t it? There will be all the long night before him, and Mama and Daddy don’t know yet that I won’t ever be coming back like I promised them I would. I’ve caused everyone I love to be hurt, haven’t I? I didn’t want to — I didn’t intend to.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault at all. They’ll know that. They’ll understand.” “At first I was so afraid to die that I was a coward and thought only of myself. Now I see how

selfish I was. The terrible thing about dying like this is not that I’ll be gone but that I’ll never see them again; never be able to tell them that I didn’t take them for granted; never be able to tell them I knew of the sacrifices they made to make my life happier, that I knew all the things they did for me and that I loved them so much more than I ever told them.

I’ve never told them any of those things. You don’t tell them such things when you’re young and your life is all before you — you’re so afraid of sounding sentimental and silly. But it’s so different when you have to die — you wish you had told them while you could, and you wish you could tell them you’re sorry for all the little mean things you ever did or said to them. You wish you could tell them that you didn’t really mean to ever hurt their feelings and for them to only remember that you always loved them far more than you ever let them know.”

“You don’t have to tell them that,” he said. “They will know — they’ve always known it.” “Are you sure?” she asked. “How can you be sure? My people are strangers to you.” “Wherever you go, human nature and human hearts are the same.”

“And they will know what I want them to know — that I love them?”

“They’ve always known it, in a way far better than you could ever put in words for them.”

“I keep remembering the things they did for me, and it’s the little things they did that seem to be the most important to me, now. Like Gerry — he sent me a bracelet of fire rubies on my sixteenth birthday. It was beautiful — it must have cost him a month’s pay.

Yet I remember him more for what he did the night my kitten got run over in the street. I was only six years old and he held me in his arms and wiped away my tears and told me not to cry, that Flossy was gone for just a little while, for just long enough to get herself a new fur coat, and she would be on the foot of my bed the very next morning.

I believed him and quit crying and went to sleep dreaming about my kitten coming back. When I woke up the next morning, there was Flossy on the foot of my bed in a brand-new white fur coat, just like he had said she would be. It wasn’t until a long time later that Mama told me Gerry had got the pet-shop owner out of bed at four in the morning and, when the man got mad about it, Gerry told him he was either going to go down and sell him the white kitten right then or he’d break his neck.”

“It’s always the little things you remember people by, all the little things they did because they wanted to do them for you. You’ve done the same for Gerry and your father and mother; all kinds of things that you’ve forgotten about, but that they will never forget.”

“I hope I have. I would like for them to remember me like that.” “They will.”

“I wish—” She swallowed. “The way I’ll die — I wish they wouldn’t ever think of that. I’ve read how people look who die in space — their insides all ruptured and exploded and their lungs out between their teeth and then, a few seconds later, they’re all dry and shapeless and horribly ugly. I don’t want them to ever think of me as something dead and horrible like that.”

“You’re their own, their child and their sister. They could never think of you other than the way you would want them to, the way you looked the last time they saw you.”

“I’m still afraid,” she said. “I can’t help it, but I don’t want Gerry to know it. If he gets back in time, I’m going to act like I’m not afraid at all and—”

The signal buzzer interrupted her, quick and imperative. “Gerry!” She came to her feet. “It’s Gerry now!”

He spun the volume control knob and asked, “Gerry Cross?”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” her brother answered, an undertone of tenseness to his reply. “The bad news — what is it?”

She answered for him, standing close behind him and leaning down a little toward the communicator, her hand resting small and cold on his shoulder.

“Hello, Gerry.” There was only a faint quaver to betray the careful casualness of her voice. “I wanted to see you—” “Marilyn!” There was sudden and terrible apprehension in the way he spoke her name. “What are you doing on that EDS?”

“I wanted to see you,” she said again. “I wanted to see you, so I hid on this ship—” “You hid on it?”

“I’m a stowaway… I didn’t know what it would mean—”

Marilyn!” It was the cry of a man who calls, hopeless and desperate, to someone already and forever gone from him. “What have you done?”

“I… it’s not—” Then her own composure broke and the cold little hand gripped his shoulder convulsively. “Don’t, Gerry — I only wanted to see you; I didn’t intend to hurt you. Please, Gerry, don’t feel like that—”

Something warm and wet splashed on his wrist, and he slid out of the chair to help her into it and swing the microphone down to her level.

“Don’t feel like that. Don’t let me go knowing you feel like that—”

The sob she had tried to hold back choked in her throat, and her brother spoke to her. “Don’t cry, Marilyn.” His voice was suddenly deep and infinitely gentle, with all the pain held out of it. “Don’t cry, Sis — you mustn’t do that. It’s all right, honey — everything is all right.”

“I—” Her lower lip quivered and she bit into it. “I didn’t want you to feel that way — I just wanted us to say goodbye, because I have to go in a minute.”

“Sure — sure. That’s the way it’ll be, Sis. I didn’t mean to sound the way I did.” Then his voice changed to a tone of quick and urgent demand. “EDS — have you called the Stardust? Did you check with the computers?”

“I called the Stardust almost an hour ago. It can’t turn back; there are no other cruisers within forty light-years, and there isn’t enough fuel.”

“Are you sure that the computers had the correct data — sure of everything?”

“Yes — do you think I could ever let it happen if I wasn’t sure? I did everything I could do. If there was anything at all I could do now, I would do it.”

“He tried to help me, Gerry.” Her lower lip was no longer trembling and the short sleeves of her blouse were wet where she had dried her tears. “No one can help me and I’m not going to cry anymore and everything will be all right with you and Daddy and Mama, won’t it?”

“Sure — sure it will. We’ll make out fine.”

Her brother’s words were beginning to come in more faintly, and he turned the volume control to maximum. “He’s going out of range,” he said to her. “He’ll be gone within another minute.”

“You’re fading out, Gerry,” she said. “You’re going out of range. I wanted to tell you — but I can’t now. We must say goodbye so soon — but maybe I’ll see you again. Maybe I’ll come to you in your dreams with my hair in braids and crying because the kitten in my arms is dead; maybe I’ll be the touch of a breeze that whispers to you as it goes by; maybe I’ll be one of those gold-winged larks you told me about, singing my silly head off to you; maybe, at times, I’ll be nothing you can see, but you will know I’m there beside you.

Think of me like that, Gerry; always like that and not — the other way.”

Dimmed to a whisper by the turning of Woden, the answer came back: “Always like that, Marilyn — always like that and never any other way.” “Our time is up, Gerry — I have to go now.

Good—” Her voice broke in midword and her mouth tried to twist into crying. She pressed her hand hard against it and when she spoke again the words came clear and true: “Goodbye, Gerry.” Faint and ineffably poignant and tender, the last words came from the cold metal of the communicator: “Goodbye, little sister…”

She sat motionless in the hush that followed, as though listening to the shadow-echoes of the words as they died away; then she turned away from the communicator, toward the air lock, and he pulled down the black lever beside him. The inner door of the air lock slid swiftly open to reveal the bare little cell that was waiting for her, and she walked to it.

She walked with her head up and the brown curls brushing her shoulders, with the white sandals stepping as sure and steady as the fractional gravity would permit and the gilded buckles twinkling with little lights of blue and red and crystal. He let her walk alone and made no move to help her, knowing she would not want it that way. She stepped into the air lock and turned to face him, only the pulse in her throat to betray the wild beating of her heart.

“I’m ready,” she said.

He pushed the lever up and the door slid its quick barrier between them, enclosing her in black and utter darkness for her last moments of life. It clicked as it locked in place and he jerked down the red lever. There was a slight waver of the ship as the air gushed from the lock, a vibration to the wall as though something had bumped the outer door in passing; then there was nothing and the ship was dropping true and steady again. He shoved the red lever back to close the door on the empty air lock and turned away, to walk to the pilot’s chair with the slow steps of a man old and weary.

Back in the pilot’s chair he pressed the signal button of the normal-space transmitter. There was no response; he had expected none. Her brother would have to wait through the night until the turning of Woden permitted contact through Group One.

It was not yet time to resume deceleration, and he waited while the ship dropped endlessly downward with him and the drives purred softly. He saw that the white hand of the supply-closet temperature gauge was on zero. A cold equation had been balanced and he was alone on the ship. Something shapeless and ugly was hurrying ahead of him, going to Woden, where her brother was waiting through the night, but the empty ship still lived for a little while with the presence of the girl who had not known about the forces that killed with neither hatred nor malice. It seemed, almost, that she still sat, small and bewildered and frightened, on the metal box beside him, her words echoing hauntingly clear in the void she had left behind her:

I didn’t do anything to die for… I didn’t do anything

The End

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
Link
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
r/K selection theory
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
The Rule of Eight
Types of American conservatives.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Space Cadet (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger
Life-Line
The Tax-payer
The Pedestrian
Time for the stars.
Glory Road by Robert Heinlein
Starman Jones (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein.
The Lottery (Full Text) by Shirley Jackson

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

How to Build a Gallows and a Hangman’s Noose

The direction that America is heading in is dangerous. Eventually, one way or the other, there will be some sort of cultural “reset”, that will affect American society. As such, I cannot predict the future. However, it does seem like one side or the other will eventually obtain power. And, make no mistake on this, when this happens, there will be conflict. There absolutely will be strife. As we all know that in the past, there has always been conflicts during societal resets.

I don’t know which side will wrest control of American society.

The Socialist Progressives have already armed themselves and are openly calling for armed confrontation.  They desire an armed conflict. They look forward to it. They have already ambushed and shot at political leaders, openly called for armed resurrection, and have funded and implemented propaganda and disarming initiatives in their favor. They have armed and supported militant socialist groups such as Antifa, BLM, and various SJW movements. They have taken over most elements of the government, most elements of the media, most elements of the internet, most elements of education, and most elements of the judiciary.  They have taken over everything from the Emmys, to NFL all the way to Beauty Pageants.   On the whole, it seems that they have full control over America, whether the citizenry want it or not.

Antifa
A group of Antifa gather to suppress one thing or the other. I’m not sure what it is. They just want to dress in black and hurt people and burn things, it seems.

It's a scene right out of the story "The Roads Must Roll", by Robert Heinlein. (Read it free HERE.)

The Traditional Constitutionalists  are watching from the sidelines. They know that they potentially have the numbers, if not the reigns of power. While they “officially” have control of the Executive, and the Senate and Congress, they are not using that power. They are being passive and not taking any action. It is confusing why this is so. Perhaps it is the understanding that they also have the following of a huge swath or armed Americans that would rise up if asked to. Especially, if the President were to put out an alert on Twitter or push a message to all cell-phones.

Trump supporters
Supporters cheer as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrives for a rally at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina on September 20, 2016. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

I am not the only one that believes this. Read "Are we on the verge of a civil war?"

In any event, once the reigns of power has been effectively secured, there will be a time of retribution. This means that long forgotten skills will have to be reused. People will need to relearn how to make torches, be able to light them, and know how to carry them in the streets. They will need to know where to get pitchforks and how to point them threateningly at others. They will need to know other skills as well…

Like how to build a gallows, and how to tie a hangman’s noose.

Let’s talk about this now…

Introduction

Pre-hanging
Preparations for the hanging of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell for the assassination of President Lincoln.

There is nothing to joke about when discussing killing people. I am often stunned when I hear our political leaders, and media pundits openly calling for violence, maiming, rape and hurting others. I am also saddened that no one is shouting them down, and publicly shaming them. There is nothing, absolutely nothing trivial about killing someone.

Yet there are people at use the media as a mouthpiece to promote death, violence and other horrible dangers. Here are some examples;

1) "Michele (Bachmann), slit your wrist. Go ahead... or, do us all a better thing [sic]. Move that knife up about two feet. Start right at the collarbone." 

-- Montel Williams

2) “F*ck that dude. I’ll smack that f*cker’s comb-over right off his f*cking scalp. Like, for real, if I met Donald Trump, I’d punch him in his f*cking face. And that’s not a joke. Even if he did become president — watch out, Donald Trump, because I will punch you in your f*cking face if I ever meet you. Secret Service had better just f*cking be on it. Don’t let me anywhere within a block.”Rapper Everlast on Donald Trump

Revolution
During revolutions, you cannot determine which side anyone is on. It is an ugly time. Innocent civilians look like the participants. Those who participate in the fighting are difficult to determine which side they are on. It is a very difficult and confusing time.

3) “I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow….I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.” 

— Bill Maher

4) “I know how the ‘tea party’ people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their “Obama Plan White Slavery” signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.” 

— The Washington Post’s Courtland Milloy

5) “F*** God D*mned Joe the God D*mned Motherf*cking plumber! I want Motherf*cking Joe the plumber dead.” 

— Liberal talk show host Charles Karel Bouleyon the air.

Monrovia
Revolutions are ugly. This is a scene in Monrovia in August 1990. There is nothing fun or enjoyable about violence. You need to win, losing is unacceptable. If you lose, you WILL die.

6) “Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Well, we’ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? 

How come we don’t have an intifada in this country? Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream… giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we’re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. 

And we know every – They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet.” 

-U.C. Berkeley Lecturer Hatem Bazian fires up the crowd at an anti-war rally by calling for an American intifada

Historical insurrection.
Policing forces fighting back from armed resistance groups who blocked roads and started to riot and burn buildings. In other nations, the government does not tolerate organized insurrection. What is America afraid of?

7) "That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida. Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him. He stole billions of dollars from the United States government and he's running for governor of Florida. He's a millionaire and a billionaire. He's no hero. He's a damn crook. It's just we don't prosecute big crooks." 

-- Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa

8) “..And then there’s Rumsfeld who said of Iraq ‘We have our good days and our bad days.’ We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say ‘This is one of our bad days’ and pull the trigger. Do you want to salvage our country? Be a savior of our country? Then vote for John Kerry and get rid of the whole Bush Bunch.” 

— From a fund raising ad put out by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club

Know your history.
Notice the very comfortable Tank Top. Which makes it easy to blend into the crowd after shooting up the area. Conflict should be avoided at all costs. There is NOTHING good about fighting. So why are all these people trying to incite it. People get hurt and DIE.

9) “Republicans don’t believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don’t give a hoot about human beings, either can’t or won’t. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.” 

— The Village Voice’s Michael Feingold, in a theater review of all places

10) “But the victim is also inaccurately being eulogized as a kind and loving religious man. Make no mistake, as disgusting and deservedly dead as the hate-filled fanatical Muslim killers were, Thalasinos was also a hate-filled bigot. Death can’t change that. But in the U.S., we don’t die for speaking our minds. Or we’re not supposed to anyway. Thalasinos was an anti-government, anti-Islam, pro-NRA, rabidly anti-Planned Parenthood kinda guy, who posted that it would be “Freaking Awesome” if hateful Ann Coulter was named head of Homeland Security.” 

— Linda Stasi, New York Daily News,on a victim murdered in the San Bernadino terrorist attack

11) “Cheney deserves same final end he gave Saddam. Hope there are cell cams.” 

— Rep. Chuck Kruger (D-Thomaston)

People die by rockets.
When armories are looted, insurgents can have access to all sorts of advanced military hardware. They can target innocents and targets indiscriminately. The thoughts of a well ordered and controlled strife go out the window. There is nothing great and desirable about conflict.

12) “If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!” 

— Democratic Talk Radio’s Stephen Crockett

13) “May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases.” 

— Allan Brauer, the communications chair of the Democratic Party of Sacramento County to Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter

14) Violence solves nothing. I want a rhino to f*ck @SpeakerRyan to death with its horn because it's FUNNY, not because he's a #GOPmurderbro.” 

– Jos Whedon

They want to kill you.
Conflicts are always ugly. Forget your Hollywood images. People get hurt by others. When the shooting starts the only ones that you can count on are those closest to you. You will no longer be able to trust anyone else. You will not be able to take the risk or the chance. The stakes will be too high. There will be a long period of Deplorable-hunts, and interrogations and rapes.

15) “I hope Roger Ailes dies slow, painful, and soon. The evil that man has done to the American tapestry is unprecedented for an individual.” 

— Think Progress editor Alan Pyke

16) “But, you know, the NRA members are the current incarnation of the brownshirts from Germany back in the early ’30s, late ’20s, early ’30s. Now, of course, there came the Night of the Long Knives when the brownshirts were slaughtered and dumped in the nearest ditches when the power structure finally got tired of them. So I look forward to that day.” 

— Mike Malloy

They want to kill you. 2
During uprisings death becomes normal and commonplace. People die. Those involved become indiscriminate in who they target. With the rage and the targeting, anyone who is questionable in their political philosophy will be targeted.

17) "Or pick up a baseball bat and take out every f*cking republican and independent I see. #f*cktrump, #f*cktheGOP, #f*ckstraightwhiteamerica, #f*ckyourprivilege." 

-- Orange is the New Black star Lea DeLaria responding to a meme about using music to deal with violence

18) “I wish they (Republicans) were all f*cking dead!” 

— Dan Savage

Shooting by liberal activist.
On June 14, 2017, in Alexandria, Virginia, Republican member of Congress and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot while practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity, scheduled for the following day. Also shot were Crystal Griner, a U.S. Capitol Police officer assigned to protect Scalise; Zack Barth, a congressional aide; and Matt Mika, a Tyson Foods lobbyist. A ten-minute shootout ensued between the shooter—James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois, a left-wing activist—and officers from the Capitol and Alexandria Police. Officers shot Hodgkinson, who died from his wounds later that day at the George Washington University Hospital.

19) “Sarah Palin needs to have her hair shaved off to a buzz cut, get headf*cked by a big veiny, ashy, black d*ck then be locked in a cupboard.” 

— Azealia Banks advocates raping Sarah Palin over a news story that was later proved to be fabricrated

20)” Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I’m outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House, but I know that this won’t change anything." 

-- Madonna

When people tell you they want to hurt you, you should believe them.

There’s really nowhere else for the Socialist Progressives to go but towards embracing widespread violence. The logic of their twisted mindset is such that Conservative Traditionalists are not merely wrong but they are inherently vile and evil. This belief is that normal Americans and those who represent them are the evilest of evildoers in all of evil history.

This does not leave much room for reasoned debate.

In fact, it makes reasoned debate impossible. So, since they’ve taken reasoned debate off the table, there are not a lot of options left for resolving political and cultural differences.

There are lies, intimidation, and violence. That’s about it. And the first two have stopped working.

There have been over 538 violent attacks against Trump supporters since the 2016 election season. It is not slowing down. Sooner or later there will be a back-lash. It will not be pretty.

Capture and hold.
There will be conflict. At times one side will wind some skirmishes, at other times the reverse would be true. It would be a most dangerous time.

Openly and Proudly Wanting Violence

So many people are openly advocating violence. It just amazes me. Yet many on the conservative side wants to pretend that it will somehow dissipate. They follow the belief that if you stay quiet and hide in your homes that the rage outside would somehow pass you by.

It’s not going to happen.

I just got an email from a long-time friend who lives in a suburb of Boston. I wanted to talk about funny cat videos and some heart-warming stories of abandoned cats finding homes. I chatted about my difficulties in raising tomatoes in the tropics. I also touched on the super typhoon that wiped out the bamboo on my porch.

You know what his response was?

"This buffoon, Trump is horrible, just horrible. Trump must die! Sooner is better than later. He must be tortured and made to suffer!"

I wasn’t even talking about Trump at all. Yet somehow this entered into the conversation. How is President Trump tied into the Super Typhoon? How is he associated with tomato plants? What does he have to do with cats and kittens?

This is an older gentleman. He has children. He is a degreed professional. His wife is a professional. Yet, he sounded like a rabid animal. He went on and on. For an email, he must have spent two hours on it. At the end of the email he implored me to go ahead and watch a video on the internet. Seriously, he wanted me to watch a you-tube video to make his point clear.

I opened up the VPN and watched it. I was horrified. It was terrible.

Open Calls for Horrible Violence

If you run a quick search on Bing of “media calls for violence against Trump” the number of videos that pop us is shocking. Here are the first 2 pages. There are pages and pages and pages of this kind of hate-filled violence… (CREDIT)

Sanity Check

When a group of people are being incited into violence, and no one is trying to diffuse the situation, then violent actions are inevitable.  There will be conflict. You can bet on it, and hoping and praying for a solution without DIRECT PHYSICAL ACTION is useless.

Some one should wake up that AG we have, Sessions, and tell him that he is doing a lousy job managing the Judicial department. His lack of action will tear this nation apart.

With this in mind, and with this as a backdrop, I remind the reader about what happened to the Loyalists during the War for Independence, and afterwards…

Tar and feather.
The term “Tar and Feather” was not some quaint saying. It was a description of a method of hurting others who disagreed with political view points. It was not pretty and the person who suffered through this event typically died a very slow and painful death.

Let me also remind the reader of the terrible things that occurred during the American Civil War as well…

Civil war
War always begets violence. There are roles that non-military individuals play. These roles can be military and combative in nature. It is never a clean and pretty sight. Notice the poor innocent dog being shot and writhing in pain. Notice the woman trying to suppress the men-folk from fighting. Notice the people fighting from the roof-tops and from the house and store windows. Notice that the people fighting were not dressed in military attire, but rather as civilians. When caught, as civilians, they would be killed.

Eventually things Stabilize

Eventually, after a period of turmoil, things start to settle down. Sides in a given conflict become clearer. Causes and contributors to the conflict become more pronounced, and the participants become obvious. It is during this phase of the conflict that regions of stability settle out. Within these regions are victors and losers.

Our rulers
Here are the people who operate the enormous bureaucracy in the United States. You know, the ones that say one things and do the other. John Brennan. James Clapper, and their ilk. They spy on you. They authorize the police to dress in SWAT gear and raid your homes. They make sure that Congress follows their program for THEIR leaders. Not your leaders.

Always, historically, the winners will secure and punish the losers.

It is in this framework that the punishments are dished out.  The worst punishments will be reserved for those who incited, edged on, and contributed to the violence. Additionally, those whom created treason would also be punished severely. Examples include;

  • People who profited from selling American secrets.
  • People who have profited, at the expense of Americans, in trade deals.
  • People who worked within government to disrupt and cause discord.
  • People who used their voices to incite and amplify violent actions against others.
  • People who have profited by sowing discord, and destruction.
  • People who have suppressed or tried to suppress Rights.
  • People who set up and operated para-military movements and organizations.
  • People who funded the above actions to any degree.

Historically, these people did not make plea arrangements, be granted immunity from prosecution, or be given small fines or short jail sentences. No. Not at all. Instead, they were hung from scaffolding until dead.

Hanging
During times of war and conflict, many people are killed. During the American Civil War many people were killed in battle. Those that we not killed, but who were on the losing side were also killed, often by hanging.

More soldiers were executed during the American Civil War (1861–1865) than in all other American wars combined. Approximately 500 men, representing both North and South, were shot or hanged during the four-year conflict, two-thirds of them for desertion.

-Military Executions during the Civil War

How to Make a Hangman’s Noose

All this being said, perhaps it’s time to dust off some long-forgotten skills.

There are numerous types of nooses that one can use. All are dangerous and effective devices. These are time tested over the centuries when members of the losing side of the social-political conflict confronts the victorious side. There are many nooses that can be used. The ones used historically for hanging a person until they die have a very dark history. These nooses include;

  • The Gallows Knot
  • The Hangman’s Knot

The Gallows Knot

The third noose is based on the the Multifold-Overhand-knot. As its second name already suggests it has a dark history. It is also used as a knot to tie angling-rods to fishline.

Gallows Knot
How to tie a “Gallows Knot”. The method is shown clearly in the picture, as the user will start with a noose and then tie the lose end as shown.

The Hangman’s Knot

This knot is used for the gallows-tree as well. The force to close it is adjusted better than with the gallows knot. And because it is bigger in the neck it is believed to break the neck more easy. That would make it more mercy-full as the gallows-knot which kills by strangeling. The Hangman is also used as a knot to tie angles to fishline.

