Doomed I tell you, from the start

"HA. Great stuff...thanks." 
 ~Bob Illes 
I messaged this to Bob on Facebook wondering what he would think of my attempt at some comedy since he is/was THE comedy writer. 

I started this whole lifetime out wrong.  Wrong side of the tracks.  Wrong family. Wrong genes. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.  My petri dish runneth over with dysfunction and dis-ease.  I can even trace my troubles back to before birth.  In fact, two generations back when the "sins of the father" declaration was visited upon my own recalcitrant granddad.  As the Book says punishment will be served up through the third and fourth generations after making God mad.  I am the third and gratefully with no children of my own, God can take a break.

But, Granddad did it all right.  Or all wrong, I should say.  He got the Christian (surname) family's indentured servant preggers.  As you might imagine this did not sit well with those from one of the oldest lineages in history, albeit much diluted by then to mostly business people, landowner/farmers, and a few professionals like Dr. Bob Christian who discovered a cure for hoof and mouth disease and was on Time magazine's cover.

One of the notable features of the geneology I once saw was that the Christian family was traceable to Ancient times. They later clustered on the Isle of Man off the English coast.  There is reference to  Fletcher Christian coming from the Isle of Man.  The William Christian lineage of my grandfather were the original branch to reach America.  They settled around the Virginia area.

Granddad's immediate ancestors were of the minister variety.  Baptist and Methodist mostly with seminary education.  Despite the descent to the clergy from loftier heights, the lineage had done pretty well until granddad got grandma pregnant.  Then all hell broke loose.

There was mutiny.  Granddad got entirely cut off from the family resources.  He did not receive the education that his siblings had and unlike his brother who chose to be a farmer in the small town of St. John, Kansas, he did not get the beau coup acreage to raise cattle and grains.  Instead, he worked as a mechanic for Boeing.  He was bright enough that they trained him in some special program and transferred him to troubleshoot where Boeing needed help.

Grandma, Aunt Patty and I moved every time.  We lived in a log cabin in Denver, a beautiful place overlooking Puget Sound and in Northern California near Fairfield Air Force base.  Despite the lack of roots and stable friendships (probably another explanation for all my pathology) I enjoyed living different places.

When we were in Kansas, Grandad's family were nice enough to always call him when they needed something fixed or heavy lifting done.  The relationship was quite strained even despite grandma's domestic goddess abilities to charm them.  She canned everything in season.  Peaches, apples, berries...you name it.  She awakened at 5am with granddad and cooked his hearty breakfast.  Her days went something like this.  Morning - sew Chrys new school dresses-add extra touches like an embroidered collar, crochet shawl for Pat.  Afternoon - bake apple pie for Chrys and Dad, cook homemade chicken and noodles for dinner.  Evening - embroider bib for neighbors new baby, take jam to great grandma.

My great grandparents were fond of me so he took me to see them often.  I staged the kid's family Christmas productions.  Great grandma played organ and we entertained the adults.  I must have been 7 or 8 when I started directing my cousins in those productions.

Great grandad was a Methodist minister and I would be dropped off by grandma and grandad, his son, at church every Sunday.  They never stayed.  I realize only now that it was probably because they did not feel worthy not necessarily because they did not believe.  Maybe they even (secretly) wanted to attend but feared God's judgment.

Going to Extremes

Flying low over the island of Kauai was unlike anything my 15 year old, not well-traveled eyes had ever seen.  The ocean was a patchwork of differing shades of blue, green and turquoise.  The island was a vast array of greens with rich, deep, red soil. Paradise awaited and I was excited. This was going to be fun.   

My husband, Gerry and I left Oahu after only a few days.  This was our delayed honeymoon, even more importantly, it was our escape from L.A.   Gerry was receiving regular bomb threats from the John Birch Society, at least he suspected it was them. He had taken the case of a major figure in the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Ron Karenga who co-founded the black nationalist and social change organization US or "Us Black People".   He was getting too powerful, Gerry said, and was framed with a violent crime to sabotage the large organization he was building.  It was the only criminal case that Gerry ever lost.  Ron was sentenced to 10 years. We visited him at Chino prison before we left.  I had seen most all of the trial.  

When I should have been in first period English class and on campus at Beverly Hills High School, I was instead on Olympic Boulevard with my thumb out hitching to the downtown court house.  The first trial I watched, he won.  It was a civil rights case, involving a group of Hispanic, church-going women that were arrested on Christmas Eve in front of their church. After denied entry because the church was full, the extremely religious women refused to leave. Instead of letting the women stay on the steps outside, the police were called to remove them.  LAPD, East LA, the late 60's...one can only imagine. Gerry was a fighter on behalf of The People.  Cases like this he took for free.     

I loved to watch him brilliantly work his magic in the courtroom. It became my favorite thing to do instead of attend class at Beverly.  Anti-war activism with U.C.L.A.'s radical organization was replaced with the courtroom after Gerry and I hooked up, there was not enough time for both.  I had a new obsession.  And this was an education of it's own.  Plus, one I wanted.  He absolutely mesmerized me.  His arguments were power-packed.  His eloquence and ability to play to emotion, rocked me.  We would discuss it all over teacakes in Chinatown at lunch break then continue dissecting it, on the way back to his apartment in the car after court.  We had to make sure I got home somewhere around 9 pm, I told mother I was working for him in the evenings.  Until, it got to be too hard to go home. We wanted to be together and decided to marry.  

He reasoned to avoid mother entirely we would find somewhere in the world that did not require parental consent to marry.  With his friends Paul and Susie, in the cramped, back seat of the Porsche Targa, Paul filming with probably the first model ever, hand held, but heavy and large, video cam, we went to the U.C.L.A. Law Library.  He spent hours poring over books.  There was not one place in the world that a 15 year old could marry without parental consent.  In some countries you could be even younger but parents had to agree.  He was quite surprised.  But, plan B had to come quick, it was way past 9 pm by now.  But that's another story.  

While back on the island, it is honeymoon time.

Safety in Hawaii was a welcome relief.  In California, I had to check the ignition for wires from a bomb before entering any of our cars.  It was very scary. Waikiki held little appeal beyond some night life and Gerry assured that I would love Kauai.  He was so right.  He liked no reservations travel and immersing himself in local cultures versus the American tourist plan.  That seemed perfect to me the tourists in Waikiki were frightful. I did not want to go any where that, matching muumuus and aloha-shirted couples, went. 

