Taking the hill toward town was treacherous. One needed to be careful with that maneuver, if a kid wanted to go that way on a bicycle. I broke my collarbone going down that hill, eventually. I never wrecked my bicycle anywhere else in that whole town. We were almost at the corner of Gilbert Road and Churchville Road, except for Mr Cronin’s place, which was on the corner, and used to be a farm.

Last I knew, the barn and two outbuildings were still there.

What happened was that Mr Cronin sold off some acreage to put in the new houses, on toward town from where Grandma’s was. We grew up right there, living a relatively normal life, sheltered from our father’s pulpit and his heavy hand. Ruthie and I were flower children of the 60′s. In those days, my sister and I both took up every sort of music our young hearts could accommodate.

We did an awful lot of singing when we were in high school, inside class and out, plus Ruthie played flute. I taught myself to play guitar, which almost overshadowed my trumpet playing. The 60′s were a time for playing guitars. We went to Methodist summer camp. I took my guitar, of course, and learned some things about the instrument I never knew before. People always wanted me to play.

Ruthie was a lot more of the women’s libber, by the time the 60′s were in full swing. I became more of a flower child, as time went by. To Ruthie and I, the 60′s was a time of music and tragedy. I got so my guitar and I were inseparable. So far, this was all before the time I ever smoked grass, but smoking time was on it’s way. I would carry my guitar in it’s case.

Ruthie didn’t like to smoke grass.

I heard something about Aunt Olie being a flapper when she was young. I just heard the word. Aunt Olie never said anything to me about being a flapper. It was pretty cool, though. I had visions of bathtub gin overflowing from the top, and speak eases, with cops coming to the door any minute. Aunt Olie would do the Charleston at the speak easy, maybe she’d get vaguely drunk, but she was cool.

Must have been far out.

Back summer camp, Neyati was a welcome summer diversion, during my sophomore year. The staff of the camp took a bunch of us indoors somewhere, and set us all up to learn what the face of the opposite gender feels like to the touch. I would never have chosen the girl I got, to be groping her face or anything, but that was a game the musically gifted high school students were playing that day.

That girl and I were friends, years afterward.

The other thing I spent my summer’s doing, was the Old Barn Theater.

I don’t remember much about that.

Grandma and Auntie lived in that house four years before we moved in, they were there with aunt Flo and Aunt Olie. They were a couple of Grandma’s older sisters. Aunt Olie had been the flapper, in the roaring 20′s. Aunt Flo had somehow been the treasurer of a company, before there were adding machines. Sometime after we moved in, Aunt Olie passed away, then it was Aunt Flo’s turn.

Aunt Flo was almost 94 when she died.

I don’t have much of a take on Aunt Olie, she didn’t like to tell stories. I do recall Aunt Flo being the most mellow person in the house. Seemed like there was always some sort of heavy discussion going on in the place. Aunt Flo would sit quietly on the love seat in the living room, by herself, since she was an old maid. She would help me weather the storm of the conversation.

From the tone of the discussion, one could easily get upset, except for mellow Aunt Flo.

She was always helping me stay calm when the discussion became the most tumultuous.

Aunt Flo and Aunt Olie were well-enough up in years they were pretty much non-entities to us youngsters. We were significantly younger. Old Mr Cronin used to bring our mail to Grandma, even after Aunt Flo and Aunt Olie passed on. Grandma used to talk to him about of taking that long a walk to the mailbox, way down by Churchville Road, but I think he just enjoyed Grandma’s company.

They were old. The weather and the distance didn’t matter to him so much.

Dad committed desertion back in ’64. In spite of all of Dad’s heroic words, he couldn’t really cut the mustard as a father. Dad had chronic schizophrenia, which meant that he was way too disabled to support a family. Ironically, Dad was significantly well educated and well read. Anyone who ever met my father, had to be impressed with at least his scholastic acumen, if not more.

Dad was constantly lashing out, beating his wife and children because of his own deficiencies.

Mom, with a household of four teenagers to feed, took refuge at Grandma’s. At least we had a roof over our heads, a dry place to sleep, and food to eat. Mom, and all the rest of us, were invited to move in with Grandma. We spent an early, turbulent period of growing up, listening to Dad run each Sunday morning worship service over, until entire congregations had to let the roast burn in the oven.

The Methodist Church ultimately fired Dad, and the man ended up running off to Florida. He couldn’t face his unemployment or parenthood or anything else. He’d gone back to school and gotten his PhD, of all things, but that didn’t help the man, anymore than it helped his family. Dad’s life was tragic. What Dad needed was a regimen of psychiatric medicines that had not been developed yet.

All Dad wanted was to get away, until about six months later when he missed his kids.

I was going to be a flower child, and nothing was going to stop me. We played the best 60′s music a hippie band could hope to play. It was during the Vietnam War. There were the soldiers, sailors and Marines, way back when the training camps were still in use, just up the street from where we lived. We’d get drunk at the gigs, and struggle to remember what we learned at rehearsals.

We did the popular music of the times, and since I didn’t recognize what that music actually was, I just played trumpet parts and guitar parts I’d learned in our rehearsals. That’s who I was anyway. I was one of those guys who learned to recognize whatever I learned in rehearsals. I had a good, solid sound on the trumpet no matter where I played. I could do concerts or march cadence, didn’t matter.

I wasn’t certain what it meant at first, to be a flower child, but eventually I got around to smoking pot and dropping mescaline, on top of drinking alcohol. I went to a university in North Carolina, until my alcohol and drug habit got to be too much for me. I got so all I ever did was sit in the Rathskeller and drink coffee. Coffee was the only way to get relief from alcohol I could find.

I used to make a fool of myself over at Sue’s apartment, off campus, puking and passing out, after getting stoned to the gills on someone else’s reefer, drinking alcohol. I smoked a lot of hooch for a while there. After all, Sue’s reefer connection was the same guy who got me started on the stuff, so the two of them owed me something. I could tell the reefer was ruining my life, from early on.

I couldn’t figure out how to stop smoking the stuff.

I’d go over to Kathryn’s dorm, and pass out on her lap, too.

I was supposed to be dating Kathryn. Whatever it was I was supposed to be doing over at Sue’s apartment, I cannot say. I’ll admit that Sue was a nice looking girl, but she obviously had a boyfriend. What I was going to do with either girl was a mystery I’m still not qualified to answer. I chased Sue for the entire two years time that I was supposedly dating Kathryn. I can’t help but wonder why?

I was a flower child alright.

The entire neighborhood is a realtor’s paradise, where any place up for sale is worth plenty. Anybody doing the looking is definitely qualified to be here. It’s an upscale neighborhood. Any realtor assigned to this sleepy little neighborhood is definitely a seasoned professional. The houses are just far enough away from the road to keep one from suffering exhaust fumes.

It’s a very quiet neighborhood. There aren’t so many junkers in the driveways to make the place an eyesore. Any car mechanic living here is already wrenching some place. They don’t have time for junkers. They’re working people. The neighborhood won’t put up with clutter. People take pride in home ownership. There’s always someone mowing grass or trimming shrubs.

About halfway down Klee Mill, is another one of the thousands of Maryland/Pennsylvania Country Methodist Churches, which all seem to be carpeted with the same red carpets. Old sets of mahogany pews are standard, with a mahogany aroma permeating the ancient sanctuary. I know them well, although I’ve spent very little time in the old Bethesda Church sanctuary.

