Photo take by Rose Dell, in her and her mom’s popular with locals and snowbirds restaurant on Big Pine Key last spring, not all that long after my beard disappeared. Rose was born in Nicaragua, her mother native to that country, decided she was not going to live there forever and brought Rose to USA at a very early age. They realized the American dream and are two of my favorite people in the Keys, even though I did not realize the American dream. The troll was given to me by my chess teacher, a troll if ever there was one on the chess board. He was put into a federal prison at age 18 because he would not be inducted and fight in Vietnam. He played chess all the way through his three-year sentence, taking on all comers, never losing a game. He said he only had aggression for beating people in chess and none for killing Vietnamese. He should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

A May 14 post re Sloan comments on the Coconut Telegrah of bigpinekey.com explains my work life about as well as anything. Doubt you will hear about any of this attending churches, but you can glean it from reading the Bible, the Old and the New Testaments, if you are on your toes.

CT Comment: Regarding anti-Sloan rant. I took my own advice. I scrolled on by and only read the first 3 words of your post. But hey, thanks for playing along.

Sloan says: It is always good to take your own advice before dispensing it to others.

CT Comment: Sloan says “I eat a great deal of shit, in the spirit sense”. I guess the old saying is true that “You are what you eat”. ~divethekeys@gmail.com

Sloan says: This is taken a bit out of context, not unlike Raven’s approach. Here’s the entire context:

“Also over time, I came to understand the human dramas the angels were feeding me were designed to accelerate my own spiritual development and to offer other people a chance to accelerate their own physical development. Mine was to engage them as I was trained to engage them, and as I was shown in dreams to engage them, or not engage them. This was my daily bread, my spiritual food, which I was to eat whether I wanted to eat it or not. The CT is used with me in that way. When someone is put on my plate there, I engage that person, and often it tastes pretty bad, while sometimes it tastes horrible.

“I eat a great deal of shit, in the spirit sense. It goes down my gullet, in the spirit sense, and then a digestion process begins, which physically is pretty rugged, or even worse. It would send other people straight to a doctor, or even to a hospital. But as I do my part of it, the shit is metabolized, in the spirit sense. Then, it passes through and out of me and is different from when it was put into me. This is an ongoing thing with me. One serving after another is put into me by the angels. I use two of those servings in this post to try once again to explain what I do in addition to being the mailman.

“It is not my role to meet people where they are, plenty of people do that already. My role is to show people where they can go, if they really want to leave where they are. When he ran for President, Barack Obama offered hope and change. As did the weird ruffian Jesus offer hope and change. As do the angels, through me, offer hope and change. Real hope, real change, which is very different from what President Obama promised and now delivers.”

CT Comment: I would like to let a lot of you people out there, in on something. A lot of you ridicule, disrespect and add insult to Sloan, who happens to be a Human Being just like us. I have met Sloan a few times on a personal basis & have read his postings, and the first impression i received from this man is that he is an eccentric GENIUS! Just because he has visions, doesn’t mean that he’s crazy or stupid. All the Prophets in the bible were ridiculed by their contemporaries, just like you all do now, when it comes to Sloan. How many of you actually know him? Why must you pass judgment on a man you don’t know anything about? It’s just to show the ignorance that you all radiate, and you radiate it proudly too! Everyone has the right to disagree, but not to insult or ridicule or pass judgment upon. I bet if the shoe were on the other foot and people gave you the same treatment, you would get all bent out of shape and get all defensive, and wouldn’t know how to handle the mockery. Unlike Sloan!! On top of being a Genius he’s also a gentleman! You keep going strong Sloan! I support you!

Sloan says: I ridicule and pass judgment on many people, for better or for worse. Jesus said not to do that, unless I want to be judged in kind by God. I am judged daily by God’s angels, some of whom are named further along in this homily. They put me to judging others in my posts, for better and for worse. Those who attack me will find out during their life review whether or not they were put up to it by God’s angels, or by something else. Usually, a person’s life review comes after departure from this life. My life review began in early 1987, after the angels abducted me. It was horrible. The criticism outweighed the praise about 99-1. I still am corrected every day. From all I can tell, there is so very little about me that suits God, that I will spend the rest of my days being corrected. Not just a few times have I written that I figured I was the worst piece of shit God could find, to see if something worthwhile could be made of me. If so, then God had a better chance of doing something with people not as worse pieces of shit. So far, it doesn’t seem the biggest-piece-of-shit-in-Paradise experiment is turning out so well, based on the ongoing criticism I get in my dreams, in words said to me in plain English in my sleep and much less frequently when I’m awake, and in visions when I’m awake. It makes me wish I never was born, as does having to deal with people who aren’t getting treated the same way I’m being treated by the angels.

CT Comment: [Sloan: I awoke this morning with the angels’ view of my leaving the Coconut Telegraph: No dice] Aw, sh**.

Sloan says: File your complaint with Jesus, Archangel Michael and the Melchizedek who made me stay on the CT. And with Deer Ed, my sponsor on the CT – more on that further along.

CT Comment: Wow, it’s very funny to see how the Fool of Little Torch squirms and gets in a lather when the well-spoken poster Raven nails him! I’m not a religious person, but it really bothers me to read how the FOLT continually says his Angels make him say horrible things, use crude and vulgar language, and spout inaccurate information with no proof: how could Angels have bad info? Why would an Angel say, or want to have said, anything negative, hateful, or vulgar about anyone? Not the Angels I’ve ever heard of. Demons maybe, but not Angels. I think he’d better look again at his “Advisors”, I think they’ve got him fooled real good. Maybe he suffers from MPD and his alters are talking to him and he thinks they are Angels. He certainly is suffering, and delights in making others suffer too. He is such a sad whack job… and what’s happened to his equally whacked side-kick, the Kook of Cudjoe, the one that made that ridiculous run for Sheriff awhile back? Just curious. She’s another wing-nut, they made a great pair, I was real surprised they didn’t become a pair of Jokers in Paradise. I know these islands are chock full of nuts and spooks, but these two take the prize. I’m just stoking up the Fool so he can write some more hilarious spewing posts. Like the Popcorn Guy on his “vigilant watch”, I also can see the spittle flying from his mouth as he pounds his keyboard in a fine fit of anger, spurred on by his chorus of alters (angels?) of course, great fun! This is becoming real sport! Maybe we should keep score on the direct hits, but all he can do is curse in response, no real score there, so it wouldn’t be fair. Let’s play a game or two of Badminton with the FOLT as the Shuttlecock! Wheeee! Your serve!