We arrived on Kauai without a hotel room and Gerry decided that he did not want to rent a car.  We were going hitchhike.  He wanted to meet people who lived there.  Although, I saw where he was coming from and agreed it would fun. I had become rather comfortable driving his hot looking silver, exceedingly fast, great handling, Porsche Targa that turned me into a corner gripping, curve hugging, speed demon especially on the Pacific Coast Highway to Big Sur and San Francisco.   The wild, manic and out-of-control within was getting extreme opportunities to get out. 

There were also new prompts for wildness, like the plentiful quantities of LSD, mescaline and weed that Gerry always had from bartering his legal services with dealers who had no cash flow following arrest (they had to lay low) but still had drugs.  

And oh, those parties...they were heaven to an extremist like me.  Gerry was an art collector.  Modern mostly, known, unknown, to become well-known.  We were always invited to fabulously, unique and creative studio spaces where artists lived and worked in Venice and throughout LA.  Their parties were the greatest but the art collectors could kick it up a notch.   At one collector's bash in the hills above Santa Monica, before entering you removed your shoes and people were stationed at the door to wash your feet.  Different rooms had different drugs.  There was a psychedelic room, a cocaine room and in my favorite room, where I spent most of the party, there were three, tall gray tanks of Nitrous Oxide beside a black, baby grand with a jazz pianist knocking out tunes. Both pianist and the man serving Nitrous Oxide up in balloons, were dressed in tuxedos. 

I had done most drugs already including acid before me met. Strangely, my high school friend, Debbie, got one single tab of the best Orange Sunshine ever as a gift for me. She got it in Big Sur when she was on vacation with her family.  Big Sur had the best. And it was incredible.  But, I remain uncertain as to why just me?

But, Debbie I had never mentioned wanting to take it.  You had never taken it.  Nor, had ANYONE we knew. None of our girl group, at least.  It wasn't in our Beverly Hills High formulary yet like most all other drugs of the day.   Was it that Debbie figured I would be the one most able to handle it in our group. A good guinea pig.  I was a know-it-all kid about mostly anything outside the classroom.  Inside, I was clueless. Answers to things seemed to just come to me about beyond-the-classroom stuff.  I was the go to person for certain explanations.  

I even led Gerry and his girlfriend at the time through a bad acid trip that the two of them were having.  She was a psychologist.  Both of them were so very afraid of the loss of control  of strange perceptions, that neither could help the other.  I stayed right beside them both for hours.  I talked. They hardly could. They were both educated adults.  She was in her 30's, he in his 40's. I was 15. I tried to normalize their experience by sharing some of my own.  My trips had all been great, I loved the expanded consciousness, profound thoughts and my first deep philosophical conversation with my best friend's, older sister's, friend.  We sat in his pick-up truck talked for hours.  I told him there were no new ideas, they all existed and only needed be captured for our private use.  It seemed quite profound at the time.     

But, that was in LA and we were in Kauai now where I would be slowed to a crawl for the next 2 years.  A great crawl in some ways, it was beautiful place.   I was free from my dysfunctional relationship with mother, not in jeopardy of becoming a ward of the court, I had a new best friend that I loved, at least, as much as a 15 year old knows how. Gerry let me do whatever I wanted.  He gave me whatever I wanted. Life was good and I was happy. That’s all I knew.

We got a ride from a hippie chick, in a not so shiny, I think originally yellow, VW bug who told us about Taylor Camp, with treehouses in a forest just off the beach at the far end of the North Shore in a small town called Ha’ena.  She said tourists rarely went that far, it was very private, free, lots of weed, she shopped there and a Zen master.  The magic word was spoken apparently, Gerry was there already.  Zen had not made it's way into my realm yet. But I had heard Marc, my step-brother from mother's last, who I adored and who was watching our house, speak of it, so I was sure it was something to know about.  Plus, all the rest sounded perfect.  

Afterthoughts:

There were major interventions that could have gone on at this point in my life by my family, the school or caring observers, had certain things been identified.  School difficulties being the first very obvious sign.  I was with the UCLA radicals more.  I did show up occasionally for class.  I found it necessary, for example, to be there on book report day to give a presentation on Woodstock Nation written by Abbie Hoffman.   Then there was the walk-out that I had to lead single-handedly because the other three chickened out, fearful of what their teachers would think and their future college plans and such.  It was in support of the East LA movement (specifically the high school students at Roosevelt high…SWAT was called and busted heads just because they quietly protested by not going back to class after lunch).  But, Houston there was a problem.  Solution, expel me.  

At the Beverly High walk-out,  300 or so walked off campus with me, there was one cop car at the bottom of the campus.  He stayed in his car.  We even tried to provoke him by pushing the car frame up and down on the hood.  I was YIPPIE trained by then.  It didn't even cause him to call for back up.  This was Beverly Hills after all.  But, what a contrast with bloody up students in East LA victimized by SWAT for non-provocation.   

Gerry’s other girlfriend besides the psychologist, was a teacher there.  She told us the story one night. Massive protests were planned around the city.  It went far beyond just the school, I recently discovered that James Olmos did a film called Walk-out about that time.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkout_(film)   

We went to UCLA, they printed our flyers, Abbie and others provided some guidance.  Gerry's daughter, Tobi, was my classmate.  We would hitchhike to his apartment in Santa Monica after school.  

Back to the cautionary stuff…I was attending classes less and less each year for 3 years at the finest public school. How does that happen?  Why was I at UCLA with college kids doing anti-war demonstrations instead of sitting in my high school class room?   How did I keep a 45 year old Stanford Alum, attorney, formerly of O'Melveny and Meyer, the largest entertainment law firm in Los Angeles, interested enough to marry me at 15?  I wasn't dumb.  I was too smart.  I needed more.  It wasn't identified.  My passions needed outlet.  No one was there at home, school or around me to help direct it.  I was seen simply as a troubled, behavioral problem child, to be dealt with punitively.  Most importantly, the parenting that I received was woefully inadequate, from insufficient love and nurturing through lack of monitoring, poor role modelling and so much in between.  These are the messages that need to be embedded, not told.

The chemical imbalance of bipolar and a predisposition to addiction based on family history rounds it out and those would be the genetic components.  