Bethesda Church is not well-enough attended that one might expect a large choir. One of the hallmarks of small, rural Methodist Churches is that it has a young congregation, with plenty of children to attend vacation Bible school. When I was attending, I was holding beauty pageants in my head, perpetually deliberating over which girl in Bible School was the most beautiful.

No one ever won those competitions, and I remain a bachelor to this day.

I spent my entire childhood in a series of these little churches, somewhat to the northwest of where the Bethesda Church now stands. My Dad ran a traveling show, as a country reverend, dragging a family of four, and our very devout mother, from one country church to another, driving an old, used ’55 Chevy, to a parade of parsonages, and a parade of Country Churches.

I can clearly hear the old electric organs, or was it ancient, out of tune piano’s, plunking out the same, old familiar hymns, from well before 1960. The hymnals were predictably preserved in the same, old book-racks, at the backs of pews. Why the Methodists never decorated differently is beyond me. Dad was the reverend. Mom was the Queen of the Woman’s Society for Chicken Suppers.

No reverend’s wife, who always served as the President of the Woman’s Society for Christian Service, ever accepted the accolade any other way. But we were four Preacher’s Kids, with more than a little devil in each of us. The WSCS was the group who sponsored Vacation Bible School. It was approximately like going to Sunday School, except for the cookies and Cool Aide.

Of my two brothers, the one became a fireman, rectifying his sins by chasing firetrucks, the other became a madman in a laughing academy, who wanted to play church all the time. Here we were in Bible School, in the balmy summers of the 1950′s, and some Bible teacher was droning on about something. My sister grew up, worked her way across the country, and married a very nice man.

I wasn’t wasting any attention to any Bible teacher. Not in my very holistic, rebellious childhood of mine I wasn’t. I was employing myself, in a daydream about Gretchen Rolf, the young, the beautiful. It’s Gretchen I’ve come to this juncture in my writing to tell you about. You’re not going to believe me, regardless how much I embellish the tale, so I’ll just tell it to you straight out.

My daydream deepened, and Gretchen Rolf, herself, in that cute, 50′s print dress, was standing next to the open window, beckoning me over. She said that none of the others could see or hear us. With only a thought, I was standing next to, Gretchen, the cute, at the open window. Gesturing out the window, she showed me two, astonishingly small unicorns in the courtyard below, behind the church.

Gretchen took me by the hand, and with one, imperceptible motion, we straddled each unicorn, as if they were little horses. Up! Up! And away! Without a sound, we were flying our two, white unicorns, up and away from the old country church. What devil-may-care direction the unicorns were taking us, and what devil-may-care amazing places we were going, I didn’t care.

I was just glad to be relieved of Bible School duty, accompanied by the beautiful, young Gretchen Rolf. We landed in a back yard of someone or others house. The home owners issued from the back door, and I was under the impression that neither man, nor woman, had the ability see or hear us, just as the environment had been at the church classroom, magically.

I did not know the homeowners.

I have no idea who they were.

It was the woman who came out of the house first.

Next came the man, holding the tiny hands of baby daughter. Baby daughter’s hands were tentatively suspended above her head. She was walking! Go! Girl! Go! I only know there was something about that situation that was starkly beautiful. Then, there was something about that situation that was terrifying.

I can’t account for either thought.

Baby daughter was struggling to keep her feet, in their back yard, as daddy hung onto baby daughter’s hands, with both of his, helping her walk. Mama seemed to disdain the entire scene. Mama wore mama clothes. Baby daughter wore baby daughter clothes. Mama paid no attention to either baby daughter, nor to husband, whatsoever.

It was as though she rejected them both.

It was as if mama wanted both of them to go away at that moment.

I’ll guess, because I don’t have anyone to ask. I’ve been too busy to have someone to ask. I was all of about the age of nine at the time. Something about that moment, was terrifying to me. That’s how it’s always felt. I’ll even admit the entire situation could have been a dream. I’ve lost track of my friend, Gretchen Rolf, and both of the unicorns.

I’ll even go so far as to ask this: what’s a unicorn?

Nonetheless, it’s still possible that it was the pivotal moment for me. I got scared in a big way. None of the girls I’ve met since, have ever been been capable of beguiling that primal fear from me. I never stopped flirting with girls. I never stopped secretly deciding which ones of the girls were the most beautiful. But I think I became a confirmed bachelor right then and there, at age nine.

The hunt could not be stopped.

The people had to eat.

Hunters returned from the steppe, with a couple of dripping carcases for the evening meal.

Rain could not hold the attention of the hunters coming home, as the preparation of meat did. The preparation of food took the place of the fascination of rain. Carcases were partially prepared on the open steppe, near the place of the kill. At home, the sound of fat spitting in the fire, took all fascination out of the rain.

All eyes were on the kill.

All were hungry.

All were listening to the cooking.

Hunger knew dinner would not be far off.

Greasy fingers and greasy knives were busy dicing meat, for those too old to have teeth. Knives did the work of teeth, which was another familiar ritual of the steppe. The tribe took care of their own. Alert hunters became alert butchers, busy making meat. After the children and the old were filled, the people were permitted to heave to and make their repast.

All knew about this.

It was unspoken.

Eventually hunters changed their wet clothing into dry. They weren’t planning on going out again that day. They could spend more of their time watching the rain. The downward motion and the few sounds of the rain were unceasingly entertaining to the people. Their wet clothes were not only soiled by the hunt, but as well by their interactions with the kills.

The sound of the rain became more thunderous, and then ebbed off, finally.

Fresh, dry clothing made more sense, once the men could tear themselves away.

The gossips had been kept too long from their talking. The gossiping was a craving. It had a need all it’s own. There were wishes for drier weather, and wishes for an individual person’s liberty to tell their tales to their cronies. When all was said and done, the hunters changed their wet clothing to dry and all quieted down in the dwelling.

The gossips found comfort telling tales.

They all looked forward to the day they could walk around unimpeded by the weather.

That day came, too, almost by surprise. The heavy rain stopped one day, the land and the undergrowth started drying off. There were many a story craving to be told, after the great deluge had finished. Those people didn’t had no books to read. They had only the spoken word. Some of the storytellers were so uneasy they could scarcely contain themselves.

Some of the other storytellers had to hold off, till the long hours of night, till the long-winded storytellers could be heard out. The children became weary of all the listening to all these age-old bards. The songs only meant something to the adults. Adults wanted the children to learn all the old songs, but it was a rebellious generation to be sung to.

The day came it was plenty dry outside. The children were finally liberated to do anything more than play in the mud, since the ground was finally dry. They’d been playing in the mud since the rain stopped. Mothers had their hands full, keeping up with dirty children and dirty laundry, but this was the end of the rainy season, and everyone was having their share of keeping things clean.

Finally, there was minimal laundry to do.

The children had enjoyed their share of the liberty, and had minimal supervision too.

The boys could finally go out onto the steppe and do mock hunting’s of game. Being nothing more than children, the boys would go and wander in the bush, huddled close together to ensure their safety. The steppe was a wild place, where there was not only real game, there were also real predators. Their childish weapons were only sticks, which were harmless enough.

It was one more act of an innocence that would generally last awhile.

One of the boys did as was secretly expected of him, and mounted the unicorn, out of curiosity. It was clear to him that he would have a very great fortune, with much intrigue, and plenty of the thrills in life. He was certain he would be a great warrior. He learned the net, for catching game. He learned the tricks of doing the netting; where and how to hang it to catch game for the consumption of the tribe.

