Old School Arizona

[Lester Beans]

Hi MadJag, Sforza, rtb, and all the others who have contributed to this killer thread. I just read the whole thread, took a few days to be sure. What great stories! I was obviously born far to late. Thank you all for taking the time to write these stories as I enjoyed the heck out of them all!

Happy New Year folks!!

Best vibes!
Les

 

[Lime Green]

Subbed

 

[Sforza]

One of my cacti on my finca.

 

[Sforza]

To all my friends, a Happy New Year......

Deck the hall with balls of Holly or something

Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la!

Sugar, sugar, honey, honey
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you

[YOUTUBEIF]OrZluYnMJUY[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[1TWISTEDTRUCKER]

I want Her too! What is Her Name? She's a Pretty Girl. Nice job Sforza.

Twisted

 

[Madjag]

I lose track of my posts over time, even the ones that I've personally written, except for the original chronicles that I posted in the first 6 months of this thread.

If you've read this tale already, well good. Here it is again for a new spirit for a New Year:



So…..

Over the years I have enjoyed 5 or 6 workshops that were oriented around personal growth. Some of these 2-5 day experiences turned out to be about spirit as well, not merely inspiring self-help techniques like a do-it-yourself Chicken Soup for the Soul class. These were experiential seminars lead by inspiring authors and teachers that I respected for the brilliant guidance in their books that I had read. Life-changing words if taken to heart and practiced. I know some of you have experienced similar higher learnings yourselves in other workshops, seminars, or classes and can relate to what this is all about. It’s about love spreading in a myriad of ways.

One 3-day workshop I attended back in the late 1970’s was directed by Stewart Emery, author of Actualizations, You Don’t Have To Rehearse To Be Yourself. It was my first seminar of its kind and required that I travel to San Francisco, stay at a hotel, and be on time and present every day. After the first day’s introductory orientation in which the ground rules were explained and had to be agreed upon or you were asked to leave right then and there, any absence or showing up late after breaks or at starting time on the following day meant that you were not allowed to continue and could no longer attend. Your money was refunded. Stewart wanted, no, he demanded a commitment beyond the casual. It’s purpose was to discover whether or not you really wanted to be there; it measured your intention.

When you hear an attendee that showed up one minute late from lunch screaming outside the door that is locked and threatening to sue, you realize how serious the workshop’s leader and moderators’ commitment to intention truly was. They were there on purpose and expected the attendees to be there with the same level of intention. As one of the moderators said, “There is no dress rehearsal for life”.

We participated in many “games” that made us stretch beyond our usual comfort zone. These maneuvers helped us expose our inner selves to others, requiring vulnerability, thus taking off our armor. It also exposed parts of ourselves to ourselves, often parts we had disowned. Wow, what a mindtrip. I could tell that it was well worth my time and money to attend and later would send my wife, my mom, and my sister. My sis loved it so much that she joined the Actualizations organization and worked there for 3-4 years, assisting in dozens of workshops. That first experience had changed her life so wonderfully that she dedicated her life to it.

As a little background, Stewart was the first EST trainer selected by Werner Erhard, the creator of the world-famous Erhard Seminar Training, to lead EST training. After several years and countless workshops, Stewart left EST to start his own personal growth seminars because he felt that EST focused too much on the cerebral and mind and not enough on feelings and emotions. He wanted to create a more balanced experience that would engender a complete holistic change. His books explain it much better than I could so if you’re interested, take a read.

On the second day there was one particularly interesting exercise that was oriented around judging other people. It was quite simple to do, yet quite a bit uncomfortable for most everyone involved. We were given 10 self-adhesive name tags and were told to walk throughout the crowd of attendees, approximately 150 people, and “tag” 10 others with our personal stickies. 5 of the tags were red and said “Untrustworthy” and 5 tags were green and said “Trustworthy”. Imagine walking up to someone, looking them in the eyes, and putting a red tag on them. It’s what we do almost unconsciously every day as we meet people in the real world, yet we get away with it because no one knows which tag we’re giving them as we share small talk or merely a glance at the store or on the street. We judge our world so incredibly with only our eyes, our individual sunglasses that have colored lenses that filter our personal bias and judgments about life.