Sloan serves: The angels never tell me to use curse words. They tell me the topics and the tone to use. They allow me to use curse words sometimes, maybe because they get a kick out of it. Maybe because they figure many people need something to pick on to discredit me, so why not give them something that won’t cause them to actually have to think of something to pick on. Maybe because they are testing people, to see if they are capable of substantive thinking. Sandy Downs and I talked about being a pair of jokers in Paradise and concluded we would drive each other crazy and we still could be a pair of jokers in Paradise without causing each other unnecessary pain. If you want to find out the real scoop on Phillip Goodman, who seems to be Governor Scott’s pick for replacing Dick Ruddel on the Mosquito Control Board, Goodman is the go-to person for telling you what Sandy has on him and his Klan. If you want to find out the real scoop on the Sheriff Office (MSCO) before Bob Peryam got elected, Bob is the go-to person for telling you what Sandy had on the Sheriff Office. So much did she have on MSCO that someone the FBI could not catch with its own Internet hackers hacked Sandy’s sheriff campaign website and destroyed the file that presented only some of what Sandy had on MSCO. Same day, the Coconut Telegraph was hacked and destroyed. Same day, Sandy’s website went active. Deer Ed built her website and made it go active. Deer Ed, the wing nut and joker in Paradise. You stupid shit, you really should do your homework before opening your big fat mouth and sticking both of your feet so far up your ass they stick out of your big fat mouth.

CT Comment: Deer Ed, Sometimes, do you feel like it’s just not worth it (all the tedious communications with argumentative people)? And what ever happened to the contemplative approach to life? Kudos to your stamina. (ps – just finished reading Sloan, in 10 pt type.)

Sloan says: 10 pt type saves space. My eyesight is pretty weak, I can read 10 pt. with reading glasses. Didn’t know it was bothering others. Will try to use 12 pt. henceforth, although stuff I pull from other websites sometimes does not convert in font size on my word processor, email account and websites and screws up the formatting and font sizes in what I post. I spend most of my waking hours in contemplation and “dowsing” the Spirit, which I have different ways of doing. Even when I’m writing, and even in my sleep, I am contemplating and dowsing the Spirit. Similar to praying unceasing, but a lot more complaining. Don’t worry about Deer Ed’s stamina. He loves controversy on the CT, it increases the CT’s value for advertising $$$. Many times has Ed gotten onto me when I talked about stopping writing, leaving this planet. Many times has he told me my work isn’t done, I am still needed around here. If you don’t believe me, ask him. He, and you, have nobody but him, and you, to blame. He eggs me on, you read it and complain to him. But I repeat myself. The only thing that bugs Ed, as far as I can tell, is people knowing his real name, where he lives, and him getting personally entangled in dramas that get birthed on the CT. I know Ed’s real name and where he lives. Have been there many times, which I don’t imagine my critics on the CT can say of themselves. Their beef is not with me but with my CT sponsor, Deer Ed.

Sloan Bashinsky

Keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Patti’s reply yesterday’s first, do no harm post, an apologea for day before yesterday’s when I was a child, I spoke as a child post:

“it is all rooted in this deeply psychotic believe that you can wash away blood stains with blood”
Nicely put.

Sloan, you never seem mean spirited to me. I can see how you might be taken that way at times. I always feel your intentions are good even when you’re being seemingly hard on someone. This is at least the second time you’ve mentioned things you can’t say. Surprises me only in that I know your beliefs on secrets twisting reality are hard core. I agree with Baker or whomever.. If it can be avoided, try to hurt no one. I’ve found even if someone deserves a little hurt.. would probably benefit them… makes me feel too bad.. not worth it …Patti

Hi, Patti. I tell anything about me, to anyone who asks, and even when not asked, except when someone else will be injured thereby. I mean injured. I do not mean feelings hurt or ego riled. What I write and publish, what I say, which is part of the work I am given ongoing, often hurts feelings and riles egos. It caused huge rifts in my love relations. It was painful. I didn’t want to do it. I was not given any choice, or at least it seemed I was not given any choice. I was taught over and over not to concern myself with human reactions, but to do what I was told to do, in keeping with my training and spirit guidance, which is relentless. I was taught not to measure myself by what other people think of me, or about anything, but to let God measure me. And, yes, it throws off lots of people. More than throws off many people. I have gotten used to it, expect strong reactions. But it still really bothers me when I screw up an assignment, when I don’t execute it correctly. I’m always told when I don’t to it okay. I wonder what this world would be like, if everyone was told when they don’t do something okay by something they know better than to argue hard with, by something that, when it calls them on the carpet, they get a sinking feeling they cannot shake no matter how hard they try to shake it?

Patti’s reply:

Know you’ve taken a beating. Hope you’re feeling a little better tonight. You have many friends who appreciate you for who you are.

Reading Paul M. Gaston restores my feelings about mankind some so passing on something short from him. His grandfather came up with the concept for Fairhope. If I were asked to name a person I admire I would answer Paul Gaston.

http://www.archipelago.org/vol8-2/gaston.htm

From a fellow who started at the bottom and rose to the top echelon at Golden Flake.

Bash: 1) “Don’t sweat the petty-stuff”.
2) “You will always be my ‘Race Horse’ if you don’t EVER win a race…

Your Friend forever, Herman

How I feel changes like the tides, but seldom to I feel well, whole. I found myself wondering yesteday afternoon, and Patti and Herman’s comments caused me to wonder again, if the angels really were okay with the when I was a child, I spoke as a child post, but they just said they weren’t to provoke me to write the first, do no harm post, to demonstrate how quickly I respond to angel criticism? The spoke as a child post seemed okay when put it together, it seemed okay when I posted it – I usually get a recoil, if it’s off target. It was only in dreams later that I was beaten up over it. It is not beyond the angels to do what I just described, just to demonstrate something. And it is just like them to send in ecouragement from people, to shore me up after a rough round of angel criticism. Angels simply to not think and function the way people do. As many times as I have written and spoken of angels leading and correcting me, and how different that is, I suppose I could count on my fingers the people who really believed me. It is imppossible to appreciate, understand, if you have not had the experience. I suppose the name of the daily posts – “Today’s Vulcanite” – is a tip-off to expect a bit of heat.

Ciao

Foward yesterday from a salty amiga who lives in the lower Keys:

You know why a banana is like a politician?

When he first comes in he is green, then he turns yellow and then he’s rotten.

I think Congressmen should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could identify their corporate sponsors.

It’s been a while, but I got called seriously on the carpet by the angels about yesterday’s when I was a child, I spoke as a child post, re posting stuff I did not have permission to post.

So I go back and start over, with the email I received criticizing me for doing that, from Baker Smith.

R.C., The Lone Sloan is GONE. Too unpredictable…publishes stuff without asking. Didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Left 1 or 2 INNOCUOUS one-liners, and that’s IT.
Sounds as if he’s had one s—-y life.
Try to hurt NOONE, if it can be avoided.
Gotta go call my OTHER Buddy/Brother, KD.
Jolly trawler one….OUT.

I completely agree, try to hurt no one, if it can be avoided. Not sure, should have asked, who I hurt? Not sure if it was Baker, or Charlie, or someone else. I don’t remember jumping on Baker, I jumped on Charlie, but nobody knew who he really is, except perhaps Baker, or whomever Charlie spoke with about it.

I got onto Patti yesterday, too, but it seemed I had permission, eventually, from her, to publish the discussion about prisons and law enforcement being an extension of African slavery. I left out the part she said in an email she didn’t want published.