Hangman's Noose Knot
Here is an illustration on how to tie a Hangman’s noose knot in four simple steps. It’s a pretty straight forward illustration.

How to Select the Rope

Over the years, manufacturers have produced a variety of ropes for a variety of purposes. Each rope has unique strengths and weaknesses. Particular ropes are well suited for certain jobs and not others. Some ropes have a wide range of capabilities, but there is no “one size fits all” rope.

Don’t let the variety scare you.

  • Manila
  • Nylon
  • Kevlar
  • Polyester

Manila Rope

The natural strength and all around utility of manila rope has made it the standard for quality rope. Manila rope consists of all-natural hemp fibers. This creates aesthetic appeal commonly used for decorative fences or other landscaping purposes. It is also the traditional material for hangman’s nooses.

Manila Rope
manila Rope is the traditional material used in hangman’s nooses and knots. It is typically made out of hemp.

Nylon Rope

For superior strength and remarkable stretching capabilities, nylon is the rope of choice. Stronger than both manila and polypropylene, nylon commonly finds itself pulling the heaviest loads and bearing the most weight.

Nylon Rope
Nylon Rope. Nylon rope is known for its elasticity and ability to absorb tremendous shock loads. this rope will not rot and is resistant to oil, gasoline and most chemicals. Along with having good abrasion resistance, nylon rope also has a good resistance to UV rays.

Kevlar™ Rope

Few innovations in the past century have been as remarkable and useful as Kevlar™, invented in 1965 and produced by DuPont™. Among its many uses, Kevlar™ materials have been used for bullet-proof armor and flame resistant material. Kevlar™ rope is no less remarkable. Pound for pound, Kevlar™ rope is far stronger than steel and it will not rust. For this reason, Kevlar™ rope is used as mooring lines on oil rigs and ships. While nylon rope has certain elastic abilities, Kevlar™ rope has very low stretch, making it an excellent choice when complete stability is needed.

Kevlar Rope
Kevlar Rope is a great product that has numerous applications.

Polyester

Polyester is considered by some to be the best general purpose rope. It’s also one of the more popular choices when a tough heavy duty rope is needed. Polyester rope is a great rope for general industrial applications as well as rigging applications. It does great in the outdoors and tough elements of nature. Can be seen being used for lines to tie down or hold back boats in marine applications.

Polyester Rope
Polyester Rope is a very good and durable rope that finds use in a wide variety of roles.

When the Time Comes…

There comes a time when it is determined that a gallows is needed. Historically, this comes after a tribunal of sorts. Sometimes it is well organized with a careful judicial process. Other times it is impromptu with a rather blunt disregard for human rights, or the care or concern for the costs.

The loss of the freedom to defend yourself and the liberty to live your life is what often suffers under progressive democrat control.
Know your history. This is what really happens when a particular group comes to power and their enemies are disarmed. It is never pretty.

In the event that it is determined that a hanging is desirable and that there are individuals that must be hung, a gallows is necessary. Those that have taken control of the situation typically seize control quickly and execute those that are considered threats to their dominance.

Execution
Execution of Romanian Dictator Ceausescu, by the people.

Securing the Captives for Judgement

Everyone deserves a day to be judged. Everyone. No matter what the emotion is, and no matter how much pain that one has endured, we always need to put our emotions aside and give the accused a chance to defend their actions.

Judgement Day.
Waiting for the sentence to be carried out. The dictator and his wife await their fate. Mr. Ceausescu.

“Three soldiers came in with rope and tied their arms behind their backs.

“I and another soldier took Ceausescu, and two others took his wife. We went outdoors, first with Ceausescu, and turned left to get to the execution point.

“We were halfway there when he stopped and started to mumble and sing the first verse of the Internationale.

"Then he shouted, ‘Long Live the Socialist Republic of Romania. Independent and Free.’ ”

Boeru heard a commotion just behind him.

He explains: “A serviceman who was nicknamed ‘Little Car’ yelled at Ceaucescu’s wife and she said, “Motherf***er.

“I took him to the wall, we turned, took six steps back then turned around – and we noticed one soldier had stayed behind next to the ­Ceausescus.

"He didn’t seem to realize what was going to happen. Then he quickly got out the way!

“I wanted to make sure I had bullets in the barrel so I checked and one came out.

“So I knew I had 29 bullets left. I reminded the guys to put the guns on automatic and when I gave the order they fired.

“I fired the first shots – three bursts of my AK-47. During the first burst I saw Ceausescu fall on his knees and topple backwards.

“The first bullets went into his legs and as the gun went up they went into the upper part of his body.

“I fired the next burst at her. She fell to her left. One of my colleagues forgot to switch to automatic and fired single bullets.

-The Mirror

The Gallows

Construction of a gallows is a simple affair. In olden days a stout tree limb would suffice, or a barn. Today, there are many alternatives to choose from. Perhaps the best are stand alone billboards, large street lamps or signs outside fast food restaurants.

McDonalds sign
Fast food signs make excellent locations for hangings. They are in public areas with ample parking. There is restroom access for the hangman and his staff, the sign makes a sturdy and stout gallows, and the team can go ahead and eat lunch afterwards.

On a Serious Sobering Note

hanging
Hangings happen all over the world. It is a way of killing other humans. It is never pleasant and is a very ugly reality that manifests from time to time.

There are those that are statists. Since they themselves have never participated in a civil war or armed conflict that somehow they magically believe that it could never happen “here”.

Meanwhile, there are those who want change so badly that they can taste it in their teeth. They live, breathe and are all worked up in hate and anger. They are willing and ready to attack other and smash them to death using bunt objects like a bicycle lock.

Bike lock attack.
Eric Clanton, a former teacher at Diablo Valley College, was arrested by Berkeley police on Wednesday on suspicion of three counts of assault with a deadly weapon identified as a U-lock bike lock, and one of those assaults is alleged to have caused a significant injury. Police say the violence happened April 15 in Berkeley when pro-Trump supporters clashed with self-described anti-fascist, or “antifa,” activists determined to stop a rally where white supremacist views were expected to be expressed. Soon after April 15, 28-year-old Clanton was “outed” online, on the website 4chan, as someone who used a bike lock to strike a man in the head. The assault was captured in a video clip (below) that drew widespread attention and anger after it was posted on YouTube. Until Wednesday night, Berkeley investigators had declined to say whether they were looking into Clanton, despite the outcry online calling for his arrest. Wednesday, officers arrested him in Oakland at 12:15 p.m. He is being held at Berkeley Jail with a bail of $200,000, according to Alameda County sheriff’s office records online. Clanton, whose listed occupation is college professor, is scheduled for arraignment Friday. Police said they have identified three victims in the case. All three were struck in the head or neck with a bike lock, police said.

Instead of denouncing their actions, major political figures such as Senator Maxine Walters has called for more violence, and even greater disruptions and damage.

I for one take these calls for violence seriously, and you the reader should as well.

Conclusion

Because there are no effort being made to suppress calls for violent insurrection, we can be guaranteed two things;

  1. The government is complicit in incitement of violence.
  2. Violent insurrection is inevitable.

Therefore, the reader must take steps in this regard to protect themselves and their families.

Eventually, the conflict will die down, but the social-political landscape will be terribly changed. You want to be on the winning side. Because in this environment, the losers will not be treated kindly. They will be hunted down and killed.

Take Aways

  • The United States has a contentious political climate.
  • There is no middle-ground in this environment.
  • As a result, the problem will not simply “go away”.
  • It will fester and become an open conflict.
  • One side will win.
  • One side will lose.
  • The losing side will suffer retribution in various forms.
  • The winning side will need to know how to construct a gallows.

Execution
During times of contention, the conspirators and their accomplices were killed. There is nothing different, aside from technology, today. Things are only getting worse, not better, and a time of stabilization will eventually occur, which many people hanging from nooses.

FAQ

Q: Why use a gallows?
A: It is a humane way of killing a person. The person hung, dies a quick and sudden, painless death. It avoids the spilling of blood. It can be done publicly. It is traditional, and used all around the world.

Q: Can conflict be avoided in the United States?
A: I really hope so. However, history tells us differently. There are elements within the United States government that want open conflict. They are doing what they can to incite violence and they are only getting more antagonized with hatred.

Q: What is the best thing to do so as to avoid conflict?
A: Move to a region where it is unlikely to have any conflict. There, you stay quiet and peaceful. You don’t discuss politics, and don’t promote any kind of violence or violent action. Stop watching the American news media. Carefully vet your friends for kindness and avoid getting “roped in” to the conflict. Humans are herd animals and tend to operate on emotion.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Tomatos

Mad scientist

Gorilla Cage in the basement

Pleasures

Work in the 1960's

School in the 1970s

Cat Heaven

Corporate life

Corporate life - part 2

Build up your life

Grow and play - 1

Grow and play - 2

Asshole

Baby's got back

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older

Civil War

Travel

PT-141

Bronco Billy

r/K selection theory

How they get away with it

Line in the sand

A second passport

Paper Airplanes

Snopes

Taxiation without representation.

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Notes

  1. Created 19SEP18.
  2. Text completed 20SEP18.
  3. SEO Review 20SEP18.

How to Build Up Your Life from Nothing.

Here are my thoughts on what a young man can do to build up his life when he exits school. It does not matter if the school is college, High School, or elementary school. There comes a point in time when you need to make the transition from a student to a worker.

Everyone has their thoughts on this. Here are mine.

...And I had so many misconceptions about how the world worked. For  example, I thought that in any… Because I had seen it in other fields. I  thought that if you are successful in a particular line of work, a  particular area, that everybody in that area kind of acknowledges it,  recognizes it, and respects it and welcomes you in? Ho-ho-ho. Is that  ever not true! 

-Rush Limbaugh

What Can we do?

If you are a millennial, and you do want to work and provide a living, but cannot. There is some hurdle in the way; some problem. Maybe you don’t even know what it is. You have zero guidance. It’s just a big blank slate.

What to do?

(laughing) It turns out it’s the exact opposite. I was a fool. I was  so naive about things. Now, it didn’t take me long to figure it all out,  but I wish I would have known some of it before I began this... 

Nobody that I knew was able to tell me how to deal with it, how to  respond to it, how to deflect it, how to ignore it, whatever to do.  Nobody told me. 

 -Rush Limbaugh 

Here is what you do. You need to seek out help and advice. Do not try to do it on your own. Ask for help. Keep asking until someone helps you. People will brush you off. Ignore them. Get answers get help.

Do not be passive about it. Ask for help. Go to different people. Go one by one. Keep on trying. Keep going until you have someone willing to help you.

via GIPHY

Don’t try to do it the hard way, on your own. Seek guidance. Go to a favorite uncle. Ask your father, or your grandfather. Ask. Never be afraid to ask.

Go to a crowded barber shop and ask. You will hear all kinds of bullshit, but through all that bullshit, you will find one or two men who will genuinely offer help and suggestions.

Talk with other men. Heck, I am always willing to take hardworking people under my wing.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

-Ray Bradbury

Education

All my life I was taught, by my father, to get a good education. That education will in turn, enable me to get a “great job”. In which case, I will be “set for life” because I would be valuable to the person employing me.

Hogwash.

It sucks working for another person. That person, can and will tell you how to live your life, and will hold your family income over your head like the sword of Damocles. They will use you as they feel fit and discard you when they are through with you.

Some experiences I had…

  • Working 1.5 hours every day, all week, but only during the busy time of the day. They wanted 150% efficiency from me, and nothing else.
  • When I won a round trip airline ticket to Europe for the weekend, my boss told me that if I used it that he would fire me.
  • Time and time again, I was let go… fired with ZERO notice. Three times it was on a Christmas eve. Once, in Shreveport, it was a half-an-hour after I received my award for “Best Employee of the Month”.
  • Having my monthly salary cut to zero because a co-worker made a mistake.

Listen up!

Education serves but one, and only one purpose.

That purpose is to give you advantage. If you do not get anything or any advantage, then that education has zero benefit to you.

  Jay started off by asking the crowd if it was weird for them to be  listening to a speech by him, since he had never attended university. To  him, being extraordinary and to be able to stand in front of everyone  does not depend on how much one has studied, but rather, if he has a  strong skill set. He named a few of his peers who did not study much,  but whose work have been taught in university classes.

 Advice: Having a particular skillset that you are good at is more important than how much you study. 

-Five Lessons form Jay Chou

Money gives you Ability

A young man needs to work. He needs to carve out his life, and do it on his terms. That takes money.

The first thing you need to do is get a job; any job. Start getting money into your pocket.

Start putting money in your wallet.

Keep in mind that the hardest and most unpopular jobs pay the best. That might mean that you might need to wash windows in a skyscraper. You might need to crawl inside of a railroad container car and scrub it out. You might need to empty industrial waste, or scrub toxic biological germs out of a hospital. You might need to work from three in the morning to seven in the morning cleaning up an office building. You might need to shovel pig shit, or determine the sex of chickens (you shove your pinky in the rectum of a chicken).

It doesn’t matter what you do. Work. Get some money and save it.

Save the money you earn. You will need it later.

Humphry Bogart as Dobbs
Don’t be under the impression that I had it easy. I actually lived in a van for a number of years. I starved, and lived off of onions and mustard packets. I worked at jobs and had my pay stolen by the managers. Life can be difficult, but a man endures. Even so while everyone around him laughs.

Don’t be under the impression that I didn’t do what I had to do. I did the ugly stuff, and the difficult stuff, and I smiled when I did it too. That’s life.

You will come home with blood-blisters on your hands, and so tired that your hands shake. You deal with it. Your neck might be so sunburned from the hot sun that when you put on a shirt the searing pain might cause you to pass out. Your hands might be so covered with oil and grease that it would be impossible to clean them entirely. The gasoline stains in your clothes might be so terrible that they never come out. Your girlfriend might want sex, but you are too tired to service her. Hey, that is life, if you are a man. That is what real work is.

The entire time while you are working and saving, plan. Remember that you are a Man. You plan.

Men plan, and map out the life that they will live.

Plan on how you can use that money to improve your work situation. Don’t fall into the corporate trap; you get a good high-paying job and plateau. That is a trap that you will never get out of. Don’t use the money to enhance your life. That you can hold off for a year or two. Just concentrate on a real (short) intense period of making your life happen.

Plan.

Keep going forward. Some days it will seem that you are hardly making any progress. Ignore that. Just keep going. Do not give up.

via GIPHY

Keep this in mind. You need to do is understand that everything around you is fake. The news is fake (unless you are still part of the 0.000001% who still thinks that Donald Trump is a Russian spy). The food is fake. The taxes and the promises of what they will be used for is… fake. You are in the world. Fight for what you need. Fight, and don’t give up. You will make it.

  1. The first and most important thing that a young person can do today is to make money.
  2. This is your task. Find a way to put money into your pocket. Then once you get that money HOLD ON TO IT.
  3. Money can be easily squandered. Do not let that happen to you. You get the money, and you stash it away safely.

Do not follow the Herd

No. Don’t follow the herd.

Do not do what the rest of the people are doing.  You ONLY what will benefit YOU. Life is not a some-size-fits-all. You take the opportunities as they present themselves to you. If college will help you achieve your goals, then go do it. If it doesn’t then do something else.

 Growing up, Jay realized that he wasn’t one for studying hard.  Instead of fighting that, he chose to pursue his interests of learning  to play the piano and basketball.

 If not for his interest in piano and music, he wouldn’t have ended up  where he is today. If not for his interest in basketball, he wouldn’t  have ended up filming “Kung Fu Dunk”. The interests he had when he was  younger made him who he is today, but he could only connect those dots  looking backwards. 

 Advice: Pursue your interests and life will take care of itself. 

-Five lessons from Jay Chou

When I went to college, it was at a time when only a handful of people could attend. The education was valuable and you could obtain a job based on your studious efforts. That is not the case today.

Everyone can go.

Today everyone can go to college. As such, you just become a debt-serf in the process. Today, we really need to see if this is what is in your best interests. Are you willing to become a debt-serf and give a huge percentage of any money you earn to a bank AFTER you give a huge percentage of your money to the government in taxes? Think about it. College might not be right for YOU.

Take a good long and hard look at what your options are. Only go to college if there is a very strong chance that you can benefit from it. Otherwise, I would suggest some other avenue of approach.

Bogart and the Mexicans
A man strives and moves forward no matter what the dangers are. For people WILL certainly see your poverty and youth as a weakness. They will take advantage of you. But move forward anyways.

Today, I look at my High School classmates. You know, the ones that I went to school with a half a century ago.

Today, the rich ones are actually the ones who started their own stores, gas stations, laundromats, and tie-dyed tee-shirt shops. These were the “average” kids in school. They just started a simple business. They worked at it. Rain, or shine. Now they are all quite wealthy. They are, and have always been, their own bosses.

Meanwhile, the smart ones, those of us who attended college, are “professionals”.  Like me, I suppose. Yeah. However, the fact is that we generally live “hand-to-mouth” at the whims of market forces. Without a doubt,  our employers often don’t give a “Rat’s ass” about our lives. Up-sized, laid off, down sized, restructured, renegotiated positions… it’s all the same. It sucks to be a worker for someone else.

Do NOT be like me. Be your own boss.

Options:

  • Learn a TRADE; plumbing, electricity, construction…
  • Join the military; Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force…Join a Union
  • Apprentice
  • Take over a Family Business
  • Start you own business
  • Community College
  • Crash courses and take night classes while you work
  • Work with key friends and start a business

College and Universities are now flooded with people, thus diluting the job pool. Further they teach you how to work for someone else. You become a well-taught monkey, or an obedient drone in a big, big mega-corporation.

You will NEED to be an exceptional person to survive the market trends when you leave college. Instead, consider using the four years (normally reserved for college) to strike out on your own, and give you advantage.

That’s the key. That’s the secret.

You need ADVANTAGE.

Dobbs looking for gold.
Life can be really hard, especially when it seems like everyone else is doing better than you. Do not be fooled. many are not. They are just wearing the necessary masks and driving around in rented machines. Don’t fall for that illusion. You are a man. Stand up and carve out your life.
'Imagine you're at a concert, and you stand up to see better. Now imagine if everybody stands up.'

I already did imagine that which is why I didn't purchase a $100 concert ticket, and I instead purchased the album and stayed home.

-MusicIsYou

Here are some ideas on how to obtain advantage

Be Positive and Kind

The world is full or grouchy old stogies like myself, and young bucks that haven’t a clue. Don’t be like us. The secret of success in this world is an open heart and a willingness to learn. Be kind, and everything will work out.

Turn off the news. It’s full of bullshit.

Tone down the social media. Most people on it, you wouldn’t want to share a pizza with, so why waste your time chatting with them? Shut off your negative friends. Life is too short.

Put only good stuff in your body. That is the stuff that you like, and to hell with everyone else. Don’t listen to anyone else. Follow your heart.

Dobbs on his own.
Life can be unfair. Everyone will tell you that you are wrong. Everyone will tell you what a fool you are and how hopeless your dream is. Do not believe them.

That means good food, good water, good thoughts and surround yourself with the good in his world.

For the longest time, especially when I was down and the world seemed to be against me, I would listen to motivational tapes. Listen to Les Brown. Keep your outlook positive. Follow your dream. Do not get sidetracked. Follow it.

“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”
 Les Brown

Follow you dream. Do not allow anyone to tell you that you cannot have it.

My background was from my time. This is YOUR time, and you are a direct result of it. It is neither right nor wrong. It is just simply what it is.

As such, you need to make the most of it.

There is one important step that you need to take to claim this as yours; be kind.

Be a Man

Bronco Billy is living his dream.
Be like Bronco Billy. Live your dream. You don’t have to be a poor shoe salesman in New York city. You can recreate your life into something that appeals to you. Don’t be afraid. Follow your dream.

In a cutthroat world, it is refreshing to meet a man who keeps his word, looks another in the eye, shakes your hand solidly and says what he means. You can choose to be the man that you want to be, or you can be the image of what others want you to be. It’s your choice.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, watch the movie “Bronco Billy”. Learn from it.

  • Speak with integrity.
  • Say only what you mean.
  • Never say anything negative about yourself.
  • Never say anything bad about anyone else.
  • Never be afraid of hurting someone else’s feelings. That’s their problem.

Start today. Start NOW.

Bronco Billy.
We can reinvent our life. Do what Bronco Billy did. You can define your life on your terms, by doing things YOUR WAY. Don’t let others tell you who you are. You do it.

Act like an American

I like to say, “Act like an American”, but over the years this saying has turned into a insult. I blame socialist progressives rewriting the narrative. Never the less, when I suggest that you “Act like an American” I mean this…

The American's creed.
What being an American actually means. You know the internet has rewritten what the American’s creed is. Now, it has been rewritten to be something much different. It is now a pale reflection. Go to Wikipedia and read the new “politically correct” rewritten version. Sad. I really hate how the internet is being used to rewrite history. This rewrite you can blame President Obama on. The Americans Creed (Image Source.)

If you, the reader, are unaware of the saying and what it means then I strongly suggest that you have been propagandized and manipulated by a false narrative and bogus history. Isn’t it great about the internet? You can rewrite anything when you control the history books!

Ha! What are you? (Are you) a socialist puppet parroting the common narrative or a free man living life on your terms? You choose. Be the parrot, or be who YOU are.

If you want to carve out your life, then you will need to saw off those chains that limit you.

Do not take anything personally

Which brings me up to this important point; don’t take anything personally.

 Jay never took failure as an acceptable outcome. When the songs he  wrote for other artists were rejected, he used them and sang them  himself. Several of those songs have become instant hits with people and  fans around the world.
 
 Advice: Be the best in your field; do not give in to failure. 

-Five lessons from Jay Chou

Nothing that other people do is because of you. When another person does something, they do it, based on their decisions. They make those decisions based on their knowledge, emotions and personality. If you had any role in it, it would have been a terribly tiny one.

via GIPHY

When others blame you, know that they are just using rhetoric . It is a technique to manipulate you. It is a technique used to control you. It plays with your emotions and often results in things that are not in your favor. Do not believe them.

Stay away from people who blame you, condemn you, and make your life miserable. Real men avoid them. Be a real man. You know guys, sometimes you need to cut off an arm when bitten by a rattlesnake.

Don’t make Assumptions

For you to be successful, you will need to be able to communicate.

If you don’t know something, ask. If you want something, ask for it. If there is something that you need, communicate.

You need to have the courage to ask questions and express what you need. You need to do so clearly. Otherwise, you risk misunderstanding and drama.

Remember this; if you do not ask the answer will always be no.

  • If you want a job, ask for it.
  • If you like a girl and want to be with her, ask her out for lunch.
  • If you want a raise, ask for it.
  • If you want an extra straw for your soda, ask for it.
  • If you want to  live in a nice house, ask about it.

Take note that some people enjoy drama, and will pretend not to understand you. It is a form of manipulation. Avoid these people. They have nothing to offer you.

Go to Church

If you read some of my other posts, you might be surprised in this. Yet it is true. We need religion and ritual. We need to connect with a higher power and a higher sense of purpose. We need God.

This isn’t an option. We as human beings need, NEED, God in our life.

Keep on walking.
Have faith. Things will change. You just need to keep on going. As the saying goes… “When you are going through Hell… keep on walking.”

You might have the entire world up against you. You might be dirt poor. You might be alone and full with negative people. You might be starving, but there is one place where you will be welcome NO MATTER WHAT. Go to church.

Go to church.

I’m not going to preach to you. I just suggest that you go to a place that will not judge you. I suggest you go to a place that will welcome you with open arms.

If I would be so bold, I would suggest an “Assembly of God”. They tend to be very open to new faces. I have attended a wonderful Baptist church in Corpus Christi, and a fantastic Methodist church in Erie.