The innate Chrys contributions, or what I was born with and what evolved due to circumstances, are that I am stubborn, head strong, sharp and precision-focused when I need to be. Natural selection with adaptation traits favored me for survival through this insanity and addiction filled life.  Like perceptive to a fault, sensitive to another fault, I know how you feel and read people immediately, if we cross paths or even wavelengths. And, my environmental exposure to a variety of experiences and people developed, at least, adequate social skills.  Truthfully, no one scares me.  I can talk to anybody these days, about anything.  And, do so quite comfortably and with ease and humor.  It is an absolutely awesome, acquired only recently; a comfort with people that I never had before.  For years, my personality construct was extremely protective of my fragile ego structure.  Got that? I felt so insecure often that I came off harsh and had to act superior to others to feel that I was okay with myself.  Ugly trait.  Glad I could shed that skin.

Thankfully, in my 30's, I got channelled towards my own dream to return to school and supported in my efforts along the way to become a therapist by my beloved psychiatrist of 30 years.  But, I have remained a real loner.  Social media has been a Godsend.  Thank you all from the bottom of my being. xo 

A Forever Thing

We met on Pogo.com playing Scrabble.  Basically, he picked me up.  I was playing alone in a beginner's room when Orion2020 popped up under my screen name.  He immediately started chatting and his warmth beamed through the screen.  

I have never met him personally. And at the time, a little over a year ago, when we were playing Scrabble, I did not even know his last name.  I only found out who he was after the fact from a friend of the other seriously broken heart on Pogo.com. 

But, I had not thought of him for some time until a few months ago our wavelengths crossed.  I had a feeling something was not right.  I went to Google again.  He was visible after many years.   I was surprised to see that he had resurfaced. He must be all right I assumed if he was active again.  

You would have thought that he won a Nobel Peace Prize, judging by the number of pages with links to a variety of business publications online.  But, he was clearly on the radar again after retiring very young as a self-made billionaire.  Obviously, a treasured asset to any company, Google's links bellowed like a megaphone assaulting my eyes. 

Truth be told, I was glad he was active and had a presence online for the first time in years. I read 10 or 12 of the new articles out of the 100's of links posted on Google, even though I could tell at a glance they all had basically the same information. Like the list of immense holdings and many successful pharmaceutical companies he founded that were responsible for probably, at least, a fourth of all the medication we take in the world. Okay, maybe a sixteenth.  

But, I read each repetitive article like it was the first time I had seen it.  I was longing for him. 

I hadn't considered that maybe he might be trying to generate some life force that retirement very young had dampened; or that rapidly changing circumstances might be motivating him. When I saw all the links with his name I felt a combination of thrilled, confused and a deep yearning to have contact with him.      

I still couldn't explain the feeling that something was not right with him.  I thought perhaps I did not perceive correctly.  Typically my sixth sense is far superior to the average bear.  I don't miss much. My instincts are often quite trustworthy.  I do a lot of reality checking and verify when possible to make sure I am accurate when I read something in a person or get a sense of something.  It is a part of my training as a psychotherapist.  Plus, my connection with Isaac a year ago was phenomenally strong. So, I was not surprised when the foreboding feeling returned.  

This time it was an image and a feeling.  He was in bed.  He was waiting to die.  I could not even pick up his energy only his wife's wavelength came through in a pleading sort of way.  It was like a request to stop pushing him away.  He needed me she seemed to say. She understood it all. She even knew at the time. I was even fairly certain of that back then. But, she did not want her best friend to give up and die. She loved him that much.

That is what truthfully took me to Google.  I was hoping to see I was misreading the signals and all wrong. But, in retrospect I think I perceived as intended. 

He is 62, two Yale graduate sons probably leaving home soon, a 14 year growing up fast, a best friend wife that didn't like sex.  And one of his companies discovered Cialis. YHWH is that Justice?  He would probably have another 20 years or more to live. I assumed he must have been asking himself many questions like, "How do I want to spend my remaining years?  Is this going to be enough when the kids are gone?  Am I still willing to live without sex?  Is being married to my best friend going to be all there is?  Could more be possible for me?"  

Most likely the self-styled questions were equally matched with consideration for others. I knew how deeply he felt about Jewish values, family, education, public service, philanthropy and such.  His dad, I found out in my research was a Rabbi. Isaac had told me that he had Yeshiva education in high school but disappointed his head master when he refused to continue to a Jewish Yeshiva college that was expected of him. 

Then to top it off, we had met.  He knew I was out there.  In a place he loved as well, Hawaii.  He also was exceedingly aware that we knew each other’s needs as well as we knew our own. When it came to emotional vacancies in need of just the right loving touch to come alive, ours were a complete match. 

Plus, it was only just a little over a year ago that he had his very own romantic and adoring soul mate every night for three months just across the computer screen as he made his, "rare, white tigress" explode on command.  I always asked via chat, "Roar for me, please?" His words followed, "ROAR  ROAR."  I needed to hear more, "Again, please ROAR some more." My screen filled with a row of, “ROAR  ROAR  ROAR  ROAR  ROAR, that appeared faster than humanly possible. ...Full body Orgasm!  A first!

But, I had successfully deconstructed the whole relationship; throwing out the memories of powerfully, room rocking, astral explosions along with all the rest.  I had known there were others. He had found a playground on pogo.com for his social needs, as much as anything I believe. But the other followed as relationships over time with the same people creates familiarity and fondness.  The game of Scrabble draws a certain type of person.  They are often bright, articulate, social, lonely, many comfortable with plenty of time to waste.  Most are women.  

But he won over a million and a half scrabble tokens in only a year’s time (that’s 5 years worth for most).  So, he had done some serious Scrabble winning too.  He played more than he Played. But, I needed to see him as a total Player to keep him painted black. 

That helped me to pigeonhole him in my mind.  For many weeks, maybe even months whenever I felt his pull, all I had do was say one word to myself - Cad!  I do believe it was divine intervention that helped me realize that all I was doing was protecting my heart from the pain of loss.

Because, the real truth was when he vanished, I had an emptiness so deep inside where he had filled me with phenomenal, hither to fore unknown, love.  I never expected another would match it; or could ever. The nihilism of vacancy was unbearable; to be able to function I had to turn it into anger and disrespect so that I could stop my silent tears. I demonized him. 

  

But this time was different, some new sun shone in the cave and I did not fear my shadow.  It started when I identified why I built the anger, cad, wall...I was protecting myself from feeling a pain and sadness so deep that it seemed it might have destroyed me.  Shortly, thereafter something surprising happened.  The walls of Jericho came tumbling down, the guards quit providing protection and my doors allowed entry to my pleasant memories of Isaac. 

