Lessons in life

 Part 1: Leonard       

     

I know a guy by the name of Leonard Dohr. I’ve know him a real long time actually, over a couple of decades. The first ten years or so that I knew him, it was just casual, a mutual friend. I didn’t know him well. About nine or so years ago, that mutual friend died. I ran into Leonard at the memorial, we smoked a reefer, exchanged numbers, and have kept in touch since.

Nowadays I know Leonard very well. He is a swell guy. Leonard would give the shirt off his back to a total stranger, as long as that stranger met his approval. I know that seems odd but Leonard has his own charities. I know that he takes in many strays at his home. If you know Leonard, if Leonard were your friend, you’ll never have to sleep outside, no matter what you did to get there.

Leonard’s parents have been deceased many years. Leonard was bequeathed a small fortune and was living a life with few struggles. I am not saying that Leonard is rich, he certainly is not. It is just that Leonard doesn’t need to work. Does not seem to concern himself with the little things in life that drive us all nuts, like paying bills, or creating a budget. I kid with Leonard, I tell him that he leads a life of leisure, the American dream. I tell him that if I had his choices, my own life would be considerably easier. That is not, in any way, suggesting I would live Leonard’s life. Hell no!
Leonard is fucking nuts!
Leonard has an unusual philosophy about life. If you didn’t really know him, it would be easy to dismiss his quirks as perhaps a form of dementia, or maybe you’d feel sorry for Leonard.
I know Leonard and I don’t really see it that way.
Leonard is a bit older than I, maybe sixty or so. Like myself, he grew up in the decades following the Manson thing, after the Zodiac killer, right about the time when young folks started to take their drug experimentation a lot more seriously. Leonard did lots of acid. Leonard would ingest nearly anything that carried the promise of an eternal sense of happiness. I think he has neglected to find exactly that, but he continues to try.
I have spent a bit more time lately with Leonard than is usual and I’m reminded how fucking crazy this cat can be. We’ve sat together lately several times, smoking grass and exchanging ideas on how to save humanity or some such thing. Sometimes it is just he and I, sometimes we are joined by others in our little peer group. I absolutely love to sit with other adults and exchange ideas and information, Leonard says it is the key to the evolution of man. Now that I know what he meant, I think he is right.
Leonard’s conversations are often centered around Leonard. I don’t think he’s especially narcissistic, I believe he’s only just discovering himself and is frequently amazed, or frightened, by what he finds.
About the time I ran into Leonard at the memorial, he had just gotten his first computer. He said he was planning to look into getting an internet provider and exploring this new technology.
The very next time I ran into Leonard, he was high as a kite and really excited about all the cool stuff he was finding through the magic of the world wide web.
See, Leonard is a strange kind of cat. Leonard is convinced that his drug use, is not killing him, in fact, it’s giving him a better, a more fulfilling life.
Granted, his financial situation is unique, perhaps enviable, and that does make a difference in his perception of the damage.
Anyway, now he kind of stays loaded, busy studying the new world he has found online, and he seems genuinely happy. He does not break the law in any other way. He pays his bills, eats good and shares his bounty with anyone in need. He is a great human being really.
I only find it odd that his choices would certainly raise eyebrows pretty much anywhere, any time, but his life seems quite manageable. In fact, he asked me point blank, the other day while we were discussing it, “Brother,” he says, “what would get better if I quit?” “What would be improved so much that I would be better off?”
I really had no clear honest answer. 

 

Part 2: A Sight in the City

 Twenty five years ago, I stayed at a very prestigious hotel in San Francisco, Ca. The Mark Hopkins, I believe it was.  Very, very nice, even then, the cost was horrendous. I was lucky to have been there. That was how I felt then, and how I feel now, lucky.

     I'm a poor boy by birth, but I’m a real lucky fellow.

     I was there with my girlfriend at that time, and we were there for some family gathering; her family, not my family. My family is rarely seen outside the trailer park.

