My father had pistols and rifles and an eye for a discarded can at thirty yards. That was enough, in the early 1950s, to turn the local dump into a shooting range. He would load us into the car on a Saturday — my older sister Pat, my older brother Paul, and me — and drive us out to where southwest Pennsylvania disposed of what it no longer wanted, and he would stand there punching holes in cans and bottles while we found places to sit and wait him out.

Figure 1. The Victory Village, Fair Oaks, PA Late Forties. L-R: Teddy, Billy, Paul, Pat

I have one image in my head from those afternoons that has never left me. I am sitting on something — a mound, a pile, some discarded object large enough to serve as a perch — and across the path from me are Pat and Paul, just killing time. The blast furnaces were not ten miles from where we sat. Pittsburgh was sixteen miles north. The

Monongahela Valley in those years was the most industrialized landscape on the face of the earth, and what that valley’s industries could not sell or reuse, they dumped. Nobody tested it. Nobody labeled it. The category of “hazardous waste” barely existed. You just threw it away and let it become part of the ground.

We were children sitting on whatever was there.

Pat and Paul both developed lymphoma — similar types, similar timing, in their fifties and sixties. I did not. My physician, Dr. Naila Ahmad, once told me that most of what medicine knows about lymphoma was learned from the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is the baseline. That is the dataset. Chronic low-level exposure — the kind you accumulate by spending your childhood afternoons in the shadow of blast furnaces, breathing air that turned Pittsburgh’s streetlights on at noon, sitting on objects nobody thought to inventory — that kind of exposure is harder to study. The science lives in the gap between the bomb and the dump.

I cannot prove anything. I am not trying to. I am only saying that I can still see Pat and Paul across that path, and I can still see myself on whatever I was sitting on, and I am the one writing this.

—

Pat fought large cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for five years. She won. The cancer left her body and did not come back. What killed her in the end was something she almost certainly picked up at a class reunion— ordinary, airborne, the kind of thing that moves through a hotel without announcement. After five years of fighting the thing that was supposed to take her, something unremarkable finished the job.

She had come to Michigan for a class reunion. I offered her my house for the week. It happened that the same week, I was away on business — and so she stayed in my bedroom, slept in my bed, left the particular atmosphere of herself in a space I knew as my own, and then flew home to Pennsylvania.

I was driving north on Interstate 75, back from the airport, when she was being driven south on the same highway toward hers. I have done the math on this more than once. The timing is such that it is entirely possible — likely, even — that the closest we were to each other in the final days of her life was two cars moving in opposite directions on a divided highway, neither of us knowing it, the distance between us briefly measurable in lanes.

When I got home and opened my bedroom door, the smell of her was still there.

Smell does not negotiate. It does not pass through the mind on its way to wherever it lands. My sister was already dying back in Pennsylvania, and she was also still in my room, completely present, utterly gone.

That was the last time I was near her.

I think about the dump. I think about the path between us, and Pat and Paul on one side of it, and me on the other. I think about what we were sitting on and what the ground beneath us held. I think about the highway.

Some distances only make sense in retrospect.

This time of year always reminds me of the old stick-shift cars I used to drive — the ones that refused to start unless you parked carefully on a hill. Dead battery? No problem. You pushed, jumped in, popped the clutch, and hoped the engine caught before gravity ran out. More often than not, that little bit of momentum was the only chance you had of bringing one of those junkers back to life.

Three days ago the forecast promised more than two inches of rain. Winter’s final argument, apparently. But twice this season I’ve ignored the cold damp and gone outside anyway. One day it was hauling the humidifier into the yard and attacking it with a hose like it had personally offended me — spraying years of accumulated crud into surrender. The day before the storms arrived, I grabbed a wheelbarrow and pitchfork and moved two loads of wet straw onto the garden beds I’ll be planting in six weeks.

There’s something about working ahead of spring that resets the mind. You can almost feel the season turning under your feet, even when the sky insists otherwise.

So this post is my version of parking on the hillside — giving things just enough momentum to catch again.

Three weeks until the first day of spring.

More soon.

In 1976, I was living in Canoga Park when I got dropped off in Malibu on Route 101—the Coast Highway—and stuck out my thumb. My ride took me to the Santa Barbara city limits where I faced a choice: join the dozen or more hitchhikers lined up there, some holding signs with dollar bills attached, or get dropped off north of town. I figured most drivers heading into Santa Barbara were stopping there anyway. I chose north of town.

Soon I found myself standing on a freeway on-ramp, away from the chaos at the city limits. I took my normal spot on the right side of the entrance and waited. And waited. And waited. Bored, I walked across the entrance to a road sign. Carved into the wooden post: “George and John stood here for 3 days.” I shrugged my shoulders and pulled out my book, A Sand County Almanac. I don’t think I had to wait all that long at all. The next leg took me through San Luis Obispo onto Highway 1 and Big Sur.

Big Sur

My ride dropped me off in front of a lodge on the Big Sur coast. I leaned my backpack against the guardrail and pulled out my book, “A Sand County Almanac” and sat there in the early-afternoon sun reading. Sometimes I forgot to put my thumb out, I got so engaged in the book.

The waves crashed below. I crossed the two-lane road and looked over the guardrail: huge dark gray boulders, hundreds of them as far as I could see, jagged, angular, not smoothed by time—like my life so far.

I married at nineteen, like my father before me. By ’72 my second child was born. By May of ’75 I was divorced. Breaks like that don’t round you out; they leave edges. That’s why the rocks spoke to me.

I left 101 for Highway 1 — if you’re in Big Sur, you want to hug the coastline. The Pacific was right there, smashing into cliffs, every turn unveiling a new view. I promised myself that someday I’d drive that road in my own sports car.

Years earlier, I’d wrecked a ’57 Healey 100-6 in Michigan. That accident led, improbably, to my marriage six months later. Later I bought a 1960 Austin-Healey 3000 BN7 but sold it before moving west. The dream, though, stayed with me.

The Big Sur stretch runs only about ninety miles, but the drive takes three, maybe three and a half hours — a twisting, winding road with unimaginable vistas. I knew I’d return one day, take the wheel again, and let the road unspool at its own pace.

Approaching Soledad

Riding north, as we approached Soledad, the familiar highway signs appeared: “Don’t pick up hitchhikers.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me — those warnings were meant for people like me.

As the miles passed and the road hummed beneath us, I went quiet and let my mind drift. Then, without warning, a couple of films crashed into my consciousness like a nightmare come true — The Glass House starring Alan Alda. And around the same time, a Canadian film, -- Fortune and Men’s Eyes.

Soledad triggered it. The prison in the movie, the fear that lived just below my ribs — being trapped, beaten down, ending like that kid on the screen. It wasn’t just a movie; it was a cautionary tale writ large.

I’ve taken risks in my life, always have. But a friend, Paul Summers, small-time criminal had warned me more than once, “You can’t be too careful.” He was streetwise from experience, and that wisdom stuck. It still guides me. He also said, “The truth is often spoken in jest.” For a guy who never finished school and was raised by his grandmother, he carried more insight than some professors I’ve met.

I was a good kid back then, even considered the priesthood once. My older brother — twenty-two years my senior — was my mentor, nemesis, and sometimes protector. He and Summers were friends from the neighborhood, both far from saints. My brother Paul started drinking at fourteen. He kept me out of their circle, protecting me in his own rough way. Summers was small, wiry; the bigger boys used to lift him through milk chutes to break into empty houses.

That was the world I watched from the edge — too young to join, too curious to forget. And somewhere on that long northbound stretch near Soledad, all of it came rushing back: the warnings, the fear, the friendship, the fragile line between freedom and the cage.

The next ride was with two scary guys, probably on reds. A dangerous ride—weaving across the double yellow, horns blowing. They kept punching each other, it seemed to me in a contest, but they could not feel the pain. I think they offered, but no. There was another hitchhiker with me for that ride—two total strangers brought together by the road. A Canadian, good-looking guy who reeked of wealth. Everything he was carrying screamed money—his duffel bag, his backpack, all high-quality leather. His dress, right down to his hair. Wow. He should have been on an airplane, not hitchhiking. But he was hitching, probably for similar reasons as mine. Maybe even more so. Hitching in the ‘70s was a rite of passage.

The Canadian and I would look at each other, not saying but asking with our eyes, “What should we do?” Could not wait to get out of that beat-up old Chevy with the cracked windshield. They dropped us just south of town. We parted ways. The Canadian immediately stuck out his thumb. Necessity dictated my next move.

Santa Cruz

I walked north through Santa Cruz in the mid-afternoon heat. I remember a laundromat glowing warm and yellow through its big front windows—could not have shown up at a better time. The sound of the dryers, the hum of fluorescent lights—small comforts, and a clean restroom, cool water to wash the grit from my face, the gentle release of a thin yellow stream. Simple pleasures when you’ve been on the road all day.

The heat of the afternoon sun gave way to the cooler early evening ocean breezes. Normally, I’d want to spend some time on the ocean shore, maybe kick off my boots -- walk barefoot in the surf -- but my mind was on something else; I had a destination and was only about halfway there.

Late afternoon and I was still walking north and wondering where I’d sleep. In the wrong town, sleeping rough meant a night in jail. I kept my thumb out and my hopes up.

The Night Fishing Adventure

The pickup driver was older—early twenties, American Graffiti older-brother energy. The truck was a primer-gray ’54 Chevy, V8 under the hood—a work in progress headed north, just like its passengers. The rest were neighborhood kids, a couple of brothers, wide-awake and grinning. The dog jumped in back with me and the fishing poles. The air came cool off the Pacific, sharp enough to wake the skin. My long hair streamed in the wind; the dog pressed close for warmth.

Somewhere past the edge of town the engine sputtered. Wrenches like me—and I’m still one to this day—we know our vehicles like we know our women. We know how they sound when they’re right and when they’re not. We know how they feel, the correct vibrations. The driver pulled to the shoulder. They set up a camping lantern for light—bright and white, cutting through the dark. He worked with quiet confidence—just him, a handful of tools, and the smell of gasoline. I’d always thought I was a decent mechanic, but he was better. Leaning in over the fender, he tore the carburetor down and rebuilt it by feel. She started, but the sputter or stutter was still there—could have been as simple as a bad fuel filter. We climbed back in and she flew. But the owner knew, and I did too—if it was a clogged fuel filter, she could leave us stranded in a heartbeat. No cell phones then, just the ocean at night, a two-lane road, and four young men hitchhiking. Not good. And a long walk back to town.

But luck held. The truck coughed, then caught, and the driver grinned like we’d just rolled snake eyes and lived to tell it. We made it back without a stall—quiet ride, all of us half-listening for the engine to quit. Back in town, we parked the pickup, grabbed a sedan borrowed from a dad who was out of town, packed the gear, and headed right back toward the favorite fishing hole.

On the way, the youngest kid sat tight against me. At some point my right arm had slipped between his legs—accident, pure and simple. Once aware, I froze, faked a cough to bring both hands to my face, then folded my arms and left them there. No one said a word. The hum of the tires smoothed it over.

Back near the water we passed a brown park sign with yellow letters—Beach Access. They turned off, headlights bouncing over sand, and stopped maybe twenty yards from the road, the sedan in plain sight. Everyone seemed to know what to do. Matches. Beer. Fire. In minutes the flames were orange against the surf.

That’s where I parted ways. Fires and laughter draw cops. I slung my pack over a shoulder and walked a hundred yards north, climbed a low dune, and disappeared. I could see them; they couldn’t see me. That was enough. I spread out my bag, crawled in, and let the rhythm of the waves find me. The air smelled of salt and smoke. Somewhere down shore a dog barked. I smiled and slept.

The Beach Wake-Up Call

Early in the morning I must have rolled and separated the zipper. A gust from the sea caught the gap and blew my bag wide open. I woke to a slap of wind—fifteen knots easy—and sat up laughing, half cold, half amazed. I shook the bag out, zipped it, rolled it tight rituals you learn on the road.

The sun pushed red at the horizon; the rocks were red beneath it. I climbed through them and found a perch where northbound drivers could see me. I still had cover, but it was cold, so I moved into the sunlight.

The Zappa Van

That’s when the white van came—the driver, a wiry redhead with a grin that belonged on a barroom stage. Inside looked like a Frank Zappa album cover for “Overnight Sensation”: underwear here and there, cardboard where paneling should have been. He laughed when I told him where I was headed. “Santa Rosa? You’re in luck.”

We talked the whole way—films, light, music, the strange freedom of the road. Time folded the way it does on long drives. South of San Francisco I asked, “Have you ever been to the zoo there?” He hadn’t, and exclaimed, “We’re going.”

San Francisco Zoo

The van rolled into the parking lot of the San Francisco Zoo sometime before noon. We took our time. Detroit has a great zoo, and so does St. Louis. I grew up around Detroit and later lived in St. Louis for close to a year. Zoos always intrigued me—not just for the animals but for the strange mix of awe and melancholy they stirred.

I told him about the Detroit Zoo, one of the best in the world. You’d walk through the gates and see peacocks wandering the paths like old friends. Gentle creatures, utterly unbothered by crowds or kids with ice cream. I could still hear their calls, part trumpet, part scream, echoing through summer air.

Somewhere along the way I must have told him my old idea—half joke, half entrepreneurial daydream—to collect dung from the big beasts: lions, elephants, rhinos. Sort it by species, haul it to a leased field, and turn it into a line of “designer compost.” Branded by beast. Lion’s Pride Blend. Elephant’s Choice. Fertilizer with a story. We laughed at the absurdity, but the kind of laugh that carries a little truth underneath.

The zoo itself felt half surreal, half psychedelic (Imagine that) maybe because of the company, maybe the era. The cat stood watch at the gates—real or imagined I couldn’t say—and the world beyond shimmered in colors unseen, like the edge of a dream you almost remember.

Santa Rosa

By noon, a bit later, we climbed back into the van, pointed it north toward Santa Rosa. I told him I wanted to surprise my friend Henry, the platform diver. The zoo drifted away in the mirrors, and the highway opened ahead, sunlight turning the asphalt silver. Another road, another story waiting.