He has been in my heart and my head for many months now. It is sheer magic and pure heaven. With soulmates it is like that. There is a knowingness of innate perception, all about the other. You don't even have to be physically nearby to perceive things. It is 4968 miles between New York City and Honolulu. Yet, I feel his arms around me as we nod off to sleep. I feel his concern and sense his love. Basically, it is like this...his presence is a constant experience in my life today. I have come to expect it, just as much as I do the sun shining 99.99% of the time in Hawaii.

When the self-protective walls surrounding me, came down, memories of all the great parts of our experiences together flooded my consciousness.  This was written to let them roll on through.   

At the time nearly a year ago, he set clear boundaries, telling me, "This will never go beyond this Pogo site."  He spoke of his wife as his best friend. But it was not the full marital agenda.  He did not complain about it.  He just wanted me to understand. 

He told me proudly of his son preparing for a summer of humanitarian public service, work following his graduation from Yale.  The other son had a year or two at Yale still to go.  He spoke so fondly of his 13 year old daughter that occasionally entered his apparently mostly private part of their large eight units turned into one large apartment on a high floor overlooking the Statue of Liberty on the Hudson River across the street from the World Trade Center.  I knew when the screen went blank for a few minutes; it would be followed with a simple, "I lost my privacy." 

I loved him very quickly for his openness and warmth, and I loved how he loved his family, his values and philanthropy.  He told of a theater he built in Israel for children that were deaf with special accommodations so that they could enjoy live theater.   I even loved that his wife was his best friend.  But, sadly that had been the extent of it for some time.   

He had it all.  The perfect package for me was here. I was smitten.  "Not mine," I kept trying to tell myself. I never expected to fall so hard.  But, when the student is ready the teacher arrives.  Mine showed when Orion2020 entered the Scrabble room that night. I had not loved much about myself for a while.  I had not let anyone else love me for some time.  

I just never found anyone right.    I was married once very young.  I was engaged three time’s years ago. And I walked away each time. It just wasn't enough with any of them. Then there were fruitless years trying to save a bright and beautiful young man, oozing with potential.  I just stopped trying.  I had not dated in years.  And my beloved psychiatrist filled in the blanks emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.  Then along comes Isaac.

He brought me something I had not had for years with his understanding of and appreciation for films, theater and music.  We could speak one language I had forgotten and he introduced me to more.  The first thing he always said was, "kiss me" to which my response was always the same, "across time and space, our tongues dance the tango."  

It was perhaps our fifth night together when he told me the story of Rebekah and Isaac from the Old Testament that I didn't recall or never knew.  He didn't tell it quite like this.  But upon reading the Biblical story today, I take a few liberties.  Abraham, Isaac's dad was getting old and presumably felt urgency to assure propagation of his lineage before it was too late and sent his servant to find Isaac a wife outside of Canaan.  So the servant headed out with 10 camels that carried the luggage.  In the town of Nahor they stopped.  It was Happy Hour and the townspeople were all coming out to draw water in their water jars.

The servant devised a means to determine what woman would be right for Isaac and prayed to God that he be successful at his mission. It was to be the woman that when asked for a drink of water also offered to provide water to the camel.   I suppose, that would reveal much of her character, showing her heart.  Possibly even her faithfulness to God's laws of implied responsibility of man's dominion over animals spoken of in Genesis.  It was a solid plan and surely one expected of Abraham's Major Domo servant.  Rebekah was the first woman to offer him water.  Immediately, without a second thought, she offered the camels water.   She went even further and suggested that she put the servant and camels up for the night offering her family's accommodations to them all.  He had found Isaac's wife!   

My Twin Flame called me his Rebekah and his soul mate.   My heart overflowed with a joy that could not be contained the first time he said that.  I tried to stay afloat during my melt down by telling myself that, "he probably said that to other women on Pogo.com, with whom I knew by then, he spent time."  

As for me, my only real intellectual peer for some time had been my beloved psychiatrist.  We have had a special bond since early on.  I lived in a dual diagnosis program he ran and we have know each other 30 years. He has been through a lot with me and helped me immensely.  I have relied heavily on him at different times and he has always come through.  Plus, he is a charming enigma.  He was born in Australia, is a very handsome tall Chinese man, Armani and Harvard and speaks with a sophisticated accent of Australian-Bostonian English.   

My beloved psychiatrist is available to me 24/7 and we are friends now.  I used to work for him part-time recruiting participants for his clinical research group that does Phase II and Phase III clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies.   But, my beloved psychiatrist and I have always had a deep appreciation for one another.  Frankly, he set the bar on men pretty high for me with his own brilliance and intuitiveness combined with compassion.  On top of his generosity of all of that with me...you get the picture.  Again, along comes Isaac.  

Every night for over three months, I set my alarm for 1 a.m. jumped on to the laptop and headed for Pogo.com.  We usually spent a few hours as the time difference and privacy factors worked out best at those hours, my sleeping schedule was all awry.  My shrink was concerned it was going to affect my bipolar mood disorder.  He would say things like "...you guys better cool it."  And being somewhat straight-laced as a Seventh Adventist from birth but open-minded and cool too he could never quite get the visual on 'in a Scrabble chat room' saying things like, "...the phone yeah, I can see that but..."    

  

Our few hours together each night were sustaining me in a way it seemed might have been enough for even a lifetime if it never changed even one iota.   We spoke Song of Songs type prose, spontaneously composed to each other, as the feelings and words and keystrokes all melded effortlessly but with rapid-fire intensity and passion.  I knew that book of the Bible well, I loved the romance.  I did an A+ paper in college Old Testament class on that book. My Humanities minors in college were Religion and Philosophy.  We exchanged the perfect words in the most loving ways with an innate knowingness of how to touch the exact right spot in each other's hearts.  

We discussed films like Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I ordered it and The Counterfeiter's (ordered too, he was surprised at my astute observation of ?? I forget). He suggested, I ordered, I wanted to know firsthand and appreciate what he appreciated because I felt his passion.  I knew it had to be fabulous, whatever It was, if he was that passionate about it.  And frankly living in Hawaii for so many years, for me at least, had left some vacancies, which he was able to occupy and enliven. 

I know I shocked him when I reported viewing the Umbrellas of Cherbourg the day following our conversation about the musical.  I felt the young lovers in Paris vibe and got the visual enhancing the mind's eye view of the previous night, where he had positioned us for our first trip.  

That was the hook. To take me traveling with his written descriptive skills spanning environment through emotion evoked into the slightest extra experience like that of the highly skilled driver mentioned in the upcoming sentence. It made teleportation a cinch.  I loved the King David hotel in Israel but God, that ride in the limo up the winding road in the Swiss Alps to the lodge was scary (even though he assured the driver was highly skilled).  It was so real, I asked for a helicopter.  