     I remember that we had been there only a short time and I became quite dizzy. Not because we were thirty stories up and the high speed elevators gave me some vertigo problems, it was because I had ingested some “feel good” chemicals most likely. Nevertheless, I was indeed, dizzy. 

     I looked out through a huge pane of crystal clear glass that overlooked the entire city of San Francisco.  If you have ever seen San Francisco from the window of a high rise, you'll know just what I'm talking about. 

     I knew suddenly that an opportunity had again presented itself to me. An opportunity few really get a chance to experience.  I’m talking about the opportunity to expose myself anonymously to an extremely big city from a lovely vantage point.   I became absolutely thrilled at the prospect of waving my rather ordinary genitalia at that absolute mass of metropolis, which is the city of San Francisco.

     I stood upon one of the fancy accent chairs they had in the room there, and I proudly displayed my ordinary man junk at the city of San Francisco.

     I continued to wave it for several minutes until the novelty wore off. 

     I still fondly reflect on my good fortune. I said it a thousand times, and for a thousand reasons, I am the luckiest S.O.B. on this planet.

     Just too really drive that point home, I'll tell you this: As I write this blog, right now, I sit on the twenty second floor of the San Francisco Holiday Inn. That is correct, now, as I write dear reader, I sit in a luxury hotel in that very same aforementioned city. Once again people, I have been given a chance to live a dream.  Oh, it seems almost criminal, doesn’t it?

     So I sit here, just behind an enormous sheet of crystal clear glass.  Just before me, and some two hundred or so feet below is one of the most beautiful cities on the planet. Once again, I am waving my anonymous, perhaps even inconspicuous genitalia.  All the while I laugh uproariously at the unsuspecting crowd below.

     I know… you have trouble believing this story. Hey, I don't blame you.  If it hadn't happened to me, I'd have a little trouble believing it myself, but its true folks;

     I really am the luckiest S.O.B. on this planet.(obviously, this is a joke)

This really happened but mostly I was incredibly high and laughing at things that may not have been all that funny. Unless you were me. Then.

 

 Part 3: Partying(Hot Dog)

 Seems like all my life I've been the biggest. I was the biggest in elementary school, I was the biggest in all my schools, counting those in my same age group. Then as I got older, eventually I got into a little trouble and had to do some long time in jail. I was scared to death, of course, but, I was still the toughest kid in my class.

I do remember a situation where I was not the biggest, and I hated it, really.

I was in the ninth grade and I had somehow been brought along with somebody at a senior party. I Thought I was cool.  I Was!  I smoked a lot of pot and drank several beers.  This was not something I was used to doing and I got real loaded.  Real Loaded.  I passed out in a chair, trying to appear cool.  I went so deep into this sleep, while sitting in this chair that I ended up with my head hanging backwards, my mouth wide open.  Keep in mind that I was considerably younger than these other kids and the person I had come with had long since vacated this ugly, Waterloo of a party. So there I was, The youngest kid at the party. Everybody wasted, nobody on my team.  Dead asleep with my mouth wide open and head tilted straight back like I was preparing for the guillotine.

What rotten, drunken senior could resist that?  Three years later I probably could not have.  However, this story isn't about me being a little bastard, I've got lots of those stories. This was about me, the victim.(well....)

I was suddenly awaken with the last dozen or so kids at the party all standing around me laughing out loud, pointing and gesturing.  As I was just being awaken, with a hangover and a total lack of recall, it took several seconds for me to realize that I had three hot dogs, wieners, as the story was told, shoved in my mouth to the hilt. I was enraged, I was homicidal, I was shaking with anger and frustration. I was also alone and the youngest, and as the realization of my humiliation became more and more clear, I knew there wasn't even a girl in the room that I could whip in an out and out brawl. I was defeated before the fight began and I walked away, beaten, tear eyed, and determined to kill each and every one of them.  'Still feel like it now and then…..