Speaking With “Dead People”

I’m used to people giving me “the look”. I’ve been getting “the look” all of my life...

You get “the look” when you mention that you’ve just seen Luther Burbank (who died in 1926) walking around his Gold Ridge Farm, watched a group of Union soldiers attack a farmhouse or mention to someone that you’ve spoken with their deceased grandfather that afternoon because there was something that he wanted you to tell them…

The first time I remember seeing “the look” was at the tender age of nine or so on the face of my mother when I told her that I’d just been visited by my paternal grandmother (who was in ill health at the time and lived about 100 miles away).

The next morning my uncle called to tell my mother that my grandmother had passed away in the night.

“Seeing dead people” is not at all how the Mel Gibson movie that is famous for that line portrayed it.

First of all, the images are not as concrete as those; they are more like impressions. They are more like little snatches of video tape that play in your head for a second or two. The images are fleeting but they usually leave what I would call the “psychic residue” of a complete thought or idea in their wake. Sometimes, you have no conscious awareness of an image at all and the words describing it seem to just pop out of your mouth of their own volition.

When one experiences one of these insights, it is as if far more information is being conveyed within that split-second of imagery than can be accounted for by its visual properties alone. Sometimes, knowledge of the entire story of what has gone on before the fleeting image or the events that happened after it comes with it and is conveyed within that split second of time.

Most people think of “ghosts” as autonomous; they imagine the manifestations of these spirits just come and go of their own accord and that the person who observes them is merely that, an observer, with no active part in the manifestation. In this regard, it may be that I relate to these spirits just a bit differently. For me, most images come to mind much clearer if I focus my thoughts upon the person whose spirit I wish to contact.

I am then rewarded (if I’m lucky) with an image or two at a time but, usually, no more than that. However, as I said, most of the time, so much information is conveyed to me in that second or two, that there is little need for more.

Most of the time, especially in cases of missing persons, the bulk of the information concerning the case comes to me disjointedly and out of chronological sequence as it did in the case of the murder of Elvin Bishop’s daughter.

I received many impressions about this case almost immediately upon hearing about the murder of Miss Bishop’s mother and her boyfriend whose bodies had just been discovered in Miss Bishop’s residence. (At that time, Miss Bishop was officially considered to be “missing” and no other details were given.)

The many details that I “saw” in those first few moments -- regarding a related murder of an elderly couple in the East San Francisco Bay Area, another female of approximately the same age as Miss Bishop who was involved and the two brothers who perpetrated all of the murders -- disjointed facts which, at the time, appeared to be unrelated, were later (much later, in some cases) proved to be completely accurate as the details about this case were revealed over a period of months and even years…

I don’t know why it is that certain cases trigger these impressions when I first hear about them on the news or read about them, why I seem to sense more details with some cases than I do with others, or why, in some cases, I sense nothing at all. I don’t seem to be able to pick or choose which case will be one that I receive impressions about.

However I can and do summon many spirits of those whom I have known who have passed on and, most of the time, speak with them at will.

Since a very young age, I have spoken (and still speak) in just such a manner with my paternal grandmother. I have also spoken regularly with my husband’s mother and grandmother – and even with his grandfather whom I actually never met in life. I also speak with, among others, a former associate of mine, a former boss of mine, the father of a former boss of mine and even the child of a schoolmate who was killed in an accident many years ago.

Another aspect of communication with those who have passed over which I seem to have no control are the times when I find myself in an area that is (what I call) “saturated” with either the spirits of the passing of many people or a location that is associated with someone who experienced a particularly violent or unjust death. In these cases, the events and the shades of the people who were involved in these events are just “there” – like a never ending movie on a 380-degree screen. I seem to simply “walk into the scene” at any point in the action and that action continues whether I stay or go.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee was, for me, just such a place. As we traveled through the town, and for a few miles on either side of it, the images I “saw” in my mind’s eye were so varied and many that, in some places, I was forced to swivel my head from side to side almost constantly in order to take it all in.