Henry almost did not recognize me, you know the look, then the big smile, the door opened, then his strong arms, and an embrace. It had been years. There was a water hole where Henry liked to swim and bathe, so we gathered some of Henry’s friends, who were waiting for him to pick them up. I can see the inclined street. A dead end where we parked. A short hike led to a place where a cliff dropped twenty feet from the lip, steep but not sheer. Henry—former high-school diver, long hair like a magazine ad—lobbed his shampoo and conditioner into the pool, then arced after them as gracefully as a blue heron. I followed him in with a cannonball. Road dust gone in a single shock of cold.

My ride watching from above, decided if we could do it, so could he. He took a few steps back then ran to the edge, and off, into the air, and gravity. For a breath he hung there like a cartoon coyote past the cliff edge—realizing too late. Arms flailed, legs churned, as if he could run back to land through the air. Those arms and legs in frantic motion as he crashed into calm waters. I remember thinking, “I hope he can swim” Later the redheaded coyote headed south. I stayed.

Henry and I went on a few adventures in the days I was there. A couple of things stand out crystal clear. I remember going to a bar with him in the afternoon, maybe four or five o’clock.

Sitting at the bar drinking and getting drunk. We were there for a few hours. I recall riding a bike from downtown back to his place. During that “half-walk, half-bike” ride home, there was another person walking along–nice dress, beautiful hair, like Henry’s.

I was into something that Henry and I had never ever talked about, still I was intrigued, curious and drunk. On the way back to Henry’s place, I didn’t fall off the bike, but wobbly for sure. I did get off and walked some, but walking was wobbly too. Sat in Henry’s living room and chatted for probably an hour or so. Drunk, tired, fighting sleep, Henry noticed, and said, “Ted, just go crash in my room.” Big king-sized waterbed, I had not noticed before but a welcome sight. I was asleep in minutes. Waking up the next morning, Henry had the day planned. So, we rolled out into the outskirts of Santa Rosa. I remember shady trees, a two-lane road leading to a hillside house. It was black, very modern, lots of glass, and a nice pool in the back. Henry told me it belonged to a friend. Henry said, “I’m headed to the pool. Make yourself comfortable.”

Going in the house was off limits so I explored the property and ended up at the far end of the swimming pool, up on the hillside. I looked over at Henry laying on his back on the diving board completely tan head to toe and completely naked. Welcome to California Henry’s style. I must say the scene was beautiful. I might paint it from memory someday. An impressionist painting, a precious memory captured in oils. The next morning, I was on my way. Never saw him again, just in these memories. We lost track. I never looked back—my boys were on my mind. My loss. Henry was a fine man, and I hope this finds him 50 years later.

Return to LA

Henry dropped me at a good spot to start my way back south. After a few short rides I caught one that carried me all the way to Palo Alto, where I ended up at the home of the daughter of Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet.

Her husband was the kind of man who liked to rest easy when the day’s work was done—solid, good-humored, comfortable in his own skin. She was an airbrush artist, poised and luminous, and so was her work. I wish I could remember their names; it’s been nearly fifty years.

When we arrived, she was already home, compressor humming, a faint haze of color hanging in the air. I watched her for a while—steady hand, patient rhythm, a small cloud becoming form. She had a little paint on her cheek, but it only added to her charm. She cooked eggplant elegante—the best I’ve ever tasted. Simple, perfect, like everything about that stop along the way.

The three of us talked late into the night—about art, food, travel, whatever wandered through the room. I was envious of them—their partnership, their sense of place, the quiet certainty of people who know where they belong, like Henry and his friend. I’d always wanted that sense of place, though at the time I couldn’t have said so. When it quieted, they offered the couch. I slept deeply, surrounded by the faint scent of paint and eucalyptus.

When morning came it was time to move on. The husband suggested I take the bus back to L.A.; the station was on his way. I was short on cash, so he quietly made up the difference and drove me to the station.

Once seated, I began to reflect on the last twenty-four hours. It began with this insight: they were true Californians. I had stumbled onto what had lured me west in the first place—the ease, the openness, the art of living beautifully without apology. That, and my lover waiting back in Canoga Park.

The bus ride south stretched long and silent. I watched California suburban sprawl slip by—the road El Camino Real (The Royal Road) carrying me through lawns, strip malls, trees clipped to ornament, signs flickering overhead. I thought about the faces that had passed through my life in the past few weeks—each of them a small kindness, a brief lesson, a mirror. Somewhere between Salinas and San Luis Obispo I realized I wasn’t the same man who’d started out. The road had stripped things away, left edges, but it also showed what could still shine through.

The Lincoln Return

California wasn’t the end. A few weeks later, I was heading east again — behind the wheel this time, not thumbing for rides. The car was a black Lincoln Mark III, one of those long, low beasts that floated more than it drove. It was a drive-away bound for Toronto, property of a traded ballplayer.

Crockett, a friend from a life I’d left behind, an adopted big brother to my oldest son TV3, rode with me through the Painted Desert, The Who blasting on the eight-track. The desert light turned everything into something surreal — the mix and mixing of colors, the sky, the clouds changing every millisecond. We took turns driving, long silences between songs, the kind you only share when the road itself is the conversation.

Many Miles Later

I dropped him in Ohio and steered north alone on I-75; a road I’d known all my life.

The miles unspooled, easy, hypnotic—open fields, truck stops like the one at Lima, the curve where once the sky went black and the road turned to icy glass. I’d been up and down that highway since just after high school, my first run south to New Orleans in Mickey’s Chevy Nova, my last trip to Florida over fifty years later. By then the asphalt and concrete felt like kin.

I’d driven it so many times the signs barely registered—Interstate 70 crossing east and west, one way toward Columbus, the other to St. Louis. North of Cincinnati, near the turnoff to Big Bone Lick State Park, the land rolls easy, green with bottom fields and river mist. For years I passed that sign and never stopped. The name always made me grin—how could it not? —but I’d let the miles pull me on. One trip, though, I finally gave in. Drove every road the park had to offer, twenty or thirty shots later heading north again. I wish I had a dollar for every mile I’ve spent on I-75.

Further up the road came Lima, then Toledo—each a marker in memory more than a destination. The highway had watched me age: women I’d loved and let go, engines that failed and got fixed, jobs that started with promise and ended in dust. I could almost feel it breathing under me, the asphalt and concrete remembering every pass, every return.

North of Lima was a kind of milestone—Toledo next, then the Michigan line where everyone seemed to floor it, the whole flow jumping to eighty like it was local custom. I knew that rhythm by heart, the way the road straightened, the signs turned familiar, and the air took on that cooler, northern smell that always meant home was getting close.

The state line brought that almost-home-again feeling, maybe why so many heading north picked up the pace. But not me. I eased off, tentative. Home isn’t just where you end up; it’s what waits inside when you stop running. A song once said it isn’t the long road back that changes a heart, but the welcome at the end—the grace of a restart. I carried that thought as the tires hummed over the border, the miles behind me folding into the dark like bridges burned, still glowing faintly in the rearview.

When I finally pulled into Waterford, the day was clear and bright. The air off the water smelled of Michigan autumn. For the first time in a long while, the road noise inside me began to quiet. Every mile had been a kind of reckoning—none wasted, none forgotten.

I was back in Michigan. It was mid-afternoon, bright and clear—the next step, a critical part of my plan. After a quick shower at Mom and Dad’s, I drove to see my former wife. I pulled the Mark III up in front of the trailer where she lived and stepped out. I wore a crumpled plaid sport jacket with no lining, like me — creased but still holding together. My skin was bronzed, my hair bleached blond by the sun. Outwardly I looked strong. Inside, one thought kept looping: I miss my boys.

That thought never left me and still lingers today. California was one beginning. The trailer in White Lake off Fisk Road where she and my boys lived was another.

She didn’t seem pleased to see me. Greeting me from the stoop, she said, “I guess I should invite you in.”

I sat on the couch while she worked at the kitchen table; my youngest son, Tad, played at her feet. He kept watching me, uncertain, until something in my voice must have clicked. He ran across the room and leapt into my arms, laughing. For a moment, time dissolved. That leap was pure, wordless love flowing both ways, and I vowed never to be far from my boys again—divorce or not.

For a while Terri and I found our way back to each other, but passion and peace rarely shared the same room. One stormy night she told me to leave, and I did—rain pounding so hard it blurred the taillights. That was the start of years of coming and going, ending the fall the Detroit Tigers took the Series in ‘84. One of the worst nights of my life. It was pouring rain again.

We loved each other fiercely, passionately. Our children were born of a passion formed when we were still children. I learned the hard way that one cannot build a life on passion alone. We remained entangled in ways neither of us wanted to escape. She eventually stopped drinking. I’d kept my promise—we never argued again. The roller coaster kept rolling until her heart attack at 70, nine years ago. Days before she died, we spoke with the same honest, caring flow that had always been the best of us. I’d kept my promise—we never argued again. I still miss my boys, their children, and my great-grandchildren.

Distance changes things in ways both good and bad. Life is full of tradeoffs.

Epilogue — Up 101

Decades later, I went west again—not to California this time, but farther north, up 101 to Oregon. I sold the 1960 Auston Healey before the move, the car I once imagined taking down Highway 1.

Now, from our home 44 miles from Newport, my wife and I are planning another drive south to San Diego and back, retracing the coastline. Big Sur is on my list. I want to see if that lodge or hotel where I once leaned against a guardrail is still there.

Fifty years later, I want to stand in the same spot, with the ocean below, the road winding north, and the sun on my back. Some roads you hitch, some you drive, and some you return to—just to see if they’re still waiting.

I’m in the process of reorganizing and restructuring my publications. Today I published several pieces that close the loop on a set of 10 pieces I’ve been working on. All of them should now be up and available.

I know receiving multiple emails in one day can be irritating, and I apologize for the inbox flood. This was a one-time reorganization, not my typical publishing pattern.
Going forward, you can expect more regular content. I have a huge backload of ready-to-go articles, and they’ll be coming out at least on a weekly basis, probably more frequently. I’m working to build my audience and deliver consistent value to readers like you.

If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, I’d be grateful if you’d refer me to your friends who might also appreciate these pieces. And please don’t hesitate to leave comments - I’d love to hear your thoughts and engage with you about the topics I’m covering.
Thank you for your patience as I get things organized, and thank you for subscribing. Your readership means a great deal to me.
Best,
Ted Villella

PS. I prefer constuctive, even harsh critcism. (be nice tho, make it meaningful but never mean.)

Last night my sleep tracker told me a story I didn’t recognize.

Six hours, twenty-four minutes of sleep. Only fourteen minutes of REM. The strangest part: it claimed I was asleep from 5:10 to 6:05 a.m.

But I wasn’t. I was wide awake in my chair, drafting rules in Hazel, refining my Playbook, and trading thoughts with my AI. Alert, engaged, and—if I may say so—doing good work. The mat, strapped to the back of my chair instead of under a mattress where it “belongs,” mistook my stillness for slumber.

That’s when it hit me: sleep trackers, step counters, heart-rate graphs—all of them are just pirates’ codes. They aren’t laws, only guidelines. Built to guess at what can’t be directly measured.

Sometimes they’re close. Sometimes they’re telling bedtime stories about a night that never happened.

And so I laugh. My inner child delights in tricking the tech. My inner parent smiles and shakes its head. The adult in me notes the data, then trusts my own sense of sharpness.

The rule I’ve landed on: if the tracker says “bad night” but I feel good, I go with my body. If it says “great night” but I’m foggy, I go with myself.

Because here’s the real truth: the richest wakefulness sometimes happens when the tech thinks I’m dreaming.

What about you?

Have you ever had your tracker insist on a reality that didn’t match your experience? Did you laugh it off, or did it get under your skin?

But I digress. I was paid $1.00 an hour. I washed the dishes by hand. It was an efficient process. A stainless steel counter tilted 5-10 degrees to the left is where the incoming dirty dishes were placed, sometimes very rapidly. Dirty silverware that was not really silver went into a tub of very hot soapy water on my far right near the entrance from the two dining rooms to the galley kitchen. Plates and everything else were stacked next to them. Three deep tubs, right to left were the pre wash tub, the wash tub, and hot rinse tub. Health department regulations said the hot rinse tub must be kept at 180 degrees or hotter at all times.

Occasionally, during a rush a busboy or waitress needed a specific bowl, plate or cup to complete a setting and none were on the shelves behind me. Time was of the essence so I learned to plunge my bare hand into the hot rinse tub to retrieve the needed piece. Before I could wipe it dry the heat and air had already done 90% of the job. Of course gloves were available but they were thick, cumbersome and destroyed my ability to feel what I grasped. We used them for cleaning and anyway they were not handy.

My promotion came out of necessity. The Salad Girl work station was directly behind me. I could keep up with the dishes and still, as time permitted, set up the salad bowls and fill them with salad mix so all the waitresses had to do was come in, grab a prepared salad or two or three or four and head back to the dining rooms.

When I wasn't busy washing the dishes and making salads, I would occasionally be asked to bus tables as guests left and made room for others. I never questioned why the people who performed that role were called "busboys." And if I did ask, no one knew, and some said, “Who cares?” It never really entered my mind.

Only now, decades later, did I begin to ponder what those big, loud, chronically gas-challenged belching vehicles had to do with dirty dishes. As it turns out, the term comes from "omnibus" – Latin for "for all" and the name of the first busses was omnibus – later referring to collecting or "busing" items from the table. Just another quirk of restaurant lingo in the life of a professional dishwasher.

The art of the con hasn't changed much since I learned to spot it on the streets of Pontiac in the 1950s. You learned quick or you learned hard back then. And sometimes learning was painful. Those are the lessons that stick with you for life.

Yet it seems most Americans never really learned anything about the true nature of a master con artist. First, understand there is a reason it is called art and all successful art requires willing collaborators.

"There's a sucker born every minute…" the old saying goes, and on the streets of downtown Pontiac this 11-year-old paperboy learned fast to avoid being a sucker. Every Saturday I walked from our home at 254 S. Paddock Street on the south east side, just a few blocks from the "wrong side of the tracks," to the center of the city to pay my weekly Pontiac Press paper bill, and then walk back home with my profit for the week, usually less than $2.00. The paper cost $0.45 a week back then and my average tip was a nickel.