The exercise ended when every last person had given out all 10 of their tags. These poor last few, who had held out because the exercise was so uncomfortable for them, ended up with a huge audience, watching them uncomfortably as they scrambled to give out their last red tags and no longer had the cover of the mob doing the same. They were doubly in pain since they had to walk up to folks real close, eye to eye, and weren’t able to scatter their approach as they could when 150 attendees were doing the same en masse.

We took our seats and looked around the room. A few minutes passed in silence as each person took count of how they had been tagged as well as those around them. Sort of devastating. I don’t really remember what my tag total was, but Stewart had gazed across the crowd and had noticed one old guy who looked like he was wearing a weird costume. He was covered primarily in red tags, 40, 50, who knows; so many that they were overlapping. Stewart asked if the man would be willing to come up to the podium, a slightly elevated stage maybe two feet higher than the floor, and tell us about himself.

At first glance you could see why he had won the prize of “least trustworthy” by a landslide. He was maybe 60, possibly 65 years old and had a dark demeanor, even though he had a faint smile at times. He had a look in his eyes that seemed to indicate that he was angry, or perhaps that he had great turbulence within. If I had met him on the street and no words were exchanged, I would think he was a mafiosa, some sort of old-time gangster, or maybe a sneaky con artist.

The eye of humans are so easily deceived……Five minutes after the old man began speaking there wasn’t a dry eye in the entire room. He detailed how he had been a prisoner at Auschwitz during WWII and bit by bit lost each member of his family to the gas chambers. He had said good-bye to his wife and children under evil circumstances that I could never possibly relate to, even if I could imagine them. To top it off he pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the number he had inked into his forearm. I had heard about such numbers and had even seen movies with it re-enacted, but never had I met a person who had been there, a person who had been in Hades on earth.

The crying turned to sobbing in some cases as the man explained how wonderful his life had become; a new wife, new children, and a wonderful life in America. He explained that he was aware of the look in his eyes, how it turned people off unless he smiled and made an effort to change his persona. He knew that his experiences had changed him deeply and burned his soul such that the past was visible in his eyes no matter how hard he tried to disguise it. The only thing that really bothered him was that even though he was happy now and had accepted his past, people, especially strangers, were uncomfortable in his presence until they had the opportunity to know him for real.

This is my first story as the mad-man, as well as for all who might join in this thread.

May forgiveness and freedom grow in all of us as we journey in this strange place, in this strange time, we call life.

 

[Sforza]

Old school makes me think of, before legalization.

IC Mag today has sort of a guild-like nature (reminds me of the educational & business groupings associated with the building arts in old England).

I found that there was a guild-like nature to the community of cannabis users in California before 96.

Also, in Connecticut.

I figure every state has their own community of communities, of growers, connoisseurs, grow shops, etc.

Interesting observation. Given the legal/semi-legal nature of ganja in California, now that you mention it, the growers there to do seem to have a bit of a guild-like nature. As I recall from high school, in addition to keeping standards high, weren't guilds mainly concerned with limiting supply and keeping prices high by erecting barriers to entry into their various businesses and trades? The growers in California seem to want to keep it just legal enough that they are able to get very high prices for their wares without risking going to jail, but not legal enough so that there is lots of competition and a large supply of product, which would force prices down.

As to the connoisseurs part of your comment, the folks in California do seem to very picky about the various strains and how the ganja looks and tastes and use phrases like citrus overtones with a deep woodsy after taste or some such bullshit. It is sort of like the folks in the high priced wine industry can come up with all sorts of elegant descriptions of their wines to differentiate it from Mad Dog 20/20, which packs a hell of an alcohol wallop for a low price.