You might need to “shop around”, but go and seek out a church for yourself. There are churches full of busybodies, and churches that are just “old”. Go to a church that has life, one that is full of people in your age group.

Maybe the church of your parents just doesn’t fit you, well do not let that limit you. Explore and try to understand. God is greater than any of us. Give yourself up and meet others who are exactly like you.

I suggest that you go to church, worship God and join the community there. You might be surprised what you will find there.

Do your Best

By doing your best, you can accept failure.

You will find out that your “best” is going to change from minute to minute. There will be days when you are super healthy and will be able to take on the world, and then there will be days when you cannot. It will be different when you are healthy as opposed when you are sick. If you know that you did everything you could at the time, then you know that your defeat was beyond your ability (at that time).

Under any and all circumstances, simply do your best.

Do your best. Keep trying. Keep on doing your best. You will make mistakes. You will face failures. You will hear from everyone else telling you that you were a fool, a dupe, a rube, and just plain stupid. It doesn’t matter. Just keep doing your best.

Don’t believe them.

The successful people NEVER tell you this. This is what unsuccessful people say. When these losers tell you that you have failed, do what I do. I recite a poem, snort quietly (with disdain), smile, and leave. Never look back. Don’t pause no matter what they say to your back. Just leave.

They usually stand there perplexed not understanding what just transpired.

It's going to be okay.

The formula for individual success is well proven and documented. Do not give up. Keep to your plan. Keep working it. Avoid distractions and keep moving forward. It will be alright. It will work out fine. Things will be ok.

No Excuses

via GIPHY

"We have been destroying most of the chances any young White Male has to get ahead for decades. I especially like how old men will talk about how they made it with nothing in their pocket and traveling to a new city when they were young. 

I always think "Ya try that today". I am an X'r myself and I can see how much easier I had it over these kids today. Sure the bright top 1% still manage but we have placed so many blockers in front of young White Men these days it's a wonder they haven't turned on us by now."

-Beltain

Do not use any excuses for anything. Forget about race. Forget about ability. Forget about what other people are doing. Forget what your friends say. Forget it all.

Do not compare yourself to anyone or anything. Focus on one thing at a time. Focus like a laser beam, and don’t give up

Never give up.

via GIPHY

Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. E.V.E.R. give up. Fight for what you want.

Be a MAN.

Fight, and fight, and fight, and fight.

When it gets hard, keep it up. Don’t give up. No excuses.

Be the robot that will never give up. You get punched down, and you get right back up and keep on fighting.

Fight. Fight HARD. Never give up.

Be the robot that never gives up.
The movie “Real Steel” is about many things, but here it is the story of the little underdog robot that would never give up. It just went out there, into the ring. Time and time again, it would go out and fight…fight…fight. It never gave up. Be that robot.

Even if you are on your knees, and are being pummeled left and right, keep it up. Don’t give up.

Keep fighting.

Fight until you cannot. As you lie there, blood running from between your smashed teeth, open your one swollen eye, push yourself up off the floor. And keep on fighting.

Never give up. Never Surrender.

While this was a catch phrase on a movie parody of Star Trek it resonate in that there are many disguised truths protrayed within it. Never give up and never surrender is one such truth.
You must never give up. Never surrender.

The girl says no.

You ask her out again. She might say no, yet again.

Wait a day or two. Ask her out again.

Don’t be a stalker. Just be nice and friendly. Tell her that you like her and you just want to share a coffee or a meal and talk. Expect nothing else. Keep on trying.

Keep trying.

Never give up.

Sometimes it works. I asked a girl out every day for two weeks before she finally went out with me. 

We’ve been married 51+ years.

-chaosagent

Aside from obtaining your goals and objectives, you might find that your ability to get what you desire is extremely attractive to the opposite sex.

Worked for my son-in-law. He asked my daughter out...she said no, he would wait a month or so and ask again. 

She said the reason she did not want to date him is he was over confident to the point she thought he was “cocky” and she didn’t like men like that. 

One day she said yes, after she dated him she realized he was not a jerk just confident. 

Today they are happily married with a son. 

-Tammy8

Don’t be a wimp. Be a fighter.

via GIPHY

Opportunity

By being “out there” and trying, your efforts WILL be noticed.

You can say that others might notice, or you can say that the “spirits” will notice. Whatever. You will be noticed, and opportunity comes from hard work.

Opportunities arise from effort.

When an opportunity does come up, give it EVERYTHING you have. It will come. It will probably be unexpected, and will not be what you intended. It doesn’t matter. Treat each opportunity as exactly what it is and grab it like a starving dog with a bone. Hold on and don’t ever let go of it.

via GIPHY

Do your best. You must. Come in early, work better faster and harder than everyone else. Don’t complain. Smile a lot. Be the best worker that you can be. Be the best;  get so good at your job that you are “invaluable”. Become important in your role.

When we were kids my mom and dad ran a little business. We weren’t poor, but neither were we rich. 

When I turned 14 my father informed me that I would be working there during the summer and every school holiday. He made sure to give me the worst possible jobs at the lowest possible pay. 

At the time I hated him for it. 

After he died I took over the company, and by then I’d learned the value of a hard won dollar and an honest days work, so I was unspeakably grateful for what he’d done. 

He was a depressed, miserable, and cranky old bastard, and he was one of the best teachers a man could ever have. 

-Three Economic Lessons I Learned from my Dad

Again. Do your best.

You must.

Come in early, work better faster and harder than everyone else.

Don’t complain.

Smile a lot.

Be the best worker that you can be. Be the best;  get so good at your job that you are “invaluable”.

Become important in your role.

My company just hired this new 18 year old kid, a real go-getter, always getting up on your grill asking meaningful and relevant questions and actually trying to learn the trade. He's always watching to see how you do things and then wanting (if not demanding!) a crack at it himself. 

That's one thing I don't mind a young kid demanding: go for it dude, I sense that you've watched me enough and can do it to a quality standard. 

At the end of the day I don't even have to ask the kid to grab a broom, he just sweeps and packs up tools. He'll really work out. Says he's saving to buy a house and, you know what, he'll have it by the time he's 21 or so without all the college debt and the brainwashed mind.

-Zero Hedge comment by Mazzy

Make the person who gave you that opportunity feel good about you. Doors will open wider for you.

via GIPHY

Role Models

My dad was a great, flawed, successful failure of a man who taught me many things. He loved us but he was mean, he took care of us but he was cheap, he was fun to be around and a nightmare. He was social but had hangups, he divorced my mom but never abandoned us. He was a showman, a curmudgeon, a viper, a friend, an enemy. A complicated man who enjoyed simple things. About as easy to understand as a rubic's cube.

I miss that magnificent bastard.

-Three Lessons in Economics that I Learned from my Dad

You should have a good role model to emulate. I am not talking about fictional characters like Tony Sopranos, or Rocky Balboa. I am talking about real flesh and blood individuals who lived life on their terms. I for one, admire the “Rat Pack”. But you can decide who you would like to emulate.

You are your own boss.
Find a guide. A sure way to get lost in the woods is to explore an unknown area without a guide. In business, find a mentor to guide you through the wilderness.  

What ever you do, don’t be a raunchy playboy like Justin Bieber, or some metro-sexual like Barrack Obama.

Choose someone who defines life on their own terms. Like, perhaps, that fellow who landed on the beach on D-Day wearing a kilt and carrying a broad sword. Or, maybe like this man. Here is a man who lived life to the fullest. I can only wish that someone would write up my biography with such amazing aplomb.

Irishman Dies from Stubbornness, Whiskey  14DEC16

Chris conners
The late, great, Chris Conners.
Chris Connors died, at age 67, after trying to box his bikini-clad hospice nurse just moments earlier. Ladies man, game slayer, and outlaw Connors told his last inappropriate joke on Friday, December 9, 2016, that which cannot be printed here. 

Anyone else fighting ALS and stage 4 pancreatic cancer would have gone quietly into the night, but Connors was stark naked drinking Veuve in a house full of friends and family as Al Green played from the speakers. 

The way he died is just like he lived: he wrote his own rules, he fought authority and he paved his own way. And if you said he couldn’t do it, he would make sure he could.

Most people thought he was crazy for swimming in the ocean in January; for being a skinny Irish Golden Gloves boxer from Quincy, Massachusetts; for dressing up as a priest and then proceeding to get into a fight at a Jewish deli. 

Many gawked at his start of a career on Wall Street without a financial background – but instead with an intelligent, impish smile, love for the spoken word, irreverent sense of humor, and stunning blue eyes that could make anyone fall in love with him.

As much as people knew hanging out with him would end in a night in jail or a killer screwdriver hangover, he was the type of man that people would drive 16 hours at the drop of a dime to come see. 

He lived 1000 years in the 67 calendar years we had with him because he attacked life; he grabbed it by the lapels, kissed it, and swung it back onto the dance floor. 

At the age of 26 he planned to circumnavigate the world – instead, he ended up spending 40 hours on a life raft off the coast of Panama. 

In 1974, he founded the Quincy Rugby Club. In his thirties, he sustained a knife wound after saving a woman from being mugged in New York City. 

He didn’t slow down: at age 64, he climbed to the base camp of Mount Everest. Throughout his life, he was an accomplished hunter and birth control device tester (with some failures, notably Caitlin Connors, 33; Chris Connors, 11; and Liam Connors, 8).

He was a rare combination of someone who had a love of life and a firm understanding of what was important – the simplicity of living a life with those you love. 

Although he threw some of the most memorable parties during the greater half of a century, he would trade it all for a night in front of the fire with his family in Maine. 

His acute awareness of the importance of a life lived with the ones you love over any material possession was only handicapped by his territorial attachment to the remote control of his Sonos music.

Chris enjoyed cross dressing, a well-made fire, and mashed potatoes with lots of butter. His regrets were few, but include eating a rotisserie hot dog from an unmemorable convenience store in the summer of 1986.

Of all the people he touched, both willing and unwilling, his most proud achievement in life was marrying his wife Emily Ayer Connors who supported him in all his glory during his heyday, and lovingly supported him physically during their last days together.

Absolut vodka and Simply Orange companies are devastated by the loss of Connors. A “Celebration of Life” will be held during Happy Hour (4 p.m.) at York Harbor Inn on Monday, December 19.

Amen Chris. Amen.

Alternative Path

Here is another opinion by another person. He has a similar point of view as mine, and I present it here for you, the reader, to enjoy.

January 9, 2019

Kim du ToitAdvice, Business, Guy Stuff, Men & Women

I have often ruminated that young men need to evaluate their career choices very carefully before picking the one they think will work best for them.

Increasingly, it’s become apparent that going to college is not a worthwhile option for them — unless they want to be hounded, harassed and vilified just for the “crime” of being a man, that is.  (10,000 instances of false accusations, man-hating professors and the courses they teach have been omitted on grounds of brevity.)

Now, we’ve seen in other spheres what men do when they feel that the game rules are loaded against them, or that participation leads not only to inevitable failure, but even to a compromised future.  The dating game is one such activity, where men have either deliberately turned the rules of the game against women and used them to their own benefit — or have simply eschewed all participation in the face of assured failure (going their own way — MGTOW) and simply created a parallel life outside the game.

I’m suggesting an alternative to the career game.

Don’t go to college, at least until the rotten system has collapsed under the weight of its own prejudice and misogyny misandry, and been replaced with a better deal.  Ignore the vested interests of people and institutions who preach the lie that you can only be successful with a college degree.

If you’re super-smart and driven like Michael Dell or Bill Gates, of course, you don’t need to be told this.  But only a very few men, in any  activity, are in that rare 0.00001% of super-achievers.

But for the vast remainder, there is an option:  work in industries where the vast majority of women can’t or won’t participate.  I’m talking about the heavy, dirty and sometimes thankless jobs (Mike Rowe-type Dirty Jobs) which not only don’t require a college degree, but where a college degree might even be a hindrance and not a qualifier.

Just last week I came across a guy who was an oil field worker.  He’d fled from Venezuela right after that thug Hugo Chávez came to power, and in the eighteen years since had worked his way up the ladder, in oilfields all over the world.  Now, at age 45, he’d finally reached the point where he didn’t have to work  the oil rigs, just visit them and see how things were going.  Along the way he’d acquired a wife, two preteen kids, and a $750k house in Plano where I picked him up to take him to the airport.  He’d completely lost his Hispanic accent (when he left Venezuela he couldn’t speak a word of English) and was also fluent in Arabic and (ahem) German.  When I asked him if he had a university degree he just laughed and said, “What for?”

What for, indeed.

Here’s the point.  I know it’s going to be difficult for Millennials and their successors to handle this, but working dirty jobs is hard.  It requires dedication, stubbornness and of course a willingness to get one’s hands dirty, and sadly, because of the education industry’s indoctrination of kids, this choice is often dismissed or demeaned.

It shouldn’t be.  If you weigh the eventual benefits of dirty work — where, by the way, your exposure to militant feminism is going to be minimal to nonexistent — against a useless degree coupled with crippling debt, this should not be a difficult decision.

Is this risky?  Not as much as you’d think.  Just the other day, our local community college broke ground on a campus which apparently is going to be dedicated almost exclusively to the “hard” careers — automotive service and repair, construction, welding, plumbing, electrical work, manufacturing and so on — but I’m not going to suggest you look to such an institution for your education / training;  what’s important is simply to realize that for such an event to have taken place, there must be a crippling shortage of young men willing to get into those fields, and this is the Establishment’s attempt to address it.  (It’s complete bollocks, of course — you’d do better by getting an apprenticeship at a real place of work.)

So, in the paraphrased words of Ayn Rand, go “Galt” and make your own way in the world.  You may not succeed, of course, but remember that failure is equally (or, in these times, more) likely with a freshly-printed college diploma clutched in your hand.

Become a watchmaker, if you’re mechanically inclined.  Work in construction, if you’re strong in body.  Get an apprenticeship in a trade, preferably an ugly, dirty and tough one where just by virtue of being a man you face no competition from women.  I guarantee you, there’s a tough job out there for any man if he’s prepared to go for it.  And if your first one (or several) choices don’t work out, find another one that does.

Let women take over non-jobs like human resources, clerical jobs at the DMV, cubicle management, bank tellers or benefits administration at Global MegaCorp Inc., and laugh as the life force is drained from them.

Here’s the challenge:  be a man

Not today’s version of “male” figures who argue over craft beers and fashion accessories.  I’m talking about real  men, who do things for themselves, push aside barriers with confidence and, eventually, end up with women (like my friend Raul, above) who appreciate them for their qualities and for the security and families they can provide.

When I asked Raul if his wife worked, he looked at me in puzzlement and said, “What for?”

If this guy taught a class, he’d create a generation of achievers.  He would never do such a thing, of course, although he would (and does) train other men to succeed as he has.

Now get out there and make something of your life that does not include words like “curriculum”, “term paper” and “Diversity Studies”.  You’ll be a world better for it.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Tomatos
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

OOPARTS

Here are some OOPARTS explained through my eyes while I was associated  within MAJestic. In all cases the discussions are based on what I was exposed to. Most of which is considered to be fringe and “tin hat” stuff. Whatever. Enjoy.

The fuselage embedded within the rocks of Victoria Falls.
The Hammer inside the rock.
The Hollow Moon
The Mystery of the Lapulapu Ridge.
The Mystery of the Baltic UFO.
Mystery of the bronze bell.
Mystery of the oil lamp found inside a block of coal.
Did extraterrestrials set up a colony in Pennsylvania?
The Oxia Palus Facility

Links about China

Business KTV
Dance Craze
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China

China and America Comparisons

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

Learning About China

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

What Work was Like in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Today, Americans have taken so much for granted. We look at our life and think that it is as it has always been. Indeed, it is assumed that the way things are today have always been that way. Yet, the simple and plain truth is that America has changed. Over the last few decades there has been tremendous changes at all levels of American society and culture.

For instance, it is a recent phenomenon that restaurants can charge $8 for a cup of coffee.  Or, that we have to take a urine sample to get employed. Casual day on Friday, or having  a “co-pay” on your medical insurance was unheard of just a few decades ago.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on our shared past. Let’s look at what it was like to work for a company in the 1960’s. Just because things have changed does not mean that they have changed for the better.

Now, of course, I am talking about “real” work. Here you work for a private business or company. I am specifically NOT talking about working for any government or state agency. They are a completely different thing altogether.

"All federal workers will be ordered to spend 75 percent of their time on government work"

-President Donald Trump's (R) "cruel" executive order demanding that Federal Workers must actually work inorder to get paid. If they do not work the bare minimum, they can be fired.

Today

Mr. Waturi: But can he do the job. I know he can get the job but can he DO the job? I'm NOT arguing that with you. I'm not arguing that with YOU. I'm not ARGUING that with you. I'm not ARGUING that with you Harry! Harry... Harry... Yeah Harry... but can he DO the job. I know he can GET the job but can he do the job?

Today, finding work and going to work is quite different than what it was four decades ago.

Today, you might find a position on a “Job Board“, or through a recruiter. You might look up the company on an appraisal website or on Google. You might investigate the company and the people by going to LinkedIN. You might communicate via email and perhaps have an interview over Skype. Then, after a criminal background check, a credit check, a e-verify, and a check to make sure that you are not doxxed, you can run over and go through a drug screening.

Well…

Let me tell you how it was done in the 1960’s.

It was a much simpler process. You walked over to a company. You asked if they had an opening. You filled out an application, and maybe got an interview that day. If hired, you began work the next week.

Coffee

"I’ve never seen the soul-sucking despair of a bad job summed up better than in this scene. And as if that hellish circular conversation isn’t enough, there’s the green light, the buzzing flourescents, the coffee that can best be described as ‘lumpy’, and the coworkers, who are just as sad and defeated as Joe. Watching this, I’m reminded of all the crap jobs I’ve taken to pay my bills, which I can only assume was the point: rather than the fairytale careers of most rom-coms, JVtV was trying to dig closer to the exhaustion that lies at the heart of American capitalism. Against this despair, Joe makes only a single palliative gesture: bringing a musical lamp in as a Band-Aid to a gushing wound."

-Preparing Myself for Death with Joe Versus the Volcano

One of the things that has evolved over time is how companies treated coffee in the work office.

The reader would probably be surprised to know that back in the 1960’s and the 1970’s, coffee was provided free to the employees in companies. Back then, there was typically a coffee pot in each department. This tended to be a large multi-gallon cylindrical tureen affair with two handles at the top, and a spigot at the base. There would be someone assigned  to make the coffee in the morning, and it was permitted to be on all day. They staff would then simply access the coffee as needed.

30 cup coffee urn.
A 30 cup aluminum coffee urn. This was a typical fixture in all corporate offices up until the advent of the coffee services. Coffee was a free perk that everyone enjoyed.

Sometime during the 1990’s, the big tureen began to be replaced in many companies.

It was replaced with a coffee “service”. This service would provide a set of burners and coffee pots. Instead of day-old thick coffee that had been brewing all day, now coffee was brewed on a as-needed basis. Each pot was good for perhaps ten cups of coffee, and thus it tended to be fresher. The only problem with this is that the “service” NOW cost more than just a can of coffee. By subscribing to a service, the company now had to pay for the coffee, the machine rental, and the bi-monthly visits by the “service”. The costs for providing coffee to the employees now tripled or quadrupled.

Companies began to pass these costs on to the employees.

Eventually, it became commonplace that the employees would have to pay for the coffee that they would consume. This was the case even if the company did not utilize a coffee “service”. So, all across the United States, from large companies to small, employees began to pay for the coffee that they would drink at work.

Joe Banks: And Frank, the coffee. It stinks. It tastes like arsenic. These lights give me a headache; if they don't give you a headache, you must be dead, so let's arrange the funeral!

Now there were different ways that this was implemented. Some companies would organize a contribution collection, others would deduct an amount out of the pay check, while still others would buy coupons to a nearby restaurant for a cup of coffee (outside of work hours of course).

This resulted in some interesting evolutionary trends in the work force. Sometimes, there would be complaints. Often a non-coffee drinker would complain. Obviously they resented having to contribute to a coffee fund when they didn’t like coffee. Thus, out of the blue, sometime in the mid-1990’s, decaffeinated coffee began to appear in corporate offices.

In the last decade there has been a small trend where certain employees would bring their own instant coffee, or beverages to work. They would keep the jars in their desk drawers and make their own beverage as they felt best. You can see these individuals mixing up their own concoctions in their cubicle, and then going to fetch some hot water to mix it up with.

To the reader, all of this doesn’t seem like a big deal. It’s “just” part of corporate life. So you mix up your own powdered coffee at your work station, what is the harm in that?

If I could teleport an office worker from 1968 to 2018, a period of fifty years, what would they have to say? Well, I can tell you what they would say. Indeed, the worker would be surprised that employees today are expected to be waitresses and waiters, in addition to their normal day to day job requirements.

The point is that coffee was once a perk freely given to employees. Today it is a characteristic measure of how poorly companies treat their employees.

The Month of Christmas

In the past, the Christmas season was important. The entire month of December was filled with events and seasonal activities. Obviously the year-end bonus, and the Christmas office party were important and noteworthy. However, there were many other events and rituals that made this month special.

Office Christmas Party.
There would be many parties during the Christmas season. Some would be for the entire company, while others would be for groups of employees and departments. Note that the employees are at an office. Note the ashtray on the table. Note the champagne that they are drinking and the cans of beer on top of the file cabinet. On the far right you can see the girl is wearing “go-go boots” which pretty much dates this photo from the late 1960’s. And, yes she obviously wore a mini skirt and go-go boots to work.

For instance there were the organized trays of snacks and soda that would be brought in by the office staff. These trays of snacks would often vary from a simple bag of chips and dip to reheated pizza rolls, and all sorts of casseroles, cakes and cookies.  There was always the company Christmas tree, and the various luncheons (paid by the company) for various groups of workers. All of whom ended up quite “buzzed” and drunk by 3pm.

(BTW. Drunk workers are happy workers. Don’t believe me? Check out THIS study. LOL!)

Typically, workers would take time off from the day to go Christmas shopping. Long lunches were common during the December month, as was such things as “Secret Santa” and various house parties. I really don’t know what went wrong, but all these activities and things seemed to disappear during the 1990’s.

Personally, I attribute it to corporate greed and the completely selfish mercenary business practices of the latest crop of MBA graduates. What the Hell were they teaching in schools?

The absolute drop in company related functions for the workers hit suddenly and alarmingly. Companies not only severely curtailed Christmas activities, but they eliminated just about every other event for the employees as well. Company picnics and trips all started to be eliminated. Meanwhile the profits of the owners of these companies reached stratospheric levels.

In fact, they began to disappear during the rise of the corporate cubicle life.

I think some companies in America might still send out Christmas cards. Though, judging from the behavior of my interns, I rather doubt it.  Heck, they treated saying “Merry Christmas” as if it was some kind of insult. Like calling a black person a nigger, or pulling your pants down and shitting on the carpet. I guess that is what you get when you have a radical Muslim for President for eight years.

Anyways…

Work was considered a PART, a fundamental part, of one’s life. Today it is considered a separate thing that you do. Today, in today’s corporate world, everything is considered to be separate from each other. You have a hobby that is separate from your career. You have a wife and family that are separate from your community. You have laws that are separate from your personal actions. You have a salary and money that are separate from your spiritual life. Today, everything is separate.

In the past, everything was interconnected.

This separation of everything into little pieces is a SIGN and an indicator of a serious breakup of society. It is almost like something took a huge sledgehammer and smashed up the life that Americans had. It is now broken up into many, many tiny isolated things. As such, it is divided and easy to smash into other,even smaller, pieces.

America is now at a dangerous point. Without unity, without the “glue” that holds the nations, society and our soul(s) together, we can be divided and destroyed. It is almost like there are forces that are forcefully trying to break everything apart.

It wasn’t that way before.