I have never been anywhere else where five or six different scenes on an astral level were taking place around me at once. At one point, I saw two children hiding behind a buckboard wagon while soldiers searched the bushes for them, a man being hung by a military guard, a company of Union soldiers on foot being led in a charge by an officer on a horse and two or three other groups of soldiers and/or civilians shooting at each other or sniping at each other from positions up in the trees or from behind the walls of long-gone buildings, all going on at once.

If I have known the deceased subject personally, I can usually go to a location that I associate with him or her, quietly concentrate and, most times, I am rewarded within a few minutes with a sense of their presence. At that time, images -- often accompanied by impressions of ideas and situations surrounding those images -- will be imparted to me by the person who has passed.

Sometimes, these reflect a message that the person wishes me to convey to someone who is still living; however, I find it all but impossible most of time to pass these messages on in a frank and honest manner due to most people’s lack of belief in the possibility of after-death communication.

I’m not certain why I have been given this gift (or “curse”, perhaps)... At times I find it very comforting -- but, at other times, it can be just plain "disturbing". . .


“30”

Gestalt and the Texas Trooper

The year was 1969. Almost like something tangible, the aura of fear and uncertainty which had begun with the assassination of President Kennedy in 1964 still hung suicidally heavy in the air and then -- after the escalation of the War in Viet Nam and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King -- it laid 1968 to waste in a frenzy of uncertainty, unpredictability and violence.

In that climate, young people who lived elsewhere ran away to California; however, those of us who had lived in California all our lives ran in quite a more easterly direction. . .

The boy I had chosen to run away with was from Oklahoma. He was a bright, affable young man with a broad, dimply smile which came from real, heartfelt humor rather than being donned as a cover for uneasiness.

We wound up in Texas where his cousins lived. The day after we arrived, he got a job with his cousin’s husband working out in the fields of the Panhandle constructing irrigation systems long enough for us to save enough money to afford to buy a car. It wasn’t a great car -- a 1961 model Buick “Special” station wagon -- but it was clean and the body was straight.

By that time, we were tired of endlessly flat, freezing-cold prairie life. We decided we would go see his father who was a cook in a large casino in downtown Las Vegas and try it there for awhile. But, only part way into the trip, we realized that we needed more money and, we stopped in the little town of Dumas, Texas, where he got a job at the nearest fast-food place for a couple of weeks while we lived in a motel.

I was 15 and had never had a driver’s license but, so that I wouldn’t have to sit around all day with nothing to do while he was at work, he would drive us both to his job in the morning and then I would take the car and come back for him at the end of his work shift.

The threat of being pulled over by the police, however -- who might find out that I was wanted as a runaway back in California -- weighed heavily upon my thoughts during those days… heavily indeed…

One morning, after dropping my boyfriend off at work and heading back to the motel, I came upon the aftermath of a traffic accident where several Texas State Trooper cars were parked on both sides of the road. A couple of Troopers were out in the middle of the street, directing traffic around the scene.

I suppose that I must have whizzed by pretty quickly because, in those days (when we were all much younger), we sped around everywhere that we went. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw one of the Troopers dash to his patrol car, jump in, turn on the lights and siren and rapidly close the distance between us. There wasn’t much more I could do at that point except pull over and stop.

I watched as a tall, thin Trooper unfolded like a roadmap from his police car. He put on his “Smokey the Bear” hat -- snugging the strap beneath his chin -- as he approached me from behind.

Bending down and resting an elbow on the frame of my open car window, he slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and slowly drawled, “Mornin’ Ma’am, may I see your driver’s license and vehicle registration?”

As I retrieved the registration papers from the glove compartment, I stammered nervously, “Why did you pull me over? Did I do something wrong, Officer?”