Back in the Old School days and even still in areas where it is highly illegal, the overriding criteria was how high did the shit get you, not how it tasted or looked.

 

[Sforza]

I want Her too! What is Her Name? She's a Pretty Girl. Nice job Sforza.

Twisted

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads

No name, I guess I am what is known as a pollen chucker, but she has a lot of PCK in her.

How about Deep Purple?

 

[Sforza]

I know some of you have experienced similar higher learnings yourselves in other workshops, seminars, or classes and can relate to what this is all about. It’s about love spreading in a myriad of ways.

I have never attended any these types of seminars, but when I do attend seminars of any type, I am always early to sign in and back early from breaks. As Steve Jobs said, time is the most precious asset and I respect other people's time.

I have taught over a hundred three and four day classes on environmental regulations when I worked for a state university system. No touchy feely exercises in my seminars but I did incorporate quite a few paper exercises where the seminar attendees worked on problems using the information I had provided. This was helpful in a couple of ways. First, when you are giving a person a lot of information it all seems to make sense and be easy to follow, but when that person is asked to use the information and apply it to a real-life practical situation, they find that information is more difficult than they had imagined and they didn't understand it as well as they thought they had. When going over the exercises, there are lots of questions and discussions, which helps drive the concepts into their memory, especially if there is some emotional component to the discussion, which there would be since I would throw in some trick questions, which would piss the students off and get them annoyed because they would get the answer wrong.

Secondly, and more important from my standpoint, while the attendees are sitting there working on the exercise, I can shut up for a while, sit down and relax, hit the bathroom, or get ready to do the next unit. For those of you who have never done it, standing in front of a group of people talking for hours on end is incredibly exhausting. You would think that it is easy just to stand and talk, but when you are talking to a group of people, you need to concentrate so that you are covering the material correctly and be aware of how the material is being received. I think that it is the intense concentration that makes doing seminars so tiring. So any excuse for me to stop talking and the students to start talking is always welcomed by the seminar leader.

I have attended a lot of seminars for work, but the closest ones to a self actualization seminar, were one for Total Quality Management and another for Root Cause Analysis. In both of them there was lots of breaking out in discussion groups where we discuss the topic at hand and appoint a scribe who write down our answers on a poster or a white board. I hate all that shit. None of it convinces me one bit of what the seminar is trying to get me to believe and I think of it all as just an excuse to give the seminar leader a chance to shut up and relax for an hour or so. Of course the seminar leaders also hate having me in their seminars since I don't go with the program and tend to ask questions that expose the flaws an/or inconsistencies in their presentations.

To show you how important genes are, by sister, who is only one year younger than I am and was brought up in exactly the same environment is real big into the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. They are all about meditation and being spiritual and having a higher consciousness. She was always trying to get me to go to one of their seminars but I never would go. It was a good thing too, since she did convince a girlfriend of mine to go to one of their seminars in New York City. My sister and I went to the graduation ceremony after a two or three day seminar, where the leader was saying how great it all was and the graduates were holding candles and everyone in the room was all full of love and compassion and comfort, except for me. I was thinking what a load of bullshit it all was.

As I understand it, in EST seminars the leader really has complete control over you and you have to surrender even your right to go take a piss to him or her. Fuck that shit.

All that stuff reminds be too much of Scientology. I could never get into any of it, but I do find it fascinating how some people are able to brainwash other people in believing the most absurd crap and in the process make a shitload of money.

After reading a news article a while ago about some chick who killed herself who was into Scientology I spent a Saturday reading all about L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. The only reason that the death of the chick made the news was that she was apparently the former girlfriend of Jim Carrey. Anyway the life story of Hubbard is really interesting. He was quite the character. As I was reading about Hubbard I realized that back in 1970 or so my father had given me the book on Dianetics and highly recommended it. I only got through a chapter or two before deciding that it was complete and total bullshit and threw it away.