Baker is right. I have had one shitty life, literally and figuratively. My G.I. tract went down overnight in the spring 1969. I have lived in hell just over that ever since. It wrecked my life. It wrecked my first marriage. It wrecked my ability to be much of a father. It wrecked everything that followed, to be blunt. I tried every remedy known, conventional, unconventional, spiritual. No help, and a lot of money wasted in the attempts.

After the spirit training began in early 1987, the mental and emotional wreckage, the heartbreaks, became as horrfic as the G.I. tract horror. Already, the heart connections were impaired, but as time passed, they were obliterated. Eventually, I came to feel there was no hope for me ever having a life I somewhat enjoyed. All it seemed left was hard work, which included upsetting a lot of people.

It’s amazing I am able to do anything substantive, which pleases the angels assigned to me. The pain roar inside of me is relentless and unforgiving. Karma, for terrible wrong committed by me, which I am not at liberty to explain, as I do not have permission. Imagine the worst.

Karma, for caving in to my father and his father, when I should have stood up to them.

And, yes, horrible soul wounding in my youth, not my doing.

And, alas, karma from before this life.

In April 2001, I was told in my sleep by a voice I knew very well by then, “You will fail, but you might enter the kingdom of God.” That already was the theme of my spirit development, and it continued to be the theme. I expect only to fail because that is all I have experienced. Yes, one shitty life, and I applogize for screwing up again yesterday. It is a wonder, as I already wrote above, that I don’t screw up everything given to me to do. It is a wonder I am still alive. I have wanted to die for a long time. If I weren’t such a coward, I would have killed myself long ago. I have suffered like Job, but without the faith, without the reverence.

That is why I do not recommend to anyone that they offer their life to God and to human service, which I did in 1987, after everything else had failed. I would not wish on the devil what I have experienced since that event. I know of no one, who, if put into my skin, would not die or go insane nearly instantly. Not having had the preparation I have had, they would not have the means to survive. I sort of doubt this is the post the angels really wanted me to write today. But it is the truth, and anything else would seem a half-truth, which is a lie according to my training.

The Lone Sloan indeed

Now consider this comment to yesterday’s post, and my reply. This fellow has been in dialogue with me for almost ten years. I have tried to run him off, but he has a really tough hide. He is fluent in all the romance languages, Latin, and American English, and probably other languages, including the patios of his native Dominican Republic. He is a retired Lucent Technologies scientist. He labled himself Sancho Panza years ago, and me Don Quixote. He is very well-read, conversant in most any topic. He has offered me mucho well-meant advice about my G.I. tract, none helpful, so far. Hear his words on the state of America and humanity. Then ponder my reply, which is dead serious. I have written and said it many times, more or less. It never changes. It is the reply I gave to the angels in April 2004, after the same voice mentioned above asked me in my sleep, “What do you think of the species?” The same voice that, three days before 911, had asked me in my sleep, “Will you make a prayer for a divine intervention or all of humanity?” All of which, and much more I didn’t know anything about at Crestline Heights Elementary School and Ramsay High School, Sancho has heard from me many times.

Don Q, this is a bastard nation… there is no moral consensus, no native culture to hold us together other than the worship of fame and fortune and perhaps the dream of a better tomorrow… even if it is on the far side of Michael Jackson’s Neverland!

If we take away the opium of the American masses(booze, drugs, sports, sex… god-n-guns, etc.), things would get very ugly, very fast… things ARE going to get ugly very fast, very soon! Do you really believe that these think tank panels are going to make a difference? At the end all they will manage to do is replace a Blanco taskmaster with a Negro taskmaster… it is all rooted in this deeply psychotic belief that you can wash away blood stains with blood.

The entire human race is insane… so where do you apply the fulcrum to change the status quo when we are all walking on thin mental ice?

When eating, just eat!

Sancho Panza
Escudero de mi Señor Don Quijote
De La Mancha y Los Cayos

Now darn, Sancho, you just went and bashed the American dream! You know how I feel about the think tanks. I found msyelf thinking outloud to nobody yesterday. If I wuz El Presidente, I would go into office with one task in mind. Getting America out of Bush’s wars pronto. If I pulled that off, I would count my term in office a success. I would try to go farther, if I was till breathing, by getting American troops entirely out of the Middle East. If I was still breathing after achieving that, you understand, I would expect not to still be breathing, but if I wuz, I would go for getting American troops out of all foreign countries. A Don Quixote knock off could go for no less!

Domestically, I probably would veto any budget that was not balanced. I would veto printing any more greenbacks than already existed when I took office. I would veto any budget that gave money to any religion or religious entity by whatever class, status, name. I would try to get rid of all post-service benefits for Congress. I would try for term limits, eight years at most. No way I would try to upgrade personal morals, habits. You think a teen can be stopped from drinking, using marijuana, tobacco, or any of the many street drugs now as available as comic books? You think a teen can be stopped from watching porno online, or having sex? You think Mexicans can be stopped from crossing the border? Hell, their Spanish ancestors were living in America long before the Plymouth Rockers arrived. Gosh, I left out the Native Americans, didn’t I?

Mongrel nation indeed. Hybrid vigor often is viewed as a good thing in agriculture, crops and animals. Maybe in the very long view, like a million years, it works out for the best in human beings, but I’m not yet convinced Darwin didn’t have it turned upside down. He should have studied monkeys and apes, to contemplate humanity’s destiny. Did you ever read Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos?

The only fulcrum I see, other than an extinction event such as moved the dinosaurs to their happy reward, is for human beings to start experiencing what I experience. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it would very definitely shift their thinking and behavior, at least in the surviors. The immediate mass frenzy that would occur might reduce the homeo sapien population by a few billion, more or less, in the first year. Murders, suicides, wars, you pick. Maybe 50,000 people world-wide would survive the first 20 years of it. Well, you asked. Race wouldn’t have anything to do with it, probably. Nor religion. Might see the end of both. Probably. Maybe certainly. Might not go down well in Second Coming circles. Survivalist circles. How do you defend against angels invading your very soul? Hee haw!!!

Alternatively, why not file an involuntary petition against Uncle Sam in Federal Bankruptcy Court? Maybe if Uncle Sam lived on the street a few years, it would help him get over the idea you can spend money you don’t have? I mean, don’t we have an equal protection clause somewhere in the US Constitution? Should Uncle Sam get different treatment than every American, corporation and state and local government? Should Uncle Sam be allowed to print greenbacks to get himself out of tight spots he created, when all the rest of us in America can’t do that without being prosecuted for counterfeiting, if we get caught?

Don Q

Comic relief fowarded yesterday by an old Ramsay High friend, who received yesterday’s post the angels didn’t like. Please foward the English grammar lesson to the school board in your area.

_____________________

On his 74th birthday, a man got a gift certificate from his wife.

The certificate paid for a visit to a medicine man living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction.

After being persuaded, he drove to the reservation, handed his ticket to the medicine man, and wondered what he was in for.

The old man handed a potion to him, and with a grip on his shoulder, warned,

‘This is a powerful medicine. You take only a teaspoonful, and then say ’1-2-3.’

When you do, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life, and you can perform as long as you want.”