“Why, yes, Ma’am,” he said after a moment’s hesitation, “I was tryin’ to gesture to you to keep down your speed as you went around the scene of that accident back there but you were goin’ a pretty good clip…”

“I’m sorry, I did brake when I saw you,” I said as I handed him the papers.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he answered as he looked over the registration, “You sure did but, the roads out here are pretty slick. It’s been snowin’ and it’s pretty cold even now… We get a lotta spinouts this time of year and I wouldn’t like callin’ the next ambulance for you -- if you get my drift…”

Scrutinizing the registration, he looked up with a puzzled expression on his face, “Uh… Can I see your license, please, Ma’am?”

I summoned some courage, looked him in the eye and said matter-of-factly, “I don’t have one.”

His eyes widened and he took a half-step backwards. “You mean you don’t have a license to operate this vehicle?” he said -- looking rather incredulous.

“That’s right,” I retorted, “I sure don’t.”

“Why, Ma’am, you can’t operate a vehicle without a driver’s license!” he interjected, sounding agitated.

“Well,” I countered, “Obviously I can -- as you can plainly see, I’m doing it…”

My tone belied the panic that was rapidly rising from the pit of my stomach and catching in my throat. The tension became unbearable and I felt like I was going to lose it right there -- as though I was going to start screaming and not be able to stop.

Just then, I remembered one of the tension-easing techniques that the counselors taught us back home at “The House” -- a refuge for troubled teens that I’d frequented for quite a few months before running away with my boyfriend. They called it “Gestalt Therapy” and it included screaming loudly, sharply and without reservation. The technique was supposed to act as a “pressure valve” to act as a siphon to relieve anxiety.

I smiled at the State Trooper and said, “Excuse me a moment.”

I then let out a long, screeching, blood-curdling scream.

When I did so, the Trooper crouched down and put his hand over the leather band that snapped over his side arm -- readying his pistol in its holster. He glanced around furtively as though he was trying to identify the source of the reaction he had just witnessed.

“What? What is it?” he stammered -- warily scanning for the source of my scream.

“It’s okay,” I reassured him, “It’s just a relaxation technique that I learned in Gestalt Therapy class. I was feeling a little nervous. . .”

The Trooper stood there and stared at me for about 30 seconds.

“Well… I tell you what, here’s your registration,” he said, sighing deeply, as he handed the paper back to me, “Now, I’m gonna get back in my cruiser and drive away and I’m not going to stop you again. I can’t guarantee that some other Trooper won’t stop you later on but, it won’t be me -- I promise you that.”

Tipping his hat slightly, he turned to walk away and stopped in mid-pace, “You just wait until after I pull away and then go on about your business, okay?”

“Sure,” I said -- not believing that he was just going to let me go.

True to his word, the Trooper got back into his patrol car and pulled away. I waited for a moment or two and then drove off as well.

“30”

His Mother's Son

I got into the tiny elevator, pushed the button for the third floor, smoothed my skirt and hair and cleared my throat. The year was 1968, I was 15 and school had just let out for the summer the week before. For the last month and a half my mother had been insisting that I find a summer job to keep me occupied since it was the first summer in five years that I wouldn’t attending summer school.

“Summer” and “school” were two words that struck terror in the hearts of most kids when put together in the same sentence but, to an only-child, it was the social life-line that filled my empty, summer days. It had the further benefit of adding credits to fulfill my graduation requirement -- a fact that was to become very important to me at a later time. . .

I found the office door of the Mills Temporary Employment Agency, took a deep breath and went inside.

Upon completion of the mountainous application form, my name was called by a blonde, middle-aged woman dressed smartly in “business attire” and I was amazed to learn that the agency actually had a job referral for me. I was to report to a small motel in town called “The Townhouse” to interview for a part-time job, three days per week, as a “motel maids’ helper” -- a job that would last through the summer until school started in the fall.

The job was on the other end of town but I could ride my bicycle to get there since my shift didn’t begin until 9:00 a.m. and it paid more than the $1.50 per hour minimum wage at that time for students -- a whole fifteen cents more. . .

Located directly across the street from the largest hotel in town, the El Rancho Tropicana, the Townhouse was owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Cross -- a couple in their late fifties. As I followed Mrs. Cross around the next day, she began by showing me how to run the dishwasher that was located in the small apartment on the motel grounds that she shared with her husband.