I am sure that it was a moving experience, but I think that it is highly likely that Stewart had the old Jew in the class as a plant, that he did not just happen to be in the seminar and did not pay for the seminar, but was used to make a point.

If I was in that seminar, I would have probably walked up to Stewart and plastered all my not trustworthy tags all over him.

 

[Bud Green]

Interesting observation. Given the legal/semi-legal nature of ganja in California, now that you mention it, the growers there to do seem to have a bit of a guild-like nature. As I recall from high school, in addition to keeping standards high, weren't guilds mainly concerned with limiting supply and keeping prices high by erecting barriers to entry into their various businesses and trades? The growers in California seem to want to keep it just legal enough that they are able to get very high prices for their wares without risking going to jail, but not legal enough so that there is lots of competition and a large supply of product, which would force prices down.

As to the connoisseurs part of your comment, the folks in California do seem to very picky about the various strains and how the ganja looks and tastes and use phrases like citrus overtones with a deep woodsy after taste or some such bullshit. It is sort of like the folks in the high priced wine industry can come up with all sorts of elegant descriptions of their wines to differentiate it from Mad Dog 20/20, which packs a hell of an alcohol wallop for a low price.

Back in the Old School days and even still in areas where it is highly illegal, the overriding criteria was how high did the shit get you, not how it tasted or looked.

Exactly... seems that way to me too.

And it seems to me that there are now quite a few pot snobs, who make the California wine snobs of the 1980's suddenly seem like people I would have liked to have known!...

 

[McKush]

Back in the Old School days and even still in areas where it is highly illegal, the overriding criteria was how high did the shit get you, not how it tasted or looked.

How much?
$35 a lid

What is it?
Weed man, WTF you think it is?

No, I mean what kind is it?

<stares>

I mean what is its name?

<more stares>

Is it an indica or a sativa?

What's sativa?

ah, nevermind. I'll take it.

You'll like it, I double bagged it because it smells so
much...

<stuffs bag down the front of his jeans and walks away quickly>

 

[Madjag]

I have never attended any these types of seminars, but when I do attend seminars of any type, I am always early to sign in and back early from breaks. As Steve Jobs said, time is the most precious asset and I respect other people's time.

I have taught over a hundred three and four day classes on environmental regulations when I worked for a state university system. No touchy feely exercises in my seminars but I did incorporate quite a few paper exercises where the seminar attendees worked on problems using the information I had provided. This was helpful in a couple of ways. First, when you are giving a person a lot of information it all seems to make sense and be easy to follow, but when that person is asked to use the information and apply it to a real-life practical situation, they find that information is more difficult than they had imagined and they didn't understand it as well as they thought they had. When going over the exercises, there are lots of questions and discussions, which helps drive the concepts into their memory, especially if there is some emotional component to the discussion, which there would be since I would throw in some trick questions, which would piss the students off and get them annoyed because they would get the answer wrong.

Secondly, and more important from my standpoint, while the attendees are sitting there working on the exercise, I can shut up for a while, sit down and relax, hit the bathroom, or get ready to do the next unit. For those of you who have never done it, standing in front of a group of people talking for hours on end is incredibly exhausting. You would think that it is easy just to stand and talk, but when you are talking to a group of people, you need to concentrate so that you are covering the material correctly and be aware of how the material is being received. I think that it is the intense concentration that makes doing seminars so tiring. So any excuse for me to stop talking and the students to start talking is always welcomed by the seminar leader.

I have attended a lot of seminars for work, but the closest ones to a self actualization seminar, were one for Total Quality Management and another for Root Cause Analysis. In both of them there was lots of breaking out in discussion groups where we discuss the topic at hand and appoint a scribe who write down our answers on a poster or a white board. I hate all that shit. None of it convinces me one bit of what the seminar is trying to get me to believe and I think of it all as just an excuse to give the seminar leader a chance to shut up and relax for an hour or so. Of course the seminar leaders also hate having me in their seminars since I don't go with the program and tend to ask questions that expose the flaws an/or inconsistencies in their presentations.