Previously we all had unity. Workers drank, smoked, swore and made off-color jokes to each other. We joked how fat someone was or whether or not they were “getting enough” at home. This included girls as well as guys. Hell, we did this to each other’s faces. No problem.

Office party during Christmas.
During the company Christmas Party many people would get drunk and have all kinds of interesting adventures.

Things have certainly changed.

Year end bonuses began to get phased out in the 1980’s. The year-end bonus used to be equal to at least one months pay. If you were a high-performer it could get much larger. I had co-workers who were getting bonuses equal to a half-years pay.

When it started to end, the bonuses started to decrease in size. First it was equal to one half a month’s salary. Then it became equal to one week’s salary. Then it became equal to a fraction of that. Then, when it was phased out all together, it was replaced by a “door prize” at the Christmas party.

But…

Company parties began to end in the 1990’s, and they began to phase out alcohol from the office during this time as well. Heck, we would always make up cocktails at the office during the final few days before Christmas eve, and if we worked on Christmas Eve, it was period of drunken mistakes and humorous situations.

Office Christmas Party in the 1960's.
There were many scandalous events that would occur during the office Christmas parties. People would do the silliest things, and the gossip it would fuel would last years. I love the smoking in the office, the office “romances” and the hard alcohol mixers that were common in the day.

Bringing trays of food to the office seemed to go away after 9-11, and the idea of home-made Christmas cookies seemed to end about that time as well. The idea that HR needed to police the staff so not to violate any work-place rules or corporate standards is a more recent event and can be directly attributed to the Obama Presidency.

Now, I don’t know if he was directly responsible for this or not. I do know that he held various seminars about workplace rules and behaviors. These were directed to corporate HR heads, and other major companies. While I can’t positively point a finger at him personally, there is some strong evidence in support of this perception.

"When updating handbooks, don’t include separate baby-bonding rules for mothers and fathers, Kochman said. While employers can include differing standards for mothers regarding the physical limitations imposed by pregnancy, they should use genderless terms such as “primary caretaker” in their parental leave policies."

-Society for Human Resource Management

I don’t know what is celebrated in American companies during December today. I can imagine that the department Christmas tree was thrown away years ago. I can also imagine that the funding for any kind of special Christmas event has been severely curtailed, and I would imagine that alcohol is pretty much banned.

Here are some good links;

Office Christmas party drinking alcohol.
It was a different time. The workplaces were friendlier and the people got along better than they do today. Having a yearly Christmas party was an accepted part of the American ritual. I most especially like the Catholic cross over the office door. Can you just imagine what a modern HR manager would have to say about that!

Of course, people would drink a little too much. But, so what? There is nothing as humbling as coming to work the next day or two suffering from a hangover and being the target of an office scandal. AH! Good times, good times. Let me tell you!

There are those who like everything to be sterile and bland. It’s the same kind of mentality that changed the colorful atmosphere in T.G.I.F. into a bland sterile airport lounge.  These individuals think that it is great that everything looks clean, crisp and similar. They like the blandness. They relish in the predictable. Their idea of excitement is a potato. Their idea of a good time is standing at a urinal. Their idea of a great date is sitting in a dentist waiting room.

Here, read how the changes are promoted as a wonderful and great thing…

"The biggest changes, and where the restaurants will benefit the most, are from refreshed interiors that make the dining experience feel less like being in the worst episode of Antiques Roadshow and in a place where you don’t mind sitting down and enjoying pieces of meat smothered in Jack Daniel’s sauces along with oversized alcoholic drinks."

-Thank Goodness it's Getting Better

How dare we think that we are better because we have eliminated Christmas and it’s celebration from our lives. I contend that making everything bland and sanitizing everything that we are omitting a key aspect of our lives that colors our motivations and enhances our appreciations.

Office party and having too much to drink.
It’s great to “get down” with our co-workers and share some humbling experiences together. It’s a good thing that the company would pay for a batch of hotel rooms for the staff. Ah, such stories I can tell you what!

Today we have computers, email, voice mail and all sorts of electronic tools to better complete our work. We work within a nice corporate office environment that allows us to function as a perfect little robot; a nice perfectly tuned clog in the great machine that pays us money for our devotion to the corporate machine.

Are we better or worse off? Personally, I really do think that we are actually worse off.

Mail Room

One of the fixtures of the “old” corporate environment was the “mail boy”. Indeed, working in the mail-room was a fundamental first step when you started work in a company. Here, you learned where everyone worked and what their role was. Your job was simple. You sorted and delivered the mail to the staff.

Of course this was before email, so of course, those twenty emails that you would get in your inbox used to be letters and memos a few decades ago. Which was, of course, why we had an “inbox” and an “outbox” on the desks.

To be fair, many companies still employ an internal office mail room and a staff that moves things around the various buildings and facilities on campus. However, it is truly a pale reflection of what it once was.

Dress Code

Dress codes have changed substantially over the years. I would guess that it would depend on what industry you were in, and where you lived. Some companies provide uniforms for their employees, but for the most part, us “white collar” employees had to purchase our own work clothes according to the dictates of the HR manual where we worked.

Yeah. Have the lowly workers buy and pay for their uniforms. Just, don’t refer to it as a “uniform”. Call it something else, like a “dress code”, and offer “guidelines”. Yeah. You don’t want the serfs (oh, excuse me, “professional workers”) to figure out their true and real spot upon the stratified workplace environment.

California

When I lived out West, in California, the general dress code for engineers and other office workers was along the lines of short-sleeved polo shirts and a nice pair of slacks. Blue jeans or denim was forbidden. Thus the meteoric rise of tan colored cotton slacks.

You know, things might be different in California today.

When I lived there, we had “Fred R-Rated” selling all kinds of electronics at ridiculously low, low prices on television. We had some little old grandmothers driving around wondering “where’s the beef?” And, we had this (new and improved) “New Coke”. Oh my goodness! No, that was a mistake of the grandest scale.  Here, an ambitious MBA manager decided to toss out the old coke formula as soon as the owner of the company died.

So what I have to say is just a little dated by two or three decades at least. Heh, heh.

Many workers wore short-sleeved shirts with their ties. They always seemed to be white or an off-white color. Polyester and nylon were pretty popular. The big scandal at the time was wearing some other pattern other than stripes on their ties. Let me tell you, no one ever really stepped out of line wearing something “off the wall” like a dark blue shirt or (heaven forbid) a black shirt with a white tie.

Ugh! One can only imagine the scandal!

Chicago

The Mid-west region near Chicago maintained white long sleeve shirts and ties for decades. Your status and rank were embodied on the type of tie that you wore. Only the managers could wear yellow ties. Most office staff would wear a red tie, with some creative individuals wearing off-color or odd colored ties.

The Mid-West was always considered to be Conservative. The area was settled by Conservative European immigrants and their values and ideas about things were handed down generation by generation to their children. As a result, the Chicago you see today is a direct extension of the results from this kind of long-running conservative traditions. And, Yes, it has resulted in a highly corrupt liberal city.

Anyways, for the most part, the corporate dress code in the Mid-West is quite standardized.

The Deep South

In the deep (deep) south, professionals wore long white shirts and ties as well. However, it was a completely different situation. There, professionals were treated special, and if you walked into a “Jiffy Lube” or a Post Office wearing a “corporate uniform, you were given VIP treatment and you would be pulled out of the line and handled directly.

There, the long-sleeved white shirt and tie was a sign that you were a member of the “professional class”. You, of course, were treated special. You had an education. You had authority. You possessed money and skill. Up North, everyone was equal. But, in the South the culture is stratified.

Your attire is a symbol of your social status.

The North East

In the North East, things were slightly different. Boston and the surrounding New England area also had more relaxed dress codes. We would wear collared polo shirts and other casual but professional dress. For me, if I was working in one of the labs, I would go and grab my white lab coat and put it over my office attire. Typically I would have my access badge on a chain that went around my neck, so I didn’t need to clip it on the lab coat.

The lab coats always tended to get dirty. The problem for me is that once I washed them the pesky things would shrink! It was terrible. So I would end up buying a replacement. I would also get one or two sizes larger fully expecting them to shrink. Typically lab coats had three pockets. Two huge pockets on the side and one breast pocket. I typically left them empty, but for some reason, I would always pick up my pen and put it in the white pockets…

Which meant that at the bottom of all the pockets in the lab coat had black and blue ink stains at the bottom. (That, and the perpetually present little balls of lint and odd debris, such as broken bits of pencil lead, metal shavings, and a spare resistor or two.)

Mad Scientist with his assistant.
You don’t mess around with a Mad Scientist. Who knows what creative solutions he may come up with to counter your nefarious activities.

I always kept a spare set of safety glasses in my pockets. Ha! I inherited a set of safety glasses from my father. It was a very old style that looked like it came from the 1950’s. It had that horn-rimmed look. So when I would accidentally leave those glasses lying down on a workbench, desk or piece of machinery, I would always find them right back on my desk in my office. Like magic! Ha! I couldn’t ever seem to get rid of them.

Nobody wanted those things!

China

Anyways, here in China, the dress code is very casual. The southern end of China is very hot and humid all year round. So typically you can wear very comfortable loose clothing. Tee-shirts are normal. Now the dress would vary by your role. As a Laoban (Boss) you would need to wear expensive “high end” tee shirts such as Armani or Louis Vuitton.

Typically, when you go on a business trip within China there are dress rules and behaviors that you should pay attention to. Thus, if you are performing some type of high-end business negotiation over some baijiu (53% grain alcohol), and smoking “555” brand cigarettes, you will carry a “man’s purse” with the cigarettes placed on top on the table. The cigarettes will be the most expensive cigarettes you can buy. You don’t need a lighter, as everyone will offer you cigarettes and light them for you. If you do need to light them yourself, you need a full-on “BOSS lighter”. This is a very manly and authoritative lighter.

Typically, the factory will have a girl assigned to you to take care of you and your needs. She pretty much will help you with the chopsticks (if you are having trouble), and keep your glass filled with your beverage of choice. Typically you might wear a wooden bead bracelet (very popular here in China) along with a Giorgio Armani watch.

If you are going to a factory, heck, jeans are perfectly acceptable. And, of course, all men are judged by the shoes you wear.

Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a famous actor that had a great stage presence. He was also a snazzy dresser. Men, listen up, we need to be as presentable as possible. We need to look good and feel good. This means pay the money for good fitting, comfortable clothes.

Donuts

In the United States, from time to time, someone would buy a box of donuts for everyone to share. I always liked this ritual. You really don’t see it in China. As everyone just gets some Congee or a Baozi and smunches on it at their desk.

If there is a good thing about corporate life in the United States, it is the donuts!

Cubicles

Cubicle from the matrix.
Modern life for “professional” workers is being chained into a “cubicle”. This is often a little grey box. The furniture and colors are all bland so that there wouldn’t be any distractions. It is considered the ideal work environment for the brainless worker caste.

The work environment during the 1960’s and the 1970’s was quite different. Cubicles didn’t start to become popular until the 1980’s. Up until they began to dominate corporate life, people worked either in “the pits” or they had their own offices (with a privacy door).

Today, the cubicle working environment of sterile blues and grays is the norm. There is a movement towards a “open work environment” were everyone sits at long cafeteria style tables and works at a bare work environment free of distraction and color. I guess people like it. You have eliminated all private space. Now people work in the open where they are the perfect drone.

via GIPHY

Open Plan

Today, there is a great “buzz” about swapping out the “cubicle farms” for an open office plan. This is not a new idea. Indeed, many offices had an “open plan” layout during the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Essentially, the office would be one big room with desks laid out like a High School room. The manager of the department would sit at the head of the room and would observe every worker to make sure that they kept in line and didn’t stray far from the business objectives.

When I first worked at Edgewater Steel company back in the early 1980’s, both the Finance and the Sales and Marketing departments were laid out this way.

Open Plan office layout.
Workers in a large, open-plan office, USA, circa 1955. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The “Pits”

When I first started working we worked in the “pits”. I basically consisted of a big room with rows and rows of desks. Next to each desk was a drafting board.  It was, in a way, similar to the “open workspace” concept that is gaining popularity today.

Here, everyone had a desk with lockable drawers and their own personal file cabinet. They had their own lamp, drafting board, and storage area. In today’s “open office” layout all these elements of personality and personal space are missing. Drones and robots don’t need it, the argument goes.

drafting pit - bell labs
SHORPY photo of bell labs drafting pit. This was the starting zone for many technical office workers int he 1960’s and the 1970’s. Here each worker would be assigned their own working space.

Office Romances

Then as now, there are office romances. Of course, back then, it was frowned upon but NOT prohibited. Today there are all kinds of rules and behavior standards that one must obey. They are all tied one way to the other to state or federal law. So the HR group tends to take a firm policy stance on these issues.

Ah, the good old days…

Cute office girl.
There were always one or two very attractive girls who worked in the office. Often these girls would have office romances or flings with the more powerful members of management. Of course, often these ladies initiated the relationship though overt flirting activities and other actions that were noticed by the rest of us in the company. However, the real truth is that while there was a lot of gossip and speculation, the real romances (if any) were hidden from everyone.

Supervisory and Management Offices

Now, once you worked down in the pits or in the general office, and got promoted, you could move up to your own office. It was certainly considered a perk of your hard earned work. With the position came pay increases, improved and expanded bonuses, and an “entertainment budget”.

Offices, at least during the 1960’s and the 1970’s had the following defining characteristics;

  • A private wall that tended to be sound proof.
  • A private door that usually had a lock and key.
  • A transom above the door to let fresh air circulate.
  • The room had it’s own air conditioner.
  • A window to view the outside with.
  • A large desk with an “executive” chair.
  • A potted plant.
  • A painting on the wall.
  • Wall decorations, such as paneling or an Interior Designed layout.
  • Carpeting.
  • A sofa and one or two soft chairs with armrests.
  • A coffee table.

Depending on the company and your role and rank, you could also have the other amenities;

  • Stand-alone smoker’s ash tray.
  • Credenza with bar.
  • Sink.
  • Refrigerator.

In the coal mines, the supervisory offices tended to be rather spartan. While they tended to have the basic necessities, they all tended to be dusty and dirty with age and use. The same is true in any of the dirtier industries. The more removed from the factory floor, the cleaner the offices were.

Traditional office.
Offices during the 1960’s and the 1970’s were quite different than business offices today. Indeed, in many cases, they resembled living rooms and lounges. Today most management offices are a sterile affair with bare white walls, a big circular table, and a nice plain desk.

Most of these older style offices were discarded and replaced with cubicle farms by the 1990’s. However, I do remember being stunned to walk into one or two a few times when I went on business trips to Milwaukee. It gave the impression of a dying world; a world of the past that was still hanging on to previous glories.

Never the less, I personally thought the offices were AWESOME!

There was always a lot of coarse jokes about the use of the sofa in the Manager’s offices, but there really wasn’t any proof to back it up. Yet, at every company, there was always a sort of “gold digger” office chick who would flirt with the management. I can’t help but imagine the kinds of interesting situations that those chicks would get themselves into.

Working office during the 1960's and the 1970's.
Here is a scene from the television show “Mad Men”. Even though it is Hollywood, the interior decor is actually pretty accurate. As is the smoking and alcohol drinking.

The Three Martini Lunch

three martini lunch.
Having long lunches that involved alcohol was common place during the 1960’s and the 1970’s. It was a rare person indeed who did not indulge. Further, management often had a budget that they could use to “bond” with their employees. These “bonding” sessions were just as efficient as the various “incentive programs” that became popular in later years.

I suppose that some explanations are in order. For there are many things that I grew up that were normal, that is considered outrageous today. One of them is the three-martini lunch. The three-martini lunch is a term used in the United States to describe a “leisurely, indulgent lunch enjoyed by business people”. Back in the day, this was a common enough practice. If you were in management, part of a sales team, or even a supervisor, these kinds of lunches were quite common. Indeed, many times, the boss would come back after 3:30 pm from a long lunch and be quite “sauced”.

Now, according to Wikipedia, it is ONLY a perception.

“It refers to a common belief that many people in such professions have enough leisure time and wherewithal to consume more than one martini during the work day.”

Ah. Nope, my dear clueless millennial. It was not a perception. It was a reality. Drinking at work was commonplace. At least in the steel, coal, and appliance industries, it was. I don’t know about the other industries.

Now, since business matters are usually discussed at them, three-martini lunches can be considered a business expense. Of course  (which includes travel, meals, etc.) and thus can qualify for a tax deduction. The people involved would remember to collect their receipts and turn them in at the end of the month for reimbursement. They would get money back, and the receipts were kept in a ledger to account for all the costs related to business expenses.

Business Lunch.
Typically, if you worked in the office during the 1960s and the 1970s, you would go out and have a “three martini” lunch with your fellow workers. Often this would be in a lounge. Sometimes we would go to a local bar and have a chili and beer.

In those days, all managers, and of course sales staff, had an entertainment budget. The manager would have free latitude in the determination of how to spend the money, and it was often considered a perk. The manager could spend it with employees to offer them incentives and to build up the working relationships, or use it for work-related tasks with other companies and people.

Wikipedia does have it right in that the three-martini lunch is no longer common in the United States. However, it is, thankfully, quite common outside of it. Yeah! Baby!

“The three-martini lunch is no longer common practice for several reasons, including the implementation of "fitness for duty" programs by numerous companies, the decreased tolerance of alcohol use (Hum… speak for yourself), a general decrease in available leisure time for business executives, an increase in the size of the martini, and a decrease in the size of the tax deduction.”

America for the modern businessman certainly blows!

President John F. Kennedy (D) called for a crackdown on such tax breaks in 1961, but nothing was done at the time.

Then another Democrat, Jimmy Carter (D)  condemned the practice during the 1976 presidential campaign. Carter portrayed it as part of the unfairness in the nation’s tax laws, claiming that the working class was subsidizing the “$50 martini lunch”. (Of course, use the “class struggle” to divide Americans. It’s a time-honored Democrat tactic. The theory is because a “rich businessman” could write off this type of lunch as a business expense.)

By the time Bill Clinton (D) came to office, there wasn’t much that still needed to be done.  So he concentrated in the elimination of all vices from the work environment (except for elected officials, of course) and the banning of cigarettes, and drinking proceeded apace.

Not to be outdone, Barrack Obama (D) started to tie health plans to tax breaks. In one fell swoop, he connected all of the industry, the medical industry, the insurance industry together, weaponized them as tools of the Federal government. Then he made the collection of personal medical information (formerly private and privileged information protected under the 4th amendment) a mandate of the dreaded IRS.

The only people who still had three-martini lunches were the “fat cats” in Washington, D.C. Today, I don’t think any company still has the three-martini lunches or even a single beer at lunch. Heck, after the Obama-era workplace rules, drinking a beer during lunch might actually end up getting you fired.

Commercial Break

Now, let’s take a break from this narrative to enjoy a little bit of advertising from my generation.

Your mom wasn't your dad's first.
Your Mom wasn’t your Dad’s first. (I’ll bet.) Let’s keep things real here. Let’s break out from all that PC sanitized nonsense and recognize that people are people. Let’s recognize that no one is perfect, and that differences between all of us is a really good thing.

Drug Screening

The major federal law governing the use of drugs and alcohol in the workplace is the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988. This Act basically states that any employer who receives federal grants or contracts must be drug-free, or it risks losing the federal funding. The Act does not, however, contain any provisions that specifically allow for workplace drug testing.

In addition to the federal Drug-Free Workplace Act, other federal laws also touch upon and concern drug use in the workplace, such the Americans with Disabilities Act (which classifies alcoholism as a protected disability) and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Specific federal agencies or departments may also have drug-testing policies in place. For example, the Department of Transportation has regulations that require drug testing of more than 8 million different employees, such as truck drivers.

-FindLAW

Drug screening was a big thing in the day. As I recall, it was an initiative by Bill Clinton (D). The idea, or so they said, was to curtail drug abuse at the workplace. None of us, at the time, thought it was a big thing. However, that wasn’t the case according to the big newspapers of the day. It was an epidemic that needed to be squashed. Their solution?

Deny work employment to anyone doing illegal drugs.

Apparently some big Washington “think tank” or “Blue Ribbon Panel” came up with the idea to pre-screen everyone before they obtained work. You wanna bet that these same people had some strong political connections to the sponsors of this ruling? Ah, “Blue Ribbon Panel”, oh yah we know your pedigree.

Of course, it does not apply to unemployed people trying to get welfare benefits, government employees or elected officials. They are the special protected class. It only applies to the serf-class; the working “stiff” who must work for someone else in order to support their family.

So today we now have the rules that make you have to pee in a cup before you start work, and suffer periodic unannounced random drug screenings. Hey dudes! What about the fourth amendment in the “Bill of Rights”, oh yeah…

The Supreme Court found that it was unconstitutional.

The UNited States drug tests everyone. It is major violation of the fourth amendment. But no one apparently cares.
I thought that the USA was the freest nation on the earth. Yet it is the ONLY nation that drug tests its employees. This people is NOT freedom. No matter what the excuse. The United States led the work in industrial production. It had the best workers in the world. What happened to flip everything upside down?

However, the reason why you HAVE to have a drug screening before you work at a company is now quite clear. It is because they will refuse to hire you unless you waive your American protections under the Bill of Rights. You need to voluntarily waive your rights to get a job. Yeah! Free country my fucking ass!

Yes, so that is correct. What a great “end run” around the protections offered by the Bill of Rights!

Each state has its own body of laws governing workplace drug testing or monitoring. For example, Alaska has no mandatory drug-testing laws, but does have voluntary drug-testing laws that employers must follow if they choose to conduct drug testing of job applicants or employees.

In many states, employers have the legal right to test job applicants for drugs or alcohol, provided that the applicants know that the testing is part of the interview process for all employees. In most cases, the testing cannot be conducted until the applicant has been offered a position.

-FindLAW

In America today, you have to sign a paper that says you voluntarily wave your rights GUARANTEED under the Bill of Rights. You do this so you can work. Hey, is it just me, or doesn’t this sound very, very, VERY wrong?

It’s the same sort of thing as the “designated free speech areas” used to circumvent the First Amendment Protections. Oh sure, you can speak your mind. You just cannot do it anywhere where people can see or hear you. Kind of defeats the purpose of the Bill of Rights. Doesn’t it?

Free Speech Cage
How the first amendment to the Bill of Rights is implemented in America today. Is a “Free Speech Cage” really the exercising of your rights?

Medical Insurance

Today, it is a given that if you work over 40 hours a week in the United States, that you would be offered an employment package that would include a medical plan. As such we tend to think that things have always been this way. While we discuss the premiums and deductibles involved, we have forgotten the history of getting medical attention as part of our employment package.

OK, so here is the forgotten history…

  • Up into the early 1970’s. Companies provided access to a free doctor at the factory. Employees were permitted to bring their families in for treatment as needed. Yup, this was exactly the way things were during the “Peace and Anti-War movements” during the 1960’s.
  • Mid 1970’s. Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy (D) decides to “improve” American health care by implementing HMO’s. Based on his speeches you would think that the world was falling apart and things needed to happen, and quickly! Funny for a fellow that never worked for a company in his life, to feel this way. Odd thing, I’d say.
  • Early 1980’s. The company doctor was replaced by a nurse, and family visits were discouraged. Maybe he was right. I don’t know, but there were certainly some changes going on in terms of the way that companies handled the health of their employees.
  • Early 1990’s. The employee was provided with a free health plan. There were no deductibles, no co-pays. The company picked up the entire bill. Let me repeat; the company paid for EVERYTHING, including all prescriptions. The employee never had to pay anything.
  • Around 1993 to 1997. Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy (D) continuously pushed the idea of HMO’s, in order to “control” the “outrageous” medical costs.  By the late 1990’s under President Bill Clinton (D), new changes in the law greatly expanded the HMO program reach. Most companies started to implement HMO’s for their employees. Read about the changes HERE and HERE.
  • Late 1990’s. Shortly afterward, companies began to have employees pay a fraction of the cost for company sponsored medical care.
  • Middle 2000’s. Co-pays on medical insurance were implemented and became a permanent fixture in the industry. Generic medications started to be provided as a low-cost option to medicines.
  • Late 2000’s. Deductibles and co-pays were spiraling out of control. President Barrack Obama (D) implements ACA ObamaCARE. People are permitted to opt out of it, but they have to pay a terrible fee for doing so and have to report their medical history to the dreaded IRS, the most feared agency in the United States.