Then, he learned the blowgun and the bow and arrow.

A great warrior, that’s what that boy would be. He could scarcely keep his mind on his lessons, for all the daydreaming he was doing, riding that unicorn the way he did. It was clear that the unicorn would have to allure that young man again, to be certain the boy learned his lessons right. Unicorns have the most wonderful way of attracting the same student more than once, if need be.

All this was done in a singular flight of the unicorn, which was more a part of the imagination of the child, than it was reality. Of course, such things are subject to the way one looks at reality. What is any thought, or any perception, in the mind of a child. Is it what any of us would term, reality? Flight was an added bonus, drawn on the thoughts of the child, to entertain them, mostly.

The unicorn had the reputation of being able to fly, so it did. One might say unicorns had the power of mind over matter, giving the tribal to tasks the illusion of being performed, while giving the children enough entertainment that, theoretically, they would learn what they needed to know. The unicorn had a well know and well respected position in the community.

He was a teacher, with a certain way about him.

The little unicorn reaches down and drinks deeply from the waters of the steppe. As is customary with the predators of the steppe, they avoid the young unicorn. Nonetheless, the predators are making meat of the other vegetarians, which is only natural for them to do. The delicate gazelle, food for the big cats, could not remotely hope for the amnesty the unicorn can so easily enjoy.

The unicorn has the reputation for being one of the most cunning creatures on the steppe. If for no other reason, the predators have a kind of amnesty with the unicorn. Their flesh is known to have a distasteful, baleful reputation among the might-have-been-enemies. Predators, one and all, have long since given up all ambition to hunt the unicorn. Even so, the unicorns numbers are limited.

The fact that there are such limited numbers of unicorns, is supposed to have it’s origins in a genetic flaw unique among the species. This is the same flaw of derivation which is attributed to a whole host of magic powers, like spontaneous flight, for instance, which have become traditional with the tribes on the steppes of Africa, where the unicorn are known to be most plentiful.

The trees here and there, provide canopy for predators of the wild. There is no canopy of overhanging leaves for vegetarians, since predators rule the day. At the moment, a pride of lions are dissecting a vegetarian. The gore is unavoidable. Not so, the unicorn. Though she is vegetarian. She enjoys amnesty from all the running and dodging her cousin, the gazelle, has to endure.

There is a wealth of individual species, the great beasts Africa is famous for. There is the elephant, the hippo, and the rhino, for instance. There are many others, who make the steppes the fascinating, treacherous, deadly place to live and die, according to it’s reputation. Then, there are the men who hunt here. If they aren’t armed with blow guns, they are with bow and arrow.

On the far hills, on the lower altitudes of the mountain, there is rain. People and beasts are busy enough they scarcely notice, being caught up in more important tasks. Throughout the steppes, there is a matter of staying alive, which takes some concerted effort. They go about competing in a hunt of one sort or another. Staying alive is a matter of either applying one’s best, or giving up the ghost.

It is hard work dodging a predator, since they are just as agile as their game. But now, being the game has become that much the more complicated, the vegetarians are becoming hunted by tribesmen, while the hunters travel in packs. The entire business has become too complicated to win. Someone, probably a vegetarian, is going to die today. It’s life and death on the Steppe.

Then, there she is, the young unicorn in all her splendor, cantering across the way, when there came a girl, who was all of about eleven years old. The girl sneaks up behind the unicorn, where the young mare cannot see her coming. Nimble as only a child can be, the girl is up and perched on the unicorn’s back, just that quickly, and just as much without ceremony or effort.

The two youngsters take flight, according to the age old tradition. According to the tradition, there is a bit of history played out before the two young ladies. They see the entire visual history of hand crochet and basket weaving. The girl is not blanched, but is clear headed and ready for more. There’s a certain privilege of youth and the young lady unicorn proceeds with the human young lady.

It is because of the fullness of youth, the girl finds herself easily capable of taking on such a lengthy instruction, in at least another couple of handicrafts, subsequent to her initial instructions. The craft of hand knitting is next, and the girl easily devotes her attentions to her studies. The girl is bright and is in full command of her faculties. She’s devoted to her studies, and remembers them well.

The girl learns how to make a water vessel from a goat’s stomach, which will be a useful skill in the girl’s society. The unicorn lands then, and asks the girl for a drink of water, just to give the girl some time to think, practicing one of her many new-found crafts. The girl gets busy and produces a water vessel. She gives the unicorn a drink of water. At this point, the unicorn slips away.

Wishing to thank the unicorn, who had already moved on, the girl went off to attempt and to practice her many handicrafts. She had learned a lot from the flight of the unicorn. keeping herself busy, working the various handicrafts she learned, the girl finds she is occupied from sunup to sundown. There are plenty of skills to apply, with all the many lessons she’s had.

According to tradition, it would take the girl several sessions of rehearsal of each of her many crafts, for the girl to become proficient at each. She finds that after awhile, she has become versatile with each of her handicrafts she learned as a passenger aboard the back of the young unicorn. The girl’s proficiencies increase quickly, according to her avid application of her crafts.

Fortunately, her mother kept a significant supply of needles, hooks and yarn, to make available for her daughter’s experimentation. The mother has no idea what precipitated her daughter’s sudden interest in handicrafts, but at least the girl isn’t nagging her mother about it. With crochet hook and yarn, the girl experiments till she can make a couple of different hats.

The next she does is work at knitting until she can make a couple of hats that way. She expects the basic task with both would be about the same, but in actuality, the two tasks seem quite different. The girl is fascinated with her various handicrafts, and works at them all. She brings the sensation of working her handicrafts with her to meals, with her various tasks spinning in her head.

I was treated with kindness and respect, the way any true lady would. She’s gentle and elegant, in the finest tradition of the performance of a service. I’ve noticed she always has a considerable deference for me, not that I deserve any undue share. I’m reminded of being a street junky in Baltimore City. To compare where I’ve been and what I’ve done, makes me wonder how I ever got here?

Knowing I’ve always been bashful, Mom would treat me as though she understood. She probably did. I’ve always been the one to be shy during a bout with an upper and lower GI. I never wanted anyone to see me then. Mother always knew. She knew the way mother’s knew. There’s an old story in my life, about my first love, about how I knew I’d never see her again. Mother knew before I ever told her.

I miss Mother in so many ways. I’ve imagine we’ve talked on the phone, when it’s gotten to be an illusion or a dream. I missed the back roads of Maryland, where I used to go driving to see Mother. There were always various roads I’d gleefully meander about, confident that I would arrive at Mother’s, and confident that she’d always be there. Of course, there came a time she was not there.

Me and my unending cigarettes. The last bastion of my addictions was at hand. After the alcoholism and the drug addictions, it was just one more thing to have to subjugate to my own wishes. I’d done all those damaging things to my body, and gave them all up, mostly long before she passed. I’d like her to know I managed to give the cigarettes up too, but then, I think she knows.

There were the cultivated bean fields, and the cultivated shoe peg corn fields growing all over, everywhere you look. Once in a while, one would find a farmer’s market by the side of the road, where one could buy the most glorious, fresh produce for a reasonable price. I would buy some shoe peg corn, and some peaches, and proceed the whole way over to Mother and Aunty’s place.

When I still had teeth, Mother and I would dine on a couple of steaming hot ears of shoe peg corn, like we were kings and queens. Another thing we’d do when I still had teeth, was to go up the street to the pizza parlor and get pizza. We’d sit and wait for our food, while Mother would give me the most radiant smiles that she would regularly embarrass me. I think it was only a matter of Motherly love.