The man was encouraged. As he walked away, he turned and asked,

“How do I stop the medicine from working?” “Your partner must say ’1-2-3-4,’” he responded, “but when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon.”

He was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom.

When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, “1-2-3!” Immediately, he was the manliest of men.

His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes, and then she asked, “What was the 1-2-3 for?”

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle .

　Received a complaint yesterday, perhaps lost a reader, because I published without permission what the reader, or someone, had sent to me.

I replied:

From the home page of GMB.

“Like was said to start this above, this new website is evolving. If it interests you, share it with other people. I imagine you, and they, will find it a bit different from anything else you have been reading, unless you haplessly are already on my email hit list. None of this website is copyrighted. The pages are user-friendly. You can copy anything you like and paste it somewhere else, but if you quote me out of context and I learn of it, you will get tarred-and-feathered in a daily roasting. I take no advertisements. I post only comments I decide to post. I answer all non-spam comments and emails, which sometimes makes recipients happier than other times. Often I publish what people send me. Sometimes, even, I publish their names.”

Postscript: I added the italics, hoping to make doubly sure the plain-English warning, not in fine print, was seen.

From Patti, yesterday, whose father was the minister of a downtown Birmingham church during the time of troubles. His congregation turned away blacks one Sunday when he was not there, and he got that turned around after he learned of it. She today is working on writing about that era.

Sloan, for your eyes only. (I understand you can’t promise because you answer to more than your own conscience). Requesting for now our discussion remain private.

I attended a discussion on this topic and found it alarming at the time. Then it appears.. put the alarming thoughts away. Probably a year later I saw a discussion of an author’s book on local TV. I found a clip for you of that discussion on youtube.

The entire discussion can probably be found online if you are interested. I imagine there have been many similar discussions all over the country. But, maybe not.

This discussion brings up many points that are important. The silence angle for one. Exhibit A, I have known about this problem for over a year and have said and done little. Another point I am interested in exploring. I don’t know if this short clip will contain the part of the discussion wherein some attribute what the author is calling the new Jim Crow as the purposeful response to the gains made in civil rights in the 60′s.

This is the book:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595581030

Paste a little for you:
Contrary to the rosy picture of race embodied in Barack Obama’s political success and Oprah Winfrey’s financial success, legal scholar Alexander argues vigorously and persuasively that [w]e have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial segregation has been replaced by mass incarceration as a system of social control (More African Americans are under correctional control today… than were enslaved in 1850). Alexander reviews American racial history from the colonies to the Clinton administration, delineating its transformation into the war on drugs. She offers an acute analysis of the effect of this mass incarceration upon former inmates who will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives, denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Most provocatively, she reveals how both the move toward colorblindness and affirmative action may blur our vision of injustice: most Americans know and don’t know the truth about mass incarceration—but her carefully researched, deeply engaging, and thoroughly readable book should change that

This sure feels more than connected to my work in my project so far.. it feels as if it were to flow here from the beginning and I have only just now become aware. I mean just now. What do you think?

Patti, no comprende for my eyes only request on something you are only tangently involved in, based on what I know about you.

Never heard of this author or the book.

Two very destructive drugs, booze and tobacco, are legal in USA, and are taxed heavily. For a long time, I have felt other drugs should be legalized and taxed heavily. The war on drugs is a joke. Criminalizing taking or even selling drugs, except to minors, is a joke, in my opinion. People who use destructive drugs at habit-forming level are nuts, in my opinion. Criminalizing drugs may have turned out to have a racial profile in prisons, but I do not see it as racially profiled at the getting addicted level. It seems to be racially neutral going in, but maybe white people can afford lawyers more often than can black people.

People who break the law know they are breaking it. They know there will be consequences, if they are caught. Nobody to blame but themselves. Can’t blame it on anyone else, lousy childhood, child abuse, skin color, or anything, unless they are truly insane and need to be locked up in an institution for the criminally insane. Right now, can’t personally make the leap to comparing breaking the law and going to prison with being captured and enslaved in Africa, and shipped to America.

Maybe the angels will adjust my thinking. If so, it won’t be the first time.

Sloan, thanks for giving me your thoughts on this. Sounds like you ain’t buying.. not even a little bit.

I find the explosion in the number of people going to prison in the United States alarming and puzzling. I’ve read different theories of what is behind this… huge profits usually involved on some level. Same with United States and our war involvement. In the end, I find it impossible to understand. It just seems too convoluted. I get that people can be greedy and corrupt. Still, there has to be an easier way to get money than either imprisoning people or engaging in unnecessary wars. Think about it. What kind of business plan is it to sacrifices resources of young people and money to this degree? Such a huge hole to overcome before a benefit can even be contemplated. On the surface I see nothing but huge outlay of money and sacrifice of life with nothing positive to show for it. Makes no sense. There’s something else going on. But what?

Don’t know what the what is. Something other than simple profit though. Unless profit is construed to mean dominance of the world through militarily bullying and threat. Give us your oil or we’ll blow you off the map. Take away our implicit threat of military action and where is our power. Could the realistic choice be to be the bully or be bullied? Maybe that is the truth that has to be camouflaged as helping others to the U.S. citizens. We are only told what we can handle. Like the line from the movie, “you can’t handle the truth”.. I wonder.

The tie-in with my project could be if in fact this were the new Jim Crow and if it came about as a purposeful response to the civil rights gains from the 60′s. Something rang true to me in the panel discussion. Maybe I’m more responding to Dr. Rick Turner speaking about silence. That felt like truth coming from somewhere pure to me. You might need earphones to hear the video. Or maybe you just didn’t hear what I heard. Something surrounding this feels very important to me.

Your sense of not buying the premise that this is a purposeful plan along with further research in which I see that people seem to be seeing their pet focus… whatever that might be, as the reason behind the increased size of imprisonment has me less receptive. One example I found among many others:

http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/2011/07/undiagnosed-epidemic-of-incarceration.html

Can it really be a coincidence that over the past 40 years, ever since President Richard Nixon first declared war on drugs, the number of people housed in U.S. prisons has gone up by more than 600%? Are we really just that much more vicious and larcenous than we used to be? 600% more unlawful than we were as a people in 1971? Last month, a group of medical

professionals from the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brown Medical School, and the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights, both in Providence, Rhode Island, co-authored an article for the New England Journal of Medicine entitled ”

Medicine and the Epidemic of Incarceration in the United States.” The investigators conclude that the explosion in the prison population is a direct result of “our country’s failure to treat addiction and mental illness as medical conditions. The natural history of these diseases often leads to behaviors that result in incarceration.” Packed prisons are also the result of a broader movement over the past 40 years to shift the burden of care for addiction and mental illness over to the prison system. “Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill over the past 50 years and severe punishment for drug users starting in the 1970s have shifted the burden of care for addiction and mental illness to jails and prisons,” the authors argue.

I’ll pass along if I find something.

Still have a good feeling about GMB. It just feels right for you. I was in the process of posting about the songs on the B’ham DJ’s website and got interrupted and lost it. Great songs!