The IRS has become a domestic military force to be used against American citizens.
The IRS is used to police Americans. While the US Constitution FORBIDS use of the military on American soil, President Obama equipped them with state of the art military-grade weapons and authorized their use against Americans without trial or Habeas Corpus. In fact, the IRS has their own court system, with no oversight at all. It is almost identical to the court system that Saddan Hussian had in Syria. It runs independently and reports to no one.

The argument behind all this is that, “Hey! If you don’t want the health care, then don’t take the job.” Whatever, it is just the way things are.

Now nothing is black and white. There are no clear cut-off dates when doctors were replaced by HMO’s and when rates started to spiral out of control. It varied from region to region and from industry to industry. This is just a rough summary based on my often faulty memory. In my case, it is all true. When I first started working, I had free healthcare by my company doctor.

I don’t think that anyone in the United States has this experience today.

Corporate Roles

Just a handful of decades ago there was a real stratification of positions and titles at work. As you climbed up the “corporate Ladder”, you would be awarded with substantial pay increases and a collection of perks that ranged from your very own potted plant, to complete company-paid vacations. This included such things as where you got to park your car, and how you entered the office.

Today, there just isn’t much thought given to the entrance locations for the company employees. In fact, it’s almost considered a joke.

When I worked at Poulan-Weedeater, they had a line (on both sides of the walkway leading into the offices) of chainsaws being tested. You had to walk through the gauntlet of noisy running chainsaws (behind a chain-link fence) before you can enter the building. It was a horrific and noisy way to start work.

However, back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, there was actually some thought devoted to how the employees would enter the work environment. Typically there was a separate parking area with a secluded (and often shady) tree-lined path to the employee entrance. There would be a security guard there who would say “hi” to you.

In the past there were two kinds of employees;

  • Hourly
  • Salaried

The hourly employees were paid by the hour. Their job was work. They exchanged their time for money. The salaried employees, on the other hand, were paid monthly regardless of the time that they spent in the office. They worked at a career. As a result of this greater devotion to the company, salaried employees would get “perks” and a far greater degree of leeway in their hours, actions and work environment.

In those days, there was a distinction between salaried workers and hourly workers. The salaried workers would have their own parking spaces, they would have their own “smoking lounge” which would have a television, and other amenities that the rank and file workers would not have. They would also have the “golden key” to the executive bathroom.

Today, this is unheard of.

Leadership Comic.
Here is a funny cartoon by Randy Glasbergen. Hum, do you suppose that he once worked for a company that had restrictive vacation rules? I do. It’s a common enough situation in today’s crazy upside-down work of corporate American life.

I am sad to say that today, salaried workers are treated identically (in the United States) as hourly workers are. There are no discernible differences. Both are drones working in a corporate environment with the only difference being their job titles and pay scales.

With the hollowing out of the middle class in the United States, where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, came an identical trend in corporate America. The associated perks of education, experience, and advancement have all but dissipated. Now, what is left is a corporate aristocracy. They rule from above and the rest of us occupy roles as drone serfs, living paycheck to paycheck, with no exit-ramp from the treadmill.

How can we exit the corporate nightmare?
How can we escape this nightmare? Is there a way out? Is it even possible, today? It seems like the laws and rules have created an entangled web that looks more like a straight-jacket than any kind of free life. We need to get off this treadmill.

Wellness Programs

Ah, that sounds so “nice”. A “Well-ness” program. Why it sounds like the government really cares, and companies really care about how us “working stiffs” live.

We are strongly “advised” to “participate” in a wellness program…

I am reminded how the Nazi Germans convinced all those millions of Jewish Germans into the cattle cars. They told them that it was a "relocation" program where they would be sent to special communities where they could be "protected" from those who would hurt them.

The government is really good at providing misleading names to programs to garner approval for otherwise bad and shitty initiatives.  How about the absolutely misnamed “Net neutrality” effort, or the “Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act” which ended up practically starving millions of school children.

Obama healthy lunch program.
Beware of anyone who offers you a great-sounding deal or name for a program. This is “Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act” food tray. Yum! When I was attending school we ate twenty times better, and we didn’t need some Washington bureaucrat telling us what to serve and what to eat.

Often it uses the “carrot and stick” approach to get workers to participate.

Hey, maybe I am missing something, but…

But, don’t you think that you are giving enough at work? After all, you devote at least 40 hours a week, plus commute time to your company. You wear their pre-approved clothing uniforms. You sit where they tell you, you do what they say. You pay money to further your education for THEIR benefit. Often times, you interrupt your time with your families to deal with work-related issues and problems.

You stand there an take it while a superior or manager berates you. You stand there and take the fucking awful 360-degree performance review. (Only a pure evil, sadistic person would come up with such a horrible and degrading event.)

Now they want you to change what you eat, how you conduct yourself outside of work, and your personal interests.

A fine diner meal.
Here is a fine meal at a diner. I see nothing wrong with this. However, the way things are going, it won’t be long before what you eat (when you are outside work) will be monitored and connected to your paycheck. This is dangerous. This is really dangerous.

Don’t you think that this kind of request is way overboard? Don’t you think that it is an imposition on who you are as a person, and an imposition on your family as well? I do.

I really do.

Blood Drives

I remember when I worked at one of the divisions of General Motors. They had this yearly “blood drive” for the local blood bank. I think that it was a good thing to help the local blood bank. However, I also think that it was a very terrible thing to force all the workers to give blood or risk losing their job.

That was the rule, though. You had to participate and show evidence to your superior. He would then log it in and add a notation into your personnel file. your participation would be weighed against other factors as part of your yearly review. Failure to participate might result in no pay increases and possible termination.

Yep, strange as it might sound, many American companies expect you to spill blood for them. I guess it is actually a distraction from upper level incompetence.

Vacation Days

Americans get very little in the way of holidays of vacations days. At most, in all the companies that I worked, I would be offered from one to up to two weeks paid vacation per year. Of course, the manual clearly stated that you would get an additional week for every five additional years of service… Ha! How many people work at the same company for fifteen or more years?

Heck, at those multi-billion dollar software companies, an “old timer” is someone who is lucky to last two years.

All of this is quite interesting, but let’s stick to the issue at hand; which is the vacation time that Americans get compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world. You know, the first time that I encountered this situation (where I was comparing myself to my peers) was when I started working with Brazilian, and Australian engineers. I was astounded that while I had been working at my company for four years, and I was lucky to have one-week vacation, my counterpart in Australia (who had only been working for one year at his company) got four weeks off. Another team member was off and away on a two-month vacation, and he was at the company for maybe ten years. It didn’t seem fair.

And it wasn’t.

No problem. It was one of those things that you don’t bother fighting against. I mentioned it to HR. I reflected on it with my superiors. Later, when I had the means and some planning, I just left the United States and went elsewhere to companies that took better care of their employees.

Some links;

Joe Banks: You look terrible, Mr. Waturi. You look like a bag of shit stuffed in a cheap suit. Not that anyone could look good under these zombie lights. I, I, I, I can feel them sucking the juice out of my eyeball. Suck, suck, suck, SUCK...

[makes a sucking noise]

Joe Banks: For 300 bucks a week, that's the news. For 300 bucks a week, I've lived in this sink, this used rubber.

Mr. Waturi: You watch it, mister! There's a woman here!

Joe Banks: [shouting] Don't you think I know that, Frank? Don't you think I am aware there is a woman here? I can smell her, like, like a flower. I can taste her, like sugar on my tongue. When I'm 20 feet away I can hear the fabric of her dress when she moves in her chair!

Joe Banks: And why, I ask myself, why have I put up with you? I can't imagine, but now I know. Fear. Yellow freakin' fear. I've been too chicken shit afraid to live my life so I sold it to you for three hundred freakin' dollars a week!

Credit and Criminal Reports

Americans have no privacy. Over two hundred years algo, the framers of the United States Constitution thought that they would protect the privacy of Americans by the 4th Amendment. They believed, wrongly, that those who would be elected to office would [1] obey the Constitution, and [2] enforce the Bill of Rights. They were wrong.

American Bill of Rights
The American Bill of Rights has withered and died on the vine. It died from a lack of care and watering. The people who’s very job was to nurture these freedoms have instead sold them for cash to others at a profit.

Today, you cannot obtain work in the United States unless you are investigated. This investigation comes in many forms. From credit reports to criminal reports,  to reports on your social media usage and presence.

We are (perhaps) slightly irked by this. Heck, in today’s society we are just happy to get a job or the potential promise of one. We put up with this situation because many of us have not been denied employment because of a report. So we think that it is not a big or major problem. We assume that it will never be a problem.

But, you know what,? As you get older, as you travel around more, as you experience life more, as you meet more people and have more opportunities… you will experience things that others won’t understand. Those experiences can, and you know that they WILL, be used against you.

Which is why privacy is so fucking damn important.

At least the EU, and China takes privacy seriously. Thank God!

Summary and Some Thoughts

As time moves on, I am getting more and more convinced that I am just an old grizzly fossil. My experiences, my belief structures, and my attitude really seemingly has no place in modern American society. The way I look at American culture, and business today is through the eyes of a jaded old man. I just don’t fit in.

It’s truly sad.

You weren't meant to be born and pay bills until you die.
Here is that point that I am trying to make. I wish that I had the ability to speak as clearly and plainly as others. I tend to get a little long-winded. Yet, here is my point. Are you living the life that you were meant to live?

Thankfully for the good of everyone, I am well removed from the realities of Corporate American life. I live in Asia where the culture is more…” traditional” and where I am able to “fit in” better. I am comfortable here, and maybe that is a good thing.

Lately, I have been reading how the huge corporate coffee exchange; (“Starbucks” for those of you who don’t know what I am referring to), is letting unemployed homeless hang out inside the restaurant, use the WiFi and the bathrooms. As someone who also was once homeless (heck, more than once) I do appreciate their symbolic gesture. But, you know what, there are “perpetual homeless”, and then there are “apparently homeless” folk.

Maybe it might have been a better gesture to offer them some free coffee for an hour’s worth of work. Maybe.

I don’t know… I’m not in that position. There are no easy answers. I do recall trying to use the Corpus Christi public library when it was overrun with homeless folk. It became a cesspool, and I needed to accompany my wife when she went to the bathroom so that she wouldn’t get accosted. When you give something to someone freely, they don’t appreciate it. It has no value to them.

Anyways,  restaurants are quite different here in Asia. Different is good. Especially when you share the same point of view and culture.

Asian dining experience.
This is a Japanese restaurant chain. I love the attitude, the appearance, and the overall “feeling”. It appeals to me. It is happy, positive, and pleasant. It isn’t contentious or corporate like the American-based Starbucks is.

Take Aways

Well, if there is one point that I do want to make, it is DO NOT FOLLOW THE HERD. You are better than that. While there are companies that are good and companies that are bad, you (as an individual) can choose how you can live your life. I suggest you be choosy. Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Question it.

  • Work culture has changed substantially over the last few decades.
  • The American government has interfered in how companies are run.
  • Busybodies typically run the HR groups in large corporations.
  • Americans are cheated out of vacation time, compared to the rest of the civilized world.
  • Coffee used to be free.
  • Workers used to have fun together.
  • People used to say Merry Christmas to each other during Christmastime.
  • Workers in the Federal Government do not need to do any kind of actual work today. It has been this way ever since John F. Kennedy (D) implemented his EO10988.
  • Bad bosses have always existed, but today’s corporate environment allows them to thrive.
  • No person, company, government, or policy should dictate how you are to live your life on your personal time.

FAQ

Q: What is a “common sense” dress code?

A: The new CEO of GM (Mary Barra ) startled everyone by replacing the huge and thick stack of rules on how to dress at work with just two words; “dress appropriately“. This caused an absolute tremor in the corporate world. How dare she? Yet it worked, and many other companies are following in her tracks. You need to realize that in many instances, professionals have a brain. They do not need to follow set hard rules carved in stone.

After replacing GM’s 10-page dress code treatise with a two-word appeal, Barra received a scathing email from a senior-level director. “He said, ‘You need to put out a better dress policy, this is not enough.’ So I called him—and of course that shook him a little bit. And I asked him to help me understand why the policy was inept.” The director explained that occasionally, some people on his team had to deal with government officials on short notice, and had to be dressed appropriately for that.

“Okay, why don’t you talk to your team,” Barra replied. “He was an established leader at GM, responsible for a pretty important part of the company, with a multimillion-dollar budget. He called me back a few minutes later, saying, ‘I talked to the team, we brainstormed, and we agreed that the four people who occasionally need to meet with government officials will keep a pair of dress pants in their locker. Problem solved.’”

Of course, I think that this is brilliant. But you know, busybodies and easily manipulated millennials can’t find common ground in this. They want hard and fast rules to control everyone and everything. Read this

While Barra’s intentions are surely to make GM more inclusive, not less, a “dress appropriately” policy might inadvertently open the way for managers to use it against employees of certain genders, races, cultural backgrounds, or other identities. 

If the only “appropriate” dress code is one that excludes “other” demographic groups, it’s not supporting an inclusive culture. 

In an ideal world, this wouldn’t happen, but given what we know about diversity and inclusion in corporate America, it is still a good idea for company policies to put checks on this kind of exclusive behavior and make sure employees enjoy the psychological safety to bring their “whole selves” to work.

Q: How did pop culture in the 1970s influence work?

A: It really didn’t. At best there was always a (terribly) photocopied picture of Clint Eastwood holding two pistols with the words “Go Ahead, make one more change” taped to a drafting board or a filing cabinet.

I once had a secretary who had a “pet rock“. Work dress fashions come and go. I did like the mini-skirts and go-go boots. Big hair was pretty cool. The negros would wear “afros“, and the gals would have these enormous “dos”.

I also once had a secretary who had a big umbrella with a big yellow smiley face that said “Have a Good Day.”  written on it. You could wear “earth shoes” to work, though I was unaware of any safety-toed boots that were “earth shoe” compliant. I had a co-worker who wore a “mood ring”.

Q: Did the drug culture in the 1960s influence the working environment?

A: I don’t think so. At work and off work, we would tend to drink and engage in the vices of the day such as smoking and chewing gum. Smoking the dreaded “reefer stick” did not become common until the 1970’s and at that, it was kept quiet and hidden. It was never part of your work life.

I know that certain people at China Lake would use “crank”, and others might drop a tab of acid or two, but that was about the extent of it. In the other industries, such as food or construction, there were those who would indulge in other kinds of recreational drugs. However, all in all, it was not really commonplace.

Q: What is the best workplace coffee machine?

A: Pour Over Chemex Coffee Maker. I love the simplicity of it. I love how it requires your attention and I most especially love the great cup of coffee that it makes. For me, I strongly urge the reader to use “Chock Full of Nuts” brand coffee. No, it doesn’t taste like nuts. It just has the most unfortunate name in the world. But, in taste tests with real coffee drinkers, there is absolutely no question that this is THE BEST brand of coffee ever made.

Chock Full O’ Nuts
Apparently, this brand is living up to it’s “heavenly” jingle, because it comes very highly rated- scoring a 4.6 out of 5 on Amazon Reviews. It typically costs between $5.19 and $5.79 for a 10.5 ounce can, depending on where you buy it. 

However, it has been a while since I was in the States. Reports are that there is new management in the company and that they are apparently replacing the Arabica beans will the less expensive Robusta beans. If this is truly the case, then I will need to look elsewhere for my coffee needs. Reader, listen up, you want 100% Arabica beans for your coffee.

Q: Is it ok to say “Merry Chrismas” at work?

A: Oh my yes. Everyone here in China says “Merry Christmas”, and it’s not even a Christian nation. If you are taken aside by HR and told not to express yourself, report that  HR manager to the CEO of the company. They are way beyond their mandate.

Comments on Free Republic

In July 2018, this article was presented on Free Republic for comments. You can read the comments HERE.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
The Warning Signs
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Link
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Notes

  1. Initial draft 20MAY18 through 27MAY18.
  2. SEO review and Grammerly check 27MAY18.
  3. Internet Release 27MAY18.

Some True Stories of Cat Heaven

What happens to our pets when they die?  Do they go into a dark nothingness? Do they go to Paradise?  Do cats go to Cat Heaven? Does the soul or spirit fly free? Are there others that help them? Will our loved ones be able to remember our times together? These are questions that all pet owners ask when their beloved pal dies. Here, I will try to answer these questions in the only way that I know how. Through my MAJestic entanglements.

I am a pet lover. I love my dogs and my cats. When I was young, we had birds, turtles, rabbits, and hamsters. Although, the truth is that I wasn’t really close to any of the smaller critters. I was only close to my dogs and cats. You know, when you get attached to your pets, you begin to bond in special ways. Dare I say it; spiritual ways.

And, when they pass on, well there are (sometimes) events that point to a life outside of the corporal…

Introduction

When a loved one dies, there is a period of grief.

This is true whether or not it is a human person or a beloved pet. Since most people have no attachment with their spiritual selves, they think that the relationship ends upon death. They believe that we are just the physical and nothing more. Death is a mystery to these people. To them, you are either alive or gone. To them, once you are gone you are forever gone. To them, your grief is a normal psychological condition. It has no other importance at all.

They are very wrong.

Spirit is REAL

There is a very important spiritual component to our being. You can call it religion or quantum physics. These are just names. For the record, there is a soul. It is not only consciousness. We all have it. That includes me. It includes you, the reader.

Cats and dogs are important companions to us as we live our life. They add a dimension to our life that in many ways is better than with a fellow human being.
Our companions on the road of life can take many forms. They don’t need to be humans. They can be dogs, cats, and even turtles. While they share our lives together with us, they influence our feelings, our emotions, and our life. When they pass on, we end up missing them terribly.

He was “only” a cat. (Image Source)

It also includes our pets. Yes. Contrary to what certain religions preach, all ambulatory entities possess souls. Though, their souls and their spiritual realities are quite different from ours. They do have spiritual elements to their lives. As such, we can see that they live on and even return back to us in another body!

I have some experiences that prove this.

Religion

What I have to posit herein is what I have personally experienced.

But, beware; it is presented in accordance with my own personal experiences. As such, those experiences necessarily gave me a VERY DIFFERENT point of view compared to everyone else. What I was involved is really, well, strange.

Anyways, that really doesn’t matter right now. What does matter is that I present some of the things that I have learned and experienced. The things are wide, diverse and unusual. I have learned about souls, Heaven, and the makeup of our reality.

I know a few things about human heaven, cat heaven, and even dog heaven. I hope others will benefit from it. If you don’t, well you can move on. There are other things out there for you.

Because of that, it will get many people angry.

What is REAL is often Hidden From Us

According to everyone, scientists, experts, government officials, religious leaders, and the mailman down the street, there is nothing but what we see. There are no spirits, no good and no bad. There are no morals. Our life is just what we see and nothing else. As such, there is nothing you the reader need to concern yourself with.

You just keep reading the government approved media. They will tell you all that you need to know. They will label what you are not to read as evil. Just obey. Keep paying your taxes.

The government will take care of you.

As such, if you listen to those people, there is only one reality and we are in the center of it. There are no souls, and no spirits. There is nothing except religions, and unless you follow Mohammed, all religions are bunk anyways. After all, that is what was crammed down our throats for the eight long years under Obama. (Ah, now everybody, don’t get your tail feathers all ruffled up. Obama wasn’t all that bad; it’s just that I never bought into his vision of what America was, and what it now should be.)

They are all wrong.

Don’t be a Fixed and Closed Mind

What I have to say will anger those who demand set nice and scientific answers and mathematical proofs. It will anger those who follow a set and formalized religion or two. It will anger those who disagree with me.

I am sorry, but this is what I know.

I have no desire to spend the time writing something that I don’t believe in. It would be a waste of my time, as well as a waste of your time to read it. It would benefit no one. Therefore, I only write what I know about and what I believe is true.

This particular subject is what I believe it is to be true.

Not a Rehash of Conventional Lore

Cat lover post 1
This is a post for cat lovers who have lost someone that is near and dear to their heart.

Therefore, what is presented here is not a rehash of conventional religious lore. (Someone quotes a passage from the Bible and elaborates on it regarding a specific issue.) Neither is it a new look into the world of quantum physics. (We see this all the time on popular science publications. It’s just a rehash of well-established lore repackaged for commercial distribution.)

It is instead what I have learned though my MAJestic entanglement. (Not my actual mission events, but rather an understanding associated with it.) So, it’s going to sound pretty strange to most people.

To prevent the reader from getting too upset, I would suggest they stop reading and go no further. It will not be comfortable to those with fixed belief systems.

Cat 2
This is a post for cat lovers who have lost someone that is near and dear to their heart.

Now, after all that lengthy background information, let’s get to my illustrative stories.

My first story concerns a cat named “Phelie”. (I use cats because I only had cats during my entanglement. So can only draw my experiences from my relationships with them.) As such, let’s look at this experience of mine…

The story about my cat Phelie

At the time, I was living on the Indiana – Kentucky border along the Ohio River there. I was living with my first wife. We had a place in the valley along the river there. In fact, there was a highway right along the river, and our house was right there next to the highway. (Well, you had to drive down a gravel driveway to get to the road, but it’s really the same thing.)

We lived in a mobile home. (Doesn’t most people in Kentucky?) It wasn’t a “double wide”. It was a 14-foot wide by 60-foot long home built in the middle 1970’s. We lived in a trailer park, and it was really cheap. We only paid $40 a month for park space rent.

For those who are unawares, it was the middle of the summer. And, trust me, along the river in Kentucky was hot and super humid could be unbearable at times.

A Stormy Night

It was around 10:00 in the evening and there was a rainstorm out. This wasn’t just an average rainstorm. It was a torrential downpour. It was raining buckets.

I for one was very happy to be in. Outside the weather was horrible. Thunder and lightning was crashing all around us. It was one of those nights where you were completely glad that you were safe and warm inside.

We had finished eating dinner and the wife was sitting down watching television.

Then suddenly she arched her back. She stared straight ahead. Goose-bump pimples covered her entire arms.

Then she snapped out of it.

My Wife was Called Upon

She looked at me with this expression.

I really don’t know how to describe it. It was part fear, and part worry. Her eyes looked at me imploringly.

She told me. No, I take it back, she ordered me. We absolutely needed to go out. We needed to leave right then and there. We had to get cat food. We just HAD to. She kept saying that we needed to feed the cats. We needed to keep them warm and safe. We needed to help the cats.

I responded. I told her that our cats were fine. They were all around us resting. They were doing cat-typical behavior. They were all there with us “chilling out”.

A Call for Action

She got up off the couch and started running all over the house looking for her shoes. It was like she was electric. She was on fire and it was as if every alarm bell in her soul was going off!

She couldn’t find an umbrella, but she started to go out anyways. I stopped her. I told her that we had plenty of cat food. She didn’t care.

We had to leave THEN and NOW!

Well, we argued for a few minutes. Reluctantly I went and got the car keys and put on my shoes. I knew better than to argue with her. (As do all married men. Sooner or later, you learn that there are some things that you do not question, if you want to have a good and stable life.) If she put her mind to something, that was it!

Off to the Car

We ran out to the car in the rain. I am not going to lie, I was drenched. Just the fifteen second run to the car and everything I wore was soaked through and through. We shut the doors, and turned on the ignition. My wife was leading with me. “Hurry!” she said. I told her that “We’re going. We’re going”.