We could get glorious, fresh peaches, with all the fuzz still on them. Aunt Vi, peering knife in hand, would help herself to the fruit of the harvest. Mom would never eat the peaches, for some strange reason. Aunt Vi would not eat corn under any circumstances. She’d have a fresh peach or two. I’d eat a peach in my car, at the farmer’s market, with my pocket knife cutting the peach down till it was gone.

There was always the fresh, shoe pet corn, by early summer, in rural, central Maryland. Mother always had the time of her life, bringing the water to a boil, timing it just so. There used to be a corn cannery where I’d get hired, saving my money, to have enough of a resource to feed myself on campus way down in the mountains of North Caroline, those couple of times I actually got a little money saved up.

There was a girl who taught me how to broker food stamps in the lobbies of the girl’s dorms. I would convert all kinds of cash from the corn cannery, and cut my prices, making a killing on the retail value of the food stamps. That girl and I would eat like royalty the whole way through the school year. Later, I could never figure out why I smoked reefer, and never had any money.

I did a brain drain, once I got to blazing up on that reefer. It was my seconded year at the university. There been so many reefer smokers who did a lot of talking about how reefer was only psychologically addictive, as if it were alright to smoke it if they said so. It was alright for them to sell it. They were lining their pockets with the Yankee money. That’s what they were after in the first place.

What goes around, comes around. I guess brokering food stamps didn’t help me get along, when the truth be told. It gave me bad karma. Pretty soon, I couldn’t find a job, or hold one down if I got one. My income hit the skids. All that trouble turned out to be my schizo-affective disorder, causing me to starve, because of this and that, when one figures in the drug abuse next to the Soc Sec income.

There were 16 ounces of the most kick ass-ed reefer, for sale at $15 for a five finger lid. I felt like a kid in a candy store. That was more reefer than I’d ever seen in my lifetime. I mostly looked, until the heavy dealing went down. I had every confidence in that reefer, for setting anybody up with the most intense buzz without half trying. I gave all that up, too, and Mother knew it before she passed.

I’d take Mother for scenic cruises in my car. I’d tease her with songs I knew, which the road signs along the highway used to remind me of. There were two, old-time log cabins, in old Howard Co, and the old-time manor house, way down the bottom of the road, in those hidden, out of the way places. It made me feel so good that I actually knew the exact location of all of three of these houses.

I’ve been trying to piece together a local road map, since I’ve been down here in the Hampton Roads Area. It’s not so tough to do, working into a couple of local boulevards, and a couple of local streets, believing Mother’s inside the car with me, giving me feedback on the way I’m working the roads. It’s a Spiritual connection I’ve got with Mother, to do this and that, to help me, basically.

I can remember driving my car. It’s something impossible now. Going down that same old country road in my mind, trying to remember every rock and tree along with way, with both sides of the road registering in my memory at once, which is almost an impossibility. Trying so hard to remember it all, because I realize that the road as I know it, will be gone twice as fast as it takes to drive it.

Then there will be all my skeletal issues surfacing right and left, if it ever comes to the driver’s test. It’s doubtful that my Trustee would ever finance a car, or any of the incidentals, to make the car roadworthy. Without all of the false assumptions that I’d have to lie to my Trustee about before I ever drove the thing out onto the road. Besides, I think it would be difficult to lie to my Trustee.

My knee doesn’t feel right, and neither does my shoulder. I hurt my knee when I broke my hip three years ago. They had to take me to Howard Co General twice before they ever knew where the fracture was. That hip injury was bad. They put a metal prosthesis in my hip before I could walk. They never put anything in my knee. It took me quite awhile after that, to realize I suffered another injury.

I’ve had two falls since, which dislocated my collarbone and aggravated my repaired hip. All that being said, I don’t think any of it is so bad I’d need another bone repair operation, which happens to be the sort of relief I can to do without, altogether. Trouble is, I’m not certain I can contact my bone man for any reason at all. I’m not certain I have his contact info anymore. I forget his name, too

In regards to my GI problem, they’ve brought me a whole bowl of the most delicious chicken soup, and quite a few saltines. It’s like a meal fit for a king, as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t have to warm it up for myself, nor was I expected to carry it to my room. I have no confidence in being able to contain myself, and will restrict myself from the dining room until I’m of a different opinion.

The only thing that’s not torn up yet, about the dominant side of my skeletal structure, is my ankle and my foot. My muscular structure is OK, except for my dislocated collarbone, which is just about as much an impediment as are my overall, broken skeletal structure in my hip and my shoulder. The one thing I can’t do now, is drive an automobile, to get myself from point A to point B unaided.

(I say the word crick, as in a Pennsylvania colloquialism.)

There was actually some gravel on the old roads in those days. There was no such thing as black top in the woods back then. A breeze picked up over all of nature, and all the leaves of the trees clapped their hands. There was foliage right up to where the gravel came, at roadside. We got out of the vehicles, climbed down the hill, to the noisy, babbling brook.

We’d stopped the cars by the side of the road, back when there actually happened to be a roadside and not some obnoxious metal fence. These days, there’s almost completely metal fence, but in those days there wasn’t. There was plenty of dust, and a little gravel here and there, to make the place feel more like home. That old road seemed like a much more comfortable place to be. There was a lot of old cars from the 60′s converged on the one spot where we were all planning to go wading.

These days there’s a lot of blacktop and a metal fence. The precipice has a less intimate interaction with the wilderness than we used to get. These days, folks put on all kinds of safety stuff on their kids, as if they’re something more than just kids. In our day and time, if one wanted to ride a bicycle, one just jumped on it and ride. Not now. Now, there’s all these helmets and pads.

Anymore, a kid has to be treated like they’re made of something different than what kids are made of. Your poor little dear might get a scratch or a brush burn someplace, as if we didn’t. There’s a lot more toys and a lot less physical effort. They’re more expensive, too. There’s cell phones and i Pads, and a whole host of things for kids, and maybe even adults, to play with.

Back then, there was a drop in air temperature as we approached the creek. With shear, unbridled desire, and a plethora of cool, babbling water to step into, we found ourselves delving directly into the water, heedless of the state of shoes or the state of pant-legs, but were young then. What does youth have to do with whether one’s pant-legs, or one’s shoe leather, were wet or dry.

By the time all of us were out of our cars, and were knee-deep in the cool water, nothing else mattered, except that we were all following the same unpaved “road” of the creek bed, knee deep in cold water just the way we wanted it. We felt cooler all round. But that was in those days, when we were called things like flower children, because that was the tradition in those times.

I used to think it was all about reefer, but soon enough, began to understand it was all about nature and trees. It’s impossible to say how much life itself has to do with trees. Life has nothing to do with reefer. When this world went haywire, the following winter, cops were driving me down to the Piedmont, going to the laughing academy for the first time. Life was about nature and trees.

When I was thinking back to that first trip, Rick was asleep. I, wide awake, walked over the mountain, and the wind blew through the tall grasses. Wind, always leaving, but never gone. It took some doing, but I found some waters tripping over stones. Water, always leaving, but never gone. Then, all the leaves of the trees clapped their hands. With all of nature to interact with I was at home.

Before the humans left, then life turned out to be one big hassle.