I was to be responsible for seeing to it that the three maids who worked there were supplied with clean, sterilized drinking glasses wrapped in waxed paper sleeves emblazoned with the motel’s logo. I would also see to it that the sheets, pillowcases, towels and washcloths were washed and dried using the Townhouse’s three large washing machines and driers located in a small utility room at the rear of the motel.

The same utility room housed the supply of guest soaps and tiny packages of instant coffee, creamer and sugar for the small, courtesy coffee makers in each room but, best of all, the Townhouse Motel boasted a small swimming pool that Mrs. Cross invited me to use at the end of each day’s work shift if I desired.

Things appeared to be looking up for me after the horrors I had experienced during the winter of 1966 and 1967, I thought as I pedaled home on my bicycle after the interview with Mrs. Cross. The year of 1966 had been a whirlwind of starting my first year of high school in the fall, meeting the love of my life, Wally, a boy with a bad reputation who was a year ahead of me in school and the boy to whom I gave my virginity.

My mother hated him but she learned to hate him even more when she found out that I was pregnant by him at 15. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I’d miscarried four months into the pregnancy and almost hemorrhaged soon after. . .

My mother swore out a restraining order against Wally that forbade the two of us to come within 150 feet of each other but, of course, I still saw him “on the sly” by means of complicated arrangements made possible by my friends -- always with the fear that we would be discovered and that my mother would make good on her threat to send me off to permanent residence in a group home.

But, on that particular day, I was feeling good. The sun was shining and I was riding my bicycle home to tell my mother the good news: I got the job!

Over the next couple of weeks, I came to know and like two of my co-workers at the Townhouse. . .

Phyllis was a “born again” Holy Roller. A former prostitute, she lived in an apartment on the shabby end of town with a cat named “Spooky” that she'd once given a tab of acid to (hence the name). Phyllis drove a two-toned, blue and white, 1958 Chevrolet sedan one of her “customers” had given to her long ago and believed that it started only because, every time she turned the key, she prayed to Jesus as she did. Phyllis had a black boyfriend named “Spider” -- another “convert” -- who had recently also accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior.

Carol was a full-blooded Pomo Indian in her late 20s -- about the same size in height as width -- a Taurus, she was married to a sweet, evenly tempered, black man (a fact that was not well-received by Carol’s family even though the two had been married, by that time, for more than ten years) named John.

John was an auto-mechanic whose ’58 Impala was (to use the “carboys’” vernacular of the time) “tricked-out”. But, the greatest thing about Carol and John was that the love they shared was like some tangible thing. You could almost see it pass between them when they were together -- despite Carol’s sharp tongue. . .

Carol was one of those people with a gift for dry, sarcastic humor. She could toss an off-handed, bored-sounding, quick-witted comeback into the conversation under her breath with an acuity that took most people several minutes to appreciate. Carol never failed to make me laugh. . .

In the small town of Santa Rosa, California, in the 1960s, the entire population of black people numbered in all of only two or three families, so, it was not remarkable that Spider and John had known each other all of their lives nor was it remarkable that Erica -- a tiny, red-haired girl who lived next door to Carol and John -- would be carrying John’s cousin’s, Roger’s, child.

That summer, Carol and John -- on a purely emotional level -- made it their mission to “adopt” me. The two of them found it easy to relate to Wally’s and my tragic situation, I suppose. After all, no one could have understood more about what it was like for two people in love whose families disapproved of their relationship more than Carol and John did.

After two weeks on the job, the head maid walked away and never returned. The following week, Mrs. Cross asked me if I thought that I knew enough about the job to take over cleaning the head maid’s assigned rooms five days per week. I told her that I did and, with that, I was promoted to full-time at an entry-level maid’s full salary.

Being promoted to full-time maid at the Townhouse made my daily bicycle ride to work that much more dangerous since it meant that I would need to start out in the mornings before daylight, so, my newly “adopted” friends, Carol and John, agreed to pick me up each morning and give me a ride to work in exchange for a couple of dollars each payday for gas.