We spoke of Jon Stewart's shows and his character defects, I was surprised, I thought Jon was perfect. We had similar liberal political views and discussed issues of the day that we both were informed about. He usually wrote a song a day and often shared them crediting me with inspiration on occasion. He had been a filmmaker years before he said. He told me what kept him busy now...like singing lessons with his famous Broadway singing coach, his songwriting partner in Nashville and the specialized equipment that allowed for their musical collaboration between states.  

Then there was a club where he was going to get to sing on one Saturday night, which had him obviously thrilled.  The office at Rockefeller Center he retained despite retirement at 35.  I think I was most impressed by the sheer volume of interests and activities and diversity as well as the obvious pleasure he derived from his creative pursuits.  

We spoke of Israel and Judaism. Rachmaninov and composer Michel LeGrand, who wrote the soundtrack for Umbrellas of Cherbourg, were perhaps the most precious gifts he gave me.   After he described the sensuality of Rachmaninov's music and its use in the Some Like it Hot movie soundtrack, My Rhapsody went straight to the classical artist following our chat that night. 

That was my first real experience with deeply feeling classical music.  When I listened, I heard what he heard, somehow. He always asked and made sure I had Rach playing through my headphones.  I never even asked his last name.  I knew the rules and it didn't matter, I was merely an adjunct player on a computer screen.  Not mine. Why know more?  It was what it was. 

But, I counted the moments to our scheduled nightly meets with the anticipation of a child going to Disneyland the next day.  I felt fulfilled all the way to the cellular level.  Following a night of our most intense engagement ever a closeness and full acceptance with a new unconditional quality emerged in our connectedness. I fell asleep peaceful and fulfilled like never before. 

The following night I logged in and waited but he did not appear, nor the night after that. He had just vanished.  I suspected he might have crossed his own line and fearful of going any further he withdrew. 

Enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsH7SLpzzLg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9DMP1S0xK8&feature=BFa&list=PL627FA70349819C0E   

Bye Bye Carnaby Street...Hello Abbie!

Marc Savin was my first, Beverly Hills, step-brother.  I loved him from the moment we first met at LAX when he was assigned the duty of picking mother and I up at the airport.  You could not help but appreciate Marc's physical beauty.  He was an Adonis standing in the airport in his tan, fringe jacket.  Tall, blonde, blue eyes, California surfer look with an edge of brilliance and danger.   As I got to know him, my feelings turned to admiration, great respect and genuine fondness.  

Marc had his own apartment on Beverly Glen Drive.  He drove a cool, light blue, convertible Alpine Sunbeam, just like the one I had seen Don Adams drive on Get Smart (who would in fact much, much later on in my story become the neighbor leasing the house next to stepfather number three in Beverly Hills for quite a few years). But I digress.  

Marc seemed to have it so all together. In my 11 year old eyes he was a god.  Lee Savin, Marc’s dad, was to be my second Beverly Hills stepfather.  Mother met him at the New York world's fair, in the Hollywood Pavillon where she was working in 1964 after leaving California and Beverly Hills stepfather number one.

Mother was great at getting married.  She was extremely pretty in a Marilyn Monroe type way; but with a tall, thin model's body.  She wore clothes beautifully.  She could be charming and engaging.  Even disarmingly funny at times.   Although, she did not have higher education and married my father very young, she read a lot and was a quick study.  She had the ability to easily gain people's trust and friendship.  

For a women born and bred in the small town of Iola, Kansas with an abusive grandmother that would lock her up in the garage when she was bad, she didn't do badly in life at all.  At least, for many years. 

But, as with many who grow up without love, even when it is found and it is very real, often ways to sabotage relationships, or get into the wrong ones completely keep us from finding real happiness.   

The trained therapist within requires a voice here.  (mom's downfall doesn't come until way farther on in my story - decades even - with Greek tragedy levels intensity).   But, we revert back, often unconsciously and seeming without our control, back into what we learn about who we are in those early years, the unloved and unlovable child.  We find our way to recreate that if we don't get healing in some fashion along the way that let's us learn and believe that we deserve more and are, in fact, worthy of such.   

I am far from a Freudian, but the man knew a great deal on this, as did his daughter.  From my own experience, I can say my first hand experience fits with their theoretical models. 

Fortunately, in Wichita, Kansas I was blessed with a loving, warm, demonstrative grandmother for my first 11 years despite complete abandonment by both my mother and father.  Even later when mother retrieved me and brought me to Beverly Hills, her abilities to show love and consistency were muted and limited.  

I did not know my father.  She could never bring herself to tell me much about him. despite my on-going attempts to get something more from her.  What I know is that he was Irish, Bill McCormick was his name, he was a commercial artist, a wall muralist for banks and buildings.  He played jazz sax.  And, he was abusive during her pregnancy and she left.   That's it!  And, it was never enough. 

Step-father number one was a Vegas high-roller type with a drive-in theater in the army town of Junction City, Kansas where Fort Riley was located.  Mother said I could not stay with them because it was too rough in the town.  I never believed her.  I was certain she and Warren did not want me to stay with them.  He was never very warm towards me the times that my grandparents took me there for the weekends on the occasions that we drove the 4oo or miles to get there from Wichita.  He had leukemia for most of the years they were together and to avoid having her having to squabble with his sisters over his estate, he left her $80,000 wrapped in foil in the freezer.  That was her ticket to California where she met Sy Bartlett, my first Beverly Hills stepfather.

I only had the pleasure of meeting Sy Bartlett shortly before his passing.  He was a pilot in World War II, was scheduled to pilot the Enola Gay that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima but the Pentagon decided his strategic skills were more needed there so Tibbits was sent instead to pilot the plane.  Sy was a pilot during all of WWII and wrote the screenplays A Gathering of Eagles and Twelve O'Clock High among others.  He was a wonderful and warm man; I am glad I met him.  

His penchant for standing on the dining room table at 3 am, reciting Shakespeare with a half-gallon of Smirnoff Vodka in hand, however, ultimately drove mother away after about a year or so with Sy. 

She had told me she was married to Sy and Lee, the second Beverly Hills stepfather but their Wikipedia entries do not list her.  So, they co-habitated I assume. 