When the cops came up the mountain to take me to the state hospital, away from nature, life always had to do with trees and nature, from day one. Life has has everything to do with Nature, from the beginning. The cops couldn’t have understood anything like that concept, so I kept that idea to myself, and never breathed a word of it. I was growing accustomed to what one says to cops.

When I was a runaway, when I was little, I used to hang out in the woods all day. I’d play soldiers and whatnot. The woods have always been my friend. I trusted what happened in the woods too much. I ran from the first hospitalization I was ever introduced to, because I was scared. I went to the woods to get away from the things that were frightening me.

I was playing soldiers in the woods, and this whole crowd of guys walked by. I wanted to know where they were going, and they invited me to come along and find out. I went, and it was one of the worst mistakes I ever met in life. But it was because I always felt safe in the woods that I trusted those guys like that. I’ve gotten to the point were I have meaningful interactions with nature, through trees.

That one time at the college, I chose to postpone my class, because I was having an exceptionally meaningful interaction with a tree. There has never been a time I’ve ever had such a wonderful time listening to a tree. When that psychologist, who walked up to us, happened to be, was incredibly rude. I told him so, too. I wanted to get that guy to shut up, and let the tree talk.

What that tree had to say to me was really important, and this jerk interrupted him.

That psychologist had no idea of the significance of the conversation he was actually interrupting was, nor did he care. His only job was to kick me off campus for refusing to go to class. I thought I was a full grown man. What I was doing was sitting in the hot sun, refusing to go to class, while I listened to that tree. I have no idea what his assumptions were, but they were way over the top.

I was listening intently, to whatever a tree, of all things, had to say. I’d love to provide a transcript of that tree’s discourse right here, but what I’ve found is that the tree’s thoughts have entirely been eradicated from my memory, while these other random thoughts have not been. I’ve recalled a trip Mother and I had taken to the old canal, and I was headed for that.

We were finished with our trip to the canal, and Mother was driving us home.

By the time I jumped off the low bridge in Howard Co, I could only have imagined a nuclear holocaust was eminent. I was doing what I believed would have prolonged my life. Getting bitten by a whole host of bugs in the deep grass, over the side of the bridge, I climbed up over the top of the bridge, with great effort, since I’m not young. I stood there for a long time, waiting for what?

It was obvious there had been no nuclear blast. Columbia, MD, was no worse for the wear.

Yet, the cops came and arrested me, as I stood docile on the bridge, on Rt. 108, which wasn’t the least bit altered. They packed me off to the madhouse, where I was summarily put in an isolation chamber, as if I were a dangerous madman. I made not confessions whatsoever. One of the things that happened next, was because I’d already been put into an isolation chambers before.

I hate hell out of isolation chambers. I willfully, and with intent, broke my own right hand, against the inside of the isolation chamber door, when the door was locked against me. I’d like to think I’d have more self-control than that, but I lit in that door with a Karate twist punch, and broke one of the bones in my right hand. My rage summit-ed when the pain hit my right hand.

That crazy house turned out to be a pretty nice little laughing academy after awhile. Before I left Maryland, I had considered the place to be my preferred provider for quite some time. There were several teenagers on that ward then. Besides being accused of being a dirty old man once or twice, it was thoroughly interesting to watch all those youngsters, to see what they might do.

Now that I have no recourse whatsoever, to be a part of nature, or to see a forest of trees, in any direction I might care to go, and now that I don’t know one direction from another, I’ve got a repaired right hip and don’t drive. It looks like my days with nature and trees are a thing of the past. I need a rollator to help me keep my balance, and one does not take a rollator into the woods.

Also, nature has always had a calming effect on my nervous system, but nature has been canceled, as a resource for helping me calm down. I wish it were not so, but there are things that are.

The hallucinogenic experience was widely spread among the flower children. Timothy Leary had things pretty well sealed where our futures were concerned. The Pope of Dope had the corner on whatever we planned to do, as far as Tuning In, Turning On, and Dropping Out, regardless of what any consequences were for any of us. Anything hallucinogenic was heralded as the most wonderful thing since sliced cheese, by the late, great Timothy Leary. We were all caught up in trying to emulate that one man. Even though there were people who didn’t know who he was, we were caught up in the cult.

The diagnosis we were given by the doctors, whenever we had a bad reaction to any hallucinogenic drug, was summarily called an Acute Toxic Psychotic. I was hospitalized in North Carolina, where I’d been a music student in a North Carolina University. They gave me endless needles of major tranquilizers, in an isolation chamber, where I was locked down for my own safety’s sake. I was the youngest patient at that part of that hospital, at the tender young age of twenty. I, like so many others, would be high for the remainder of my days. Being high has never been fun, believe it or not.

Also part of the sharing among total strangers, was that if we got the Acute Toxic Psychosis, it was very likely that we also got some sort of chronic chemical imbalance in our brains. That made a big difference for all of us, because it was not something we would all have for the remainder of our lives. However much the chemical imbalance, and the chemical we took; it took over our intelligence and our talents until those things became subjugated to that one reality, according to Leary. In fact, what became subjugated was our perception of an unreality, and one could scarcely separate the two.

One hotspot was in Upstate New York, the other was in downtown San Francisco. The thing I never did in those days, which was what a lot of flower children were doing, was to starve. I got to do my starving a little later in my miserable existence. In my case, I ended up with a chemical imbalance in my brain, because I got a hold of something that was too strong for me. I dropped the chocolate acid, which had been going around at Woodstock. This happened to be something a very great majority of the flower children dropped in both places. One chemical I, personally, always avoided was heroin.

I did mescaline once, and LSD over a lot of years of doing my best to avoid reality. I found out, after a long time, that the way the doctors think of a blatant psychosis, is defined as when the patient is perceiving an unreality. That means he’s having a psychosis. I did a lot more LSD than I ever did mescaline. I only took it once, and I never wanted another hit of mescaline. I would pursue LSD to the absurd, just to be chasing a buzz. I also did a lot of PCP, which, I learned a long time later, is nothing but horse tranquilizer. Horse breeders use a lot of PCP to overdose horses, to kill them.

I’ve learned since then, that hallucinogenic drugs were the traumatic experience, which triggered my mind’s need for endless psychiatric medications. I was compliant with my med’s for the longest period of time, from 1972, till 2010. Then, I finally became monumentally confused about how to take them. I went through a prolonged overdose, until I almost died. It certainly caused a cognitive blackout in my thinking; and I was absolutely mute for quite awhile. By this time I was staying sober long term, and abstinent from all mind-altering substances. I lost control over all of my psychiatric medications. The only option was assisted living. Doing any complicated mental manipulations was impossible.

I’ll have this chemical imbalance in my brain for the rest of my life. That means I’m going to have to have a certain amounts of psychiatric medications for a lifetime. Sometimes it’s tough to have to put up with it. There is no honor, no glory in the stark reality of what so many of us flower children have done to ourselves. This year my chemical imbalance has been remarkably unstable. Although I’ve taken my medications like clockwork, not only have I lost a place to stay, I must have offended many people I had no intention to offend. I’ve been to the psych hospital twice already. It’s only the spring of the year. My generation sacrificed an awful lot of brain power to get less than nowhere.

There is an awful lot of creativity, intelligence and talent squandered on the back wards of the state hospitals, just to achieve one look over the rainbow. We’re never coming back from looking over the rainbow, either. Those of us who are still alive have ourselves caught in this treadmill, like perpetually looking down at the Grand Canyon. An absurd simile, since most flower children will always be locked down in a back ward somewhere. The thing we took back in the early 70′s, was the chocolate acid, the chocolate mescaline. At Woodstock they made an announcement that the chocolate acid was not really very good. They said it on the videotape of Woodstock. Walt Disney never saw colors like I do. One can watch the Wizard of Oz a thousand times, and still never see what I see.