To show you how important genes are, by sister, who is only one year younger than I am and was brought up in exactly the same environment is real big into the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. They are all about meditation and being spiritual and having a higher consciousness. She was always trying to get me to go to one of their seminars but I never would go. It was a good thing too, since she did convince a girlfriend of mine to go to one of their seminars in New York City. My sister and I went to the graduation ceremony after a two or three day seminar, where the leader was saying how great it all was and the graduates were holding candles and everyone in the room was all full of love and compassion and comfort, except for me. I was thinking what a load of bullshit it all was.

As I understand it, in EST seminars the leader really has complete control over you and you have to surrender even your right to go take a piss to him or her. Fuck that shit.

All that stuff reminds be too much of Scientology. I could never get into any of it, but I do find it fascinating how some people are able to brainwash other people in believing the most absurd crap and in the process make a shitload of money.

After reading a news article a while ago about some chick who killed herself who was into Scientology I spent a Saturday reading all about L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. The only reason that the death of the chick made the news was that she was apparently the former girlfriend of Jim Carrey. Anyway the life story of Hubbard is really interesting. He was quite the character. As I was reading about Hubbard I realized that back in 1970 or so my father had given me the book on Dianetics and highly recommended it. I only got through a chapter or two before deciding that it was complete and total bullshit and threw it away.

I am sure that it was a moving experience, but I think that it is highly likely that Stewart had the old Jew in the class as a plant, that he did not just happen to be in the seminar and did not pay for the seminar, but was used to make a point.

If I was in that seminar, I would have probably walked up to Stewart and plastered all my not trustworthy tags all over him.

Such an angry skeptic, my, my.

That's OK, because it is one of those things "that you had to be there". The old man wasn't a plant, Stewart thought the control method that Werner used was bullshit, too, and 1,000s of people, many who I still know to this day, will be the first to remember the experience as "life-changing" and pivotal in their own life.

But you can do it on your own, too. In fact, going to church, seminars, or bootcamps or consulting experts won't change you anyway. Nor will adding a bunch of new beliefs by changing religions, joining a New Age group, or defending any of the 100's of worldviews that believe that their way is the only way. No matter what your method, it still requires that the person make the changes themself. No one can truly make you change as we all know since Kindergarden.

I personally do not like to judge things that I haven't experienced, so I have made it my mission to go to the source to discover for myself what's really going on. My best friend used to laugh about me doing so and said, "Only sick people need that stuff."

Hahaha....he was sick and didn't know it. A few years later his marriage crumbled, both of his daughters became delinquents, he ended up doing a lot of counseling, and to this day he has changed jobs many times in search of the elusive "big money", each time striking it rich until the well runs dry and he has to move on and find another way. And he's amazingly good at finding a new way and adapting. Crazy good at it. But it might have been just easier had he looked for something that satisfied that deep part of himself that wants a meaningful return on his true investment, his life, so that money wasn't his guiding light. With his special gifts he would have become much richer dollar-wise had he looked for what satisfied his heart and innermost self, I know, and much happier. In fact, he's now back to doing what he did when he was 25 years-old when I met him and seems to have found his way after all. He's a carpenter, contractor, and excellent builder.

Denial is most powerful because you cannot always see it from your own perspective. Having someone else point out your denial, or experiencing some true, new perspective in a seminar, often (not always) proves to be the right medicine. Screw the people who are trying to sell any belief system because, like you said, they either want to get rich or fell better by enlisting more into their club or both. Proselytizing sucks.

Many people think that they can do it all by themselves and the proof is in the results: can they change their life on their own with no assistance, either from a book, a seminar, a church, or counseling. If so, good for them.

I have found knowledge and wisdom, in the form of words in books, to be my special helper in life. It requires practice once you've found something useful anyway - you have to live wisdom, it isn't free. You have to learn it and earn it.