In Beverly Hills, initially we lived in the rental apartments between Wilshire Boulevard and Burton Way. The Beverly Hills ghetto; the lower east side of the community.  Lee Savin had been an attorney in New York and wanted to produce films.   After leaving Sy, mom went to New York to model.  That was when she met Lee while working at the Hollywood Pavillion at the New York World's Fair in the 60's.  He had produced a few films, like Harlow (the real B version one, two were done) but he produced a sensational, extravaganza.  It was the first filmed concert with tons of big names, the Teenage Music International (TAMI Show).  But the Beach Boys legal wrangling kept the film from distribution after only a short release.  There were only bootleg copies available for years.   Finally, in the 2001 it was re-released on DVD.  But, it was too late to be the sensation that it could have been.  It was an innovation and in 2003 entered into the National Film Registry.  Lee was already passed on by then and unfortunately never got to know.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/arts/music/21TAMI.html?pagewanted=all

During the limited release time of the film, I was fortunate to see it in Kansas where I had lived with my grandparents since birth.  Mom was the Production Assistant on TAMI.  She loved to tell the story of the Rolling Stones refusing to leave their dressing room to perform when she tried to get them on stage because they were getting high.  Later, I would learn from Keith Richard's admission to a journalist that they were intimidated following a legendary performance by James Brown.  That was what kept them lingering.  

Grandmother had taken me to see the TAMI show.  It was too cool to see my mom's name run by on the credits for half a second.  The kids in Kansas thought I was making it up.  How could anyone in Kansas be involved in films in anyway? Funnily, on the Beverly Hills kids side, Kansas wasn't a real place in terms geography, at least, kids there only associated Kansas and Wizard of Oz.  I can't even count how often I was asked if I knew Dorothy and Toto.  I had a strangely juxtaposed in life and the Wichita to Beverly Hills move was a culture shock in many ways. 

But, I had been California Dreaming with the Mama's and Papa's and wishing I could be a California girl with the Beach Boys for the last year.  Mother coming to claim me back from my grandparents after 11 years was a total surprise.   

Now, it was official.  I had arrived. I was a full-fledged California girl.  Even at 11 years old, the Los Angeles air tingled with possibilities on the tarmac at LAX airport.  I could not wait to soak in every last ray of what was ahead.

Marc went to Santa Monica Community College but HENAC, the radical organization in the Student Union building on the UCLA campus, was more his collegiate home.  He was a follower of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in the Youth International Political Party (YIPPIE's).

Basically he recruited me to the YIPPIE brigade and I thrived there.  It was a place to put my abundance of energy and overactive mind that had gotten entirely bored with school when the older junior and senior guys graduated from Beverly Hills High.  My social life kept me, at least appearing on campus, for my freshman and sophomore years.

The world of political activism engaged me. It was meaningful and important.  We needed to stop a war that was brutal, unprecedentedly inhumane, undeclared and financed by an out of control government on behalf of the military industrial complex that was the primary beneficiary of the only value reaped from the mess...profits.  

When I should have been in class at Beverly Hills High School studying The Crucible or Dandelion Wine and dissecting frogs, I was Xeroxing flyer's for anti-war demonstrations in the HENAC office, the campus radical organization in the UCLA student union building or passing them out to students and  passersby in the streets of Westwood.  Then there were the demonstrations themselves, sit in's on and off campus or supermarket grape boycotts on behalf of the United Farm Workers.  Plus in between activist duties there were the love in's at Griffith Park, with free concerts by bands like Canned Heat and Jefferson Airplane or hiking through the canyons on LSD or mescaline.  Psychedelics were always my favorite.  

My radicalism extended to my high school campus too.  I staged a walk out off the Beverly Hills High campus with support from HENAC.  Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman gave us suggestions and I followed through.  I have to say "I" and not "we" staged because, all my fellow BHHS activist students that were supposed give speeches, chickened out at the last minute.  I had to give everyone's speech plus my own.

Fortunately, my passion about this cause ran so deep that I was well informed and had the facts pretty straight in my head so it wasn't that hard to effectively deliver the other three speeches too.  About 250 kids walked off our privileged campus that day.   The walk out was done as a show of solidarity for a high school in East LA,  following an uprising there that extended well beyond the school and was the impetus for many positive changes in the Hispanic educational system.  There was an HBO movie with James Olmos made about that dynamic period in East LA's history called Walk Out.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkout_(film)

The East LA schools were long deprived by the LA school district's allocation of funding.   Integration benefits had not been realized and there was no affirmative action.  At Beverly High, we had one black student.  He was the son of Ella Fitzgerald the jazz singer.  We did not have any Hispanic students. 

Unlike the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) or the Black Panthers, the YIPPIE's were completely non-violent and very colorful.  Street theater was their methodology to gain followers and enlighten.  They staged multiple events.

No bombs or burning banks down like the other groups.  But, they managed to get lots of press, attention and converts.  It was an exciting movement to be affiliated with.  One event was done on Wall Street by the group to illustrate the money hungry greed of the venue.  Abbie, Jerry, et al threw money down to traders on the floor and watched them scramble to get it.  Anti-materialism was a big part of the counter culture values of the decade.  I burned money with Abbie and Jerry on the streets of Westwood to demonstrate how insignificant it was. We also burned draft cards and with the feminist, I even burned a bra.

Young boys were dying by the 10,000's in Viet Nam.  Ultimately, around 80,000 or so.  We saw pictures of coffins draped in flags returning from Viet Nam every night on the news.  Magazine covers with pictures of crying, Vietnamese children on fire from Napalm running through streets were on every newsstand. Unlike, our hidden from view, wars today - we knew and saw repeatedly what devastation was taking place.  Not only did we want to stop it but we were also looking for meaning for our lives that were contrary to that of our parent’s generation.

In other words, we were looking for a predominant life motivation beyond just emphasis on the accumulation of wealth and status.  Those alone were not aligning well with the world that we were seeing.  In fact, destroying the world was the true view. It still is when those are the primary motives. At the same time, drugs were expanding people's awareness.  New ideas and creativity reached novel heights.  It gave us a generational collective of sorts. A power all our own.  Perhaps for the first time since the Ancients we were seekers of things like truth, beauty, justice and other universal ideals.

For me, that was also another aspect of Beverly Hills that had become a big turn off by that time.  I rejected the materialistic values entirely after about 3 years. It happened sort of in a flash with an image still embedded in my mind to this day.  I saw a senior girl at school get out of her yellow XKE Jaguar in a knee length rabbit coat and heels in the parking lot on campus for first period.  I felt a combination of horror, disgust at the flamboyance and disbelief - this was high school for God's sakes.