It’s because of what happened to us. It happened to our minds. Our abilities and talents disintegrated into our LSD trip. Any of us can remember, in the farthest reaches of our minds, the day our own minds caved in. That chemical only left us a facsimile of ourselves. The remainder of what we once were survives only in our memories, such that when we do our best to look down the barrel of what we once were, what we get is only a mockery of that semblance of ourselves. I’ve known performers and graphic artists who will never be more than a shadow of the person they once were. That chocolate stuff we were all so fascinated with, has managed to disintegrated us, more effectively than anything.

I thought I wanted to be a high school band director. That’s an absurd notion. I was a practicing drug addict in those days. Sometimes I’ve suspected that my career was on the rocks because God had something better for me to do. They weren’t going to give a teaching certificate to a guy like me. I resented it, too. Another idea I had was to become Christopher Parkening on guitar. I wrote a lot of nice guitar solos, but didn’t have the knack for the marketing. Then I was suddenly out of ideas. I was trying to live another man’s dreams, while I was pumping myself full of mind altering chemicals. That’s what it amounted to. What I began to realize before I died altogether, was that I needed to get straight and stay straight.

The doctor was absorbing the risk that the leg might not be broken. The unicorn didn’t know that. The doctor was trying to keep some information from the cousin of the gazelle, to keep the unicorn’s anxiety level down. If the doctor had shared that little tidbit of medical trivia with the cousin of the gazelle, the unicorn may have been more compliant about laying around the doctor’s clinic right off, but he may not have, too.

Minimum anxiety in the patient was the thing on the mind of the good doctor.

There were a few empty cots, where the in-firmed could rest themselves. The unicorn didn’t know it yet, but before the ordeal was finished, the cousin to the gazelle would be more than happy to ride one of those pallets indefinitely.

That mini-clinic was not equipped with an x-ray machine anyway. To get to an x-ray machine would have been a long and arduous journey for one, wounded unicorn, who was already nursing a bad leg. How could the unicorn walk under such conditions?

The doctor didn’t want the unicorn trudging around for hours, ever getting worse for the wear, by the time he could possibly get anywhere near as far as the other clinic. It was a no-win situation for the unicorn. He certainly couldn’t work under these circumstances.

Then, there were evil on-lookers. There was everything evil in the hearts of certain people.

The unicorn was on his way more comfortably, even though it was the doctor’s advice that he stay put. His leg felt better for the moment. Therefore, the unicorn would take license to hobble around the village in every direction. There were those who were part of the opinion that if a unicorn was a magical creature, he should certainly be able to work his own magic on his own leg.

Those people’s evil was a tangible thing, which would destroy the world, if it could.

Fortunately, the doctor had not been of a similar opinion. Those people were generally hostile, and not easily gotten along with, which was as obvious as the horn growing out of the head of that wounded unicorn’s face. Those people were put off by the idea that there was a creature, who was supposed to be magical, whose magic was not strong enough to suit them. They felt intimidated.

The village was a powder keg, with the most murderous things about to happen, to the unicorn, no less. Would you really call killing a unicorn murder, if it was only the life of some dumb animal, who had some exaggerated superstitions going on about him, whose questionable life lay in the balances? So, evil men plotted the execution of a unicorn. At first, the unicorn was unconcerned, but he came around. The unicorn was feeling like a freaky holiday.

He walked directly out into the bright morning sun. The magical creature felt exuberance and lightheartedness at first. There was no reason to feel anything remotely like pessimism, while the magical creature grew accustomed to the novel way his leg felt, with the ace bandage strengthening his leg the way it was. He still didn’t know if it was broken.

Then the unicorn’s leg let began to hurt him with a disarming discomfort after awhile.

The cousin of the gazelle was looking for a way to rest himself when there was none. After all, a leg injury is nothing to be taken as lightly as the unicorn was. If he were human, he’d be looking for a place to sit down, but the cousin of the gazelle was not human. He couldn’t understand what to do next, except to go back to the doctor’s clinic. He’d forgotten what the doctor said. He needed to pay more attention to the doctor’s directions. The unicorn wished he’d done that in the first place.

The doctor had the unicorn laying down on one of his pallets, in his infirmary, with the strict admonition that he needed to stay there and rest. He wasn’t to get up, regardless of how he felt. That was plain English. This time, the cousin of the gazelle did exactly what the doctor told him to do. He lay still as possible. The unicorn must have drifted off for awhile, because evening time was soon arriving. His cronies were nowhere to be found.

He was thinking he was just passing through this little village, to get to another village further down the road. The unicorn could sense the evil spirit of this village. He would have just moved on, had it not been for this infernal leg of his. He was at the mercy of some ruthless people who had no mercy to give. He could not hide and he could not run.

He knew those people were likely to hurt him, on general principles, but all he could do was hang out at the little clinic, without his cronies anywhere near by. His cronies were probably kicking around the village, looking for some kind of trouble to get themselves into, for fun. If they’d only known, there was plenty of trouble right here in this infirmary.

Those guys seemed to be a few rocket scientists, to have no clue what might be about happen.

The cousin of the gazelle was not really up to getting out onto the steppe this morning, to be sized up by a whole host of various creatures. He limped. The unicorn was not interested in taking his chances on the steppe, while he was limping, because it was.

By evening, the idea that he was incapacitated was a concept the unicorn was only just now, beginning to appreciate. The unicorn felt almost as if he was a partial person, as if his life was in mortal danger, in his current circumstances. Does the word insecurity come to mind?

The unicorn was doing the one thing he had to do. He was convalescing from his injury on a pallet in a clinic, but it took some significant effort for him to realize that he was every bit as much of an individual as any adversary was, injured or not. The unicorn was felt significantly vulnerable in his current situation, but he could defend himself if need be.

The cousin of the gazelle had every right to feel overly vulnerable. He felt significantly threatened by those men with the evil eyes. They hadn’t made any move whatsoever on him so far. The unicorn looked around the little room where his pallet was, for weapons, but the contents of the infirmary yielded little that was reassuring. There was no one in the room, but the fear was still eating the unicorn alive.

The unicorn made a decision, more out of vexation than anything else. He had never known a life of fear or dread. Why start now? He was not about to start a life of fear, not at that late date in life. The unicorn decided on a course of strength, if this were to have to be his final act. The unicorn did not change his position physically. The doctor ordered bed rest, and that’s what the doctor was going to get. Bed rest. He took a position of power.

The cousin of the gazelle changed his heart, and felt more wide awake and alert.

It was an exhilarating feeling, from someone who’d been depressed by an overwhelming fear of men he’d never even met. The unicorn set about changed his thinking and attitudes altogether, just because it felt so good to.

The unicorn was suddenly master of all his own thoughts and senses. He was master of his own fate, too. If the unicorn was about to be killed by hateful men, he could certainly enjoy his final few moments in life, with a sense of joy in his heart and pride in his soul.

You see, unicorns are not your average animal. They have a heart and soul, with plenty of pluck to go along with it. What goes around, comes around. Unicorns can think and reason for themselves. This unicorn was all through with playing punk for a couple of bullies.