Patti, I ain’t buying the way they are selling it, but I agree, racism toward blacks in America is far from over and done with. I offered a solution to what they are selling, you didn’t touch it. Some people in prison are innocent, others were sent up for ridiculous stuff: going to prison for not fighting in Vietnam, going to prison for possession of marijuana. Those people bothered me a lot. But not people who take drugs when they know going in where it’s going to end up. Maybe being in prison is better for them than taking drugs, although I hear it’s not all that hard to get something in prison to shoot up on. I’ve had a number of prison pen pals. One, I was convinced was innocent. The rest were not. None were drug related that I knew, except a Keys man, who got caught smuggling drugs into the Keys. I wasn’t so bothered by that, but he also was smuggling guns. Although he became born again in prison, he never would give up his accomplices. He served a lot longer because of that. I told him I had no problem with him not giving up drug runners, but I had a serious problem with him not giving up gun runners, and how did he rectify that with being saved by Jesus? We never reached accord on that point. Be careful you don’t get diverted away from that project re your father and the time of troubles. The devil is real good at getting people to do things they think are important, so they won’t do what is important.

Sloan, not sure what I didn’t touch. I reread your email and think you are probably referring to decriminalizing drugs. Funny, I’ve never had much of an opinion on that issue. I remember years ago one of the first times I heard some legit person on a panel suggest something similar to your suggestion. At first I thought, who would suggest such an idea. My knee-jerk reaction was that his idea was inconceivable. Then I thought exactly as you stated. Alcohol causes so much misery. If anything should be outlawed it seems that alcohol should be too. I haven’t put enough thought into the issue to have a well thought out opinion. I skimmed an article that I think was the number one read article on the website about drugs and mental health related to prison that I sent you the link. The article was on Portugal making all drugs legal ten years ago. Some comments didn’t trust the article because it somehow involved cato institute. I’d like to know the legit stats from Portugal. If I were put in charge of making that decision I would have to gather research, etc. but on the surface I like your idea. One part of your idea that concerns me is that more people might use if it were legal. Kind of the inverse idea to more people wear seat-belts because it is illegal to not.
http://www.thefix.com/content/decrim-nation-portugal-ten-years-later

Patti, yes legalize drugs. We saw what happened when they made booze illegal. Created the Mafia in America, or grew it up. Now all sorts of Mafias grew up around drugs other than booze. Portugal is related to the very important assignment God gave you to do on your father and the time of troubles?

Sloan, I’m actively working on my project. I may do some interviews next week. Ok, I understand. I said for your eyes only because I don’t want to in any way promote someone’s ideas or book that I have not checked out for myself. Cool with me if you want to but I’d rather not be associated with the author. Too easily misconstrued. It may turn out I am a big fan of hers. Maybe not.

This next is from Ron, whose grandson married my first cousin Leo Bashinsky’s daughter last year, as I recall the date. Ron and I have swapped many emails and I probaby have published about 20 of his comments to the Keys websites, never asking permission as I recall. Some people our age grew up and became old farts.

SLOAN – does it strike you that the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions are all apples that fell from the same tree ? The same major events and the same characters move through all of these religions and others. They differ only in the few exceptions that people focus on and have used as reasons for war for centuries. Some diety somewhere has to be laughing at this human condition. Ron

Hi, Ron. Only just now saw your comment. If you believe the Bible geneology, yep, all fell from the same Abraham tree. But human thinking being what it is, we see where it all ended up. Try this on. In the Koran, Mohammed says Jesus was a prophet and he did not die on the cross but it was made to look that way. Since Mohammed is viewed by Muslims at the last prophet from God, or so is my understanding, does that mean devout Mulsims all believe what he wrote about Jesus not dying on the cross? If so, does that lead to devout Muslims viewing Christendom as being based entirely, it could be argued by Muslims, on an event that did not happen? If so, does that lead to devout Muslims viewing Christendom as, well, insane? Another problem is found in Genesis, after Sarah had told Abraham to send his concubine Hagar and her son Ishmael into the wilderness, after Sarah had conceived or already had given birth to Issac, the child God had promised Abraham would come. But Sarah was barren, she had gotten impatient, so she got Abraham to take Hagar and produce the promised child that way. Anyway, God told Abraham not to worry about Hagar and Ishmael, they would be taken care of, and Ismhael’s seed would become a great nation and would cause Isaac’s seed trouble. God told Abraham that Isaac’s seed also would become a great nation. A similar passage is in the Koran, but it is said there, I think, that Ishmael was the promised child. That aside, do you think devout Muslims [Ishmael] see it as their duty to God to cause Jews trouble, since they descended from Isaac? And also, to cause Christendom trouble, since it descended intellectually and emotionally from Jesus [a Jew who descended from Isaac]? Troubling thoughts I have sat with since just after 911. It was then that I seemed to get a sense that a way deal with it was for America to get out of the Middle East altogether, and stop supporting Israel, and let it and Islam deal with each other, since that is where it started, according to Genesis story, also the Koran story, as I undertand that scripture.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, but when God grew me up, I put away childish ways.

Ciao

This yesterday from Deer Ed of the Coconut Telegraph praise and bitch and hold forth page of bigpinekey.com, a popular blog in the Florida Keys, second in traffic only to the part of the Sheriff’s website showing who got arrested and jailed lately.

Half-heartedly, half-attentively, I watched the jerk off on Capital Hill last night. I spelled Capital correctly, as that was the topic of the jerk off. I did not hear any mention of cutting spending in the military-war slice of the $ pie, which is one-half of the pie. What a joke. What a tragedy. What an indictment.

Here are three links that I found in my in-box this morning, which express views of people not brainwashed stupid by political parties.

Holy Fire

More email jabber with Ramsay High grad Baker Smith, who saw my photo in yesterday’s astronauts, cars, candy bars and other roadside attractions  post.

Baker:

Good heavens (or should heaven have a capital “H”), Lone Sloan, you are a half-way handsome guy!! I pictured a HIRSUTE (look it up, folks) guy, on your FACE, I mean! Mine seems to have slid down to my back, Neanderthal style!

However, I have the advantage…you don’t know what I look like, or RESEMBLE. I may knock on your door one day!

BTW, will you answer your door when…..AMANDA KNOX ??

Bash:

In the Keys, especially Key West, nobody is surprised when AMANDA KNOX.

Check out the photos of the caveman at goodmorningkeywest.com. The home page gives you a sense of Key West and the fool when he lives there.

Baker:

Lone Sloan…I see where the University of Alabama’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes is holding a…DOVE SHOOT Sept. 7th.

Let’s all attend, so we can blast the symbol of peace out of the sky in the name of…JESUS!! Mostly, todays’ “SYMBOLS of PEACE” are raised and sold to hunters, placed in fields of “hunting clubs”, some even placed on remote-controlled spring-loaded launchers hidden in the brush. When the “HUNTER” for CHRIST is near, the birds are launched by a person with a remote controlled device to be shot out of the sky.