Most workdays, Carol, Phyllis and I would pile into Phyllis’ Chevy and head over the overpass to Zip’s Drive-In -- a greasy spoon on Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa’s Roseland District for lunch.

Zip’s had been somewhat of an institution since the Forties and was still owned by the same family who'd owned it then. From our vantage point at one of the four or five decrepit picnic tables in front of Zip’s, we would wave at people we knew as they drove down Sebastopol Road -- a testament to fact that, even with a population at that time of almost 30,000, Santa Rosa was still a very small town in those days.

Because the three of us went to work so early in the morning, we normally finished cleaning all of the Townhouse’s rooms by two o’clock or so in the afternoon. This left us plenty of time on those long, summer days to engage in various recreational pursuits.

Carol usually wound up arranging some type of group outing after we got off of work or on our days off such as a picnic in the park or a day swimming and barbequing on the beach along the nearby Russian River.

On one particular day-trip, Carol and John stopped by Wally’s house to pick him up in order to give us some time together. Not being informed of these plans, of course, the fact that my mother had given us such a cordial send-off caused us to laugh and giggle almost the entire way to the river.

As we descended in several vehicles upon a choice swimming hole, we must have seemed like an odd crowd to the comparatively insulated populace of Sonoma County during 60s -- a veritable United Nations with representatives from the black, Native American and various Caucasian races. Certainly we received a great deal of attention from the locals wherever we went. . .

When we all piled out of the caravan of cars at the Russian River beach at Mirabel, near Forestville, California, with barbeque grills, ice chests and bags of food, the local fishermen stopped what they were doing and stood -- staring at us -- for what seemed like hours. . .

Their interest was not lost on Roger who grabbed a huge watermelon from one of the grocery sacks and -- lifting it aloft with a flourish -- balanced it in one hand while proclaiming in a voice loud enough to benefit our “observers”, “Laudy, laudy, ah sho’ luvs them watahmelons! Yessah, massah, sah, I sho’ly duz!” before plunging it into the water at the river’s edge to cool for the evening’s consumption.

As darkness descended and we all gathered to feast on hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad and, of course, slices of watermelon, I glanced towards the perimeter of the firelight and could barely make out the figures of the same local fisherman who had found us so fascinating all day, standing in a line -- graduated according to height -- and still staring. . .

Their scowls were especially directed toward the red-haired, fair Erica (who was in her pregnancy’s eighth month) and the obvious love of her life, Roger.

I ambled my way over to Carol. “What is their problem?” I asked her, gesturing toward the group of fishermen with my head.

“Who?” she said as she absently poured some ketchup on top of her hamburger, “Oh, you mean those guys?” she asked -- straining to make out their shapes in the gloom.

“They’re ignorant rednecks. . . Just ignore them. They don’t cotton to the idea of lily-white Erica here and Roger being together, that’s all. . . They better get used to it, though, because that’s the way the world is headed -- whether they like it or not. . .”

“I read somewhere that, eventually, all the races on Earth will be blended into one,” I said with a slight smile, “I think that would make them all really beautiful people. . . They’d have exotic almond-shaped eyes from the Asians, permanently sun-tanned skin from the black people with a slight coppery tint from the Indians and, maybe even blue, green or hazel eyes from the white race. I think they’d be just about the most beautiful human beings there has ever been, don’t you?”

“I guess they would be,” Carol said haltingly, studying me.

“You’re a strange kid. Do you know that? But, you’re okay. . . You’re a good kid even if you are pretty strange. . .” she said, turning her attention back to her plate, “Go on and finish your burger. We should get going pretty soon. We promised your mom we’d have you back before 10:00.”

After the summer ended, I saw Carol and John around town sometimes and, sometimes, I went by their house to visit for a while and chat.

I knew that Carol desperately wanted to have children but had been told by the doctor that it might not be possible for her.