We pulled out in what must have been the rainstorm of the century. It was like something you would find in Southern Louisiana. It was so fierce. We drove down the gravel road, the windshield wipers furiously trying to keep the window clear. We drove down to the end of the gravel road to the highway.

As we went down the small rainy incline to the highway, the head beam lights fell onto the highway surface. And there, there right in front of us was a dead cat. Right in front of us it lay. Dead. Lifeless with rain pouring down.

A Dead Cat

The reader might not understand, but I am not going to let a dead cat lie right in front of my driveway. Even in the rain. I mean, it was right there. Smack dab in front of us. It blocked our route out.

So, in the rain, I exited the car and went to the cat. Yup. There was no question at all about it. It was dead. The side was crushed and it was absolutely dead. The little guy was off in Cat Heaven. It was still warm, but had been dead for a few minutes at least.

I picked it up.

The car headlights helped me see my way around that storm from Hell. I gingerly picked it up and carried it off to the far end of the road and set it down in some tall grass. Rigor mortis had not yet set in, and the dead cat hung limp in my arms.

I set it down softly and respectfully. “Poor little guy”, I thought.

The poor guy is off on his way to Cat Heaven.

In the Rain

I stood there for a moment, and then sighed and turned back to the car.

The headlights were shining on me in the rain. Mini rivers were forming on both sides of the highway from all the rain. I waited for a car to pass by, and then I splashed through the moving water and then headed back to the car. But…

But…

Before I could open the door, I heard a faint meow. I stopped and listened again. Meow. This time it was still faint, but a little louder. I went to look for it. I just didn’t know where it was coming from.

And I found it.

A tiny kitten had somehow managed to make it to a low shrub at the side of the highway. It backed away from me. It was wet, and cold. It shivered terribly and its little cries were pathetic against the constant drumbeat of the rain.

A Tiny Kitten

It was a wet scrawny little thing.

I grabbed it by its tiny little neck. And, I dragged it out from under the pathetic little shrub. It fit within my wet hand, and I carefully carried it to the car. I handed it to my wife and she put it close to her chest and kept it warm.

Then I went out and looked to see if there were any others. I looked. But, I couldn’t find any.

When I got back into the car, my wife was calm. She was holding the little kitten close and said softly for me to go and see if I could get some milk or something at the store.

The little kitten was traumatized and in bad shape. So we drove to the local store and I bought a small can of condensed milk, and then we drove home.

We cleaned the little guy up.

It was a female grey-striped mainecoon with white mittens who was so young that it was still nursing. So we fed it out of an eyedropper. My wife held it all night. She was no longer hysterical and in worry. It was like a light switch was switched. Now, she was very, very calm. She lay in bed holding it. It was our fate.

Thank You

Now, here is the curious point.

That night, she told me that she felt like a giant mother cat was on top of her and kneading her chest with her paws. Left and right. Left and right. Left and right. Softly and purring.

This was pretty darn strange. What in the world? I have never heard of such a thing. A giant invisible cat? And what’s this smashing her chest? Crazy and strange stuff for certain!

So, I asked her “seriously”. She replied to me matter of factly,”absolutely”.

And, you know what? I believe her.

What happened

Friends have told me that it was just coincidence that we found the kitten at the same time as my wife’s urgent need to get cat food. They say that I am reading too much into this event. They say that I am crazy to believe in things that I cannot see.

I disagree.

Somehow, the mother cat found us. Maybe it was because we already had four cats. Or maybe it was because my wife was a very “sensitive” person. But I do believe that when the mother cat died, it must have been carrying the little kitten across the highway. And, then somehow it “connected” to my wife.

It didn’t connect to me.

Maybe it was because my wife was a female. Or, maybe it tried to connect to me, but I couldn’t sense anything.

Whatever, there was a connection. I actually saw how my wife reacted when the connection was made. I know that this kind of experience is subjective. To those who don’t believe in the reality of the soul, this story is fantastical. Yet it is completely and absolutely true.

As such, it can tell us many things…

What this can tell us

Look at this little story, and it is a true one. It really, really is. It happened exactly as I recalled it. There are a couple of things that we can learn from it.

  • The mother cat was dead, but it managed to communicate with my wife.
  • The mother cat was not yet in Cat Heaven when it died.
  • The communication was not physical. It was spiritual. My wife “felt” a panic. She felt a need to protect and feed the cats. She felt an urgency. She felt pure concern.
  • The information conveyed was specific. Get food. Feed the cat. Keep the kitten safe. Do it immediately. It is an emergency.
  • After the kitten was rescued, the mother cat said “thank you” and told my wife to feed the kitten.

All these things can provide us with some important insights…

  • The consciousness lives on after the physical body dies.
  • The consciousness cares for the loved ones and leaves messages when necessary.
  • If you are sensitive or “attuned” to something or a situation, you can be made aware of situations as they develop.

The rest of the story

The reader can rest assured that the kitten grew up to be a beautiful black and grey striped mainecoon. She was always on the small size, but she ended up being the boss of the household. She traveled everywhere we went, and lived a nice ripe old age of sixteen. She was a good cat. When she passed on, it was through old age.

Aside from the first moment we found her, we never had any other contact with the spirit cat.

We love our cats.
I do understand the relationship that you can have with your beloved cat. I do understand. I know that it hurts when they are taken from you.

The Lesson about Texie

Here is another story about a cat. As I stated previously, my experiences concern cats.

While Phelie was my “wife’s cat” (if you know what I mean), this cat was “my cat”. He was my little buddy. Here is a story about an incident that I had with him. This story illustrates reincarnation of spirit and how a loved one will always return to their families.

Before we begin, however, we need to talk about an earlier cat; Samantha Panta.

My first cat after marriage

I used to have dogs (Siberian Huskies) and cats while I was growing up. Then during my college years, and my stint in the US Navy and my MAJestic training, I didn’t have any pets.

Eventually, a cat walked into my life.

It was a big fluffy orange and white mainecoon. We named him Samantha Panta, and he was our cat. He would go on walks (Yes, we would go on hikes for hours at a time, and he would walk with us.) with us and do everything with us. We developed a very good and close bond with him.

The Fields of Indiana

At that time, we lived in Indiana.

Now, for those of you who are unaware, Indiana is frightenly hot and humid in the summer and frozen and windy in the winter. Springs are glorious, but you have to endure two to three months of living among fields of mud as far as the eyes can see. Fall is also a very special time. What this means is that the winters are too short to invest in a wood burning stove, and the summers are too short to invest in an air conditioner.

For us, we used central kerosene heating in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer.

At that time, it was the late 1980’s. I was a youngish man in my late 20’s and we were trying hard to save and make a life for ourselves. In order to save, we cut corners. One of the ways that we did it was not to use an air conditioner.

Instead, when the weather got too hot, we would take rides in the car with the air conditioner on. We would ride the back-country roads of North Central Indiana, visiting cemeteries (the only free places to visit) and listening to music.

Of course, that was how we dealt with things at that time. I am sure that the reader is much more intelligent than we were then. So you probably never needed to handle things like we did. We were so silly.

Chillin’ Out in the Countryside

Anyways, often we would ride to a quiet spot and park there with the AC and the radio on. Again, in Indiana there are precious free spots to park and relax. It is all owned by someone. It is all farmland consisting of soybeans and corn as far as the eye can see.

If you wanted shade, you would need to find an isolated cemetery and park under one of the trees there. It sounds boring, but unless you lived there you have no idea how we were able to cope with the heat. Indiana could become like a terrible furnace in the Summer. That’s just the way it was.

Music

Now, we would often listen to cassette tapes while we rode in the car. (This was before CD’s, USB’s and Satellite Radio.) We had a box of them.

Most radio stations in Indiana at that time had been bought up with media mega-corporations. As such, they toned down the music programming to a bland pop 40 or pop 100 on constant rotation. If you don’t mind listening to Rod Stewarts’ “Maggie May” every five or ten minutes or so, it was ok. For me, who preferred more alternative musical tastes, it drove me crazy. So we would order music out of music clubs and listen to the tapes in the car.

Some songs were so-so, but some were notable.

At that time, I happened to like “Tears for Fears”, “Corey Hart” and “Squeeze” among others. Some songs we would sing to, and others we would listen to and it would make us sad. Music in that little car of ours with our little cat was our “special time” together. We rode in a beat-up little white Mazda RX7. It was a two seater and big enough for all three of us. My cat would hang out in the back (on the middle hump) where the AC would blow on him.

A Special Moment

There was one special moment that I would like to do almost every day. I would put the cassette tape of “Baby Love” in the radio player. My little cat Samantha Panta would crawl up on my lap and I would sing to the cat. As I would sing, the cat would close his eyes half shut and purr. It was a loving moment. It was a moment that he and I shared.

(Of course, there were other songs. I used to sing “Fool for my Kitty!”, which was really the Foghat song “Fool for the city” with my own custom lyrics. LOL! I would sing it when I was in a very playful mood. Never the less, the most memorable and loving song was indeed the song “Baby Love”.)

(I didn’t only do this for my various cats. I also do this for my dogs as well. In fact, my dog Shao Pi loves to sing with me. He really does! He will just whimper and bark along with me, I am not at all kidding.)

Playing with our beloved cat.
My cat liked to play when I would make the bed. He could love to get under the sheets when I would make the bed. Such a guy!

Back to Heaven

Unfortunately, my little cat did not live long.

He contracted feline FLV. He started to die. I had no experience with a pet dying and I refused to “put him down”. I just did what I could trying to keep him alive. It took a full really long month for him to die. It was sad and painful. After three short years of life, he finally took one last breath and died. He left us and went to Cat Heaven.

We carried him across the frozen farm fields near our house on an icy January night. It was terribly cold. The ground was rock solid hard. I carried him to a wooded area and set his body under a fallen tree there. We said “good bye” and that was that.

Two Years Later

A couple of years passed.

One spring day, some guys drove up to the house in a convertible. They had a kitten with them, and they were told by someone that I liked cats, and I would take him in.

I was in the yard, and they asked me if I wanted a kitten. They handed the kitten to me. I looked at him. He was maybe two or three months old.

He was a tuxedo cat. This means that he was a black and white shorthair. He had one bad eye that had a full white cataract on it. However, he was very affectionate.

I told the guys that I certainly liked this little guy.

But, I said, I already had a bunch of cats. I just couldn’t take the little guy in. I was sorry, but I had no room. They drove off, and I went inside the house.

Well, he stayed around

Later on, I went out to empty the trash. There was the little kitten. Those stinkers! They left it at the house anyways. Ugh!

So, I took it in, and let me tell you, there was an immediate bonding between both of us. He was my little cat. We named him “Texie”. Why? I don’t know. It fit him. From then on, this cat and I were very close. Maybe you the reader have a close relationship with your dogs or cat, well it was like that. This guy and I were inseparable.

He was my little buddy.

Five Years Later

About five years after first getting Texie, we were living in Shreveport Louisiana. We had relocated from Indiana, to Kentucky, to Mississippi and finally to Shreveport, Louisiana.

I had been upsized, downsized, resized under corporate restructures, company buyouts, hostile takeovers, and just plain bad bosses. Being a design engineer during the 1980’s and the 1990’s was NOT a stable occupation.

I had a new position in Boston, Mass. So I had bought a class “A” motor-home with the hush money the company paid me.

Non-Disclosure Agreements

(For those of you that are unawares, many companies break the law routinely. To get around the laws, they make you sign to NDA’s and other documents that will allow you to get unemployment benefits, and even cash bonuses if you agree to not say anything.)

The company that I worked at in Shreveport gave me a lump sum of $10,000 to keep my mouth shut. This was in the early 1990’s, so the amount might be around $60,000 today. I took it, and used it to purchase a motor-home.

We were sorting through our things. Some things we were just throwing out. Other things we were putting into storage. While other things were going into the motor-home. I was in the motor-home putting stuff away. My little cat Texie was there with me.

Old Music

I had found a box of old cassette tapes that we had put in storage many years earlier. The tape on the box was yellow with age and a layer of dust was on it. Inside were the tapes that we used to listen to when we lived in Northern Indiana. I would say that I hadn’t seen those tapes in at least a few years.

So, of course, I put some of the tapes in and was listening to them.

A Cryout!

I well remember this event. I was in the back of the RV. I was there sorting stuff under one of the beds there. My cat Texie was on the sofa at the kitchen dining table. On the radio was playing a cassette from “Pebbles”. Then the song “Baby Love” came on. The first bars of the song began to play…

As soon as it came on, my little cat goes “MEOW!”

He leaped off the sofa as if it was electric. He ran to the driver’s seat, and got on it. Sitting there, with his two paws holding the rear of the seat, he shook his head and looked at me. “MEOW!” he yelled!

I got up, and asked “What’s up Texie? What do you want?”

He then got on his back on the seat and exposed his belly. He started to purr and coo.

So, I said “What? You want me to hold you?”

He just looked at me with loving eyes. So, I went and picked him up and sat down in the driver’s seat. Then a funny thing happened. He took on the exact same body language of my older cat Samantha Panta. He lay there in my lap. He purred and had the same half-closed eyes as my old cat. I started to sing to him the rest of the song.

His purring got much louder. MUCH louder. His eyes closed and we listened to the rest of the song together.

The Song Ended

When the song ended, he let out a calm sigh. Then he stood up on his rear legs and put both paws around my neck. He then rubbed his face all over mine and gave me a kiss. Then he got down and jumped off my lap. Then, like nothing happened, he walked down the RV kitchen area and exited through the side door.

I just sat there stupefied.

Cat love on the blankets.
Our cats are always there for us. They do not leave us when they die. They still love us and love brings us all back together.

What this can tell us

Again, this little story is true. People can argue that it is just coincidence. However, I know different. This really happened. From this experience, I have drawn the following conclusions;

  • The consciousness from my old cat found its way into a new cat.
  • Consciousness can occupy different bodies yet retain access to all the memories.
  • It took some time before the new cat came into my life.
  • The appearance of the old cat and the new cat was very different.
  • The relationships between me and both cats were similar and very close.
  • I immediately “felt” a bond with the new cat.

From these conclusions, we can also identify some rules of spirit;

  • Cats can reincarnate.
  • If cats can, other creatures can as well.
  • Reincarnation reappearance occurs when a creature has a close bond with another.
  • The bond that can result in directed reincarnation can be either good or bad.
  • If the bond is good, then a good relationship can continue.
  • If the bond is bad, then a bad relationship will continue to fester until it is resolved.

So, I tell this to the reader; if you have lost a loved one don’t be sad. They will return to you. Or, barring that, you will return to them. It is your love for each other that acts like a big bright signpost that will attract you two back together.

The rest of the story

Texie lived on. He was doing well in Massachusetts. I had to go away for a two-day trip, and left him and two other cats alone at the house. When I returned, I found him there crying loudly. His neck was swollen terribly. His nose was white instead of pink. We took him to the vet first thing on Sunday morning.

The vet told us that his white blood count was zero and they had no idea how he could possibly be alive. They suggested we get blood transfusions, but no hospitals we contacted could help us. As such, we made the difficult decision to put him down. My wife and I held each other and he lay there in the valley between our two chests. We all gave him our goodbyes and we gave him as much love as we could. Then we handled him to the doctor.

Going to Cat Heaven

The doctor said that she had never seen such a loving cat, and really had a difficult time putting him to sleep. Finally it was done. He died and went up to Cat Heaven.

We went into the car. Sad and shocked. You know, we expected to heal him, not to have to put a dying cat down. As we sat there in the car, staring out at the lush greenery of the parking lot, we both suddenly felt a wash of love and care. It was like a pleasant warm towel of love around both of us, then it went away.

cute and funny kitties.
Best picture. Indeed.

Communication between Individuals

One thing that we need to understand is that we don’t just communicate by words. We use body language. We use intonations. We use special word combinations. We also use ways to communicate by “feelings”. Anyone who is married can attest to this. Your partner is not taking and is maybe in the other room. But, you feel that something is wrong. You don’t know what it is, but you know that something is not right.

These feelings should not be discounted.

One of the most important things we need to understand is that there is a [1] physical reality and a [2] non-physical reality.

A person who is sensitive can detect changes in the non-physical reality. For lack of better terms, the non-physical reality is the realm of quanta in various state of wave properties. While the physical reality is the realm of quanta in various states of particle behaviors.

Newtonian Physics = Only the physical exists.

Quantum Physics = The Physical exists alongside the non-Physical. 

A sensitive person can detect changes in nearby wave behaviors relative to their personal relationships with others. This can be between people, and this can be between us and our pets…

Lesson from Smokey my “Little Toke”

I once had a grey cat named Smokey. I called him my “Little Toke”.

He was a great cat. He was a pretty lanky cat. He had two characteristics that were noteworthy. Firstly, he was this very nice grey color. His entire body was grey. He was a short hair, and his hair had a very nice sheen to it. The second thing about him was that he had fangs. These were not vampire fangs. These were saber tooth tiger style fangs. They lung down from his mouth in a nice proud manner.

When he got older, he had a paunch. That is to say, that he had this flap of fat that hung down from his belly. The thing that I remember the most about him was that he always tried to enunciate. I would ask him if he wanted to go out. He would always take the time to say, as clearly as he could; “I…want…out.” Really, it was so cute. However, it would be pouring rain outside and I would have to open the door and let him see for himself. “Not this time”, I’d have to say.

He was a great cat, and when I broke up with my first wife, he ended up being with her. Which was a good thing. She had moved to a house on her parent’s land in rural Pennsylvania. The cats that went with her had an entire forest to play in. When I would visit my ex-wife, I was always happy to see the cats. They had made a very good life for themselves there. They were always busy going about and doing cat stuff.

A Life Apart

Smokey was not “my cat”. He was a part of our cat family, but shared both my wife and myself as “his” humans.

He was a member of our cat household. When we broke up and he went off with my ex-wife, he would still say hello to me when I would visit. Initially, he found the move too shocking, and as such, he spent the first six months hiding in the bedroom closet under the clothes. However, soon enough he migrated outwards. Once he was able to get out and explore, he fell in love with the place.

I would come and visit, and there he would be crossing the cow pasture and heading straight toward me. He always wanted to say hi.

Our relationship was that we were “good friends”. Where Texie and I were “best buddies”, Smokie and I were just “good pals”. It was a relationship, and a good one. I would stop by and say “hi” to him. He would come up to me and rub my hand, and then go away. As if to say “I like you very much, but I’ve got things to do and places to be.”

An event after Shopping

I was living with a girlfriend at the time. I hadn’t seen Smokey in six months. Though I did call my ex-wife every month or so. She was doing well. My cats were also doing well. So I moved on with my life.

That’s life, you know. You grow and change. Sometimes those who are close to you grow and change in different ways, and in different directions than you do. There is nothing bad about that. That is life.

One day, I had just come back from shopping. I had a bag of groceries in the passenger side of the car, and I was driving home with it beside me. The radio was on, and I was near our house. As I got close, I suddenly “felt” a presence with me. I felt like a cat had just joined me in the car and was crawling onto my lap. In fact, it felt like it was going around and around trying to settle down into my lap.

It was very clear.

I Get a Visit

I turned off the radio. (I wanted to concentrate on my impressions and feelings.) I distinctly remember saying this out loud; “Now, who are you? Which cat are you? Hum?”

The feeling persisted during the balance of my trip to the house. Here there was this invisible cat that lay there on my lap. I didn’t know which one it was, but I knew it was one of “my” cats. It felt like one of my cats. He was dead, but his spirit was there with me. He had yet to go to Cat Heaven.

When I pulled into the driveway, I continued to stay in the car. I didn’t want the feeling to go away. I must have sat there for ten or fifteen minutes, until my girlfriend came out to yell at me. “What the heck are you doing? Aren’t you going to come in? What’s the matter with you?”

So reluctantly, I got up and exited the car. I didn’t feel the cat come with me. It just sort of disappeared, and I took the groceries into the house with me.

Two Weeks Later

Two weeks later, I got a frantic phone call from my ex-wife. She was worried about our cat Smokey. He hadn’t come back and he had been gone quite a long time. Two weeks for him was quite a long time. My ex-wife was quite worried and besides herself.

I told her, not to worry. “Smokey visited me. He’s dead. He is in Kitty Cat Heaven.”

She asked, “Are you sure? How do you know?” So, I explained.

What I Knew

She asked me what happened. (As if, I would know.)

Obviously, I didn’t know.

However, I had a distinct impression that he was attacked by a large animal, probably a dog. It was a quick death. He was caught off guard while in the woods near a tree and was surprised, as soon as he noticed the large black dog, it was all over. The impression that I had was quick and sudden surprise.

She said that couldn’t happen, her parent’s dogs were all beagles and they would never hurt her cats. I told her that I didn’t know who did it. I just had the distinct feeling that that is what happened.

Now, of course anything could have happened. I think that most cats die a death on the roads by automobiles. But, the impression, or the “feeling” that I had was that it was by a large dog in the woods near a tree. It was not on a road. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I do.

My ex-wife could not understand why he would visit me, and not her. I have no answer for that. Except to say that there are probably numerous reasons for it. My ex-wife, who was unusually sensitive, now needed to take medicine to keep a mental illness in check. Perhaps that medicine blocked her sensitivity to some degree.

Anyways, he never returned. Obviously, because his spirit came to me when he died and said goodbye.

Cats and kittens are very loving.
Cats and kittens are very loving creatures.

What this can tell us

As with all events, we need to take a look at the situations and conditions. We can learn from them. Of course, the statists and those who don’t believe in anything other than what they see with their two eyes think that I am crazy.

That could never happen, they argue. You just cannot “feel” anything.

They argue this simply because THEY never could feel anything. Ever. After all, they argue, every human is the same. We are all equal, with equal experiences. We all have equal abilities, and equal knowledge. Since they haven’t experience what I did, I must be in error.

Hah! As if, they were equal to me. Or, better. Yeah. Right.

We all have different abilities. Sensitivity comes with age, training, attention and experience. Just because a person cannot drive a car, does not mean that no one can drive a car. Some people can drive, and others cannot.

Don’t say that no one can do something just because you yourself cannot.

Just because you don’t know how to fly, a plane does not mean that others can’t do so. Just because you don’t know how to read Chinese doesn’t mean that no one can read it just because you personally cannot. That is silly.

It is like that.

We are all different, and if you are open and sensitive, you can feel things associated with those who are closest to you. Many people can’t. But, some people can.

What we can Learn

This is what we can learn from this event;

  • We can sense spirits in quantum wave (non-physical) behaviors.
  • The spirits can be associated with us in various ways.
  • We might not know how important are associations are with others from their point of view.
  • You do not need physical proof to know something has occurred.
  • If a person is open and sensitive, they can see things that others (who rely on only the physical) cannot sense.

Finally, the most important point…

  • My dear friend Smokey had a consciousness that lived after his physical death.
  • He did not disappear into nothingness when his physical body died.

Lesson from Snowball

Finally, I will wrap up these stories with the littlest member of my once large cat family. This is a little kitten that I named “Snowball”.

Snowball was the runt of a litter of cats. A cat next door had a bunch of kittens and they managed to give all the kittens away. All, that is, except one. This one was the runt of the litter and no one wanted it. So, one day the neighbor came over and gave the kitten to us to take care of. They were just planning to throw it into the dumpster, and let it fend for itself. Yikes! I just couldn’t permit that.

About Snowball

Now, I have to tell the reader that I immediately took a shine to this little guy. He was really young and well… not really all there. He wasn’t as sharp as the other kittens for his age. He was like a kind of slow cat or maybe a little retarded. But he was a cutie and really adorable. He had this habit or crawling up my leg and my back and always sitting on my shoulder on my neck. In fact, that was his most common position.

I would come home from work and there he would be. He would crawl up onto me and set himself on my neck and not go anywhere else. He lived on my shoulder. My neck was his home. That was were he stayed. It did not matter what I was doing or involved in. If he was nearby, he would join me on my shoulder and hang around my neck.