Carrying a cloth bag full of 62 newspapers around a 3x5 block area took some grit and determination. I learned the economics of work and the value of money. One important lesson was that there is never an easy way to double your money, but there are lots of ways to quickly lose it. That wisdom has stayed with me. Back then, there were a few con artists lurking in high traffic areas downtown, trying to spot a sucker.

Those early economics lessons have served me well over the years. One of the most simple is, for every dollar lost it takes 2 dollars to get even. If I lost a dollar in a 5-minute con, I knew exactly how many papers I had to deliver, and how long it would take to deliver them to recoup my loss. It did not take very long for me to appreciate the adage, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

The phrase "There's a sucker born every minute" is often misattributed to P.T. Barnum. However, historians generally agree that Barnum likely never said it. The more credible origin of this phrase is attributed to David Hannum, who was involved in a dispute over the Cardiff Giant hoax in the late 1860s. When Barnum couldn't buy the original Cardiff Giant, he created his own replica and claimed it was the authentic one. As Hannum (who had invested in the original hoax) saw crowds flocking to Barnum's fake of a fake, he reportedly said, "There's a sucker born every minute" - ironically referring to those who were paying to see Barnum's counterfeit of what was already a fraud.

These adages go back over hundreds of years and give authenticity to sharpening my view of today's political theater. A sucker born every minute? OK, but 74 million suckers?

Cons are extraordinarily overconfident, something common in narcissism. If they sense their mark is on to them, they don't back off—their egos simply don't allow it. Instead, they sweeten the deal. The mark quickly becomes a savvy target; they're on to the con, seeing through the scam.

To regain control, the con artist tries to make something simple, very complex, hoping to confuse the mark. The savvy target realizes the deal is too good to be true. That's when the con gets angry, abusive, and demeaning—a bully. Their indignation is palpable as the savvy target walks away with detachment, while the con artist calls after them with hollow protests: "Hey, I'm trying to help you out here..."

Are those who voted for our sitting POTUS now looking at their 401Ks and scratching their heads a bit? I hope so. But it may already be too late. Today is April 13, 2025. Since President Trump's inauguration, the US stock market has lost roughly $9.6 trillion in value, with the S&P 500 experiencing a 15% drop. This marks the worst start for a new administration since George W. Bush in 2001, according to Bloomberg.

George W. Bush inherited a balanced budget from Bill Clinton. Recall:

• The economy had experienced the longest period of peacetime expansion in U.S. history during the 1990s

• Unemployment was low at around 4%

• The federal budget had moved from deficits to surpluses in the late 1990s

• The fiscal year 2000 had ended with a budget surplus of approximately $236 billion

• Projections at the time suggested continued surpluses for the coming decade

The budget surpluses were the result of strong economic growth, tax increases implemented during the Clinton administration, and spending restraint. This was a notable achievement after decades of persistent federal deficits.

However, the promise of continued surpluses for the coming decade was not realized. Quite the opposite. The economic picture began changing shortly after Bush took office, with the dot-com bubble bursting and a recession beginning in March 2001, followed by the economic impacts of the September 11 attacks later that year. So in just three months the economy was in a recession. Our brilliant economic experts were caught with their hands on the scale. I wish I could say I saw it coming. All throughout the 90s something just did not seem quite right. It was just like that feeling I get when I sense a con. It was subtle then. Now it is far from subtle.

U.S. stock market has wiped out $9.6 trillion since Inauguration Day - MarketWatch

Supposedly, the S&P 500 is currently in a correction. This correction will not happen quickly, if at all, especially given the ineptness of our sitting POTUS and his band of hard core sycophants, to be kind. The more appropriate term is brown-nosers on steroids. I live in Oregon, but was raised and lived in the midwest until moving here 4 years ago. I can smell the stench coming from the abundance of POTUS brown nosers in Washington DC from here. It is more than unpleasant, it smells of danger.

If that is not bad enough, the opposition remains lost in the details, matching ineptness with hollow outcries of "Not fair…" and "I am outraged…": and "I told you so."

So what?

I wish I could scream right now. It is not just about what! It is about HOW! For example, Social Security is a what. But our focus needs to be on the how of Social Security. This question is not whether or not we have Social Security. Our economy depends on those benefit checks arriving consistently on time. Here it is of vital importance to delve into the factual details, but with caution lest we fall into the trap the majority of our long-term senators and members of Congress have for decades, the trap of getting lost in the details.

Monthly Social Security Distribution Amount

Based on data from December 2023, the Social Security Administration (SSA) distributed $97.8 billion to retirees and dependents, $11.9 billion to disability recipients and their dependents, and $8.8 billion to survivors enrolled in the program. Adding these figures together, the total monthly distribution was approximately $118.5 billion.

More recent data indicates that this amount has increased: In January 2024, Social Security paid monthly benefits worth $119 billion to 67.2 million people.

Impact on Recipients

Social Security benefits are critical for many Americans:

• The average retirement benefit in February 2024 was about $1,862 per month (approximately $22,344 per year). By January 2024, the average monthly Social Security check had increased to $1,907.

• Social Security benefits account for about half of all income received by households headed by adults ages 62 and older, including about two-thirds of income received by those in the bottom half of the income distribution.

• For 4 in 10 retirees, Social Security provides at least 50 percent of their income, and for 1 in 7, it provides at least 90 percent of income.

Economic Impact If Payments Stopped for One Month

If Social Security payments were to stop for just one month, the economic consequences would be severe:

1. Immediate Loss of Consumer Spending: With approximately $119 billion not entering the economy, there would be a significant reduction in consumer spending, particularly affecting businesses that serve elderly and disabled populations.

2. Increased Poverty: If Social Security benefits were reduced (as would happen if the trust fund were depleted), the number of beneficiaries living in poverty would increase by more than 50 percent. Even a one-month interruption would create financial hardship for millions who rely heavily on these payments.

3. Disproportionate Impact on Vulnerable Populations: People of color and those with lower incomes would be most affected by any disruption in benefits. This is because these groups tend to rely more heavily on Social Security income.

4. Ripple Effects Across the Economy: The $119 billion monthly injection represents a significant portion of consumer spending. Its absence would affect not just recipients but also businesses, particularly in sectors like healthcare, housing, food, and retail where seniors and people with disabilities spend a large portion of their benefits.

5. Financial Crisis for Many Households: About 4 in 10 Social Security recipients rely on the program for 90% of their income. They would most likely need to turn to family members or other support if payment is delayed.

6. Long-term Recovery Challenges: Even after payments resumed, many recipients would face difficulties recovering from a month without income, potentially leading to increased debt, missed payments on mortgages or rent, and other lasting financial problems.

7. Potential Banking and Financial System Stress: The sudden absence of $119 billion in regular deposits could create liquidity issues in areas with high concentrations of retirees.

In summary, if Social Security payments stopped for just one month, it would remove approximately $119 billion from the U.S. economy, creating immediate hardship for tens of millions of Americans who depend on these benefits, with cascading negative effects throughout the broader economy.

What Would Happen If Social Security Checks Stopped for a Month

Imagine what would happen in every state across America 30 days after Social Security checks stopped coming:

For Grandma and Grandpa

In every state, millions of grandparents would have no money for an entire month. Many older people count on these checks to pay for their food, medicine, and a place to live. After 30 days:

• Many wouldn't be able to buy groceries

• Some might not be able to get their medicine

• Some might worry about paying rent or their house payment

• They might have to borrow money from their children or other family members

For People Who Are Sick or Have Disabilities

Social Security also helps people who can't work because they're sick or have disabilities. After a month without checks:

• They might struggle to pay for special equipment they need

• They might not be able to afford care from helpers

• Many would worry about being able to stay in their homes

For Stores and Businesses

When older people and people with disabilities don't have money to spend, stores and businesses suffer too:

• Grocery stores would sell less food

• Pharmacies would sell fewer medicines

• Landlords might not get rent payments

• Doctors' offices would have fewer patients

In Different States

Some states would have bigger problems than others:

• In Florida, Arizona, and Maine, which have lots of older people, many stores might have to close because too many customers couldn't shop there anymore.

• In states with fewer job opportunities like West Virginia and Mississippi, families would have an even harder time helping their older relatives.

• In expensive states like California and New York, people might not be able to pay their high rents and could lose their homes.

For Kids and Families

Even children would notice changes:

• Some might have to share their home with grandparents who can't pay their own rent

• Some families might have less food because they're sharing with grandparents

• Some parents might seem worried about money and helping their own parents

• Some kids might not get new school supplies or clothes because the family is helping grandparents instead

In Communities

After 30 days, neighborhoods would look different:

• Senior centers might close because they couldn't pay their bills

• Food banks would have long lines and might run out of food

• Churches and community groups would be overwhelmed trying to help everyone

• Some nursing homes might have to close if residents couldn't pay

The Big Picture

The whole country would feel like it was in an emergency:

• Doctors' offices and hospitals would be busier with sick people who couldn't afford medicine

• Banks would have less money moving through them

• Many stores would have fewer customers

• The news would be filled with sad stories about people in trouble

When $119 billion doesn't go into people's pockets for a month, it means every town and city across America would feel poorer and sadder. That's why Social Security is so important - it keeps money flowing to people who need it, which helps everyone.

The opposition to Trump simply does not get that the people do not give a damn what you say. What they do give a damn about is what you do. Talk is cheap, unless you're writing speeches for Democrats.

It is a fool's errand to fight ineptness with more ineptness. The first mistake of those who oppose the actions and the direction POTUS is leading us is, reacting without much thinking. They follow that with feigned surprise and are good at asking inane questions like, "what do you make of all this?" without suggesting answers or offering solutions. Worse are the outraged reactions — like the pundits did not see it coming? Is this a tragic symptom of those in love with the sound of their own voices?

For those who still stand lingering, holding on to the benefit of doubt where street smarts would counsel otherwise. Wake up! And that does not mean become woke--don't be stupid.

With a con artist, you must start from the assumption of deception. No matter how golden the promises glitter at the beginning, the end always tarnishes into loss.

Reading the Pattern

Consider the trail of bankruptcies—a pattern that reads less like failures and more like a masterclass in gaming the system. When someone turns corporate bankruptcy into an art form, wielding it like a craftsman's tool, you have to wonder: is it so preposterous to think they might attempt the same sleight of hand with our nation's finances?

Run it through any predictive analysis you want—the likelihood isn't just possible, it's practically written in the stars. The real question isn't if, but how: Will it be a calculated move, another notch in a belt of strategic bankruptcies? Or will it be the accidental offspring of arrogance, hubris, and that particularly dangerous breed of ignorance that breeds in the petri dish of conspiracy theories and myths?

A Four-Decade Watch

I've watched the Trump story unfold across four decades, and the character arc hasn't improved. In 1980, I saw a man lacking the temperament for leadership. By 1990, nothing had changed. The year 2000 brought no evolution, 2010 no epiphany, and after that, the trajectory only steepened downward. History, I believe, will bear out these observations with the cold clarity of hindsight.

Street Smarts in the Political Arena

But here's where street wisdom proves its worth again: panic is a luxury we can't afford. Like a seasoned predator, we must stay low, stay watchful, and let events unfold. Wild speculation is a fool's game. When facts are scarce, keep searching, keep watching, but don't fill the void with guesses.

Our words and thoughts are power tools—and you don't play fast and loose with power tools.

The Long View

Yes, the world will end eventually—something Elon Musk prepares for with technology rather than prayer. But that's not today's crisis. The streets taught me early: in a dangerous situation, panic is your worst enemy. Keep your head clear, your eyes open, and your feet planted. Focus on your personal success. After all, prosperity isn't preposterous—it's what comes to those who can tell a con from a promise, and know when to walk away with detachment and wait out the storm.

About the Author: Ted Villella brings decades of systems analysis and organizational insight to his political and social commentary. His unique perspective spans from the streets of 1950s Pontiac to work with major institutions including the State of Michigan, Ford Motor Company and the UK Ministry of Defence.

Selected Topics: #Neuroscience #SystemsThinking #Psychology #BehavioralScience #PatternRecognition #Education #HigherEducation
Other Interests: AI, Transformation, Accelerated Learning, Singularities

American arrogance has damaged the USA for decades and has reached new lows with Mr. Trump. Arrogance never rises. The novel "The Ugly American" was published in 1958. It was written by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. The book became a bestseller and was influential in shaping discussions about American foreign policy, particularly regarding Southeast Asia during the Cold War era. Unfortunately, too few Americans read the book or learned its lessons. Why?

Comparing literacy in the United States between 1958 and today reveals interesting trends:

1958 Literacy:

• The functional literacy rate was estimated at around 80-85%

• Basic literacy was defined more narrowly (ability to read and write simple sentences)

• Educational attainment was lower, with about 40% of adults having completed high school

• College education was less common, with only about 8% having completed 4 years of college

• Significant racial and regional disparities existed in literacy rates

Today's Literacy (2025):

• Basic literacy rates are higher, with about 97-99% of adults able to read at some level

• However, functional literacy presents a more complex picture

• About 21% of American adults are still considered functionally illiterate, reading below a 5th-grade level

• 54% read below a 6th-grade level

• Educational attainment is higher, with over 90% having completed high school

• About 35-40% now hold bachelor's degrees or higher

The definition of literacy has evolved significantly. In 1958, basic reading and writing skills were sufficient for most jobs and daily life. Today, literacy encompasses digital literacy, information literacy, and higher-level comprehension skills needed for modern society.

While more Americans can read at a basic level today than in 1958, the demands of literacy have increased substantially, creating new challenges despite overall educational advancement.

Our educational system has failed all but the few. And many of the few dropped out of high school. The major reason is American education teaches to the middle which dilutes learning to mediocrity. We spend 4-6 times on special education than we do on students on the other end of the spectrum. I do not call them gifted because that is a gross exaggeration. What they have been gifted is the royal shaft. Those with the greatest potential are left to their own devices. The majority in this group with the greatest potential are those without the resources of wealth. Why do you think so many leave our educational system 100s of thousands of dollars in debt? Disgusting yet no doubt the status quo.

The Beginning of Dependency

In 2001, I asked my doctor for help managing my chronic pain from a car accident that occurred when I was almost 19. She is a wonderfully insightful woman, very professional, and a dedicated practitioner of medicine.