As things turned out, though, I read in the local newspaper several years later that she’d finally been able to deliver a child -- a boy -- who was born during the same summer that I gave birth to my daughter. I didn’t have a chance to congratulate her until a couple of years later, though, when I ran into her by accident in line at the local bank.

She was still the same old Carol with her dry, biting wit. Carol “bubbled” for nobody, least of all for me, “the strange kid”. . .

About five years ago, I came across another statistic in the local paper. . . This time, though, it carried the sad news that Carol, only in her early 50s, passed away of cancer. . .

I went to her funeral. It was held in the largest room at the largest mortuary in town -- and it still couldn’t hold all of her mourners. People were crowded out of all the exit doors and lined up outside around the entire building.

But the saddest thing about it was the sight of her beloved John . . . Once a tall, proud, black man with a quiet grace that seemed to exude a kind of strength from within that was unassailable and eternal, now bent almost double with grief -- the perennially serene face that I remembered now tortured and drawn. . .

He was a man lost. . . Lost without she who was his love and his life -- his Carol. . . It was a truly, truly heartbreaking sight. . .

But there beside him, holding him up, was their “miracle child” -- the young man who had been born the same year as my daughter.

As I gazed at him, I thought that I could just barely discern something familiar in the set of his jaw. It was that same determined, indomitable look I’d seen so often on his mother’s face. . .

I knew that he would see his father through this horrible time -- become his rock -- because he was, after all, his mother’s son and he showed it. . .

“30”

PROFOUND MIDNIGHT CALIFORNIA MILESTONES RESTORE LAW & ORDER

I was reading Northern California newspaper the "Santa Rosa Press Democrat" online this New Year's Day morning when I came across an article summarizing some of the new laws that went into effect at midnight last night which will, for better or worse, profoundly influence the lives of people all over our great state.

Of course, the one that's getting the most press is a bundle of new "Greenhouse Gas Emmissions" laws that our governor signed yesterday aimed at reducing the amount of power that utilities can purchase from energy companies that use coal to generate it -- unless, of course, it's "clean". . .

:^s

Just how, exactly, does one go about burning coal "cleanly", I wonder?

This makes me suspicious that it's just another one of Awhnode's famous, grandeous, bandstanding gestures which always seem to turn out to be about as empty as his muscle-bound head.

I get the feeling that the whole package was somehow engineered with the ultimate goal in mind of lining the pockets of all of his little Republican, high-stakes playin' buddies. . .

We'll see. . . We'll watch and we'll see. . .

On a sadder note, I guess I'm going to have to find another way to sneak into drive-in movies from now on because of a new law that went into effect last night on the highways and byways of the Golden State that makes it illegal to transport anyone in the trunk of a car.

=8^u (Yikes!)

Gee, isn't it comforting to know that our erstwhile California legislators are out there -- sinking their teeth into the "real issues" -- while the rest of the world just fritters its time away playing around with trivial junk like war, disease and famine?

>:^\

In fact, the only new law out of the bunch that has any prospect whatsoever of affecting me on a personal level is the one that now allows the phone companies to offer cable TV services over the telephone lines. . .

Since there's no cable TV access out here in the wild hinterlands of rural Cloverdale, this means that the day when I can obtain a high-speed internet connection may not be too far off!

(**Standing-up, she cheers while doing the "end-zone dance"**)

In the meantime, though, I have to keep a bottle of "No-Doze" in my desk drawer for those long downloads -- you know the kind -- like when you're accessing your email in-box?

:^s

Prepare yourselves, because I've saved the most wide-sweeping, profound and influential legislation for last. (See there? And you thought it was the "trunk law". . .)

It is the flaming Crepes Suzette, as it were -- the jurisprudential dessert -- that our esteemed and revered law-makers have, in all their legendary wisdom, prepared for us and laid out upon The Table of Life by which we may feed our profound human needs for justice, equality and civility. . .

At precisely 12:01 a.m. this morning, it became a legal transgression against the state to remove more than 25 "free" newspapers from their dispenser or rack with an intent other than to read them all.

(Thanks, Sacramento, there goes my entire toilet paper supply. . .)



"30"