This may NOT be the case with Alabama’s FCA, but it DOES happen. I remember a minister north of Birmingham having a “COON HUNT for CHRIST” some time back…

Things are getting more and more bizarre…oh, well.

your friend, Bob Hopeless

Bash:

Gosh, September 7 used to be my birthday. I s’plained that a couple or three days ago.

Gosh, darn, I used to love to hunt doves, but it was the wild ones. Finally, the blood lust left me.

I had this very good friend, born and raised in northwestern Texas, a crack wing shot, mostly quail out there, but dead on with doves, ducks, etc. Golden Flake hired him after he quit Frito-Lay. He made GF a great gob of money before his heart went to blinking, and after several close calls and surgeries, he had to retire early. By then, he had pretty much stopped hunting, except for quail whenever he went back home to visit relatives. He lived on a lake south of Birmingham, put out feed for wood ducks, mallards, Canadian geese and doves. Said three crows kept coming to him in the morning, perched in pine trees behind his home, giving him messages from God. I said in some traditions crows are viewed as messengers from the spirit world.

One day he was up on a ladder working on a woodie house, and he slipped and fell off and knew when he landed that he had broken a leg. As he lay there in agony, he said (something like), “I’m hurt. God please help me!” He heard back, “So you know my NAME!?!?!” Then, he saw all different kinds of mathematics, physics and engineering symbols flash like on a screen. (He was an engineer.) Then he got up and walked up to the hill to his home, and up the steps into it, and told his wife he was hurt and needed to go to the hospital. The doctor at the hospital said no way he could walk from where he fell up into his house. I don’t think my friend told the doctor about the prayer and what he heard and saw. Otherwise, after setting his leg, the doctor might have sent him to Bryce.

Anyway, this fellow, Aubry is his name, and I talked a lot about hunting, and the meaning of the dove, and he agreed, he shouldn’t hunt doves again. Then one day, he was invited to a dove hunt. He had not hunted in a while, so he accepted. In the field, when the first flock headed his way, he drew a bead and just as he was about to smoke one of God’s peace messengers, Aubry said he heard me say, “I told you you couldn’t hunt doves again!” He didn’t fire, put up his gun, and went over to a kid stationed nearby and spent the rest of the afternoon talking with him as he shot doves.

Feel free to share this story with your Christian dove hunter friends, acquaintances, casual passers by, evangelists who come calling or get in your way. I can’t believe they are releasing tame doves from traps. What he-men. I bet they support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, too. I bet they think Sarah Palin is to die for.

My recollection of the Gospels, Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword and to set the world afire. After he had done that to his disciples, he left them in the care of the Holy Spirit, who grew them up.

Slown, sort of rhymes with clown, see familiar likeness in attachment, which greets you at the entrance to Golden Flake. No, they did not copy the clown after me. He was part of the company when my father’s father and his brother-in-law acquired it right after WW II. See more explanation of that on home page of goodmorningbirmingham.com.

Baker:

By the way, guns have been a hobby of mine for some 60 years. Shooting at targets is a real passion, and I have a handgun permit, which I need because I DO carry a weapon…mostly on trips IF the state is a reciprocal one.

I was in Canada last October and talked with two O.P.P.’s. Ontario Provincial Police officers said two things: “I’m glad there’s no 2nd Amendment in the Canadian Constitution!” The other officer replied that “Guns are totally out of control in your country!”

As an open-minded individual, I can definitely see their reasoning.

I once killed a dove. It changed me forever, even though firearm shooting is a lifelong hobby. I held the dove, felt how limp it was, and asked God to forgive me for depriving it of its life for MY entertainment. My conscience is not clear even after 50 years.

I guess we’re just a couple of old men talking of days gone by, eh?

Your Associated Press Correspondant, Harry! How’d I get my name, you ask? My father was a….BARBER!

Bash:

I used to love shooting skeet, and some trap, but never got into pistol or rifle shooting. You are in law enforcement? Or security? Or are a private detective? Sounds like you might be.

I disagree with the Canadian law enforcement officers. I think every American should be armed to the teeth. We are going to need it to defend ourselves from the ultimate of all Republican mutations represented by the skin heads, Neo Nazis, Palenites, and the hardly dead and buried KKK, who only pretended to be Democrats because it was fashionable in the South. What they were was Nazis. And I heard they attended church and claimed Jesus as Lord. Maybe that was fashionable, too.

Let me back up, so as not to appear to be a racist against the hard far far right.

I did everything I could to talk people out of voting for Barack Obama. I was told by the angels he had the potential to be the Anti-Christ. I came to see him as a chameleon. I knew G.W. Bush was bad news, because he was transparent. He was predictable. He was stupid. He was so easy for Osama bin Laden to bait that it was hilarious, if it was not so horrible. But Obama was something else. After he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for continuing to prosecute George W. Bushe’s evil wars, I did not shit for nearly two weeks, until I was done writing about what he (Obama) had done. The budget jerk off on “The Hill” in D.C. was Obama’s chance at redemption. But he didn’t put one-half of the national budget on the table. He pretended there was no mlitary budget, which is paid for by printing US greenbacks. Nothing but counterfeiting, which in the day of the Founding Fathers was a capital offense. They hung or shot you for it. If they were here today, they would say Osama bin Laden won. He got George W. Bush and, later, Barack Obama, and Congress, who approved the spending, and Americans, who put Congress and Bush and Obama into office, to bankrupt America’s treasury and her soul, which was bin Laden’s battle plan all along.

Sorry, Baker, I have a bit more on my mind than how Harry got his name, but the dove hunt stuff was dead on target. Even so, I did far worse things when I was younger than shoot doves. Evil I have paid dearly for, and no amount of church going and being saved by Jesus rectified. But pretty soon now, I’m going to be spending Saturday afternoons on the edge of my seat, wondering if this year’s Tide team will actually play football, or something I don’t recognize. Rooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllllll Tide, Rooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllll!!! You can imagine, perhaps, I don’t do alot of roll-tiding down here where the alligators and crocodiles roam. At least not sos anybody sitting near me in a sports bar can hear anyway.

Sloan

Baker:

Great epistle, Sloan! We have ALL done things that, to us, are horrid.

Sometimes, maybe, I should make a list. There are people that are so empty of conscience and have no empathy, they don’t seem to be bothered in the least by their actions.

You’re okay, Sloan, in being forgiven for whatever it is you’ve done. See! You have a conscience, and life is a learning experience. We learn until the day we pass on. If we lived to be a thousand, we’d still be learning.

I’m not in any kind of security or law enforcement…just SOMETIMES, legally, carry a weapon…ONLY legally is it in my possession. Skeet and trap shooting are STILL very enjoyable to me, but I never seem to get around to it.

The problem with guns HERE, is they were part of our country and there are so many being produced here each year, it is not possible to stop. My problem is the .50 cal. Browning MG rifle that is legal, and I, personally, would like to possess one.

However, they are powerful enough to bring down a large aircraft with a well-placed round or rounds from a great distance.

It has no place in civilian hands without STRICT regulations. ANYONE can buy this and ANY other weapon at gun shows

with NO background check from personal collectors…including skinheads, KKK leftovers, and good citizens as well as convicted felons. PERSONAL COLLECTORS is the catch-word.