For the first time in my life, I started using opioids. I began with 500 mg of hydrocodone mixed with 200 mg of ibuprofen three times a day. Over fifteen years, my daily dose gradually increased until I was taking four tablets daily—each containing 1000 mg of hydrocodone bitartrate and 200 mg of ibuprofen—more than double my initial dosage.

The Dilemma of Prescription Medications

The goal of most prescription medications is to treat symptoms of a disease or disorder, not to cure it. Most patients hope for the outcome described as "zero symptoms and zero side effects." The worst side effect I encountered from opioid use was occasional constipation. It was a side effect of ibuprofen, however, that put me in the hospital in 2017.

Ibuprofen can damage the stomach lining and harm kidney function. As a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), ibuprofen increases the risk of heart attack and other cardiac problems by one-third. Ibuprofen, in particular, more than doubles the risk of a major heart event. I took 800 mg daily because my options were limited to either a mix of opioid with ibuprofen or acetaminophen. If other prescription options existed, I remained unaware of them.

The Hidden Options

April 4, 2025 update: Many "pure" opioid options were available since I started opioid therapy for chronic pain. None of them, to my knowledge, are prescribed as a mix of an opioid and either ibuprofen or acetaminophen:

• Morphine (MS Contin, Kadian, others)

• Oxycodone (OxyContin, Roxicodone)

• Hydromorphone (Dilaudid)

• Fentanyl (Duragesic patch, Actiq lozenge)

• Methadone

• Oxymorphone (Opana)

• Buprenorphine (Belbuca, Butrans)

• Tapentadol (Nucynta, though not a traditional opioid)

• Tramadol (Ultram, though it's a weaker atypical opioid)

• Meperidine (Demerol, though less commonly used now)

The False Promise of Non-Opioid Alternatives

This is laughable and sad at the same time. Because, to my knowledge, none of these were designed for long-term use:

NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs):

• Naproxen sodium (Aleve, Naprosyn): Typically 250-500 mg per dose, up to 1000-1500 mg daily. Kidney damage almost ensured with long-term use.

• Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin): 400-800 mg per dose, up to 2400-3200 mg daily. Daily use is very likely to damage kidneys if used long-term. SHOULD NOT BE ON THIS LIST for long-term chronic pain.

• Diclofenac: Available in various formulations including oral (up to 150 mg daily) and topical.

Other options:

• Acetaminophen (Tylenol): 325-1000 mg per dose, up to 3000-4000 mg daily (maximum). Damages kidneys if used long-term. SHOULD NOT BE ON THIS LIST for long-term chronic pain.

• Celecoxib (Celebrex): 100-200 mg once or twice daily.

• Duloxetine (Cymbalta): For certain types of chronic pain, typically 30-60 mg daily.

• Gabapentin: For neuropathic pain, typically 300-1200 mg three times daily.

• Pregabalin (Lyrica): For neuropathic pain, 150-600 mg daily in divided doses.

Non-pharmacological approaches: I have tried all of the below. PT plus deep tissue massage was most effective. Acupuncture, if properly administered, works well. However, it is expensive and most practitioners refuse to guarantee results. So it is an expensive gamble. One experience with Acupuncture was an expensive waste of time and money, almost $200.

• Physical therapy

• TENS units (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) — I have one...

• Heat/cold therapy — daily heat on back helps me, others prefer cold

• Acupuncture — worked wonders when I was in the UK. In the USA, not so much. Need the right provider and they are hard to find. A Chinese provider in the UK who did not speak English was the best by far but expensive.

• Cognitive behavioral therapy for pain management — Not for me unless I can find a very good one that is my intellectual equal and more.

The Illusion of the Perfect Medication

Remember, "...zero side effects and zero symptoms"...

I could work without pain for the first time in many years, almost zero symptoms. Side effects? Not even close to zero. First side effect: Withdrawal. I tolerated this drug cocktail quite well for years. Why this particular combination of hydrocodone and ibuprofen? Using ibuprofen represented the lesser of two evils.

I was offered two choices: hydrocodone with 325 mg of acetaminophen or hydrocodone with 200 mg of ibuprofen. With acetaminophen, some of the drug converts into a toxic metabolite that can harm liver cells. Taking too much acetaminophen raises the risk of liver damage and, in severe cases, can lead to death. Taking too much ibuprofen, especially over a long period, will damage the lining of your stomach and intestines. That is exactly what happened to me.

Ibuprofen and acetaminophen are more dangerous than hydrocodone, especially in the long term. All three drugs can lead to death, but hydrocodone, if not respected for its lethal potential can lead to death in minutes. The familiar, ubiquitous, over-the-counter drugs can cause death as well; it takes longer but remains possible. Pharmaceutical companies advise that ibuprofen should not be taken daily for more than a week or two. At 200 mg four times a day for fifteen years, it proved harmful to me. I developed stomach ulcers, and it the opioids were NOT responsible.

By winter 2015, I was taking four 1000 mg/200 mg tablets, plus using a 10 mg per hour, 24/7 transdermal pain patch called Butrans. I used the patch because the pain returned every night, right when the opioid wore off, around 5:00 a.m. Every morning, I awakened to pain and a sick feeling, like having a mild flu. The patch prevented this cycle. My issue, I believe, involved going into withdrawal every morning.

Detoxification: The Journey to Freedom

On July 4, 2017, I removed the last Butrans patch I had. I decided to stop using it after learning from a close reading of the package insert, in very fine print, that the Butrans patch could also cause death.

I enjoyed my hot tub with the water temperature set at 104 degrees. I also enjoy gardening in the summer sun. The insert explained that if one allows the patch's temperature to rise a few degrees above average body temperature, it could release almost a week's worth of powerful opioid directly into the bloodstream in seconds. That much would certainly cause respiratory depression—the direct cause of opioid overdoses and death. You simply stop breathing.

Add to that concern, the copay was $115 monthly in 2017. Later I learned that increasing the Butrans patch to 15 mg per hour carried a copay of $627 monthly, yet this was the recommendation of a "pain management specialist," not my doctor of 20 years.

The Absurdity of Pain Management Bureaucracy

Why, after many years working successfully with my MD, did I find myself in a pain management specialist's office spending $250 for a 20-minute consultation? Because the DEA mandated it. WTF? A law enforcement agency dictates what medical care is required and who delivers it? How is any law enforcement professional prepared by their training to apply the scientific method to enforce laws? HHS or FDA seems better suited given their mandates.

The consultation was worthless. The doctor was opinionated, the antithesis of an objective science-based professional. This guy suggested to me that the Gateway Drug Theory, which has never been proven, should be accepted without evidence to support its validity. Compare the costs: $75 for office visits plus $627 copay for Butrans—to a $20 copay for regular office visits and $10.49 for a 30-day supply of Vicoprofen (opioid + ibuprofen) I'd taken for years. I simply got off the roller coaster of incompetence.

The Economics of Pain

Do the math while asking who profits from the pain of 100 million chronic pain patients? The profit motive destroys all incentives to research low-cost pain medicines and put them on the market. Greed is far different motivation than low-cost pain relief, and at a certain point, the profits are obscene. And keep in mind, most doctors blindly followed Big Pharma and others profiteered.

The Tapering Process

Next, I planned to wean myself off (taper off) what had become a daily dose of four 1000 mg opioid tablets, one every six hours. I intended to take progressively less until stopping entirely. It didn't proceed that smoothly. More like two steps forward, then one back. Some days, feeling good, I took none. After six weeks, only a dozen opioid tablets remained. My body ached. I felt pains I hadn't realized existed.

When the last dozen were gone, I developed a persistent runny nose, requiring prescription nasal spray for relief. The worst had passed. The drugs were gone; the constant pain returned. Withdrawal from these medications proved unpleasant, like having a bad flu that lingered for weeks beyond the initial six. Once clean, I became painfully aware of why I'd needed painkillers for fifteen years. My pain was real and debilitating, making it extremely difficult to write again.

The Paradox: Pain is Good – Feeling No Pain is Dangerous

Before detoxing (tapering), I sometimes noticed cuts and bruises with no recollection of their cause. This frightened me. The experience of pain serves a purpose—it delivers an essential message at precisely the right moment. A pain's severity tells us how urgently we should investigate its cause and then address it.

I seek a cure rather than endless treatment of symptoms. To my knowledge, no drugs exist that cure chronic pain. However, naturally occurring substances that can be organically grown help me manage pain better than opioids did. More on this later.

Big Pharma Driven by Greed

So why did Big Pharma encourage daily narcotic drug use, whether or not one experienced pain? Was it greed and perverse incentives? Or was there another reason, one unrelated to patient pain? Was it merely a marketing ploy to increase drug sales? Abundant evidence suggests simple, pernicious greed.

In 2007, Purdue Pharma agreed to pay $600 million in fines and other penalties. Additionally, three Purdue Pharma executives—its president, top lawyer, and medical director—pleaded guilty to criminal violations and paid $34.5 million in fines. However, between 1995 and 2001, Oxycontin generated $2.8 billion in revenue for Purdue Pharma. Logic suggests they earned substantially more since 2007. Now, in April 2025, The Sackler family is still doing all they can to hang on to as much of their ill-begotten gains.

Was this a battle won in the War on Drugs? Hardly. From a National Public Radio "All Things Considered" broadcast transcript, I learned that the Sackler family that owned Purdue Pharma received immunity from opioid lawsuits in a 2021 bankruptcy proceeding presided over by Federal Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, NY. In exchange, they agreed to pay $4.3 billion and forfeit ownership of Purdue Pharma. The Department of Justice may appeal, but I wouldn't hold your breath. The Sacklers admit no wrongdoing and estimate they made over $10 billion from opioid sales. I find it reprehensible that they remain among the world's wealthiest families.

The Lonely Path to Recovery

I don't recommend anyone detox as I did. My doctor remained unaware of my self-detoxification. I could have utilized help only a physician can provide, but something within me insisted on doing this alone. If you need to detox, keep your doctors informed. I wanted to handle it independently to monitor and eliminate as many variables as possible. I wanted to experience withdrawal's effects firsthand. And I did.

Anxiety overwhelmed me. The fear of impending depression loomed imposingly and with increasing insistence. I found myself worrying about what I would worry about next. I had to learn not to spiral. I've battled episodes of depression since age twenty-five, far too frequently. I've maintained control for many years.

Navigating Depression During Detox

During detox, I knew caution and responsibility were paramount. The intrusiveness of unstoppable suicidal ideation—the hallmark of my depressions—would prove far more challenging than withdrawal. Once initiated, I couldn't shut it off; I had to outlast it until learning to outwit it.

If you're depressed, your situation isn't hopeless, though it certainly feels that way during depression. Exercise! The top recommendation, least expensive intervention, is as simple as making your bed, walking, cycling, getting your body moving, and consulting your doctor. These represent the daily activities you may have abandoned for weeks. With each small step, you'll perceive a subtle but definite difference.

Depression can be managed. Until we discover a cure, manage it and continue seeking methods to do so. Science works diligently to find ways to eliminate depression rather than merely treating symptoms. The first step involves learning why it occurs, which varies between individuals. Want to defeat depression? Help us find a cure.

Finding a New Balance

I visited my doctor and revealed what I'd done. I asked about newer medications I could take as needed. We tried several options. Eventually, I settled on taking one or two 500 mg/325 mg Norco hydrocodone tablets daily. Almost three years passed without requiring increased dosages. My copay in 2025 is up $10.49 in 2018 to $15.49 monthly.

Remember that pharmaceutical companies directly advised doctors through their Sales Associates, mostly attractive young women: Take these drugs whether you think you need them or not; preempt your pain before it occurs. Several serious flaws exist in this approach, as previously described. I perceive Big Pharma's attitude was: So what? If we convince doctors and patients to follow this regimen, we'll sell more drugs.

I wish I could recover a dollar for each unnecessary painkiller I consumed. This dangerous advice lacked medical soundness; it represented a marketing strategy designed to sell substantially more opioid drugs to a trusting, uninformed public. It succeeded, and they're repeating the pattern with expensive "solution drugs" like buprenorphine, and naltrexone. All carry potential for abuse, severe withdrawal symptoms, and addiction.

The Profit-Driven "Solutions"

Price update for Naltraxone:

Efficacy and Safety of Low Dose Naltrexone for Chronic Pain

Sources:

• American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

• MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute).

• Low-Dose Naltrexone: A Future Gold Medalist? - AAFP

  Aug 12, 2024 — However, naltrexone itself is inexpensive, and out-of-pocket costs for compounding low-dose naltrexone tend to be less than $100 per month. Dosing of the medica...

• American Academy of Family Physicians | AAFP

This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional. Generative AI is experimental.

I suggest this represents classic American marketing driven by greed. Pharmaceutical companies pursued endless sales of opioid drugs. This wasn't a well-intentioned mistake but deliberate action that benefited Big Pharma. It functioned like big tobacco's denial of nicotine's addictive properties.

Big Pharma earned billions manufacturing and selling opioids, most consumed in good faith by people with legitimate pain conditions. Now they stand to profit further from "solution drugs"—medications costing fifteen to twenty times more than common opioids used for centuries to relieve pain. These aren't solutions. They make chronic pain management prohibitively expensive for most Americans. They share complicity in most opioid-related deaths.

A Systemic Failure

The opioid crisis presents complex challenges without a single root cause or responsible party—person, group, agency, industry, or organization. The entire system bears fault. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) share complicity with street dealers, abusers, and cartels. Demonizing the DEA, FDA, HHS, pharmaceutical industry, flawed medical practices, capitalism, or free enterprise wastes time.

If blame belongs anywhere, blame yourself for looking away, allowing governmental overreach, waiting for others to act. In my field, we identify undesirable outcomes, conduct root cause analyses, and pinpoint system failures. Systems thinkers classify problems like these as systemic.

I resent monthly doctor visits to provide urine samples proving I take prescribed pain medications. This invades my privacy. Am I taking them simply because they're available? I genuinely need them. Processing millions of honest, responsible pain patients' urine tests solves nothing while generating handsome income for testing companies and their lobbyists. This represents foolish, costly DEA policy evidencing their job incompetence. It punishes the vast majority of pain patients in a futile attempt to control a small minority of irresponsible drug addicts. I am not an addict. I depend on various substances for survival—water, air, potassium—as do you.