So, I went to a Carlos Castaneda seminar to find out what I already knew by eating peyote on my own and be a student of the mind. I went to Actualizations to discover my ability to fool myself. I studied Judo and Aikido in order to learn that I am my only enemy. I put myself in jail to have time to truly reconsider what I was doing with my life and the lies it took to live a life "underground". I attended a seminar with Don Miguel Ruiz to experience people who open their hearts without fear of what others might say or think.....true warriors in my book. I learned to dance African with John Grinder of NLP. Later I attended a 2-day workshop with Mamady Keita, master drummer from Guinea, after being inspired by a Djembe troupe that played Sedona 25 years ago. Now hand drumming is a vital part of my life that has few equals.

Most recently I'm getting ready to learn to be a better House music dancer so that I can have more fun when I do dance. I started dancing in the Disco era but really fell in love with dance movement it in Jamaica dancing to Reggae. Sex on wheels man....way beyond any Soul dancing in the US because of the Jamaican lifestyle and the environment on their home and island. Once I found Trance and Deep House (boo Techno) I transferred some of my Reggae abilities right on over to that dancefloor. Still, when I watch the true innovators of that street dance get it on I am in awe. I want some. Just have to lose 20 lbs. so i can be light again and move freely.

Perhaps it's partly about mentors, too. I like good teachers. I honor them. And I can only really judge their ability in person even if I find their books to be life-saving.

So, onward.

 

[1TWISTEDTRUCKER]

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads

No name, I guess I am what is known as a pollen chucker, but she has a lot of PCK in her.

How about Deep Purple?

I recently helped trim a PCKxPurple Erkle, and can see some(apparently) PCK similarities. It was a The Real Hash tester that may have gotten re vedged, I hope so.
Deep Purple never fails to please. ROCK ON!!!

Oh ya,,, Does it get You HIGH???

Twisted

 

[Sforza]

How much?
$35 a lid

What is it?
Weed man, WTF you think it is?

We weren't quite so ignorant or deprived back in the good old days, as your post seems to imply, McKush.

True, the prices were a lot lower, but some of the Thai Stick, Michoacán, and Oaxaca weed and Red and Golden Lebanese hash, and Afghani Mazar-I-Sharif hash, not to mention some fine golden honey hash oil were quite potent and provided a wonderful high. Since we were taking LSD, Mescaline, and Psilocybin during that period we were quite aware of what was and what was not a powerful psychoactive substance, and some of the weed of that time was powerfully psychoactive.

That is not even considering the ganja that I was smoking in Negril and Santa Marta nearly fifty years ago.

True, the sativa vs. indica was not a big issue, because all we smoked was sativa. I didn't start growing indica from seeds purchased from Holland until relatively recently, around 1982.

Giving something a fancy name doesn't make the ganja any stronger, after all, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,

 

[Sforza]

Oh ya,,, Does it get You HIGH???

Twisted

Still curing, but previous iterations did the job.

 

[Sforza]

Such an angry skeptic, my, my.

I am not angry, even though I can understand that the message may have sounded angry. I consider myself an optimistic cynic. I am generally happy and think things will turn out for the best, since they usually do for me, but dealing with people over a lifetime and reading a lot of history has taught me that people are not always completely truthful or honest in their dealings. Trust, but verify.

The old man wasn't a plant.

How can you be sure? It was effective and a teacher is going to use psychological techniques to produce the effects he wants to produce. It is a like a lawyer, never ask a question in court that you don't already know the answer to. I mean a good lawyer, not that dumb ass prosecutor who let OJ pretend that his gloves did not fit. Perhaps the guy who was one minute late, banging on the door, and threatening to sue was also a prop. Why sue when you are going to get your money back?

But you can do it on your own, too.

True that.

In fact, going to church, seminars, or bootcamps or consulting experts won't change you anyway.

I don't know. I think every experience changes us a bit. Of course some change us more than others

Nor will adding a bunch of new beliefs by changing religions, joining a New Age group, or defending any of the 100's of worldviews that believe that their way is the only way.