His time with us was short. He was only with us a few months when he ended up dying. Luckily, it was so quick. It was painless. Before he knew what was going on he was up in Heaven.

How he died

One Saturday, I was in the yard, and the neighbor called me across the street. So I walked over to them. I crossed the street. Now, I didn’t realize it, but Snowball started to follow me. He was like a laser beam. When he had a target, he just went forward and paid no attention to the world around him.

So, here I am walking across the street. Suddenly I felt a “startle”. That is the best way that I can describe it. I spun around and looked at the road.

I turned around and a SUV was speeding though the 20MPH residential zone on some sort of emergency errand, and my beloved Snowball was lying on the road. I went over to Snowball. I said “Now why are you sleeping on the road?” And, then I realized the truth. He was just killed by the SUV. He was off on the way to Cat Heaven.

Of course, I was shocked and stunned.

Spinning and Spinning

The odd thing was that from that moment on… from the moment he died (the “startle”) and until late in the night, I felt him spinning around and around my neck. He was there. I could feel him. I could not see him. His body was dead but I felt him. He went around and around my neck.

The next morning, I woke up and I no longer felt him around my neck. I got washed up and showered and went to work. I will tell the reader, I was very distressed over this. It was really upsetting to me.

A Message from “Above”

A few days passed, but I was still not over the death of Snowball. I was so sad. It was difficult for me. I couldn’t bear life. I had no appetite. I was so darn sad.

It was such a thick sadness. It was thick.

Then one night I had a dream. It was a “special” dream. Now, the reader needs to understand that dreams come in packets. [1] Many dreams are just nonsense. They are just the brain relaxing and reacting to various daily events through imagination. Other dreams [2] hold learning purposefully. These dreams come in groups of threes. In other words, these dreams will have the same theme for three nights in a row. The only way that you can follow them is through recording your dreams. Yet, other dreams are [3] portals. They are windows that allow us to send and receive messages from others in the spirit worlds.

If we are aware, we can identify these “special” dreams and isolate them away from the normal dream clutter that typically occupies our nighttime adventures.

Anyways, I had a “special” dream that night.

A Special Dream

I dreamed that a “guardian”, “angel” or “representative of humans” took me to another Heaven. There he met another entity. This was also a “guardian”, but he was a “representative of felines”.

Together they both led me to this place.

I like to think of that place as cat Heaven. I refer to these entities as guardians, but others might refer to them as angels. They were intelligent (non-human) entities who helped take me to a special place.

Cat Heaven

It was a flat and rather boring place.

They led me to it, and there in the middle of this place was a shallow depression. It was like a low shallow bowl. Inside the depression were four kittens. Each in the shape of a kind of long oblong egg. They were all asleep.

I immediately recognized Snowflaker there. And in my dream, I cried out. At that moment, I completely understood what was going on. My cat was busy going onto his next reincarnation. He was safe and moving onward, and I too needed to move on.

Of course, when I tell this dream to others, I am laughed out of the room. In a way, it makes me feel bad. Can I not relate my experiences and dreams? Am I always to be laughed at and made fun of, before anyone can really take a good hard look at what is going on? Never the less, I consider this “special” dream significant. As such, I would like to lay out some key points for worthwhile consideration.

What this can tell us

Here is what I think that this can tell us;

  • There are other spirits that acts in ways to help us when we need it. We are not alone.
  • These spirits have roles.
  • There is a Cat Heaven. It is different than a Human Heaven.
  • To visit it we need permissions, or more accurately, assistance.
  • Cats, like humans, will move on in their lives to obtain experiences through reincarnation.
  • My friend Snowball moved on with his life.

Mind and Spirit

Without going through all kinds of scientific proofs, let me lay things out this way…

Our souls exist within Heaven. We, as people, exist on the earth. The earth is our “reality”. It is what surrounds us. Heaven is not the earth. They are two different places. They exist in two separate and different universes.

But…

Our soul is always connected to us. The way that our soul connects to us is body through consciousness. Soul and consciousness is not the same thing. They are two different things altogether. You can think of consciousness as a temporary “set of self” that the soul uses while it utilizes your body. But I think that that description can be misleading. Consciousness is more like a tunnel that bores from “Heaven” to our physical “Reality”.

Consciousness is like a tunnel from the soul to our mind.

Big cat.
My idea of happiness.

Consciousness is like a Tunnel

Many people like to think of it as a nice long tube or hose that connects to your body from Heaven. I suppose that is as good as an explanation as any. Certainly, Mr. Monroe would agree with me on this point.

Now, the point of disclosure should be made clear. I have never seen this structure either with my physical eyes, my mental visualizations or spiritual perceptions. I just know that it exists. It is the way that soul connects through consciousness to reach the physical.

The soul connects to the body in the physical reality through consciousness. The soul resides in a reality that we call as Heaven.
The soul connects to the body through consciousness. It bores through the physical and the non-physical realities in a kind of tunnel like appendage.

So far, the reader should be following me. It’s really not that difficult to visualize, is it?

How it works

But, there is a problem with this. Soul resides in a Heaven that is fundamentally different than the physical world that we inhabit. Heaven is not the same as our physical world. It just isn’t. Therefore, you just cannot make a simple pipe to connect the two.

Think of this analogy; think of Heaven as a place full of water, and the earth as a place full of electricity. A pipe would not work very well because all the water gushing through the pipe would damage all the electricity on the earth. There needs to be a mechanism along that pipe that converts the water into a form that the electricity on the earth can utilize.

Luckily, there is a mechanism.

Quanta

It turns out that everything is made up with something called quanta. These are the smallest forms in the universe.

Fundamentally, they are like tiny little strings. They fit together and form particles. These particles then fit together that build up atoms. Atoms, if you might recall, fit together and build up to form things. Now quanta can take on different forms, shapes and energy levels. The problem is that the [1] energy levels and [2] forms of the quanta in [A] Heaven are different than [B] the forms of the quanta on the earth.

Souls are made up of quanta.

Everything in our universe is comprised of quanta. This is super small stuff that the building blocks of atoms are made up with. Quanta is so small that it can behave either as a very small and hard marble (called a particle), or like a wave which is like all other waves. Depending on the mode of behavior; particle or wave, the quanta has different abilities.

The Forms of Quanta

On the earth, all the quanta can be in two distinct forms.

They can be either [1] in the form of particles or [2] in the form of waves. They can be one or the other. They cannot be both at once. There are many, many discussions on this.

You can find out about wave particle duality HERE. It’s an interesting subject, but we need not get too bogged down in it. The point is NOT that the quanta itself changes, rather the perception of it does. Sort of like this…

Quanta can change states, but this is really a state change by the observer, not an actual change in the object itself.
It is not that a quanta changes, it is how the observer views the quanta that makes the change. Our soul controls consciousness. Consciousness can be in different states depending upon the point of view of the person (the observer).

The soul, and sometimes the consciousness (with training), can alter the perception of self. Or, to phrase it better, it can decide to go from wave to particle forms. Or, go from particle to wave forms. It can decide what to do when it wants to.

Souls can change their quantum behaviors

Quanta and Consciousness

Now, with this in mind, we need to consider how the consciousness can exist within the physical reality. To occupy and operate the physical body, the consciousness needs to operate on the quantum level as its point of control. For after all that is what it is. As such, it takes on a “particle” aspect of behavior. It operates as a particle. This is a very important point.

Consciousness takes on particle behavior to control a physical body

If it is a particle, it can interact. It can move about, hit, absorb and mix with other physical items. So if the quantum particle wants to interact with the physical world, it takes on particle behavior. If it wants to leave the physical world, it takes on wave behavior. Then it can “fly”, “soar about”, and visit the other “heavenly worlds”.

So, let’s put this knowledge to use.

Within a Reality

A soul can exist within a given reality as a “consciousness”. In order to be able to occupy a body, and move about the world, it needs to take on particle behavior. That is the only way that consciousness, and by extension the soul, is able to occupy a physical body. Afterwards, when the body dies, the consciousness can change form and take on wave behavior. It can then fly away and go about the world and the heavens as needed.

Consciousness takes on wave behavior to leave the physical body.

Spirits

With this in mind, we can thus identify some really interesting “unexplained” events such as spirits and the like.

Let’s consider a “spirit” (a ghost) that one can occasionally come in contact with. If you can see it, or it actually moves things around physically (such as knocking books off shelves and such), then the associated quanta is behaving like a particle. That is the only way that it can interact with the physical world.

If you “feel” the presence of a “spirit”, but you cannot see it, and there is no physical interaction, then it is taking on wave behaviors.

With this in mind, we can well imagine a spirit that might have a combination of both behaviors. Where part of it might behave like a particle and we can see it, like the head for instance. And, where there are other parts of it that might be able to go through walls and such like a wave.

But, I digress…

When something dies…

When a person, or an animal dies, the behavior of the quantum particles change. It goes from “particle behaviors” to “wave behaviors”.

The consciousness form changes.

However, it is still here. Just because the consciousness is no longer in a particle state, and the physical body is dead, the consciousness is still there. It is in a wave state.

It is in a wave state instead of a particle state. As such, it can move about within the physical realm without using a physical body. It can also move about in the non-physical realm that surrounds our physical body.

I must ask the reader to remember what Einstein said when asked if believed in Heaven. He said (and I am paraphrasing), “I do not know what happens when a person dies. I do not know what Heaven looks like, or what it is like. However, I do know one thing. In this universe, nothing is ever destroyed. It only changes shape.”

Nothing really dies, it just changes shape.

An Introduction to Soul types

Now all of this is interesting, but what does it mean to us? Hum. Let me introduce the reader to the idea and concept that souls are complex, and that they differ from species to species. It’s a pretty big leap for most people, but it shouldn’t be.

Souls are complex.

One of the problems with us humans is that all we know is all we know. The scientific method places theories based upon our observation. Yet we can only observe things from the point of view of a human. If we cannot observe it as a human, then we cannot observe it at all. Thus, everything that we know of in this world of ours comes from our knowledge as a human.

Now that was a really deep paragraph, but it is entirely true. We can only observe, interpret, and consider things that our mind allows us to. If we need to see things in the way that they really are, then we need help. (Which is partially why I was in MAJestic in the first place.)

Anyways, how we view things is always colored or modified by the environment that surrounds us.

Our reality is Influenced

Indeed, it is further altered by religious studies and the theories of others. As a result, we have a tendency to believe that humans are the greatest and the best intelligences in the universe. We think that the world, and the universe is ours for the taking. We believe that we are the dominant creatures, as defined by God in all eternity.

It is very egotistical, and terribly wrong.

All species have their own realities that they occupy and learn from. As such, with each reality, they have a corresponding spiritual reality as well. This, like ours, involves a sort of “Heaven” as well as a non-physical reality that surrounds their reality upon this life that we share together.

Souls are nothing but organized quanta that has obtained sentience.

We as humans have an “individual” soul configuration. Which means that we often feel alone because our soul acts independently from other humans. We are not connected. When our soul occupies this physical container; the body, we yearn to connect with others. There are many reasons for the development of the soul in this manner.

What I know

OK. I’m not going to regurgitate the Biblical lore, and some scientific mumbo-jumbo. I was in MAJestic. Here is what I know. If you don’t like it, you can leave.

What I know is based on my MAJestic entanglement.

Other species, those older, smarter and more experienced than us, have mapped out the science of souls. For them they understand multi-dimensional interactions over time. They know things that we don’t know. Meanwhile we are very primitive. My God, we still use the internal combustion engine for transport, and a chemical reaction in bullets for killing other creatures. How dare we consider ourselves advanced. (OK. I will get off my “high horse”.)

The human soul is an intermediary form.

Our Human Soul is an Intermediary Form

For now, let’s keep it simple and simply say that our soul is an “intermediary form”. We need to “improve it” through growth to hit a “stable archetype”, or approved form configuration. This is a very important point to understand. It is because of this that our memories of previous life incarnations are intentionally withheld from us so that we can develop and grow. This is not the case with other creatures.

In our galaxy, intermediary soul forms must grow in a “nursery”.

Yah, I know. It’s too much to grasp.

Now other animals have different soul configurations. As they should. Souls conform to a given physical shape and configuration. Both dogs and cats have a “hive” or shared soul. Their soul configuration is stable. It is not an intermediary form like we humans have.

As such, cats and dogs for instance are fully aware of their previous incarnations.

Memories are stored in the non-physical Reality

Since memories are stored outside of the physical reality, the access of it is possible in certain ways. For access of physical memories related to a specific physical body in a set reality, they can be accessed directly by the consciousness by using particle behaviors. For access of non-physical memories from previous incarnations, access is only possible through wave behaviors. As such, humans can’t remember previous incarnations. However, creatures with hive souls can access memories from previous incarnations. (As would explain the experience with my cat Texie.)

It is very much like it is portrayed in the movie “A Dog’s Purpose”. I strongly recommend the reader to go rent this movie on Netflix or download a torrent of it. In regards to this movie, I would like to “underline” a number of key points;

  • The dog remembered its’ previous incarnations.
  • The dog went through numerous reincarnations.
  • The dog was always attracted to those people, places and things that were meaningful to it.
  • When the dog reincarnated it would take on a different appearance, sometimes a different gender, and possibly different attachments.

All of these things are very true.

An Explanation of the Soul

What we refer to as “the soul” is actually nothing more than “consciousness”.

It is a self-understanding of being. This is a quantum state. There are those who believe that actual consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in the microtubules in the cells of the physical body. This is known as the “Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory (Orch-OR)”. However, for this to be true, it implies that consciousness needs a physical body to exist, when it is the exact opposite that is occurring. The physical body is what precipitates at lower energy states from the thoughts and desires of a given soul form.

Not the other way around.

Heavenly Relationships with the Physical Reality

Actual consciousness, and thus soul, is a manifestation of quantum gravity effects independent of a physical body. In low energy states, the creation of a physical body occurs through precipitation of the energy state. In that environment, the quantum gravity effects due to the quantum particles attach themselves to the microtubules in the physical body. This then, is the actual description of what soul is. (If you were to use conventional nomenclature and contemporaneous descriptors.)

In conventional and colloquial speech, the soul is often referred to that part of the human body that is not physically observed. That is truly disingenuous, because the soul is actually the sum total of every experience of your consciousness, regardless of space or of time. It includes the physical self, and the spirit self. It also includes all thoughts and experiences that the person has. Since it is timeless, it also includes all events that the soul experienced. This includes events prior to birth, and events that occurred after death of the physical body. This also includes all previous reincarnations.

Experiences and how we react to them is what shapes our soul.

Experiences are the Mechanism by which Souls can Grow

Experiences are the reason for why we are on the world. Experiences are everything. Both the good and the bad experiences are what matters. Ultimately, it is what defines our sentience. As I will elaborate upon later, they will determine what shape construct our soul manifests in the physical. Experiences are nothing less than entangled quantum particles.

Experiences create entangled quantum particles.

These are particles that alter the formation and behavior of the quantum gravity effects. Thus, it is desirable to have a physical body of the lower density levels to constrain the microtubules in the cells. This is why the physical body exists, and why it is so important for a given soul or quantum entity to acquire experiences in the physical world. This helps to add shape and definition to the experiences that a soul or entity experiences.

Life is like a hallway with many rooms. The life once lived can be in a mansion with many rooms or in a one-room shack. It is the experiences you live that determine what you get out of life.

The experiences you have determine what you will get out of life.

Everything Has a Soul

Every physical item, animated, intelligent, or inanimate, has a soul. Dogs and cats have souls. True, they are different from human souls, but they still exist. Since there is no thing such as physical space, that is just a perception due to the limitations of our brain, we are all connected and our souls fit together like pieces in a complex multi-dimensional puzzle. All souls are different and they all connect together differently. But they do connect to each other. We are all interconnected.

On an ancient tombstone in England, there is this inscription:

“Heaven will Heaven never be
 Unless my cats are there
 to welcome me.”

Organized quantum “clumps”

I am quite sure that the reader did not expect to get into such a deep “rabbit hole”. You probably wanted a much easier (on the eyes) story. But to appreciate the story, you need to understand what is going on and why.

In Heaven, the Soul is not some kind of evenly distributed mass with quantum particles. Like a swarm of bees. Or like a pot of hot water with a lot of salt in it. Instead, the soul is lumpy. It has clusters or clumps of multi-dimensional quanta that interacts with other clumps and clusters.

The soul is a “lumpy” mass that resides in an area without physical form.

We need to understand that the quanta that comprises a soul (quantum cloud –individually associated) is composed of smaller clumps of organized quanta (clusters). Humans have ten (10) such major clumps (clusters).

Garbons

These clumps are known as garbons. These clumps of quanta; these garbons, are discrete. They form building blocks, and many such building blocks are used in other soul shapes and archetypes.

Now other religions have identified aspects of being. They roughly associate with garbons, but they are NOT the same thing. The reader should not bet confused.

A garbon is a stable discrete cluster of organized quanta.

The forming of these “clumps” is though one basic process; accumulation of experience. The more experiences that a given entity has, the more quanta that are accumulated. How it is accumulated is determined by the [1] types of experiences that the entity has had, as well as [2] how they react to those experiences.

Souls are made up of clumps of quanta, called garbons.

The accumulation of experiences do not necessitate the formation of new garbons. But rather help establish the behavior of the garbons with respect to time (entropic change) and dimensional placement of the lower energy components (they tend to drift about MWI dimensionally).

Matrix lattice arrangements

How the clumps interact with other clumps is known as a “compound lattice” or a “matrix”. (Do not get confused with the movie of the same name. That is not the case here. The term was used in the mid-1980’s to describe these events well before the movie of the same name was released.)

There are attachment points, or more accurately, interactive exchanges between the “clumps”. Yes, these garbons work together in various ways.

Swales

In the human individual soul, there are 22 major interactive exchange lanes between the cluster groups and clumps. These attachment points transmit quantum-entangled information. They do so using different states. These states are also discrete.

The connection points within a lattice are interconnected with pathways known as swales. The arrangement and function of the swale varies considerably from specie to specie, but is an actual function of the net experience base of the total cluster as a whole. It varies over time. It varies in capability, and in configuration.

Swales connect garbons together to form a lattice (or matrix).

All souls, human or otherwise, consist of a lattice. The lattices all consist of garbons connected by swales.

The Tree of life (Kabbalah) is very similar to that of the garbon lattice or matrix of the human soul.
The Tree of life (Kabbalah) is very similar to that of the garbon lattice or matrix of the human soul. However, it is not the same thing. Both are diagrammatic representations of how major components of who and what we are work together to form a human soul.

Terms & Calculations

Now I describe things herein is not necessarily the same as how quantum physicists or other scientists describe things. Thus, my simplistic description can easily be misunderstood. I want to avoid that.

For all practical purposes, the mathematics of souls are well understood. It is just that they are not applied in the same framework of understanding towards that of the soul. The reader must understand that aside from the nature of the discussion; a borderline theological rather than pure scientific discussion, I have greatly simplified the content and organization of souls.

Locality

The key to achieving this simplification is a principle called “locality.” Any given quantum particle only interacts with its nearest neighboring particles. Entangling each of many quantum particles with its neighbors produces a series of “nodes” in the network. Those nodes are the tensors, and entanglement links them together. All those interconnected nodes make up the network. A complex calculation thus becomes easier to visualize. Sometimes it even reduces to a much simpler counting problem.

(Which is exactly why we obtain “experiences” within this “reality” that has a physical dimensional component. Without that component, it would be very difficult to define “locality”.)

Indeed, as I have stated previously that there are many kinds of souls; there are also many different types of tensor networks, but among the most useful is the one known by the acronym MERA (multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz).

MERA

Multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) works is a rather straightforward manner; Imagine a one-dimensional line of particles. Replace the eight individual particles — designated A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H — with fundamental units of quantum information (qubits), and entangle them with their nearest neighbors to form links.

A entangles with B, C entangles with D, E entangles with F, and G entangles with H. This produces a higher level in the network. Now entangle AB with CD, and EF with GH, to get the next level in the network. Finally, ABCD entangles with EFGH to form the highest layer.

“In a way, we could say that one uses entanglement to build up the many-body wave function,”
 -Román Orús, a physicist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany

The use of entanglement can build up and create different kinds of entanglement systems; and thus different kinds of nodes; orbs, lattice networks, swales and garbons. Overall, these networks demonstrate how a single geometric structure can emerge from complicated interactions between many objects. This emergent geometry can explain the mechanism by which a smooth, continuous space-time can emerge from discrete bits of quantum information.

And that, boys and girls, is how unorganized quanta becomes organized through experience.

Physical location of the soul

We, as humans, are so accustomed to treating the “soul” as something “else” that it is difficult for us to understand just where it resides. We tend to think that it is here, there, or everywhere. Alternatively, we might think that it resides in another dimension or universe. Yet, as strange as it might seem, these answers are both correct and very wrong.

The soul is a collection of many consciousness’s.

The consciousness is nothing less than the accumulation of thoughts, over many many reincarnations. Since thought has a physical manifestation as the multi-dimensional aspects of quanta, it can be considered to have a physical component.

Yes, it resides in multi-dimensional states, and (for our purposes) in the “universe” (speaking figuratively) of the physical and the “universe” of the spiritual. As stated previously, the Soul resides in a universe called “Heaven”, and the physical body resides in a universe called “The Physical Universe”. To confuse things, they are connected. So, as I stated, it resides in both and either.

Our physical body is a mere percentage of the entirety of our soul. The soul has a physical and spiritual aspect. In relative location with the physical body, the soul is part of every single cell. There is no specific point of residence of the soul.

Attachment Point

However, the soul matches certain physical locations or attachment points. These are well known as chakras. The history and the religious acceptance of their purposes are pretty well defined and pretty much accurate. However, the main control center, or the primary attachment point is located within a tiny gland within the brain. The exact same gland (This is the pineal gland, which is located in the epithalamus, near the center of the brain.) that my ELF probes (installed at NAS NASC Pensacola, Florida) accessed. (Yeah, more MAJestic nonsense. You can ignore this all, if you feel so inclined.)

The pineal gland is a key attachment point of our soul to the physical body. Consciousness uses the pineal gland as a staging area for localized points of control.
The pineal gland is located within the brain, and it is the primary connection point of the consciousness in the physical reality to the soul.

Pineal Gland (Image Source)

Um. Remember boys and girls, I just didn’t pull all this information out of my ass. It came from somewhere. There’s a lot of fakers out there. If you want the real deal, then here it is. Surprise! It’s not what you thought it would be, is it?

The pineal gland is a pretty well-known source of control. It has been known for many years, and scientists and researchers are constantly trying to learn from this gland and its effects on the soul and on people who try to do physically related soul calming activities. For instance, a team of neurologists, directed by Dr. James Edward Monroe and Dr. Waheed Langhani, spent three years studying this gland. They studied thousands of scans obtained with a technology called Functional magnetic resonance Imaging (FMRI), which enables scientists to see images of changing blood flow in the brain associated with neural activity.

While studying the numerous FMRI scans, the researchers noticed that every time they asked a patient to pray or meditate, the brain activity suddenly concentrated around the epithalamus, more specifically in the pineal gland. After thorough testing and investigation, they were able to determine that the small endocrine gland was the center of all spiritual and religious thoughts and beliefs, within the brain, acting as the headquarters of spiritual activity that receives information and sends “orders” to the other structures of the brain. The exact functions of the pineal gland and the nature of the relationship between the “soul” and the body remains unclear, however, because the extremely intense level of brain activity and its concentration make the data harder to analyze.