Gun shows leave a hole big enough to drive a train through. The Canadians never let guns get out of hand initially, and they are determined to keep it that way.

Anyway, I am retired from political and religious dialogue as too many arguments have erupted with no minds changed. I DO vote with my ONLY major interests now being animal cruelty and environmental concerns. Actually, the ONLY thing I can do personally, is to adopt and rescue as many innocent critters as I can.

Since I am 70 now, I reserve what time I have left to enjoying life, intentionally hurting noone, but doing what I and my wife can to relieve animal and human suffering.

More later, Sloan! You’ll be JUST FINE because you have a conscience and feel remorse for whatever are the things you did.

Anyone with feelings suffers inside for what we all have done.

Bash:

I see you do have a wife, what I get for ass-u-me-ing yesterday.

I wish I could get out of the political and religious scenes. They were thrust upon me. I detest it. You describe the futility well.

Of course, I agree, guns are way out of control. What I wrote before was satire. Yet, perhaps it will prove to be true.

Alas, I do not seem to be forgiven for the harm I have done to others. Some things, the karma has to be lived. As we sow, we reap.

Sloan

Baker:

Oh, my! I thought I had troubles growing up and NOONE else had them. It was always…Poor little Baker! Pity party of one.

Hey! Saw where Sloppy Joe’s in Key West had a “The Sun Also Rises” author look-alike contest. Can you describe it? A photo is in the NEWS today.

Bash:

What I wrote to you yesterday, which I might not publish, happened after I had grown up. It was merely a sampling of what happened after I grew up, to use grew up very loosely. I may never tell on this blog what I experienced as a child.

The Hemingway contest happens every year. Lots of old somewhat overweight, somewhat juiced men with white beards show up in safari outfits hoping to win the annual contest. Several times, I was advised to enter it (I wore a beard until a few months ago). Sometimes passing by during the contest, contestants asked me if I was in the contest? I never entered, don’t plan to.

Hemingway as an idol of mine, until I read Carlos Baker’s biography and then Baker’s publication of Hemingway’s letters. After that, I maintained my respect for him as a writer, but as a man, he seemed to be an asshole. Although, I still give him credit for taking himself out, rather than spending the rest of his days locked up in an asylum.

I wrote a few times that The Old Man and the Sea was his suicide note, the last novel he completed, it symbolically told the sad tale, from Hemingway’s childhood till the end. What first tipped me off was he wrote a letter to Max Perkins at Scribbner & Sons, Max was his editor, ranting and raving about people reading symbolism into the story. Hemingway insisted there was no symbolism: the old man was an old man, the boy was a boy, the sea was the sea, and so forth and so on. He protested too much.

Post-Script:

As my spirit training evolved, I came to see the dove and the Holy Spirit as representing the female side of God. Hemingway was a bit low in dove. I dunno, looks to me like that dove Baker killed and felt so bad about was the beginning of his concern for animals and protecting them. Maybe that dove also represented something that had been killed in Baker. The dove had a very rough go in me, and her restoration, still underway, has been steep. Maybe human service is the only way to satisfy the karma I created for myself.

Ciao

 troll uprising

Email back and forth with a Ramsay High grad prompted by yesterday’s local gazettes – Locust Fork, Ramsay Reunion post.

Sloan, I did not see the name of the person was you did not know.

In the Ramsay reunion Gazette part of today’s post – Baker Smith, he introduces himself by name in his first email to me as an old Crestline grammar school classmate and “best friend”. In a later email he said he pledged KOBE. I didn’t see him say he attended Ramsay. The reunion last year became a Ramsay – Shades Valley reunion. Perhaps Baker attended Shades Valley? Any help you can lend appreciated. Thanks.

Baker is a good friend of mine. He was at Ramsay, had to stay behind due to grades and graduated a yr behind us.Went to Samford. Thought he was at Lakeview thru Grammer school. Was a Kobe. Just visited me here in NSB 2 wks ago. Did you attend only Crestline Grammer. Maybe he was there for awhile. He has an amazing memory of childhood.

Yes, I only attended Crestline. Given how much I remember about my childhood, too much it sometimes seems, I really am struggling with not remembering Baker in the face of what he has told me about me being such a close friend of his.

Darn, I remember Janie McLaurine (Trammel today), Judy Richardson (who was so badly injured in the car accident), Becky (?) Van Houten, Jane Earl, Kip Culp, you, Martin Overton, Bart Henson, who sat in front of me in Mrs. Glaze’s home room, Penny Johnson (?), Stanton Lindsay, Resse Hunt, Mike Hartsfield, Martin Clem, Charles Green, Carolyn Thompson, Ken Donahue, Richard Patterson, Billy Sulzby, Joel Hillhouse, George Estes, Emanuel Petros, who tweaked me once in Mechanical Drawing about playing golf and being a rich person, made me feel awful, but I don’t remember Baker Smith. Bizarre.

I forgot in the telling in today’s rambling at GMB that I acquired a nickname at Crestline, with some promotion by Delmar Hill and Melvin Slotnick, who both sometimes intimated bad things might happen to me if I didn’t share my lunches with them. Delmar, especially, seemed to covet my lunches, which I brought to school in a brown paper bag after I gave up toting a lunch box. Couldn’t stand, wouldn’t eat the school cafeteria food. Always had potato chips with the lunch brought from home, and that got me nicknamed “Potato Chip,” which got shortened to “Tater.” Sometimes, Delmar and Slotnick called me a “greasy old tater chip.” That was bad enough, then some of the girls started calling me “Tater” and I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out.

In 2001, I spent the summer near Helen, Georgia, and met a good friend of Slotnick, who had grown up in Montgomery. They had attended Alabama together. Raised mucho hell together, as I recall the telling. This was long before Slotnick converted from Judaism to Christianity in a big way. I met the fellow in Helen just after finishing the last chapter of Heavy Wait on a library computer. The novel is described somewhat in on the GMB home page.

The first thing this fellow said after he and I first were introduced, I was Sloan Young then, was, “Are you Major Bashinsky’s brother?” I asked, “How in the hell could you know that?” Turned out my employer, we were at the business when this happened, had told this fellow that he had done a background check on me in Birmingham, unknown to me, with a former FBI agent friend, who had said he didn’t know of an ex-Birmingham lawyer named Sloan Young, but a Sloan Bashinsky had practiced law there. This fellow, whose name is Davis Broadway, said he had gotten to know Major and Luke Evins, of Birmingham, at Air National Guard training in Texas. The three had been friends ever since.

Davis was the first person to read the Heavy Wait manuscript. Unknown to me, he made some copies and sent one to Slotnick, in Birmingham, who read it and passed it along to Kip Culp, whom I had gotten to know much better after I moved back to Birmingham in 1995 from Colorado. Kip and I talked some about stuff most people don’t talk about, and I tried to sway him toward less physical exercise and more inside exercise, given his and my age – no longer were we spring chickens, er, roosters.