The cousin of the gazelle drifted off to sleep again, as he had been doing throughout the day. In the morning, the doctor ordered another day of bed rest, to which the unicorn readily consented. The little magical person finally accepted the word of a doctor as being Gospel.

Unicorn’s cronies showed up in the infirmary with a little piece of interesting news. Apparently, two men they didn’t know, ventured out onto the steppe without rifles the other day. They were attacked by predators, and summarily killed and devoured.

The Unicorn had an idea those were the evil men he had feared, now neutralized completely. He considered this to be a personal response to prayer and he quietly uttered a prayer of gratitude that he’d quietly been delivered.

Neither one of the unicorns in that situation ever had a prayer, until the one who was laid up with a wounded leg offered a prayed. A good, healthy reverence for Almighty God took over, during that prayer. This was pleasing to the Great One.

The wounded unicorn prayed with all confidence and gratitude, before his cronies ever arrived at the clinic. He wanted to utilize his solitude to make the most of his prayer time. The utterances of his pure heart is what saved them all.

When one is given enough quiet time, one learns how to pray.

There was no disbelief in a threatened man’s prayer. Summoning his faculties around him was part and parcel of what had made that prayer, and the one’s before it, significant to Almighty God Himself. No one likes a sniveling coward, even God Himself.

The patient in that clinic had managed to marshal his internal forces around him, and the results were no less than remarkable. The unicorn became an impenetrable fortress, guarded by his own prayer life. The threat against the unicorn, personally, had been devoured on the steppe, by predators.

The patient was content to lay up on that pallet in that infirmary until the doctor said, “Get up.”

Remembering the feeling of his energy drain out of him, as he tried to walk around that village, was one thing that put the unicorn on his back, even under the threat of violence.

The other thing was that the unicorn had confidence in the ability of the doctor to heal him.

The other animals of the steppe felt ill-at-ease around this supposedly-magical creature, which was unusual. They sensed something was wrong, that something or other did not add up, and they were determined to discover what that was. This magical unicorn did not have his head together. It wasn’t that he was stupid. It was something else.

Even the simplest of beasts from the steppe could sense something was different.

One could only guess what the unicorn was like. He was giving no clues. He understood the people around him were uncomfortable, but he was not disposed to publishing a medical report to the community. There was an awkward barrier between himself and everyone else on the steppe. One had precious little tidbits of information about the new unicorn, nothing more.

According to his cousin, the common gazelle of the steppe, some of his behavior was scarcely acceptable. Thanks, cousin. But his wasn’t anything horrible. People were overly suspicious, but there was no relief for it. There was only something different about the unicorn, which folks had a difficult time putting their finger on. They finally decided the unicorn was only a Klutz.

Though his neighbors were more accustomed to the cousin of the gazelle causing miracles among the youth of the community, the times of the remarkable student were not yet forgotten. There happened to be those in the general population, who had been taught to accept nothing less than absolute perfection from the unicorn on duty.

This was not fair to the new unicorn’s chances of making a modest name for himself. This individual was not as dynamic as his predecessor. Therefore, the unicorn of the day was not as acceptable to the general population as the other guy was. The new kid in town was not so thick skinned to not have noticed the struggle the town was going through, either.

The unicorn was on the verge of being ostracized for the sole error of being himself.

This was an opinion held by more of the animals, as well as the humans. The humans didn’t care too much, at first. No one expected him, a first-rate unicorn, to be as contrary to the nature of creatures, as this one happened to be, but sure enough, this guy was worse than a common klutz.

This unicorn was nothing more than a nerd. So, there you have it, the labeling had completed.

The unicorn is known to have mastered the art of flight, without the use of an aircraft, although none of the other creatures, including the cousin, could ever have given any account of how it was he was actually able to fly. A youth would hop up on his back, and away they went. That much was up to code. In spite of whom he was replacing, this unicorn was determined to succeed.

That much was normal, and no decent unicorn, from anywhere, was about to let go of any trade secrets, to win anything from the town he where he was posted. There were all sorts of things which were parts of the magic of the unicorn, and this one was as quiet as a sound chamber regarding every last one of them. This magical creature would just take the attitude, and ride it out.

No one, either on the steppe, nor in the village, had enough basic insight into the realities of the situation, to imagine, in their wildest dreams, what was actually going on. They could attribute the strange goings on as being magic, nothing less. The unfolding of history was another miracle, bequeathed to those who looked for some kind of picture show, when they flew.

It was because of the vivid imagination of the youth, the show inspired the manifestation of flight. The one idea that made the two of them fly, unicorn and youth, was the over-active imagination of the youth. That secret never gotten out, for the longest time. There’s really nothing wrong with being a Klutz. The unicorn and the youth would exercise their magical powers as they pleased.

The unicorn was unconcerned about any kind of trouble. When the serious game of the steppe became a matter of survival, the unicorn simply walked away, using every bit of clout of the ages. Predators were well schooled on the exceptionally cunning nature of the unicorn. The unicorn was as safe as he believed himself to be, based on a long standing tradition. Not much more.

Unicorns weren’t considered a tasty game to be devoured, with any of the predators on the steppe. Moreover, the unicorn was considered distasteful to carnivores. They had a bad reputation where game was concerned. The carnivores were conditioned to look the other away when a unicorn walked by. It was a truce the one animal had arranged with the other a long time ago.

Neither was interested in breaking the truce.

Suddenly, a boy jumped up on the back of our very strange unicorn, and the very unusual, usual thing happened. The two of them flew a long ways off. The history of some remote time and place would begin playing out for the unicorn and the boy, with both of them innocently watching over the unicorn. It was inexplicable.

The time and place of the advent of this phenomenon were never well known. To be under the spell of something truly unusual, boggled the minds of unicorn and boy alike. The fact that this thing truly happened was utter magic. Or so they thought. This unicorn was convinced there was a perfectly rational explanation for all of this. It was just not known yet.

Not only could the boy, himself, not explain the apparition, the unicorn couldn’t explain it either. This particular mystery would not yield it’s meaning to anyone, because neither participant had any unusual observation to make. The cause of such a phenomenon was just not known yet. The participants in the mystery were utterly devoid of empirical data.

Boys enjoyed riding along on a unicorn’s back, whenever they were able to mount the relatively small back. The boys would chase down the unicorn on the steppe, and hop aboard, with or without permission or consent. They all craved a chance at being a part of a mystery. Now and then, one or another of the boys would achieve a stable perch, and the unicorn would fly.

The boys never did seem to pose threat to the unicorn, as an individual, nor did it apply the other way around. There didn’t seem to be any sort of objective evidence to report to any of the scientists nagging people their village. Boy and unicorn would fly away, to seek the very focused picture show below, and both would go some place remarkably different.

The unicorn could bring all sorts of secrets and imaginations to the table, about the process of their experience in general, as they flew far and wide, with a youth perched on his back. Unicorns were known to speak in plain comprehensible language, but this one rarely did. Silence was one of the many things that made the unicorn seem odd.

He had a speech impediment. He could only speak with his comfort seriously effected.

The unicorn, who was more than somewhat of a mystery anyway, might be considered insufferably odd to some. Nobody knew whether it would please the unicorn to find someone to talk to, or whether he was quiet because he chose to be. The unicorn’s speech impediment, which few people ever heard, was because of his chemical imbalance in his brain.

Others found the chemical imbalance to be more natural, not less. It depended upon who was doing the considering. There happened to be a long term problem for the unicorn to have to deal with. The unicorn had to take medicine for the rest of his life. He was require to overcome the problem of having hooves to have to utilize, to take his daily medicine with.