“We first noticed that when the patients began to pray, their pineal gland became completely hyperactive. This seemed really unusual, since this gland was known to have a low and constant level of activity. We were finally able to determine that every time a patient prayed, meditated or even read a holy book, the brain activity was clearly centered on the pineal gland and the thalamus. There is so much activity at times, that it almost glows on our scanners, and it’s hard to see exactly what’s happening.”
 -Dr. Monroe and Dr. Langhani

The reader should understand that this attachment point is a very important one, but not the only one. Removal of the gland will NOT detach a physical body from its soul component. This gland only functions as the control of the PHYSICAL ASPECTS of a given soul. To tear the physical body from that of a soul, all the chakras have to be immobilized.

Souls of other entities

Now, finally after all that boring basic stuff, we get to the heart of the matter…

The way that a soul is constructed depends on the quantum makeup of the species. Some souls are simple; such as tables and other inanimate objects. While others vary in complexity from that of plants, simple organisms, simple creatures all the way up to higher order mammals. But it doesn’t end there, as there are very complex entities in far greater and higher states than humans. (Consider of “angels” for example.) These other souls and quantum configurations can vary in shape and layout.

The layout, configuration and shape of a soul varies greatly.

The physical body represents less than 5% (in accumulated volume) of the quantum entity. The rest, hidden from view by humans, is both enormous and complex.

Contemporaneous human quantum physicists are just now recognizing that the quantum spirit exists; imagine what they would be able to understand given 200,000 years of study! (Like some of our extraterrestrial friends.) Many of the attributes and trending fields associated with the soul are so alien to the human existence that there are no words to describe them. For purposes of simplification, we assigned simple broad reaching nomenclature and symbolism to represent, what was to us, extremely sophisticated technological understanding of complex processes and states of existence.

To understand what a soul is, one must first understand that the concept of it runs counter to that of conventional Newtonian science. The physical laws and reasoning behind Newtonian science do not apply. Souls occupy the world of Quantum science.

Types of animated biological entities souls within Heaven

“All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place.”
 ― Douglas Adams

There are many kinds of souls.

In each type, the behaviors and interactions of the quantum particles interact with each other differently. It all depends on how the quanta interface with each other. This ability to interface with each other has similar analogs in the physical world.

For instance, fish live in the sea, and birds fly in the air.

The interface and occupation of various attributes are constrained by the limitations of the physical universe and the inherent thought (components) that manifest the environment that is created. The reader must realize that the ability to interface with similar event attributes eventually colors the construction of a given quanta cluster. How the cluster is constructed regulates whether it can be self-propagating.

Self-propagating soul clusters become animate in the physical world.

Individual Soul

Let’s start with what we know and understand. Let’s discuss the “individual soul” construct.

The human soul is an individual soul. That is to say that the relationships that we have with each other are not hardwired in the quantum connectivity between the core quantum arrangements in the basic unit of the soul. Each basic quantum soul stands alone and apart from others. It can communicate with them, and can share ideas, information, thoughts and experiences. But it cannot own or hold those elements of another soul. They can only be passed from each other through a secondary means.

Of course, as humans we communicate by writing, talking, body signals, behaviors, scents, and many other ways. There are a rare few who can communicate using PSI ability, but they are pretty rare. Depending on the previous religious experience, or education that one has, there might be some confusion in what is discussed here.

For our purposes, an “individual soul structure” is equivalent (in name only) to the “jiva-atma”. In the Upanisads it is explained that there are two types of souls which are technically known as jiva-atma and param-atma. Jiva-atma, or the individual soul, is the living entity and param-atma refers to the Supreme Lord who expands Himself as the Supersoul, who enters into the hearts of all living entities as well as all atoms.

Thus, ultimately we feel the universe as an individual. We feel alone, and not connected to others. We yearn to connect, and to become part of other peoples and communities. Yet, through our latent quantum ability, we can connect with others through various quantum techniques.

We are unique and separate individuals. But all of us possess the ability to reach out and touch the quantum bodies of other individuals. For we are all simply quantum vibrations in our most fundamental state.

Hive Soul

"How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven."
 —Robert A. Heinlein

On the earth are other kinds of souls. Let’s look at a common soul archetype that humans interface with.

Both dogs and cats have Hive souls. This is a soul arrangement that permits the core quantum soul elements to be shared with other souls of the same species. It manifests, to us humans, as physical containers.

In this arrangement, a given dog or cat body might have one, two or even more than three personality clusters. A personality cluster is a set sub-cluster of quantum elements. They stand alone and are shared between other soul groups. For us humans, we can only conceive of but one personality cluster per physical body. And, thus we assume that all animals are like this. This is not true at all. Dogs and cats can share their personality clusters with each other. And thus, enable one dog soul for example, to inhabit or share the body of a different dog.

It only works interspecies. A cat cannot share its personality soul cluster with a dog and vice versa.

The discrete soul pattern or archetype for a feline is different than for a canine. Thus, they are unable to cross interact. However, both archetypes are of the same general form which is a hive soul cluster.

Patterning

Fundamental to this is the concept of “Patterning”. Hive souls, and to some degree, matrix souls tend to fall into discrete patterns that surround the physical manifested body. Thus, this patterning has a benefit of permitting the inertial makeup of a soul to find its least potential entropy through interaction with a neighboring soul.

That is why you might see cats and dogs that copy movements. They will copy the movements of those that they are close to.

If you lay down a certain way, your dog or cat might do so as well. If you have two pets that are friends, you might notice that they tend to behave and position themselves in exactly the same way. This trait is known as patterning.

Cats have the ability to bond with other cats. This manifests as patterning behavior.
Cats have the ability to pattern behaviors of other creatures that they have an emotional bond with. This has to do with their garbon orientation within their soul structure.

Switching

Cats can do some amazing things with their hive soul. One of the most startling is that they can perform “switching” activities. They can occupy the physical body of another cat. Thus a given cat’s body might have the soul that the owner is used to, and an occasional “visitor” cat soul. This is amazing stuff, and not at all well known by the human race.

Heck, I might be the very first person to write about this.

In fact, an owner of a cat who died, and then gets a replacement cat would find that the former cat’s soul would come back and occupy the new cat’s body. Cats can migrate in and out of Heaven at will. Often times completely displacing the original cat who moved on to other locations and places. That is why the cat behaves, acts, and even “feels” different when it moves into a new household with new people.

Gravity Manipulation

Some hive souls can alter localized gravity. This is very strange, and it is not known how they do this. Cats are one of the species that have this ability. They can decrease their weight at times and under certain conditions. It enables them to “seemingly” defy gravity. This permits them to jump higher, and to leap farther than what would normally be considered normal.

Cat owners can attest that the cat might (at times) feel lighter then when they are held than at other times. This is a manifestation of this ability. (Come on, cat owners, you know that this is true. Speak up.)

Cts have the ability to alter gravity. They can become lighter at will. THis can be used to help them hunt, and jump higher than they normally would.
Cats have the ability to manipulate gravity by making themselves lighter. This can benefit them in hunting, and attacking prey as this GIF clearly shows.

Cats can manipulate gravity. They can be lighter or heavier at will. (Image Source)

Dogs do not have this ability.

What can we learn from this?

I have provided my stories relative to my knowledge of souls and Heaven. As far as most conventions, my experiences and my stories are pure nonsense. They mean nothing.

Just like the Catholic Pope believes that there is no Hell. We all have our own points of view. For a given person, we could be correct, or we could be false. It doesn’t really matter. It is what you, deep down inside, believe. For me, I am sharing my beliefs. I know that many people will not agree with me.

That is fine too.

In my mind, they are significant. And, so I have shared them. If I can help just one person, just one, then this article was worth it. The world is full of people who will laugh at you, and will disparage you. It need not be this way, but that is the way it is.

The Loud and the Ignorant

I remember a story that I read on the Drudge Report back in 2014. A mother was alerted that her six year old boys were posting nonsense on the Internet degrading women, and just tearing up the chat rooms with all kinds of nonsense.

The mother found out about this, and made a public apology. I like to think that she tore the boys a new asshole.

Never the less, the point needs to be made, just because there are people who disparage your message, it does not mean that they are authorities or that they have the ability to be given any attention. Those that behave like children, might actually be nothing more than that.

That infantile response is typically made by someone with an infantile brain.

Indeed, prior to the internet, people could see just who they were talking to, and who was calling them out on their comments. If it was a person deserving respect, they were listened to. If they were not, they were ignored. We cannot replicate this environment on the internet, though I have tried to put some protections in this blog.

I have related what I know about souls, and placed it in context with my own personal experiences. They are my experiences, and they DID happen. You might not believe it, but it is the truth.

Further Readings about Heaven

I would suggest the following books for those who truly want to understand what happened in the stories that I have related;

Pick Me Ups

When I am down, I like to go on walks in the woods. This isn’t always possible. If you are inside the house, and are sad here is a website or two that might put a smile on your face;

And, if you want to meet some lonely cats and kittens, well here are some links to do that too…

A Question for the Skeptics…

Here is my question to everyone who does not believe my experiences: “Did you buy groceries ten years ago? Seriously. That is my question for you. Now, please answer it. Did you buy groceries ten years ago. Yes or No?

Yes/No. Well, great. Fantastic.

Now prove it to me.

Because, like you, I demand cold hard facts. I need witnesses, proof, receipts, and Xeroxes from your ledger. Unless you can provide them to me, everything that you say is just nonsense. It’s just hearsay. As such, you could be making it all up. I don’t know because I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it. I have to take your word for it.

Does anyone have similar experiences?

I would hope that there are others out there who have had similar experiences. If so, I would really welcome you to take the time and share them with me in the comments section.

There are people out there who are hurting. They are hurting really, really terribly. They have just lost a loved one, and they think that they are alone and their little pal is gone forever and for good.

It’s not true. But that is how they feel.

Heaven is not as far away as it seems. Heaven does exist, and we all connect to it. I would really welcome anyone to place their stories here to share and to help others who visit this page for support. I just can’t possibly be the only person who has ever had these experiences. I just possibly can’t be.

Bible Thumpers

Oh, …and don’t just be a “hit and run” “Bible thumper”. If you want to use a Biblical passage to illustrate something, that is fine. We all welcome it. Just don’t lay down some passages and scurry off. It’s not really compassionate. It’s lazy. It’s pretending to be someone doing something, when in reality all you are doing is nothing. Let’s have some real stories and a point that you want to make. Then, please post the passages in context how they helped you personally.

Oh,… and while I am at it, I pretty much edit the comment section. When it comes to comments, I am GOD.

So if you want to devolve into racist rants, are offensive, talk about Jews, or try to tell me how I too can get rich on the internet, I will delete your posts. Remember, nothing gets posted UNTIL I read it and approve it. So don’t even try. OK?

I hope that I have made myself clear on this point.

Conclusions

Please believe me, you are not alone.

We are more than what we see. There is an entire world out there that we cannot feel. It extends outward to include our friends and family. When someone dies or leaves we are still connected. There are various ways that we can meet up again and connect. Please believe me, we will meet up with our little pals in the future.

I know. I mean to say, I REALLY know about this subject.

If there was ONE thing that I am absolutely convinced of, through my MAJestic entanglement, is this simple truth. We will always meet up with our loved ones when we perish. They will join us in Heaven.

I promise you this, that when you meet your beloved cat in the future it will be like this…

When our beloved pet, whether a cat or a dog, dies we will meet up again in the future. There are no absolutes, and in this universe nothing ever dies. It only changes shape.
When we die, or one of our loved ones dies, whether it is a cat or a dog, we will meet again. There is no such thing as time, and everything in this universe is never destroyed. It only changes shape.

There will be many happy reunions in the spirit world. (Image Source)

Take Aways

Well, I really gave the reader a huge information dump didn’t I? You expected a nice light hearted or heartwarming story about how cats live in Heaven, and instead I gave you this; a dissertation on the soul and examples how it manifests.

via GIPHY

Now, I don’t expect the reader to understand all of it. Or, maybe even a small part of it. What I do want to do here is to provide the reader with the most basic information so that they can live their lives fully, and not be emotionally distraught when a loved one dies.

So here are my “bottom line” lessons that I can give to the reader;

  • We all, every creature on the world, has a soul.
  • The soul resides in a Heaven.
  • The soul connects to the physical body through a mechanism called consciousness.
  • Memories are not stored in the physical body, they reside outside of it.
  • Movement of consciousness in and out of the body is a function of the quantum state.
  • There are two quantum states of importance; particle and wave.
  • The particle quantum state permits the body to be alive and ambulatory.
  • The wave quantum state permits out of the body travel.
  • Outside of the physical body is a very big world and universe.
  • Nothing ever dies. It only changes its’ quantum state.

And, finally,

  • When a loved one dies, they still exist. They actually DO remember you and your times together.
  • If your love and relationship was strong, they will return back to you.
  • You might not recognize them because they will appear physically different.
Love cat.
I truly hope that this post / article was able to put some hope in your troubled mind.

RFH

How about a Request For Help? I tire of busybodies and statists who poke fun at the ideas and theories of others. They offer no constructive dialog. Rather they just make fun, ridicule, and then scurry under a rock.

I use this forum as a way to disseminate some of the things that I learned though my thirty years of involvement in MAJestic. However, I am forbidden to posit my knowledge directly. I cannot tell the interested, the “secrets of the universe”. The best that I can do is share my opinions about things that interest me, and flavor it indirectly with my forbidden understandings.

To help put this in perspective, put yourself in my shoes…

Imagine that you are working at a company with a brutal NDR. You cannot divulge anything about what you are involved in for any reason.

Now, let’s suppose that for thirty years you were involved in training unicorns to dance with bigfoot. To help with your training, the Lock Ness Monster would gather “magical beans” that you would award the unicorns when they did a particularly impressive dance move; like the cha cha or a nice rendition of the samba.

Now, there is no way that you can talk about unicorns, bigfoot, or the Lock Ness Monster. But, the NDR doesn’t cover “magic beans”. So in the best interests of society, you might want to posit your thoughts about growing “magic beans” and how they might be of interest to imaginary creatures.

That is the situation that I find myself in.

So, if you, the reader, were so interested, I would welcome your stories. Tell me about your loved ones. Tell me about how you coped with their loss. Tell me about how the Bible helped you through your grief. Tell me about any dreams or spiritual experiences that you have had. Tell me about how you have coped. You are never alone in this. We are all here to help each other.

This is my callout, to you the reader, to assist all of us in solving these mysteries. After all, this is a far better use of the internet than for looking at Justin Bieber videos.

FAQ

Q: Do cats go to Heaven?
A: Yes absolutely. Now, you need to understand a few things first. Initially, they will hang around the physical world. They will fly about in the quantum wave form and explore all kinds of things. They will hang around for a little while, but soon they will be all over the neighborhood. Eventually, they will move on. They will migrate to the “Cat Heaven”.

It is a place that the quantum soul for the cat; it is their true and real home. They will then go here and stay a while. After a while they will decide to return back to the earth. If your relationship with them was strong they will return to you. This can be in numerous ways. Often it is through a shared body with another cat, or completely occupy the body of a new born kitten.

Q: What will happen to my pet when they die?
A: Most cats don’t stay around the physical for long once they die. Once their quantum shape changes and they enter wave behavior they are free to go anywhere, and so they do. If they are particularly attached to you, they will hang around with you. But, even that will not last for longer than a day. Then they will go to more interesting and comfortable places; their version of Heaven. This is a “Cat Heaven”.

Q: My cat died, what can I do?
A: Well, the first thing that you need to do is say “goodbye”. You need this. The cat does not. The cat knows how you feel. They really do. They also know that they cannot stay too long near you, as it would disrupt your life. So, often they will leave rather quickly.

They seldom hang on longer than a day. They tend to quickly find their way back to Heaven. Once you say your goodbyes, then you need to get rid of the dead cat’s body. You can bury it yourself, or give it to the vet for disposal. They will usually charge a small fee. You can also throw it in the trash. This sounds terrible, but the cat’s soul does not care about the body any longer. It has moved on.

Q: I miss my cat, it died, is it ok?
A: Of course. We will always miss those whom we love and care for. The longer we are with them together, or the strength of the intensity of our love will determine the grief that we will feel when they leave for Heaven. It is always ok to feel a certain way. Do not allow anyone to tell you that what you feel is wrong, bad or misplaced. It is a very personal thing.

Q: Will I see my cat in Heaven?
A: When you die, you will always be able to reunite with loved ones.
You might not share the same species, but all of us are made up of quantum strings. Of course we can meet up. The difference, well it’s a minor technical point, is that we will have to cross some minor barriers to meet. However, the good news is that there are systems in place that will allow you to do just that. You will be able to meet again. I promise. There are bridges in Heaven between the Human Heaven and the Cat Heaven.

Q: Will I see my Cat again?
A: If you had a good relationship, the answer will be yes. We always return through reincarnation towards our attachments. This can be good attachments if we are good people, and bad attachments if we are poor in our relationships. The returning cat will not look like your former cat. But after a while you will feel a special bond. Pay attention to your feelings. Close your eyes and do not be deceived by appearance.

Q: What is Cat Heaven like?
A: I don’t know. If my one dream was an accurate portrayal of heaven, then I would have to say that to my soul it appeared empty and bland. My guess is that Heaven is what you make it. Within a Cat Heaven, it is probably filled with things that are of great interest to cats. Just like a Human Heaven is filled with things that are a great interest to humans.

Q: Is my Cat spirit ok?
A: I am sure that he is just fine. We have to stop thinking that only what we see is all that there is. You cannot see radio waves. Does that mean that television and the internet does not exist? You cannot see feelings, does that mean that there is no such thing as love? You cannot see what is going on at the other side of the world. Does that mean that nothing is going on? Of course not.

via GIPHY

Q: I had to put my pet asleep. Will it hate me?
A: No. However, that being stated, the emotions that you feel regarding this is everything.

I have needed to put many loved pets down. It is never easy. It tears my heart to remember those times. Please know that their soul moves on and forward. Your love for each other still exists in other forms and other ways. The quanta never goes away. Those relationships that you have built up still exist. They will enable you two to reunite again in the future. It can be in Heaven or it can be on this earth in your reality.

Q: What you say does not agree with the Bible. Why not?
A: The Bible is a great religious book. Inside of it are many truths. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for many to believe that what is inside of the Bible is all that there is, and anything outside of it is false. That is not the case.

The Bible contains many books. For instance there is the “Book of John”, and the “Book of Luke”. What many people do not understand is that there are many other books of the Bible that are not formally part of the Bible. These books are ignored as if they didn’t exist. These books are quite interesting. Like The Protevangelion, The Epistles of Jesus Christ and Abgarus King of Edessa, or The Gospel of Nicodemus ( Acts of Pilate ). You can see a summary of the “lost books” HERE.

My rebuttal to this statement (and question) is that a person needs to read all of the books of the Bible and derive their thoughts from the sum total. They should not limit their Biblical studies to only a few books of choice. That’s like going to a restaurant and saying you are only going to eat carrots. Well, there are a lot of good things about carrots, but other foods also have their merits as well. You end up really limiting yourself and your experiences.

Finally, my most important point is this. My God is a limitless God. It is capable of great love and great power. I find that when someone tries to use the Bible to say that “God would not let…”, or “God would never permit…” they are trying to put limits on God. I won’t have none of that.

God has no limits. In this universe, under this God EVERYTHING is possible. All you need is to accept and believe in faith.

Q: No one understands my relationship with my pet, what can I do?
A: You do not need to explain yourself to anyone else. So do not even try.
A relationship is only between two individuals. This is whether or not they are of the same species or not. It does not matter your gender or anything else. I have seen dogs and cats that have been lifelong friends, and then when one passes on, the other just pines away in lonely sadness. Of course they will be reunited. In this universe, nothing ever is destroyed. It only changes form. Thoughts are something. They are something. Feelings are something. How you feel, and what you think are important parts of who you are. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

Q: I feel guilty that I wasn’t good enough for my friend, what can I do?
A: We always feel this way when a loved on passes on. It is a rare person indeed, who feels that they have lived a long and complete life with those they loved. Do not worry about it. I am quite sure that your relationship was good enough given all the issues and situations involved.

Q: I didn’t bury my pet, is that bad?
A: No that is fine. Their spirit could care less. They moved on. Burial is only for your emotional needs. Your pets do not need any such reassurances.

Q: Am I bad for moving on with my life?
A: No. Not at all. We all need to grieve, and then put closure on an old life and move forward. We should never think of life as all that there is. It is much more than that and very complex. It has both the physical and the non-physical elements. As such, we absolutely need to move on, and our pets understand that.

Q: Will I see my pet again?
A: Of course. There is always a good chance of seeing it in the physical, and there is a near certainty of seeing it in the Heavens. Though, to access meeting your pet cat in the Heavenly worlds will require assistance. Though when you are off in the spirit realms you will most certainly be able to make the necessary arrangements. It will not be hard at all. It will absolutely happen.

Q: How will I know if my pet will ever reincarnate near me?
A: You will get “nudges”. These are feelings of a sort. Our physical reality is surrounded by a non-physical reality. Souls in the wave form can “play” with that reality. You would feel it as a “nudge” or a feeling to do something.

Maybe you might have this urge to go to a certain place.

Maybe you have a special attraction to a pet in the pet store. All I can say is this; listen to your feelings and nudges.

To repeat, if you have a “feeling” or a “nudge”, or encounter a situation (like a cat rescue) or something unusual… listen and take action.

Stop thinking. Start doing.

This kind of thing happens all the time.

HERE is a story about a boy who lost a cat that he loved, and so he volunteered at a cat shelter. Then one day, out of the blue a cat took a liking to him and they instantly bonded.

This is exactly how it happens.

“Austin fell in love with his new buddy and begged his mom to keep him, during the event. Gizzard who looked like the kitten version of Diddle (the older cat), lay on Austin the same way Diddle always used to do.”

Or HERE, where this couple goes to a shelter to get a cat after theirs died. They discover one of the cats won’t leave them alone and insists on going home with them.

Funny thing. This cat has the same name as their former cat.

Stephanie started recording that adorable moment where the kitty threw himself at his human friend, clutched onto him and snuggled up a storm. Once he noticed Stephanie, he climbed over to her shoulders, standing on his tippy toes, kneading and purring away.

“We asked what his name was and found out it was Oliver, just like our recently passed cat. It had to be fate! Our hearts melted and we knew we needed to add him to our family,”

And HERE‘s another… “Girl Bursts In Tears When She Meets Kitten Who Looks Like Her Best Friend That Passed Away”

Girl finds kitten.
Girl bursts into tears when she finds a kitten that “feels” and looks just like her former cat that passed away. The crying is happiness. Not sadness.
.
And HERE is the video when her mother bought the kitten and brought it home to her to have.
.

Q: Can I get another pet or cat when my pet died?
A: Sure. That is fine. If you beloved cat wants to be with you, it will find a way to return to you. Either it would join with the new cat, or take over the body. Often it might just end up coming around, and now you might end up with two cats instead of one. You never know.

Love is a relationship or glue that binds souls together.
Your loved ones will return back to you. Opportunities will present themselves. Just relax and be of open heart.

Dreaming with my cat

This is from a fan. -MM

I used to dream with my cat, literally.

The first time it happened, he was sleeping next to me, as we did, I was using his little rump for a pillow, and he had pulled my hand close to his head, laying it on my hand.

We were both asleep.

I had a dream (or he did) that a bird flew by, diagonally, from the lower left to the upper right. As the bird flew by, he startled me awake by waking up, shooting his head up and looking in the direction of the bird that I had just dreamed flew by.

I’ve never been so close to a soul in my life.

I lost him, at the young age of only 11, just 3 and a half weeks ago. His name was Makana. It means ‘gift’ in Hawaiian.

He certainly was.

I’ll miss you forever. 🙁

x
Kitty dream time.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
The Warning Signs
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Link
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Make America Great Again.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Tomatos
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Notes

1. 18MAR18 First draft.
2. 11APR18 Revisions.
3.30APR18 SEO revisions.