Criminal Negligence or Corporate Strategy?

Do Big Pharma, FDA, and DEA actions constitute involuntary manslaughter for profit? Their actions weren't accidental; in my assessment, they acted with criminal intent. They weighed financial risk against profit and proceeded accordingly.

The FDA operates under a mandate available at FDA.gov. Google "What is the mandate of the FDA." Consider numerous other FDA concerns. Would it surprise you that approximately 45% of the FDA budget comes from companies it supposedly regulates?

To stop illicit and dangerous drug use behaviors, our government justifies punishing the vast majority of legitimate pain patients (almost 98%) in misguided attempts to modify behavior among a minority of abusers, half of which are mentally ill individuals! Did DEA policy create this crisis? I know for certain that good people with chronic pain did not.

Some pharmaceutical companies have lost court cases. But does courtroom defeat constitute appropriate punishment? When billions of dollars are involved, substantial fines and brief executive incarceration neither deter nor compensate millions of victims and their families. I care little whether Big Pharma faces bankruptcy. The law of supply and demand ensures a place for ethical companies. Big Pharma, especially Purdue, already demonstrates bankruptcy in moral decency and lack of integrity. Our society cannot afford to permit such egregious, harmful corporate behavior to continue unchecked for profit. Regulation is only a word unless the utmost care is given to how we regulate, how our regulators are funded, how success of each regulation is measured. How much regulation? As little as possible and as much as is necessary, no more, no less.

Government Corruption

Was the DEA complicit? DEA administrators committed to prosecuting corporate crime found themselves helpless; decisions to dismantle their departments came from higher authority. If this doesn't suggest corruption and payoffs, what does? DEA administrators couldn't prevent this, though some tried—like whistleblower Joe Rannazzisi revealed to Bill Whitaker on "60 Minutes."

We know which former DEA attorneys sold out to work for these pharmaceutical companies. Our system permits such egregious behavior, but should it? Answer for yourself, then act according to evidence, money trails, paths of greed (or not), and your conscience. One day, DEA attorneys fought crime; the next, they committed moral crimes for substantially higher compensation than their civil service salaries. Their behavior wasn't illegal, but was it greed-based? Should it be illegal?

I believe we must hold these attorneys accountable for betraying the American people. They deserve shunning and ostracism for corrupt behavior, and their law licenses should be revoked. No one should profit from misery, pain, and illness affecting Americans or others worldwide. Their actions caused widespread suffering and, for some, death. Corrupt activities, legal or otherwise, inevitably cause harm.

The Mechanics of Dependency and Profit

In my view, this corporate and institutional behavior is reprehensible; it should sicken people—indeed, it does precisely that, in body and mind. By changing opioid labeling, Big Pharma encouraged pain patients to take medications regardless of pain, thus promoting excessive consumption of known addictive substances. Unethical? Illegal? Evidence suggests this practice constituted the root cause of many patients developing stronger dependencies rapidly progressing to addiction.

Remember, your tax dollars and personal pharmaceutical expenses fund this system. You're being robbed and sickened without awareness or with resignation. These marketing methods didn't help patients manage pain; they taught patients to ignore it. Consequently, painful conditions likely worsened. Again, why would Big Pharma instruct doctors to advise patients to take pain medication preventively, regardless of current pain?

I'm certain I consumed more opioid medication than necessary, and once dependent, required increasing amounts. I was trapped in a zero-sum game I call the "spiral into addiction." Change became urgently necessary.

Understanding Withdrawal: Reality vs. Fiction

Movies and television often portray drug withdrawal as severe, unending, painful—almost impossible to endure. Established facts about opioid withdrawal tell a different story. Opioid withdrawal can be uncomfortable but rarely dangerous. Alcohol withdrawal, by comparison, can result in death.

Withdrawal occurs when someone with opioid dependence stops consumption. This dependence can occur quickly in some people while others less so. Everyone who uses opioids will become dependent. I must add, while opioid withdrawal itself isn't typically fatal, the intense discomfort and cravings can lead to behaviors that carry serious risks:

• Return to use with reduced tolerance, potentially leading to overdose

• Dehydration from severe vomiting and diarrhea if not properly managed

• Psychological distress that might lead to self-harm

The withdrawal experience applies to any substance. Stop drinking water, and thirst develops within hours. Continue water abstinence, and death follows in 3-4 days. When opioid consumption stops, the body and brain crave opioids. Your mind is the best weapon you have to manage withdrawal. The crucial difference: continued opioid abstinence doesn't cause death but improvement. People don't die from opioid withdrawal, but they do become ill. How ill?

The Withdrawal Timeline

Withdrawal begins on day one with general malaise, sniffles, nasal discharge—similar to cold or flu onset. Like those illnesses, symptoms intensify on day two, with deeper body aches and irritability. Simultaneously, the body regains natural pain perception; every ache becomes noticeable, even previously undetected discomforts. Withdrawal symptoms begin subsiding on day three, while any chronic pain returns to pre-opioid levels. At this stage, less than a week after the final dose, physical withdrawal has largely concluded.

The opioid withdrawal timeline varies somewhat between individuals. Withdrawal relates directly to drug half-life—the time required for the body to eliminate half a dose. Most opioids have short half-lives ranging from a few to several hours. Oxycodone's half-life spans 3-5 hours, while methadone (often used to treat opioid dependence) has a much longer half-life of 8-60 hours. Longer half-lives delay withdrawal symptom onset and extend duration. Consume 100 mg of Oxycodone, and 3-5 hours later, 50% has left your system.

What happens after 50% of Oxycodone departs? The process continues. During the second half-life period (another 3-5 hours), 75% is eliminated. In the next half-life period, half of the remainder disappears, leaving just 12.5%. Elimination continues until virtually all but trace amounts vanish. What persists indefinitely is the memory of how good the drug made you feel. That, in my opinion, represents the greatest challenge in recovering from drug dependence—it's psychological.

I think it becomes a battle between your brain, which is hard wired to seek pleasure, and your mind, which is your most powerful ally in winning any internal conflict. You are not powerless. To think so is setting yourself up to fail.

I've used Oxycontin to illustrate this concept, but different substances produce varying withdrawal severity and duration. Because methadone's half-life ranges between 8 and 60 hours, withdrawal begins between 8 and 60 hours after the final dose. Imagine enduring severe flu symptoms for 240 hours (four half-lives at 60 hours—approximately 10 days). Methadone withdrawal could extend much longer. The longer withdrawal continues, the more likely relapse becomes.

Dispelling Withdrawal Myths

I won't name the publication, but the following quote comes from an apparently trustworthy internet source: "Opioid withdrawal happens because a person is physically and psychologically dependent on opioids. This dependence triggers physical symptoms, such as nausea and muscle pain, and psychological symptoms, such as anxiety and mood changes."

Not true. More than misleading, this statement inverts causality. Dependence doesn't trigger physical symptoms—withdrawal does. And withdrawal exists in a separate universe from dependence. Dependency and tolerance are twin phenomena, while withdrawal remains a phantom that may never materialize—as long as a steady supply remains within financial reach of the user.

Withdrawal, contrary to dramatic portrayal, is manageable terrain. Anyone navigating chronic pain through opioids needs a strategy incorporating periodic tapering under medical supervision—a compass through treacherous waters. Yet pharmaceutical companies have for decades crafted common opioids married to either ibuprofen or acetaminophen, dramatically escalating risk: stomach lining surrendering to ulcers, kidneys slowly surrendering their function. Why this poisonous marriage persists defies rational explanation.

The question demanding an answer: do alternatives to opioids exist that work with comparable efficacy at similar cost? Pharmaceutical companies consider price exclusively through the lens of maximization—never minimization. "What the market can bear," as Adam Smith recognized in the late 1700s, remains their North Star.

The Reality of Recovery

With most substances, withdrawal symptoms crest like a wave a day after cessation. They may briefly intensify before receding over several days—rarely exceeding a week. This represents merely a temporary squall as substances abandon the body. As the substance departs, dependency diminishes in perfect tandem with withdrawal symptoms. Several weeks after cessation, only psychological dependence remains.

There is a controversy, or more a question, the answer to which seems elusive. Why do some people navigate these dangerous waters so much better than others do? I would be irresponsible if I did not raise this important question here. Is it a matter of different levels of intelligence, or perhaps a character weakness?

The Mind-Body Connection in Dependency

Regarding the psychological aspects of dependence, the evidence suggests it's more complex than a "character flaw" or "weak mind." Neurobiological changes from repeated opioid use affect decision-making, impulse control, and reward processing. These changes can persist long after physical withdrawal ends, which helps explain why relapse rates remain high even after successful detoxification.

During withdrawal, the body performs its miraculous self-healing alchemy. The more formidable adversary involves the psychological landscape of the opioid user. The critical factor determining success lies in addressing these psychological aspects; individual understanding and acceptance of responsibility play the starring role. Here exists the territory where recovering addicts require the most sustained positive companionship and professional support.

Physical vs. Psychological Recovery

Keeping the physical and the psychological domains distinct is crucial because:

• It ensures proper medical attention to the physical aspects of withdrawal, which require specific physiological interventions and monitoring.

• It prevents the dangerous assumption that once physical withdrawal is complete, the battle is won—when in fact the psychological journey is often just beginning.

• It helps eliminate stigma and shame that can prevent people from seeking help. When physical dependence is properly understood as a predictable biological process rather than a moral failing, it changes the entire conversation.

• It allows for targeted, appropriate interventions for each dimension. The strategies that address receptor downregulation and neurotransmitter imbalances are fundamentally different from those that address learned associations, environmental triggers, and coping mechanisms.

• It creates space for personal agency in recovery. While the physical aspects follow relatively predictable patterns that respond to medical intervention, the psychological journey requires active participation, insight, and commitment from the individual.

This distinction also illuminates why some treatment approaches fail: they may address only the physical (wrongly insisting total abstinence fits all) while neglecting the psychological, or vice versa. Comprehensive recovery must acknowledge both realms while recognizing their distinct characteristics and their respective treatments.

The mind-body connection in dependence and recovery is complex, but maintaining this clear distinction provides a framework that respects both the biological reality of dependence and the unique psychological journey of each individual seeking to overcome it.

The False Promise of Substitution Therapies

Using other addictive substances to treat drug addictions merely substitutes one master for another, often creating more insidious withdrawal dynamics (consider methadone) at prohibitive costs that most former addicts cannot—and likely never will—afford.

Complex, systemic problems are highly unlikely to have simple solutions. Send me your ideas about how to solve this problem.

When I was about 9 or 10 years old in Pontiac, Michigan, I became entranced with the Royal typewriter decal. It suddenly occurred to me: if the image on the typewriter is of a Royal typewriter, then that depicted typewriter must also have a Royal typewriter sticker on it, which would have yet another sticker on it, continuing infinitely smaller.

This realization—this glimpse into infinite recursion—fascinated my young mind. What most people might overlook became for me a window into endless possibility, a puzzle that delighted and perplexed me simultaneously.

I remember looking up the meaning of "byline" after my dad explained it to me. Often, I would avoid asking him questions for fear of being told I was "stupid." My father, as a young parent, said the wrong words too often. “He didn't truly mean it”, my mom would say—it was just his way of expressing his frustration. His mind was on survival. He treated his first three children the way brutal, mis-guided Catholic nuns treated him in an orphanage when he was 10. He grew out of it.

But his angry behavior had a profoundly negative effect on his most sensitive son: his second-born son of four, the third child of seven, and now the oldest living sibling as we approach this quarter-century milestone in the 21st century. It's possible to love your father but not like him much. He grew as should we all, from his mistakes. He was a very good man who did his best. I am alot like him, and like him, I like to fix things.

Since that moment when I saw my name as a byline, I decided that writing was something I would pursue. I loved the way my name looked in print—silly for a teenager, but profound just the same.

But the path was never straight. The first time I tried to type, I couldn't do it—something didn't quite work, or perhaps I didn't believe that I could. Then after the car wreck at 19, sitting at a typewriter in the "assigned position"—feet flat on the floor, back straight, posture perfect—became excruciating. It still is. You wouldn't believe the adaptations: chairs, couches, pillows, neck collars, heat pads, massage gadgets and blankets that I use just to feel comfortable enough to write. Because if you feel uncomfortable, you're probably going to write stuff that's uncomfortable—for many reasons, on many levels, in many dimensions.

I was too slow by conventional standards, but I rationalized. I survived—even thrived—using just two or three fingers, achieving 30 words per minute with decent accuracy. I got creative, imagining my typewriter as a musical instrument that I could make music with by being clever about how I struck the keys. I called it "composing," not writing. I recorded my voice for notes and lectures when I returned to school in the late '70s, a technique that helped me earn a 3.5 GPA. So talking to a machine comes easy for me. That, and I did read, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein in the late 60s.

"I've had a wonderful career where I wrote as a yeoman typewriter…"—Ahh, AI wrote that. Is there such a thing as a yeoman typewriter? Yes, there is. A Yeoman typewriter was a model of typewriter manufactured by the Yost Typewriter Company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Yeoman was a budget-friendly, basic model designed to be affordable for the average consumer during that era. Trust me I am not a typewriter, nor am I a writer who types well. But I do have great tools.

I was a curriculum developer and an instructional designer. I designed and developed several hundred courses, most of them eLearning, and the rest hands-on technical training, webinars, and workshops on a range of subjects. Today, March 2025, much of my work is social commentary and aligns with investigative journalism, but it's more speculative. I conduct no formal investigations—rather, I bear witness to the world around me, absorbing its truths like a silent stone in a rushing stream. What emerges later is not mere regurgitation but a distillation, offered not in judgment but in kindness, if I can.

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I deliberately skirt around that weighted word—"opinion"—though now I've invoked it nonetheless. We all recognize the tired adage about opinions and anatomical ubiquity. Some truths need no elaboration.

All of my professional work required writing, lots of writing, rewriting and most importantly managing the entire curriculum/course development processes. Way more than a technical writer, the bump and grind of writing. My work has always been my raison d'être.