I find that thinking that one's own religion, group, or worldview is the only true and correct one requires an astounding lack of humility. We can all see that lots of the people we come in contact with are smarter, better looking, funnier, kinder, etc. than we are, but so many think that despite the evidence to the contrary, they have the answer and everyone who does not believe in the same things are simply wrong.

No matter what your method, it still requires that the person make the changes themselves. No one can truly make you change as we all know since Kindergarten.

True, and typically people only desire to change themselves when they are not happy with themselves or how their life is going. If your life is going well, why change? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I personally do not like to judge things that I haven't experienced, so I have made it my mission to go to the source to discover for myself what's really going on. My best friend used to laugh about me doing so and said, "Only sick people need that stuff."

It takes every kind of people to make what life's about.
[YOUTUBEIF]ndCnOqKq5Xs[/YOUTUBEIF]

Hahaha....he was sick and didn't know it. A few years later his marriage crumbled, both of his daughters became delinquents, he ended up doing a lot of counseling, and to this day he has changed jobs many times in search of the elusive "big money", each time striking it rich until the well runs dry and he has to move on and find another way. And he's amazingly good at finding a new way and adapting. Crazy good at it. But it might have been just easier had he looked for something that satisfied that deep part of himself that wants a meaningful return on his true investment, his life, so that money wasn't his guiding light. With his special gifts he would have become much richer dollar-wise had he looked for what satisfied his heart and innermost self, I know, and much happier. In fact, he's now back to doing what he did when he was 25 years-old when I met him and seems to have found his way after all. He's a carpenter, contractor, and excellent builder.

And most importantly, he did it his way.

[YOUTUBEIF]egY8rUpxqcE[/YOUTUBEIF]

I have found knowledge and wisdom, in the form of words in books, to be my special helper in life. It requires practice once you've found something useful anyway - you have to live wisdom, it isn't free. You have to learn it and earn it.

I have always been an avid reader. What a wonderful thing books are. We can read the thoughts of some of the most extraordinary people who have ever lived and learn from their experiences without having to suffer the the pain their mistakes caused them. Experience is a harsh teacher, but some will learn from no other.

I started dancing in the Disco era but really fell in love with dance movement it in Jamaica dancing to Reggae. Sex on wheels man....way beyond any Soul dancing in the US because of the Jamaican lifestyle and the environment on their home and island.

I was dancing at 17 in college at Saturday night keg parties at the frat I pledged with bands playing the Stones and Steppenwolf. Beer will reduce inhibitions, but nothing will get you into the music like ganja. I spent a lot of time dancing to reggae in Jamaica. And not just in the clubs where the tourists were, but also in some where I was the only white person. I loved dancing to reggae. When I was in New York City, I used the Village Voice to find a club that played reggae, and I enjoyed dancing there more than my trips to Studio 54. Now, my dancing days are behind me. When I was a child...

Perhaps it's partly about mentors, too. I like good teachers. I honor them.

My wife taught school children for 15 years. Since she taught at a school where the folks had big families, she often taught 7 or 8 siblings of the same family over the years. Two of her students who were always attracted to each other ended up getting married and having children. Her students always got a big dose of penmanship, religion, and math, but they most fondly remember the games, art projects, and the stories she would tell them. When she retired they had a function where many of her former students showed up to giver her flowers. A good teacher and make a big difference in a child's life and I am sure she helped some a lot.

So, onward.

And upward my friend.

[YOUTUBEIF]E2VCwBzGdPM[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[McKush]

We weren't quite so ignorant or deprived back in the good old days, as your post seems to imply, McKush.

Hey speak for yourself, i was plenty deprived. As for the other well....

 

[Jericho Mile]

onward

 

[Madjag]

 

[Sforza]

Hey speak for yourself, i was plenty deprived. As for the other well....

I wrote deprived, not depraved. Depraved, now that is a whole different story.