Anyway, Kip read the novel, and not long afterward, he went to the downtown YMCA to work out and had a heart attack on the running track and died, leaving behind a fairly new wife and a very young child. When Davis brought this news to me, I said, “Maybe you shouldn’t give Heavy Wait to anyone else to read.” He said maybe he shouldn’t. Then, I told him a little about Kip’s and my conversation of some years before.

Davis later found out and told me, Kip had gotten into a boxing ring with a younger kid and had gotten slugged hard in the heart and had to be put into the hospital, I think, and told to take it easy. He didn’t rest up long enough, went to the Y, worked out, and left this life. Don’t know if Davis was able to connect the dots back to Kip’s and my 1995 discussion, but it looked pretty straightforward to me. I think Kip got into Golden Gloves boxing when he was at Ramsay. Bill Gresham was a Golden Gloves champion, as I recall.

Well, back to poor Melvin Slotnick, now a Christian evangelist. He sent word through Davis that he was really sorry for the way he had treated me at Crestline. I sent word back that I had gotten a lot bigger since he last saw me, and next time I was in Birmingham, I was going to look him up and beat his ass. A joke, of course, but I’m not sure Melvin took it that way. Every time we had some occasion to pass remarks back and forth through Davis, Melvin was still trying to atone. I don’t think I ever let him off the hook. Probably because he had become a Christian. I was a greasy old tater chip at Crestline. Any darn fool could see that just by looking at how chubby I was and connecting the dots to what was in the sack lunches I brought from home every day.

I remember stuff like that, and I don’t remember Baker Smith. Help!

Oh, Davis was another of my friends who didn’t have much trouble with the coroner’s suicide finding re Major. Davis and I talked a good bit about Major, after meeting in 2001. Davis agreed, there was a side of Major you didn’t want to spend much time around. They were still in occasional contact before Davis and I met. But after I wrote to Major and told him I had met Davis, who had said he would like to hear from him, Davis never heard from Major again. After Major’s death, Davis told me Luke Evins and Major had had a parting of the ways, not having anything to do with me. Luke and Major had been best friends. Luke had been a good friend of mine. There are people who really did know Major, but I don’t think the Mt. Brook and Birmingham police and the FBI interviewed any of them, except for Major’s first wife, Gayle, who remains like a sister to me. She had no problem with the suicide finding.

Sloan

Wish I could help you more with Baker. His father was a Dr in Bham, died early, while Baker was in grammer. His Uncle was very  rich, Jimmy Smith?

Know almost all the folks you mentioned. It was Judy MATTHEWS, who died not too long ago. What a beautiful, in more ways than one, person. The photo they used in the Bham news about the accident was the one they took when she was my date at Kobe Leadout.

Kip was a good childhood friend, but we drifted apart in HS. Later I was visiting Bham and had some Sunday afternoon beers with him, at a place that was illegaly serving. Wish you could of made the Reunion. It was so well done and most of the people you mentioned were there. Remember Richard Ogle? Since we moved here to NSB 6 yrs ago, we go to 1 Tide game ayear and stay at his house. He is a greatly respected attorney in Bham. Saw Delmar at RR too. What a character. I do not remember
Slotnik.

Saw you mentioned last yrs Iron Bowl. ["Analyzed" on the goodmorningbirmingham.com home page] In my 50 plus yrs of being a Tide fan, I have never watched a more devastating loss, including being present at the 1973 Sugar Bowl loss to ND. Never seen so many “Ifs” that would have made the difference in our favor! ["Punt, Bama, punt!" still rings in my ears - just ask any Auburn fan about that one.]

Was “Heavy Wait’ published? I am an avid reader (and runner) Just finished 2 fascinating non fictions, “Man in the Rockefeller Suit”, and “Sex on the Moon.”

Bobby

Yes, Richard Ogle I remember well from Ramsay, knew him again somewhat as an attorney. Saw him at the YMCA. Always liked him. Slotnick went to Shades Valley.

Yes, Heavy Wait was published. Here’s what is on the GMB home page about it:

“Again, that’s all you will get now about that space trip, although the last novel, Heavy Wait: A Strange Tale, gives some perspective. It is the only Sloan book still “in print” – through a print-to-order publisher, PublishAmerica.com. Sometimes I see Amazon carries a few copies in America and the UK. Not recommended for Christians, New Agians or Atheists, which probably rules out most people in the Birmingham area. Perhaps explains why it sold so well that I received an $11 royalty check, finally, last year, which I push-pinned onto the kitchen wall in my trailer in the woods on Little Torch Key.”

Click on the publisher’s link, enter the book title or my name in the blank space, or go to the bookstore and do it there, and fill in the blanks and give them credit card information. Might take a month or so for it to arrive. Some people who read it said they thought maybe it wasn’t all made up. I took the 5th. It has some sex on the moon in it. I tend to write pretty straightfoward about such matters. Once someone who had read the earlier novels said I should write pornography and make a fortune. Would become tiresome, boring, as a steady diet – writing pornography. Making a fortune I’d probably like to give a try.

Used to be a runner. Now back to being a greasy old tater chip.

Ciao

Well, since I’m an agnostic, maybe I’ll like it.

Har, har, har. Darn, I knew I had left someone out. If you read it, maybe you won’t still be an agnostic. But then, maybe you will.

Post-script: I didn’t attend the Ramsay reunion because it was a long drive from the Keys and because Major had only just died and I was still writing a lot of very controversial stuff which was being passed around Birmingham, and I didn’t feel up to maybe being a fish in a glass bowl, answering questions, being banged for what I was writing, and so forth and so on. And, the angels told me not to go up there, but not for those reasons.

 Today’s creature feature is a twin-bill occassioned by people who dare to correspond with me. Here’s the first half.Locust Fork Gazette

Back and forth email jabber with Morticia of Locust Fork, Alabama, prompted by her sending me the Legal Schnauzer article featured in yesterday’s Legal Schnauzer springs leaks in Birmingham! post. Morticia tends to fret over sending me Schnauzer stuff about my family, because I don’t really like having to deal with it, but I ask her to send it anyway, because I need to know about it. She sort of adopted me last year after she started reading what I was posting to my Keys Websites and to the Birmingham News blog about Major. Pretty soon, the News blocked me out of its blog. It blocked two other people out, after they voluntered to open new accounts and post stuff there, which I had written. Morticia’s jabber is in italics, so you can tell for sure when it is her and not me jabbering.

HERE WE GO AGAIN! Schnauzers post today.

Not to fret over, give me something to write about. Did you see the utter contradiction between contact wound info Lori Moore sent to me the other day and what’s in the coroner’s report re same, and the gibberish around contact wound in this rabid frothing?
　

I read it.. Is she a “double agent.” Just kidding.He did have the complete autopsy report on the site. Did you have it?I cant wait to see your post tomorrow.
　

Yeah, it’s in the FBI report, and so did Lori Moore have the coroner’s report, she sent it to me last year. Did you see where those two fucked up in the Schnauzer article, changing a contact gun shot wound (the coroner’s report), into a gun shot from two feet off the body?

It will be just like the OJ saga.. It will go on and on and on..