Now I find myself in this curious partnership with artificial intelligence. AI excels at making sense of vast data landscapes with breathtaking speed. When I contemplate neural networks alongside human recall, I'm struck by the contrast: those rare moments of near-ideal human recall versus the more common experience of almost-but-not-quite remembering. What was it my first wife used to say? "…it's just like… only different."

What I'm discovering is this remarkable ability to navigate my own neural pathways—seeking information while collecting unexpected treasures from distractions and creative tangents along the way. It's a deep dive into the data followed by a long, winding journey back up through layers of meaning. Work that would demand days, weeks, or months from me working alone can unfold in minutes—sometimes mere seconds—with AI's assistance and my guidance. It's like being a spirit being; imagine being the spirit being. You could make yourself really, really small, like the 10,000th iteration of the Royal typewriter. It's kinda like that. To do that you need to change form. If you allow your imagination to be free, think about where you might decide to go first; then be concerned about finding your way back home. Great excitement often comes from not knowing which way the right path goes. Pay attention. You will find it.

AI demonstrates particular brilliance in extracting coherence from my voice typing—my stream of consciousness. I can become increasingly eclectic, more streaming than consciousness, approaching something like hypomania—not full-blown mania as in manic depression, but that heightened, accelerated state of mind—metacognition that is expanding exponentially with each detail getting exactly the attention that it warrants in accordance with what is so.

How maddening it has always been—this unbridgeable chasm between thought and written word. My mind unfurls constellations of ideas, while my fingers strain to capture mere pinpoints of light. The torment lies not in ignorance but in knowing precisely what eludes me: entire universes of understanding that flicker and fade before my pencil can find them. If only language could flow from thought unimpeded, like water from spring to stream—instead of this laborious translation, this halting transcription where brilliance dims with each syllable committed to page. What haunts me is not what I write, but the ghostly remainder—all that vanishes between conception and creation. But wait, all is not as lost as it may seem. For me, certain ideas, certain themes are constantly reverberating, resonating, real, and reoccuring. So things that slip away come back, and next time I will be ready.

I've come to understand that a static state is merely an intellectual construct, a theoretical convenience. In the physical world—and especially in the realm of thought—nothing is truly static. Our minds are perpetually in motion, thoughts flowing like currents in an endless sea. When we attempt to capture thoughts through traditional writing, we're essentially trying to freeze that which cannot be frozen, to render static what is inherently dynamic. Think about that.

The technologies I now employ don't actually stop this motion; rather, they move with it. Voice typing and AI don't create a static record of dynamic thought—they create a dynamic record that more faithfully traces the contours of the thinking process itself. The medium finally approaches the nature of the message.

The Liberation of Thought: A Conclusion

That once-maddening chasm between thought and expression has finally begun to narrow through modern tools that serve not as the transformation itself, but as humble facilitators of our natural cognitive flow. Voice typing is merely the conduit—a transparent bridge through which my thoughts now travel almost unimpeded from mind to page. There are impediments, the worst of which is self-doubt.

For years, I suffered the exquisite torture of watching some of what felt like my most luminous ideas dim and fade before my fingers could capture their essence. We humans think in lightning, speak in rainfall, and type in meandering streams—even the most virtuosic typist, commanding an impressive 220 words per minute, cannot match the velocity of natural speech, much less the supersonic speed of human thought.

Yet now, liberation has arrived. My creative process evolved not gradually but in a sudden, tectonic shift. Voice typing—technology dormant in both Microsoft and Google ecosystems for decades—has awakened to its full potential when paired with generative AI. I think the voice-to-text capabilities of Apple iPhones was the necessary catalyst. This symbiosis of technologies allows me to orchestrate an elegant dance between different modalities of expression.

My process often begins with my iPhone, and herein lies the revelation: Where once I labored between handwritten notes and a sprawling workstation of screens (three monitors and sometimes multiple laptops), painstakingly crafting each sentence while simultaneously juggling the countless invisible rules of composition that haunt every writer's conscience—all while racing against merciless deadlines demanding both speed and flawless execution—I now speak, and a few process steps later, worlds appear.

These tools transcend human capability by orders of magnitude. I have the metrics to prove this. The comparison is not between walking and driving; it is between earthbound locomotion and interstellar travel. As I speak, my mispronunciations transform into perfect text, my verbal stumbles become eloquent prose, my scattered thoughts coalesce into structured arguments.

When I proofread my output, I find errors. AI tools will make stuff up based upon what you tell it to do… in other words, they can and will make mistakes, and some, the most important ones, the crucial content, can only be caught with a human eye. AI can be a very convincing liar. A true professional will never risk being wrong in what they publish. And I never forget, everything is a work in progress—all that is digital can be corrected and clarified in real time. Books today, and everything else will now be dynamic, living documents.

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What I find particularly compelling about my collaboration of tools is how it exemplifies the evolution of writing technology while enhancing human creativity rather than replacing it. My voice and ideas remain distinctly mine. This collaboration spans worlds of technology that neither the 11-year-old transfixed by a byline nor the 19-year-old adapting to physical limitations could have imagined. It all seemed so impossible. Yet the fundamental desire remains unchanged—to see my thoughts take shape, to communicate something meaningful, to leave impressions that outlast the moment.

What we witness here is not merely technological advancement, but intellectual emancipation—the liberation of thought from the prison of our physical limitations. For the first time in human history, our ideas can exist outside ourselves at nearly the speed of our conception. This is not just convenience; it is nothing short of rapid cognitive evolution.

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Waterford Township High School, the only high school in Waterford Township in 1961, housed nearly 3,000 students. Half attended classes in the morning and half in the afternoon while construction of Kettering, a second high school, neared completion. The previous year, I had been in a class of fewer than 30 students. At Waterford, my graduating class would number around 370—a sea of faces where I initially knew almost no one.

The stark contrast between the intimate Catholic school setting and this sprawling public institution struck me immediately. Hallways teemed with teenagers navigating social hierarchies I had yet to decode. My first days there felt like visiting a foreign country without knowing the language. Yet this immersion would become the backdrop for a formative chapter of my life.

Recreational drugs were barely visible then, but that would rapidly change, thanks in part to the escalating Vietnam War. Some called us the six-pack generation because beer was plentiful and often our first taste of altered consciousness. My high school years followed the classic American teenage trajectory of the 1960s—learning to navigate social groups, testing boundaries, finding where I belonged.

As tenth grade began, I had few friends, but by graduation, my circle had widened considerably. I joined the wrestling team, embracing the physical discipline and camaraderie until circumstances forced me to quit. Responsibilities mounted: I would hitchhike into Pontiac to pick up Dad's car, then drive home to take Mom to her waitressing job in Franklin Village. My baby sister, Lynn Marie, always came along for the ride. These rituals of responsibility shaped me as much as my formal education.

I discovered leadership through Junior Achievement—an evening youth program where about 20 students formed a small company, sold stock, created products, and marketed them. The practical business experience instilled in me the desire to someday work for myself rather than others. J.A. is also where I met the girl who would become my wife. She served as company treasurer while I was president—our first dance of partnership and counterbalance.

In late spring of 1964, I graduated from Waterford Township High School at seventeen, the youngest member of my class. The world beyond high school was rapidly changing. The Selective Service System had implemented the draft; all eighteen-year-old men had to register. This looming reality shaped many of our decisions, creating a background hum of anxiety even during celebration.

I would experience several deferments in succession: first as a full-time student, then as a married man, and finally as a married father. When the government implemented the draft lottery in 1969, my number was approximately 264, placing me far enough down the list that my chances of being called were slim.

Later, in 1970, during a period of personal darkness, I actually attempted to enlist. The recruiter, after learning about my car accident injuries, explained the military's pragmatic view:

"No branch of the United States military would put a forty to sixty-pound pack on your damaged back. It telegraphs a potential permanent disability that would obligate Uncle Sam to pay you for the rest of your life."

Both relieved and disappointed, I realized I had narrowly avoided a self-destructive decision. I was then, as I remain today, an all-in or not-at-all personality type, though age has tempered this tendency. Looking back on those post-high school days brings back memories of classmates who made different choices or had no choice at all. I became certain I would have died in Viet Nam trying to save someone’s life. Just what is so.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade made history with the first United States combat parachute assault in the Vietnam War on February 22, 1967—the first such operation since the Korean War. A classmate of mine may have been part of that task force. I learned about his first jump through newspaper coverage or conversations with mutual friends who served. I cannot verify his presence, but the image haunts me still.

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In my mind's eye, I see a paratrooper silhouetted against the sky, silk canopy deployed, floating toward a dried-out rice paddy surrounded by dense jungle concealing thousands of enemy combatants. At first, there is only the whistle of wind. Then bullets fly from everywhere. One strikes his leg with unimaginable pain. Soon his body is riddled with bullets. I believe Jerry Schemmel died before touching the ground, one of 58,318 American soldiers who perished in Vietnam.

Jerry was bright, talented, decent—a musician who played saxophone in a local band with remarkable skill. He had a promising future before patriotism led him to Vietnam. I wish he had dodged the draft and fled to Canada. I am confident I could visit him there today, listening to him play while sipping a properly made martini: Grey Goose, shaken not stirred, olives on the side—the big ones. God, how I wish I could hear him play again.

I often recall David Crosby's song "What Are Their Names," as poignant now as it was then. I didn't secure permission to include the lyrics here, but I urge you to read them, and share them widely. It poses a question that remains unanswered about those who profit from sending young people to die. You can click tom listen to the song now.

What Are Their Names

Education continued beyond formal schooling. My real education about drugs, politics, and the hidden mechanisms of power was just beginning—lessons that would prove more consequential than anything I learned in a classroom. The counterculture awaited, and with it, a new understanding of both myself and the fractured society I soon began to feel trapped in.

The soldiers returning from Vietnam carried more than just their military gear and psychological scars—they brought back transformed relationships with substances that would profoundly influence American counterculture throughout the 60s and 70s.

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I found myself constantly questioning the fundamental contradictions of the conflict. Why fight a war we knew from the outset we could not win? Why perpetuate official lies about our progress and purpose there? These questions haunted me then as they do many Americans still. Before the war, Vietnam was a beautiful, distant country most Americans knew little about. By 1967, our collective imagination had transformed it into a hellish landscape of danger and moral ambiguity.

Many of my high school classmates never returned from Southeast Asia. Many who did come back arrived physically wounded, psychologically devastated, and too often addicted to heroin—their bodies and minds permanently altered by experiences few at home could comprehend. The cruelest irony awaited these veterans: rather than being welcomed as heroes, they were labeled "baby killers" by some, jeered at by angry crowds, and shown precious little respect for their sacrifice. This nation can sometimes display astonishing cruelty while refusing to acknowledge its complicity. The treatment of Vietnam veterans stands as one of our profound national disgraces.

I reject the notion of calling WWII veterans the "greatest generation." Such a designation implies all subsequent generations are somehow lesser, doomed to mediocrity. By what metrics does one generation claim superiority over others? No generation holds exclusive claim to greatness. This terminology, likely coined by a journalist seeking a compelling phrase, diminishes the equal valor and sacrifice of those who served in Vietnam and in every senseless war since. War always fails. It fails in the same way religions fail.

These brave soldiers deserved better than to die for questionable policies like "containment" or the dubious "domino theory." They perished not protecting American shores from Vietnamese farmers 10,000 miles away who knew virtually nothing about the United States. The Vietnam War represents one of America's gravest strategic and moral errors. While many profited handsomely, the military-industrial complex continued its unchecked expansion at immeasurable human cost.

The real causes were a toxic combination of fear, greed, and political miscalculation. Those who served in Vietnam demonstrated bravery, dedication, and willingness to die for their country equal to any generation before them. Their deaths hold equal significance to those in any previous conflict—perhaps more so because they were ultimately unnecessary, the result of strategic failures and political deception rather than existential threats.

Another Vietnam veteran, recipient of the U.S. Air Force Air Medal and University of Michigan graduate, became a close friend years later. Known as Gazda or "The Gaz," he possessed extraordinary intellect and talent, though alcoholism and drug dependence claimed too many of his years. In his last few years I visited him every six or seven weeks without fail. Our conversations invariably erupted into laughter as we dissected the absurdities of American life. And yes, from the beginning, most visits involved shared substances.

When he died, I handled his personal effects and arranged his burial with full military honors, including a U.S. Air Force Honor Guard Drill Team ceremony at Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, Michigan. You may have seen similar ceremonies depicted in films or television, but nothing compares to witnessing it firsthand—hearing the careful words, smelling the sharp tang of gunpowder after the rifle volley, watching tears stream down faces as our flag is folded with exquisite precision before being presented to the next of kin. This ritual of honor and remembrance should be witnessed by every American child before adolescence reshapes their understanding of sacrifice.

Profound grief, while devastating, often fuels my most meaningful writing. The ability to transform pain into words remains both exhilarating and soul-sustaining for me.

As the 1960s progressed, drug culture expanded exponentially across America. Nothing would stop this cultural shift—nothing has stopped it since. We've witnessed only changes in magnitude and the growth of black markets for substances of all varieties. The War on Drugs actually accelerated this growth. The evidence is undeniable: these markets have expanded rather than contracted; demand has increased despite—or perhaps because of—prohibition.

What began with hippies growing cannabis in small gardens transformed into global cartels operating on industrial scales. This evolution likely would not have occurred had Nixon chosen to decriminalize marijuana in 1970 rather than demonize it. The Drug Enforcement Administration's growth and power correlate directly with the expansion of violent cartels. But which phenomenon drove the other? Without prohibition, these extensive black markets would not exist at their current scale and influence.

For decades, law enforcement rarely distinguished between peaceful marijuana users and violent cartel operators; both became targets of increasingly militarized campaigns. This approach demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of market forces. Where substantial profit potential exists, someone will inevitably pursue it, regardless of legality. The immutable law of supply and demand cannot be legislated away. For the DEA to justify its existence and expanding budget, it requires a steady supply of cartels, dealers, and users to combat. Drug laws create the very demand that fuels this cycle. The profit motive, rather than solving the problem, perpetuates it from both sides of the equation.