By that time, I was always wearing jeans, a combat jacket from the army surplus store with a cowboy shirt and cowboy boots.  The mini skirts and go-go boots were no more.  I started off the first years from grades 8th to 10th quite fashionable and mod-ishly attired (Carnaby Street style because a family friend owned Paraphenalia in Beverly Hills that specialized in the hip London clothes).  But, those days were passed and my girly girl ways replaced with androgyny.  So, when I saw Vicki get out of that Jag, my simple Midwestern sensibilities and rapidly rising anti-materialism were flat out insulted.  That incident changed me and my radicalization was complete in an instant.

Abbie was my favorite YIPPIE.  I adored him.  He was wild like me.  He would do or say anything. He had more energy than ten people.  Later it was revealed that he was bipolar.  Not surprising at all.  Just like me he found an ideal place to channel the energy and make a difference - with activism.  Just like me drugs had gotten him too.  But, the 1960's were the perfect years to be manic.  You could just plug in and ride the wave.

The Democratic National Convention in 1968 was the biggest event the YIPPIE's were engaged in.  Their theatrics included running Pigasus, a play on Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, as President of the United States for the Youth International Party.  Pigasus was purchased by activist/folk singer, Phil Ochs and the candidacy was announced during the massive protests at the convention where the Chicago 8 (if you count Bobby Seale that is) were arrested and charged with inciting a riot. Their arrests were followed by another street theater in the court room for months during, perhaps, the most publicized trial prior to OJ Simpson.

Abbie and Jerry came to UCLA all the time and always did their best to get us incited to riot and keep up the fight with various ideas and planning sessions. Abbie was a master at incitement. He was so charismatic. I was quite involved with staging and promoting the Chicago 7 (8) defense fund rally at Pauley Pavilion.  Although, Judge Hoffman was originally going to release them to attend the event, he changed his mind.  But, we sold out a good portion of the Pavilion anyway even without them there and donated all the money to the attorneys handling the group's defense.

Volunteers of America by Jefferson Airplane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_0sg0XDfmg&feature=related

 James Brown, TAMI Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adh80pLUVNc&feature=fvsr

Facebook

Please visit me on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/chrys.rosen?ref=tn_tnmn

I have got to figure out how to add a Facebook button on the blog. I will work on it.

Royal Hawaiian

This was written 2 years ago when I first got the idea to use my blog to introduce myself, gain exposure and try to interest people on social media in my story. I originally intended to write the book  myself. I have many friends on Facebook from Beverly Hills High School, my alma mater, most of whom I did not know back then and still do not know well. Since many are in and/or around the entertainment industry, I hoped to find interest, guidance and after my realization of my limitations, an investor.  On both, Facebook and Twitter I have a number of friends and followers, who requested my friendship or followed me from various creative agencies, publishing houses and studios like Disney and Warner Brothers.  Some of my entertainment friends I sought out and they have readily accepted my requests, or followed me back on Twitter. Given, the vast majority have stuck around, even through two manic episodes and some, very off the wall posting, and they have been tolerant (or appreciative) of my passion for politics and frequent posting done to educate and inform those who don't go out of their way to stay abreast. Presumably, at least, a few came aboard my network, to follow my progress with this project.  

This piece was also my first attempt at dialogue and the reason I stopped deluding myself that I was capable of the this type of writing. My story, or my purpose and goal, of exposing my unusual life in great depth, with no shame, is bigger and better than my writing skills. After I realized that, I decided I would try to find interested writers to help me and an investor to finance the project. I am that bad at it. Consider yourselves warned. But, it does provide another context rich and colorful snippet from my life. 

I stopped working on this 6 months ago when I went into a deep depression, following an lengthy manic episode, I recently returned to the project (5/13). Hope to resume, where I left off. I was asked to offer a more complete picture of my mother, a difficult to write post that is taking some time. It is also taking my willingness to revisit more pain and discomfort than I like. Plus, I must attempt to present her in the most fair and balanced fashion even though, we had very few periods when we got along. Even fewer that were quality mother daughter time. So, it is difficult. She is briefly introduced here and as soon as possible I will post what I am now working on. 

Characters are a hugely important aspect of any story. She was complex and through her is a clear, albeit, embedded message I want to work with the writers to develop. Primarily, the importance of parenting responsibly and the damage inflicted when it is not done right. 

Beloved Psychiatrist, my term of endearment when I write about Dr. Denis Mee-Lee, for my Facebook friends engaged in my life story, came into my life nearly 30 years ago. He has re-parented me in many ways and shown me through his actions and kindness, as well as, by incorporating me into his family, what good parenting looks like. 

I also have a Master's Degree from a Marriage and Family Therapy, doctoral program, which I was not able to complete to PhD degree. I also worked for 5 years as a specialized Multisystemic Therapist with adolescents, their families and their systems surrounding, like school, courts, etc. in an intensive, structured and highly supervised program, where part of my job was teaching parents skills required to parent difficult children. I know how important good parenting is. I know how results of poor parent. To many children are brought into the world by clueless parents and do not receive adequate care, much less, parenting to help them thrive and excel. Because their parents don't know the job description or realize the importance of doing well. Poor parents contribute enormously to societal problems. Lack of monitoring for adolescents is one of the most important.  We could do better with more awareness.  This is a topic of real importance for me to pass on. 

Royal Hawaiian

“It looks like Pepto-Bismol.”  The Charley’s cab driver lowered his head into the collar of his orange and yellow, aloha shirt in an attempt to muffle a laugh. He had overheard my spontaneous reaction after seeing the hotel for the first time.  “There have been a lot of ideas about why it was painted pink"  explained the driver, "one story was that during WWII it was used as a landmark for planes, the pink stands out so it is very visible from the sky.  But I know the real reason because a friend of my friend is related to the family that built it.” 

The driver obviously enjoyed telling us a little of Hawaii’s history and goes on, “This dates back a century ago, at least that is when some of the first families and businesses in Hawaii first got together and started to build the state into a tourist destination. The story involves one medical missionary’s family, the Judd’s and a shipping tycoon’s family, the Wilders.  Also the family of a coal barge captain from San Francisco named Matson and the country of Portugal.” 

“The hotel was built by the Matson’s as a destination for shipboard passengers traveling to Hawaii from the West Coast aboard one of Matson’s passenger liners that were in operation from 1927-1978."  I wondered if all of the cab drivers had to learn this kind of history or did Gerry’s curious mind just innately migrate to this well-informed cabbie. 