In the long run, the unicorn resorted to eating his medicine off the grass. Though neither people nor beasts were there to witness this process, or would remain in silence with the unicorn, almost to the point of being rude, according to the unicorn’s perception. He did his best to let this behavior roll of his back, because it was offensive to him anyway.

This unicorn, honestly enough, was as enormously uncomfortable with his new station. All the unique qualities and duties of being a unicorn were weighty. He was an unknown quantity, even to those who were accustomed to having a new unicorn, walking around among them every now and then. Nonetheless, the unicorn could not avoid being offended.

There were as many at a loss how to interact with this oddball, as there were interacting anyone elsewhere. The idea that the unicorn suffered from a chemical imbalance would probably only complicate matters with the locals. I mean not only with the humans, but the animals as well. A chemical imbalance is not easily understood by anyone.

Strangely the humans weren’t the ones finding it terribly odd. The unicorn wasn’t attracting their young very often, to expose them to the great subject of history, while they were in fight, as the story goes. That much he could deal with, carrying the occasional youth on his back, offering some sort of informal history lesson to some pimple-faced boy.

At least that was the story the unicorn and boy returned with. The flights weren’t happening all that often, but they were happening. The unicorn was finding his own way, in hazardous surroundings, hopefully foraging his passage a little closer to the youth of the community, which were all the beasts and the humans could think to talk about.

Then, the history of the town became superfluous to the town. Folks began to realize that the remarkable genius had moved on. His mentor was gone, too. The two of them weren’t coming back, no matter how badly everybody harassed the current unicorn. The visitors made demands on the unicorn in attendance, but the old experience was something of the past. It would not be repeated.

The current unicorn’s history became an issue, and he would stifle all allegations, until his cousin, the gazelle, would be brought into play, giving the unicorn major warnings about keeping things straight and circumspect. A warning of this nature was all the unicorn needed to hear to retreat, bound for parts unknown, never to return.

The young man would gleefully report to the beckoning unicorn, that he’s ended by mounting the unicorn’s back, and off they’d go. The ground beneath them would tell it’s latest story. The young man would pay rapt attention. He was almost mesmerized with the passage of a lesson.

Also, the unicorn would provide a narrative for whatever story was that was playing out. This was a wonderful convenience for the boy, because the unicorn would talk and talk, about all sorts of side issues, regarding the time in history which was much in question.

The boy was a talented student.

The only talent this unicorn had, was to offer a most interesting narrative, about the circumstances of whatever period of time in history, was playing out at the moment. When the two were interacting, they would frequently enjoy yet another trip into the sky, over the history thereof.

Now and then, the cousin to the gazelle would simply make a social call to the young fellow’s residence, where they would enjoy tea and crumpets, as well as a rousting discussion of times gone by. Hearing the voice of the unicorn seemed commonplace in the boy’s home.

There was always more to be discussed between the welcome visitor and the brilliant young man. His understand was superb. When there were issues which were not entirely clear to the boy, he would ask for more clarity. He craved mastery over each and every issue to arrive at the fore.

One might have said that a unicorn would be an odd friend for a young man to have.

If one takes that tack, it’s clear they aren’t the least bit observant about friends. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship, where the two of them interacted as equals. Even though there was a bit of teacher-student interaction between them, the unicorn was receiving as much as the boy.

If the Gossip team would only get it right, or mind their own affairs, things would be a lot more comfortable between the friends. The office of unicorn is well known in those parts, just as the social practice of rubbernecking is also well known. The little old ladies did like to talk.

The scholars did as they pleased, and ignored the gossips almost to a fault.

It’s taken years for the unicorn and the youth to develop the rapport they now enjoy. The pair were in some danger of proverbially being stabbed in the back by the old women’s counsel of gossip. It was an ever-present part of the young man’s village, and few knew the intensity of it, that the boy did.

The boy and the unicorn were admittedly going for many rides together, talking over anything and everything, hour upon hour. The old women would talk and talk. The scholars would make a discussion of just about anything historical, and nobody was there to ask why.

If one’s been watching the accounts of what unicorns do, one finds that when the youth mounts the back of the unicorn; youth and unicorn watching an entire litany of goings on, with one bit of history and another going on beneath them. It was theirs to find the unfolding thereof.

Unicorns are also capable of speech. This one indulges himself frequently.

The boy and unicorn are close friends. The unicorn seeks out the boy, because he finds him a source of enthusiasm, while they fly around like magic, discussing the events of whatever history is transpiring below, as they fly above it. The boy is not nearly as ill as he is lonely.

It could be argued that this unicorn is abusing his office, but neither boy, nor parents, nor unicorn are complaining. Nor is the doctor complaining, except in jest, because what he sees in the boy is a need to learn. The unicorn is fulfilling that need beautifully.

What a wonderful way to teach a college or university course. The unicorn and the boy soar around hither and yon, and no one quite notices. Because the unicorn is involved, and has reached some maturity of years, he appreciates how unique this opportunity is.

He’s got a genius, history major on his hands.

It’s a revelation happening between two willing participants. The old unicorn has plenty of experience with young people, who see all the world unfold before their eyes, yet the treasures of what history is about, is lost on them all, though it unfolds right before their very eyes.

So many valuable lessons have been squandered.

This brilliant young man has no way of attending college. He sees it all unfold before his very eyes, with his heart on fire. This young man has always had a passion for history. He’s given all the information, including those who are knowledgeable enough to discuss the issues, intellectually.

He’s given the society of his intellectual pears, without charge or fee, from time to time.

The young man does not have a computer, up to date or otherwise, with or without any internet connection, whatsoever, to be able to study history in cyberspace. They have nothing of the sort. Neither does his village even have electricity. His place comes straight out of the Dark Ages, literally.

All the young man has is one big, beating heart, to the tune of every history lesson available.

Teachers exist for this one moment, this one student. Once they’ve found him, their lives change forever. Discipline is irrelevant. A genius hits a school, once in a blue moon. The genius catches hold. All is forgiven of the mundane students, who can only go through the motions.

How much more can they hope for? The garrulous old unicorn is satisfying the youth with every bit of knowledge he has. The boy’s hunger for knowledge can scarcely be quenched. It’s the greatest privilege of the old unicorn’s life.

The cousin of the gazelle can scarcely contain himself.

There’s more the youth can grasp than the unicorn can think of saying. Soon, the young man will meet a Buddhist Priest, who can show him the way to a lot more marvels than the unicorn can show him. The Priest will show the youngster balance, the ways of the within and the without.

The only true journey is within. The idea itself sounds like a Buddhist philosophy. The journey has a way of propelling an individual through it, where there is no right, no wrong, no good or bad, to feel condemned by. There is only the without and the within. There is nothing more.

When the journey is without, one must be taking some quest of a mundane sort, who’s sole purpose is to unearth things external. The man is wasting his time. There are only things to search for, which aline themselves with the spirit. These will bear much fruit for the traveler.

If one tries to possess, one is defeated before one starts. One must be rich, to possess. But even the ways of the wealthy are too fruitless to be wise. One can attempt to possess, but will fail. Once time goes by, it takes all with it. It becomes necessary to pursue what is true.

There is the pathway to true happiness. That pathway does not include one of wealth.

The journey within.

]]> http://geostan51.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/the-relief/feed/ 0 geostan51