A little-known aspect of the Vietnam War involves concurrent operations in Laos and their connection to the Opium Wars of 1967. Laotian-Hmong leader General Vang Pao operated as a CIA-supported drug lord under the pragmatic but morally questionable principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Investigative journalist Conn Hamilton revealed that operatives who transported narcotics for Vang Pao later ran similar operations for the Contras during the Reagan Administration's campaign against Nicaragua's Sandinista government. Examining these connections between drug trafficking and CIA operations in Southeast Asia and Central America raises profoundly uncomfortable questions about our current partnerships in regions like Afghanistan.

Vang Pao amassed considerable wealth selling heroin to the highest bidders—including suppliers who ultimately distributed to American soldiers fighting in Vietnam. These uncomfortable truths often disappear from historical records, buried beneath more palatable narratives. Yet with diligent research, the facts remain discoverable.

Through this book, I hope to motivate readers to examine these uncomfortable truths about how their tax dollars have been—and continue to be—squandered perpetuating the self-defeating War on Drugs. The time has come to acknowledge its fundamental failure and chart a more humane, effective course forward. More on that in the final chapters.

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Working the Plan

The Moment We're In

We stand at a civilizational inflection point. The challenges confronting humanity—climate disruption, wealth concentration, democratic collapse, technological displacement—resist solution through traditional disciplinary silos. These interconnected crises demand new ways of thinking, new languages for articulating possibilities that transcend conventional boundaries.

Literature has always served as humanity's laboratory for reimagining the world. In this laboratory, we test ideas, cultivate empathy, and create spaces where we can recognize our shared humanity while honoring our differences. Today, this function isn't just valuable—it's essential for our survival.

Why I Write

For over seven decades, I've carried stories that pulse with urgency, narratives that explore the liminal territories where transformation happens. These works examine how we navigate belonging and alienation in a fragmented world, how trauma and healing ripple across generations, how meaning emerges from the spaces between defined identities.

My path has been unconventional. I've written in stolen moments—on lunch breaks, in early morning hours, on scraps of paper tucked into pockets. But more significantly, I've never stopped writing, never stopped seeing the world through the lens of narrative possibility. This work demands to be shared now because waiting for ideal conditions is a luxury our moment cannot afford.

The Consilience Imperative

As E.O. Wilson demonstrated in his groundbreaking work "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge," the convergence of understanding across seemingly disparate fields offers our greatest hope for addressing humanity's most pressing challenges. My artistic practice embodies this principle—bringing together history, philosophy, politics, and lived experience to reveal interconnected truths that no single discipline could uncover alone.

As if a final message from the god I felt had rejected me or an advantage seized by an agent from hell, the driver of the convertible was an arrestingly attractive young woman. She had long chestnut brown hair, a small gold brooch holding it back to reveal her perfect profile. She wore a white blouse that I imagined I could see through and a flowing red knee-length skirt. The skirt revealed just enough of her flawless legs. We exchanged casual words. “Where you goin”, she asked. And then added, “...enjoying the summer, having fun?”

I remember her instructing me to keep my feet on the small rubber mat protecting the freshly cleaned red carpet. Looking down to ensure my feet remained where they belonged, I wondered if she had noticed my arousal. My heart thundered against my ribs. Embarrassed beyond words, I retreated into silence. Then she told me her name was Maggie and asked for mine. I smiled and said,

"Mom calls me Theodore when I am in trouble; most people call me Ted, but those that like me best call me Teddy."

While she drove, she asked if I was handy and could fix a few things in her flat needing a handyman's skill. She said it was on the way and would earn me a ride home once I finished. I said,

"Yes. I sure can."

She explained she had a small toolbox that contained the tools I would need. She pulled into her driveway and said,

"I need to get the mail – meet you on the porch."

I waited at the front door. Maggie returned with the mail and brushed against me as she unlocked the door. Her fragrance—something floral with an undertone of musk—was intoxicatingly stimulating. Once inside, she placed the mail on a polished table, and glided to a kitchen cabinet to retrieve the toolbox. She showed me a curtain rod hanger with fasteners that were loose and said,

"Think you can fix that?"

I needed a ladder to get a closer look. Maggie showed me where it was then said,

"I need to put on my jeans, be back in a sec."

I carried the ladder to the window while she went off to change. The repair would be easy, the kind of thing I'd done a few times. I got to work and was finishing up when she returned. She wore nice fitting jeans that flattered her figure and a light blue blouse. She walked over to where I stood on the ladder and looking up, asked,

"How's it going?"

Looking down to reply, I first encountered her sapphire eyes, delicate button nose, and inviting smile. She wore no bra, the top two buttons of her sheer blouse open in a calculated way that barely concealed her protruding, dark nipples. My dumbstruck mind robbed me of coherent speech, but I managed to utter with a strangled squeak,

"I'm—ah, done with this. It'll hold for a long time. What's next?"

She said,

"Take a break. Let's talk a little."

She asked me what was on my mind. I told of the day's events focusing on my exchange with Mother Melanie. She listened carefully and said it looks like you've had a rough day. Want to talk about it? I did. I was confused; I was dealing with the fact that it was unlikely I'd become a priest.

"Teddy, you're too good looking, and I sense you will become a man who would regret priesthood. You're young, and you don't know what you would be missing."

A little puzzled, I asked Maggie to clarify. With that, she leaned over and kissed me gently and said,

"Would you like me to show you?"

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"Though sharing architectural elements with Saint Vincent de Paul church in Pontiac, Michigan, this cathedral's ornate design far surpasses the simpler red brick church of my childhood. I selected this image because of its orientation, on a corner, is so similar"

The new school year loomed just weeks away, a specter of change and uncertainty. Mother Melanie, the principal, would finally be returning from the Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan, and from doing whatever mysterious rituals the nuns performed there every summer. I could only imagine the whispered prayers and solemn ceremonies. Their annual migration to and from Monroe remained a mystery to me—a ritual cloaked in secrecy like so much of their lives behind those imposing convent walls, and their habitso.

My ride dropped me off in downtown Pontiac, next to the Riker Building. Every time I pass the Riker Building, I remember that this building was where a woman had jumped to her death from a top floor several years earlier. I could not help visualizing the horrific scene it must have been.

Once I rode the elevator to the top floor. I saw a window and imagined it to be the one the woman opened to give her the perch she needed to jump. Finding the window unlocked, I quickly opened it. Looking down at what may have been the last thing she saw before she died, I wondered what had driven her to this spot. Did a lover jilt her? I'd heard she had been seeing a psychiatrist and that soon after, also committed suicide.

I hadn't given suicide much thought at that age except to ask the nuns, "If heaven is so wonderful, why don't we all just commit suicide to get there faster?" That was the day I learned the suicide rule: You can't get into heaven that way.

Convenient. The nuns had an answer for everything, and when they didn't, they threw the book at you. One Friday afternoon, I made Sister Sadist mad at me for kidding around with a friend sitting to my left. She yelled at me, and before the words left her mouth, a hefty copy of the Bible came hurling at me. I ducked, much to the misfortune of the kid behind me. It slammed into his face. Sister Sadist rushed down the aisle in which I stood. I thought she was coming for me, and I wasn't having that, so I slipped out behind my desk to the aisle on the other side, just out of her reach. She looked at me with contempt, her face red and contorted by her anger, and then she hissed and spat, "Go to Mother's office."

I looked over my shoulder to see that she was tending to the kid with a bloody nose. Walking to Mother's office was like a perp walk, except no one was watching. The dress shoes I wore made a muted yet poignant sound, like the KNOCK-KNOCK–KNOCK-KNOCK a woodpecker makes as it pecks away at the wood of a dried-out hollow tree. The sound echoed throughout the empty hallway as my heels struck the floor. Tom McCan shoes with leather soles and heels—we would have Tony the Shosmith tack metal cleats on the bottom of our heels, which made a tinny sound until dirt got under and the connection to the leather was solid. I loved the sound of my heels walking out of the classroom. Soon I was sitting in a chair waiting outside the door to Mother's office. She wasn't there; I could not keep a smirk from my face. Thinking this was an excellent time to go home, I split. No punishment she could put on me would diminish the joy I felt from getting away with a brilliant move. A move I was sure my parents would learn about quickly.

My devout mother was angry with me. I had let her down. My dad couldn't hold back a chuckle. He just shook his head back and forth as he walked away. I couldn't help thinking either a divinity or a devil was looking over my shoulder. That seems funny peculiar to me now.

On Saturday, I confessed. On Sunday, I got up early to be at the 6:00 AM mass the nuns regularly attended. I received communion right in front of both Mother and Sister Sadist, all the time appearing very contrite.

The memory described above became vivid as I continued walking from where my ride left me off in downtown Pontiac, Michigan. I could see the police station where my father worked. He had left his employment as a typewriter repairman in Pennsylvania, completed his mandatory training at the Police Academy, and joined the force as the Administrative Assistant to the Chief of Police, Herb Straley.

Today the station's name is The Gerald L. Carpenter Public Safety Building. It is next to City Hall and not far from the Riker Building. The main entrance of the station still prominently displays built in 1957 carved in stone.

I turned south, and the tall steeple of Saint Vincent de Paul church was easy to see. I often imagined what it must have looked like when the workers placed the cornerstone declaring the construction finished on September 6, 1885. Just up from the church on Whittemore Street, St. Frederick School came into view.

My gait slowed in front of the school. I relived the activity there after school every day—a blur of kids and colors.

I could see the scene of the day Joe and Red got into a fight with Tim Howard right outside the large wooden main entrance doors. Both were badasses, and Red was a bully. Tim was a big guy and a good friend of my brother, Paul. He always looked out for me. For the past five years, St. Frederick had been a refuge, a place where I could go to learn and to avoid my father's anger.

Months earlier, my mother had told me the family could not afford to send my other siblings or me to Catholic school, except Paul, my genius older brother. Paul had always got straight A's. Twenty-two months my senior, he was a tough act to follow, and I was a kid who had learned to take the path of least resistance. Very early, I realized that the one way not to lose was to not compete. In some disputes, the only way to come out a winner is not to engage.

Fighting is a good example because when it is over, both sides have suffered significant losses. War is like that. My approach became an effective strategy to escape the treachery innate in some relationships.

Paul and I shared a bed when we lived in Pennsylvania and then a bedroom until he left home to become a Marine. Paul was genuinely brilliant. But for Paul, his brilliance was emotional turmoil. As I observed his brilliance, his example, I felt it was something I was not, and did not want to be. Paul's years at St. Frederick were that of a rabble-rouser and troublemaker. He started drinking at fourteen and was an alcoholic by sixteen. I remember his angry arguments with my father when he would come home late and drunk. He was not a mentor then except to illustrate a path not to take—a way not to be. To the all-knowing, all-loving, omnipotent being, the feckless thug in heaven or whatever, I ask, why give a child such gifts only to see him squander them?

My sister Pat was a star at St. Freds and president of the teen club. She was popular, a great dancer, opinionated, and had an impressive collection of forty-five RPM records. I adored her. She got how sensitive I was and protected me from my father. Like Paul, she seemed to be engaged in a constant battle with our parents, especially Dad. Both looked out for me. I learned from observing them that avoiding—well, not getting caught doing the things they did was an excellent strategy. Mom called me her sneaky one. Once, she accused me of something I did not do. I pleaded my case, and she agreed I was innocent, then said, "Well, take the punishment for one of many you got away with."

Parental justice is never clear-cut for a good reason. Parents must deal out justice creatively, if they can. I remember a day years before when we lived in Pennsylvania. Mom and Dad left my older brother Paul and me home alone with my sister Pat in charge. It must have been in the late 40s. Hanging on the wall in our bedroom was a cat-o'-nine-tails, a multi-tailed whip that originated as an implement for severe physical punishment. Pat gathered the three of us together, took the ‘cat’ from the nail on which it hung, and said, "Follow me."

We marched downstairs into the furnace room where the gigantic coal furnace dwelt—a fire-breathing behemoth in the belly of our home. Pat opened the access door to reveal the raging inferno inside, a hellmouth of roaring flames and dancing embers. The three of us stood transfixed before the coal furnace, our faces illuminated in the pulsing orange glow, our shadows trembling giants against the wall behind us.

I see this as clearly now as I did then. We made a pact to never speak of this again; then Pat threw the whip into the flames where it disappeared, gone forever. This act bonded the three of us together. We grew up differently from the four younger kids: Bill, Dan, Lynn Marie, and Catherine, who would become the family's baby in 1966, the same year my first son was born.

Dad had mellowed since our time in Pennsylvania. I think being a police officer had a lot to do with it. Being an orphan, nuns in the orphanage disciplined my father, then ten years old, using cruel methods. My mother told me they required him to kneel at the altar on dry, hardened pieces of corn; and that they sometimes beat him with two-foot-long pieces of rubber hose.

My studies in sociology verified that tactics such as these were common in 1932. The abuse had everything to do with his anger. My younger four siblings were too young to appreciate the social and cultural differences that molded Pat, Paul, and me.

We grew up in a mixed-race neighborhood; our values and attitudes reflected less racist and more tolerant beliefs. Waterford, 98% white, stood in notable contrast to Pontiac's southeast side, so did our closest Waterford friends. Many were racists, albeit not intentionally.

My musings ended as I approached the convent's back door, the endpoint of my journey. I had shown up at this back door many times. Often eager for the start of classes, as soon as I heard the nuns had returned from the Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan. I would knock on this door and ask if I could help prepare the school for opening. I received citizenship awards for my willingness to help. I stepped up to the door with mild trepidation, rang the bell, and asked to speak with Mother Melanie.

She was a tall woman made taller because the stoop where I stood was almost a foot below where she stood. A thin screen door was a strange barrier; it slightly obscured her ample form. Looking over at me like a giant, she asked how she could help me. As I looked up at her, I wished we could be eye to eye.

My request was well-rehearsed; I had run it through in my mind for months. Looking up at Mother Melanie, I nervously said, "Mother, I want to return to St. Fredericks this fall. I can ride to school every morning with my dad, go to mass every morning, and after school, I can help my teachers prepare the classrooms for the following day, then go to the city library after to study, and then catch a ride home with Dad at five."

I reminded her that my classmates had elected me class treasurer—a calculated step toward becoming class president my senior year, followed by seminary after graduation. I explained that I'd transform myself into the scholar I aspired to be through daily study at the city library. It was a brilliant plan, logical, well thought out, and perfectly presented. At least I thought so.