“My mom traveled on the Matson Lurline ship from California to Hawaii and stayed here at the Royal Hawaiian hotel in the 50’s sometime,” I offered.   I had heard her tell the story frequently and she shed her typical jaded attitude and showed some excitement when she talked about it. “My mom spoke of how great it was when the locals would swim out to the ship with flower leis to greet passengers as they disembarked on the dock.”    She said that she had especially enjoyed the hotel that I had just equated to a liquid, diarrhea medication. 

I had my reservations about shipboard travel, “I don’t know, I’m not sure I could be on the water that long, the plane takes long enough.”   I was a complete neophyte to traveling. The only trips I had taken were through states on the way to Boeing plants in Colorado, Washington and California when we moved for granddad’s job.  I was 15 years old, with 11 of those years spent with my lower-middle income, working class grandparents. Travel had not been a part of my life.  It was a luxury that didn’t fit their budget or their hard working life style. Mother did take me to San Francisco once when I was 8 years old and we stayed at the Mark Hopkins and dined at the Top of the Mark. That was all my travel experience.  In contrast,  Gerry had taken his kids all over Europe, Hawaii a few times Mexico and they went skiing a lot at different resorts when the kids were younger and he was still with their mom.   Our worlds could not have been farther a part.

The driver continued his story, I tried to tune in to listen, but my mind kept wandering.  I was thinking about my first stepfather, Warren who took mom to Hawaii on the Lurline.  I had seen the picture of the two of them dining aboard the ship.  Mom was picture, perfect beautiful in the photo she looked like Marilyn Monroe in her low cut dress and pearls.   Warren looked a little creepy and he wore a couple very large rings that the picture seemed to accentuate.  He was different than the men in my world in Kansas like my uncles or grandfather and his bridge friends who came with their wives to play every Saturday night with my grandparents.  

Warren and mother went to Las Vegas a lot and he was a high roller in Vegas, mom had once explained.  I had been to his drive-in theater in Junction City, Kansas.   We stayed at his very comfortable, tastefully furnished home on the few occasions that my grandparents would drive the 400 miles from our home in Wichita.  There was a gorgeous handyman at the theater that I had a 10 year old girl, crush on.  I loved to drive through the theater in his open air jeep, in the daytime when the stalls were all empty.  He was really nice to me and I liked to be with him when I visited mom.   I never connected with my first stepfather in any meaningful way.  He was very indifferent towards me as was my mom who showed far more attention to Warren even though I rarely saw her, his needs came first and foremost.  I was just there, so to speak, more of an obligation than a child to love.   I spent much of my time, when in Junction City, with the animals. A great dog and cat that slept curled up next to each other.  There was some warmth with them while it was chilly everywhere else on those rare visits to mom.  I did like to have a little time alone with her , even if it was only helping to make popcorn at the concession stand or serve sodas to the theater customers. 

Warren had a beautiful house in Junction City and owned other properties there and a few other cities.  I lived with my grandparents in Wichita in a yellow house with white trim that mom had purchased for us. She gave grandfather a yellow, Cadillac convertible with pointy fins on the tail end. It was an exact color match with the house.  On grandfather’s salary at Boeing aircraft nothing like that would ever have been possible.  It was an odd dichotomy, we never really did fit into the upper-middle class neighborhood where the house was located. That was when I first started to feel very alone and foreign within my own life. Grandma made my clothes and my bike was really old.  Other kids couldn’t quite understand when I tried to explain my mother to them.  And explain I always did.  I wanted to fit in so badly.  But, I just didn’t with the privileged kids at my new school after we moved to the upscale neighborhood.     

The driver’s voice caught my wandering attention momentarily.  He was still explaining the pink color choice for the hotel’s exterior and the early families of Hawaii, “The Wilder’s boy, Kimo and Kinau, his wife were both unconventional, artist types, on a trip to Europe, they fell in love with Portugal, where he painted for many years.  Pink houses with blue shutters were common there.”  Gerry listened attentively especially after hearing the description of the couple as Bohemian artists with a passion for Portugal. He was in his element and enjoyed this type of in-depth explanation about cultures and people.  He prided himself on not vacationing like an American tourist but immersing himself into the culture of the places where he traveled.  It had been my idea not his, to stay in the Pink Palace of the Pacific since mother had.  And although I was in Hawaii with the 45 year old man that I married when I was only 15, in part, to get far away from her and our chaotic relationship, I still had a fascination with the woman that was now my mother full-time or more accurately tried to be.

We were next in line to pull up to the bellman.  The driver still had not reached his story’s conclusion, assertively Gerry asks, “Okay, why pink? Which family built it, the Wilder’s?”   With few breaths between sentences the driver continued,  “Long story short, Kimo and his wife returned to Hawaii from Portugal and instead of living in the respectable Nu’uanu area, where their families resided, they chose a beachcomber’s life-style on Waikiki beach at Kinau Hale, the Judd’s beach residence, a royal canoe shed of sorts. There was one other part to the inter-family relationships.  Lurline Matson, the youngest daughter fell in love with Billy Roth in San Francisco.  Her family did not accept him because he was Jewish.  However, Kimo and Kinau Wilder had befriended him.  Since the families were all friends and respected one another, when Kimo and Kinau stood up for Billy Roth, the Matsons opened up to him and let Lurline marry him with no objections from them.” 

The hotel doorman was nearing the handle of the cab to open my door when the driver quickly wrapped up his story, “Billy Roth, now Matson's son-in-law was given the job of developing the hotel.  He had seen the pink color of the Wilder’s place down the beach and perhaps even as an homage because the Wilder's had helped Billy to gain acceptance into the Matson family, Billy went to Wilder and said he wanted to use the same color on the hotel.  Wilder agreed and Matson went to Sherwin-Williams.”   One chuckle of acknowledgement between us all and the door opened with the bellman grabbing my hand to help me out.   

I heard only some of the story of pink as my mind drifted to early years.  I was trying to keep up with the life I was now leading.  Rarely did I speak to people in California of my life growing up in Kansas.  I was ashamed of it.  My life was less than others I had met in California.  If it was possible to rewrite my history, I would not have hesitated for a second.   Synthesizing my present life and those earlier times was beyond me, all I could do was deny it and try to forget.  I needed to smoke a joint. It had been hours since the last one at home in California.  A glass of wine or four also quieted my inadequacies and tempered the confusion caused by my strangely juxtaposed life.  The two together guaranteed some internal comfort, at least for a short time.  But keeping the demons away was becoming a full time job.