I did not have to wait long for her answer. She looked up—consulting heaven for just a moment—then looked down at me and said, "No, Ted, I think a public-school education will do you a lot of good. Good luck."

With that, she quietly closed the heavy wooden door with the finality of a judgment. I never saw her again, nor any of the nuns, my teachers, for five crucial years. I had revered them; well, most of them. Sister Sadist from sixth grade was another matter entirely—the bitch, the punisher.

Bewildered, I walked away, my route taking me behind the school, toward the rectory. I would often mispronounce rectory as "rectumy," not yet realizing the heart-rending pun it would become. The church loomed on my left—a gothic monolith of stone and faith—the place where I'd spent countless hours singing mass in Latin, belting out words I didn't understand but loved anyway. I relished the beauty of all our voices rising together in unison, climbing toward heaven like incense. That church with its imposing spire piercing the sky was where I'd whispered my confessions, where I'd sought absolution from sins both real and imagined. Now I was walking away from it and everything it represented, each step carrying me further from the future I'd planned, the phantom life that would never be mine.

I could have waited for my dad to get off work, but that meant killing an hour with nothing but my rejection for company. Instead, I hitchhiked home. I wanted to be alone, needed space to think. I found a spot nearby where I could stand in the shade of an old oak tree, thumb extended toward passing cars, waiting for some stranger to take me away from the ruins of my carefully constructed plans.

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The Journey

On November 19, 1955, winter arrived with sudden ferocity. An early storm had draped six inches of snow across the Akron-Cleveland corridor, rendering the turnpike a white labyrinth of treachery. Through this alabaster wilderness, a 1948 Buick pushed forward, carrying seven souls and the modest fragments of their displaced lives.

My father—Theodore, my namesake—gripped the wheel with quiet determination. I—Teddy—sat beside him, witnessing the transformation of our known world into something alien and beautiful. My brother Paul completed our front-seat triumvirate. Behind us, compressed into an uncomfortable intimacy, sat Mother, my sister Pat (the eldest of us), and my younger brothers Bill and Dan. Crowning our metal chariot was a small square table—the "TV table"—a humble heirloom I possess to this day.

We were fleeing not just Pennsylvania but the poison of prejudice. My father, a craftsman whose hands could coax resurrection from the most stubborn of typewriters, had asked for compensation befitting his growing responsibilities. His employer's response had been to invoke God as justification for cruelty—the time-honored refuge of the bigot—and then to cast my father aside.

Michigan promised refuge. Pontiac was expanding, swelling with opportunity. Relatives had gone before us, pioneers of our small exodus, and sent back dispatches of better lives. So my father gathered us, along with our loyal hound Zeke, and set our compass toward possibility.

The snow began its descent less than an hour into our migration. I remember being transfixed by the view through the Buick's windshield as the storm's intensity grew from curiosity to threat. Soon, the highway before us vanished beneath a shroud of white, four to six inches deep. In this emptied world, we were not entirely alone—a single vehicle traveled ahead, leaving twin furrows in the pristine canvas.

My father tracked these parallel lines with monastic concentration. Beyond them, all was obliteration. The snowflakes streamed toward us like stars during warp speed—countless, hypnotic, pulling us forward into infinity. Childlike, I asked how he knew where the road lay beneath this unmarked expanse.

"The only way to know," he explained, eyes never leaving those guiding tracks, "is to follow the path of the one who's gone before."

We maintained a delicate distance—close enough to see the trail, not so close as to endanger either vehicle. Too much separation, and the relentless snow would erase our lifeline, leaving us adrift in the white void. For hours, we processed like this, pilgrims following an unseen guide.

Eventually, as our route bent northward toward Michigan, the storm's fury abated, then surrendered. We pulled into my Aunt Margaret's driveway on Cass Avenue in Pontiac to discover the ground there utterly bare—as if the blizzard had been merely a collective hallucination, a white dream shared among seven travelers.

The cramped journey had left us desperate to stretch and breathe. My father's first concern was for Zeke, who had endured the journey confined to the Buick's trunk, its lid cracked open just enough to admit air. He hurried to release our companion. Zeke emerged, circled the strange territory briefly, then vanished into unfamiliar streets. Despite our calls and searches, he never returned—perhaps seeking the only home his canine heart recognized, now three hundred miles distant.

Transplantation

Aunt Margaret welcomed us with the embrace of kinship. We sheltered with her family until my father secured a duplex at 675 DeSoto Place in Pontiac's northern district. We claimed this temporary haven just before Thanksgiving.

Our new front yard was a testament to transition—early snowfall had been trampled by countless feet, melted partially, then refrozen into a fragmented mosaic of icy impressions. It resembled nothing so much as an abstract canvas, nature's Jackson Pollock.

Several months later, we purchased a small house at 254 South Paddock Street in the southeast quadrant of town, near St. Vincent de Paul Church and St. Frederick's School. When late summer yielded to autumn in 1956, I began fifth grade there. My siblings—Pat, Paul, Bill, and Dan—also entered the St. Frederick's community.

Our diminutive three-bedroom bungalow on South Paddock Street has since surrendered to time; a neighborhood park now occupies the space where our lives once unfolded. The house's anatomy was simple: bedrooms arranged along the right side, four boys sharing the middle chamber. Two bunk beds, separated by a narrow corridor of possibility less than four feet wide, eliminated the need for the bed-sharing of our Pennsylvania life. A modest closet occupied one corner, a spatial afterthought.

Pontiac presented a landscape unlike the undulating rural terrain of southwestern Pennsylvania. Here, motorized sweepers—marvels of municipal care—maintained sidewalks free of autumn's detritus. McConnell Elementary School commanded the entire block opposite our house, where I briefly attended fourth grade before transferring to St. Frederick's.

The Michigan years were educational in ways both curricular and existential. Catholic education differed profoundly from my public school upbringing—stern nuns, near-daily Mass attendance rather than occasional Sunday visits. For years, we referred to Pennsylvania as "back home," our tongues betraying our hearts' divided loyalties. The intimate class sizes at St. Frederick's provided the personalized attention I needed to flourish.

Fifth grade brought Pam Sylvester, my first encounter with the exquisite torture of unrequited affection. I admired her from a distance, my heart aching for words my courage could not deliver. Sixth grade proved academically treacherous, particularly in mathematics. My teacher's fearsome reputation—including apocryphal tales of hanging a child on the wardrobe room's coat racks—instilled a paralyzing fear that suffocated learning.

Seventh and ninth grades offered redemption. Sister Grace Ellen, with her beauty and compassion, created an environment where knowledge flowed without impediment. In ninth grade, Sister Ann David, my algebra instructor, recognized something in me that I had not yet discovered in myself—a natural affinity for mathematical reasoning. She offered me my first taste of teaching, dividing our class into advanced and conventional cohorts. While she guided the accelerated group, I shepherded the standard learners through the mysteries of variables and equations.

During this period, I developed a numbering system with a base of four and unique symbolic representations—an achievement whose significance I would only appreciate in later years. Ninth grade carved itself into my memory with both triumphs and catastrophes.

The First Drug That Almost Killed Me

Joe Donaldson pirouetted into our cramped living room, his movements synchronized to the rhythms of American Bandstand. It was a Wednesday in February 1961, and I was immersed in preparation for ninth-grade midterms. Joe and I had developed a friendship cemented by our shared appetite for mischief. With theatrical flourish, he opened his jacket to reveal a fifth of William Penn whiskey tucked into his waistband, then gestured toward the door, his eyes alight with invitation.

Only weeks earlier, our school had hosted an assembly featuring a professional speaker who detailed the dangers of alcohol abuse, including the phenomenon of blackouts. The warning, so recently delivered, hovered at the periphery of my consciousness.

As we prepared to depart, I informed my mother we would return for the traditional Wednesday spaghetti dinner at six o'clock. Several doors down from our house stood a boarding house—a place of questionable character and certain temptation. We entered its spacious living room, where a collection of men, all slightly older than Joe and me, lounged on furniture that had witnessed better decades. The boarders lived there for the economy of the rent, not the quality of the accommodations. Among them was Benny, an aging alcoholic who would procure beer and liquor for us in exchange for a modest taste or a quarter. Others present were less familiar to me, though Joe seemed acquainted with several. My innocence stood in sharp contrast to Joe's worldliness. The whiskey bottle circulated, each of us partaking.

We returned home for dinner at the appointed hour. The scene was achingly familiar—family gathered around the table, often joined by friends from school or the neighborhood. Remarkably, no one detected our inebriated state. Either our performance was convincing, or their perception was blunted by routine.

After dinner, Joe and I ventured back into the February cold. We made our way to Frank's Market, the neighborhood's unofficial adolescent gathering place. At closing time, nine o'clock, we relocated to the area behind the store.

What followed remains fragmented in my memory—perhaps a genuine altercation, perhaps just adolescent posturing disguised as combat. I recall George Hustlero charging toward me without provocation. I attempted to defend myself with a strategic kick, missed my target, and lost my balance. I fell backward, my skull striking the frozen earth with a force that should have registered as pain but didn't. The confrontation dissolved as quickly as it had materialized, hostility transformed into camaraderie by the universal solvent of shared alcohol. The whiskey, which may have averted a serious beating, continued its circulation.

We wandered through the neighborhood, our group expanding with each block. Around ten o'clock, we congregated beneath a streetlight at the intersection of Cottage and Perkins streets, roughly one hundred yards from my back door. The bottle made its final round.

When it reached me, a chorus of encouragement prompted me to consume what remained. The liquid descended without resistance, as if my body had already surrendered its defenses.

What followed exists in my memory as fragments—disconnected images of crawling across frozen ground, moments of consciousness floating in a sea of blackness. In the days that followed, I struggled to distinguish nightmare from reality.

From what I later pieced together, I entered an alcoholic blackout shortly after emptying the bottle, around 9:30 or 10:00 PM. The temperature had fallen into the teens. When I finally reached my back door, sometime after 11:00 PM, I could not stand. I pounded desperately until my mother opened the door, admonishing me to cease what she perceived as another of my pranks. Then she closed the door.

Minutes passed before she opened it again. "Help me, Mom," I pleaded. "Please help me."

She pulled me inside and up the three steps to the kitchen, calling to my older brother Paul, who was reading in the living room. She propped me against our massive Ben-Hur freezer while Paul rushed to assist. Detecting the alcohol, Paul slapped me hard across the face. My mother rebuked him and instructed him to help me to the bathroom.

The subsequent hours exist as isolated moments of clarity in an otherwise darkened timeline. I recall awakening on the bottom bunk of our bed. Ronald, Joe's older brother, peered down at me, horror evident in his expression. "Oh my God, what happened?" he asked.

I vaguely remember—or perhaps imagined—pounding my fist against the wall beside my bunk, declaring, "It's not their fault. I did this."

In the early morning hours, around 4:00 AM, thirst drove me to consciousness. I stumbled to the bathroom, activated the push-button light switch, and took two unsteady steps to the sink, my eyes barely open. I filled a glass with cold water and drank deeply.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I confronted my reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. Recognition came slowly, then horrifically. The face that returned my gaze appeared to have been attacked with sandpaper, severe diagonal lacerations extending from upper left to lower right. Deep gouges marked the bridge of my nose, surrounded by a constellation of dried, bloody scratches.

Realizing this mutilated visage was my own, I retreated to my bed, falling into sleep with a prayer that reality would prove less cruel than this vision. It did not.

Morning brought further discoveries. The sleeves of my dress shirt bore holes at the elbows. My elbows themselves were raw, skin abraded away, replaced by scabs. My knees exhibited identical damage. The evidence suggested a journey across frozen earth, my body reduced to crawling, the unyielding ground destroying fabric and flesh alike.

When I returned to school the following Monday, my peers quickly christened me "Scarface." Life resumed its rhythm until I approached Joe with questions about that night.

"Joe, I remember nothing after finishing the whiskey and throwing the bottle into the Wrights' backyard. Tell me what happened after that."

He shrugged, evasive. "You seemed OK when I headed home, man. That's about all I can remember. We were all pretty drunk, and you seemed to hold your whiskey well."

My parents forbade further friendship with Joe during the remaining months of ninth grade. Years after high school graduation, I encountered him at the Clark Gas Station on Auburn Avenue in Pontiac. As he approached to pump my gas, I was rendered speechless by the transformation of his once-familiar face. Hundreds of small, pus-filled protuberances disfigured his skin, covering his face and neck. Recognition came slowly, and with it, a paralyzing inability to inquire about his condition.

I later learned from an obituary that Joe had succumbed to a rare cancer at nineteen—the same age at which I married my high school sweetheart. Shortly after my twentieth birthday, I became a father.

Weeks after my brush with alcohol-induced oblivion, the city purchased our house for urban renewal, and my family relocated to Waterford Township, approximately ten miles west of Pontiac. This geographical shift offered a fresh beginning with new relationships and a home near Crescent Lake. Each day, my father and I commuted to Pontiac to complete my academic year at St. Frederick's. My classmates elected me sophomore class treasurer, and I concluded ninth grade with exemplary grades, including the highest score on my religion final examination.

The lesson, though brutally administered, endured. To this day, the aroma of William Penn whiskey induces nausea and resurrects memories of my near-death experience. No subsequent substance has brought me so perilously close to mortality.

Was the alcohol responsible, or was I? The latter, unquestionably. My ignorance nearly proved fatal, not the whiskey itself. I've often wondered about the connection between that cautionary assembly and my dangerous experiment with William Penn. Since that ninth-grade episode, no other substance has threatened my existence—not even remotely.

A Note From the Author

This narrative has become my life's work—the art of transforming memory into meaning. Beyond these pages lie thirty more chapters of this journey, each one carefully crafted to continue the story you've begun to experience.

I invite you to become a paid subscriber to unlock the complete narrative. Your subscription not only grants you immediate access to the full manuscript but also sustains the creative process that makes this work possible. The resources you provide directly fuel the continuation of this and future projects.

I offer this invitation with confidence: the story's arc will reward your investment with moments of recognition, revelation, and resonance that echo long after the final page.

Thank you for considering this partnership in storytelling.

—Ted