FIFTEEN

                                                               Halloween 1987, Ashland

Suzie (r) and I

    Our final Eugene store did manage to get us back on our feet somewhat, although there was never enough money to start making payments to our friend for his merchandise or the rent on his house. It was located on the second floor of a building, so people had to walk up a tall stairway to get to it. A previous store of ours failed partially because of a very short stoop that needed to be negotiated. I’ve imagined that unless a business is on ground level people just won't wander in. However this staircase led upstairs to a large and popular used book store, comic book store, and art supply business; so we actually fit in quite well and had lots of foot traffic.

Among the new items we carried, were a Jesus and a Mary T-shirt, shown in typical Catholic context with no words. I didn't understand why anyone would want these shirts or why the manufacturer had made them, quite a departure from their usual line of pirated rock music bands. But wanting to be on the cutting edge of whatever was hip, as well as a new willingness to be open spiritually, we brought them in and displayed them with the other shirts. The response surprised me, ranging from anger due to mockery, to anger at breaking the commandment about graven images, to gladness at seeing these two visages in such an unlikely place. The shirts turned out to be good sellers. I honestly did not have much of a clue who Jesus and Mary were, nor did I understand their significance. I imagined they were an important married couple in the still unknown to me Christian religion. I suppose I didn't care enough then to actually find out. I knew that Christians murdered Jews, but I tried to ignore that in the name of fashion.

Another merchandise line that was really doing great for us, though, was the rock jewelry, especially the little silver cross earrings popularized by punk star Billy Idol. At one point, Idol was in a bad motorcycle accident, and a rumor began that he’d said he was now 'born again'. He replied that no, he said he was into ‘porn again’. Idol enjoyed a string of hit records in his day, but somehow also accomplished making the cross an icon of rock music. Many years later, and after I’d become a Christian, a young man came into the store wearing the now out-of-fashion piece of rock jewelry and I complimented him on it, saying it was nice to see the Cross of Christ displayed on his person. He admitted that he was unaware of any connection between Jesus and his ear piece, and kind of recoiled in shock as I explained the Cross and what Jesus had done for him. “Nah, he said, that’s not why I’m wearing it”.

The same jewelry company added upside-down crosses to their line. This appealed to me, as I could tell that it was some sort of anti-Christian sentiment, and fed my rebellious nature. It began to sell as well as the original, and I never gave it another thought until one horrified browser shrieked out, “I’m not shopping here; he’s selling the Devil’s crosses”! She looked to me like a typical normal woman, but she believed in the Devil; I’d never run across anything like that before. “No, I said, it’s just rock music jewelry, nothing to do with any devils”, and chuckled nervously. Yes, I’d dreamed about the Devil a couple of years previously, but that was just a dream, wasn’t it?

Diana had something called SAD, or seasonal affective disorder; grey days depressed her. So we began to investigate other possible places to move where there’d be more sunny days. One day at the library while perusing the mammoth Atlas of Oregon, I noticed something that I at first assumed was a typo. It showed that the Medford/Ashland area had twice as many sunny days as Eugene. After investigating further, Ashland won over our other possible target towns, mainly because of its proximity and therefore lowest moving cost. So after a single year at our campus location in Eugene, we loaded the store onto the largest truck available for rental and made the 180 mile move to the land of sun. Who’d have thought that hidden in the Pacific Northwest would be an ideal place to live without the wind and rain of Florence or the gloom of Eugene?

Another reason for the move had to do with a book I found in the 'new age' section of the bookstore by Laeh M. Garfield titled Companions In Spirit. As I recall, this book about how to contact your guardian angel or ‘spirit guide’ was either written or published in Ashland. I didn’t have time to read it until after we moved, but glancing through it I was sure that it, and Ashland, held the key to my thirst for spiritual knowledge. Some years later I would have a confrontation with Ms. Garfield who was signing books at a store in Ashland. By this time I’d been saved and had a sign in my window warning people not to attend the signing. She ran in, ripped the sign down and threatened to sue me, accusing me of being a Christian bigot and never having even read her book. But I’d not only read it, but followed it carefully. It became my new 'bible' and changed my life completely.

Franklin had once advised me that I could move my store anywhere; he was sure that my version of a hip store would succeed wherever we went, reflecting my knowledge and personality as it did. I believed that he was correct, and so without doing any sort of market research, we found a store for rent downtown on the least expensive block of the historic district. My heart sunk when I walked in to speak with the current tenant; he was a Christian who lived in Florence when I did, a city councilor there and my nemesis, as straight as they come. I was sure he’d tell the building owner not to rent to me. But surprisingly, this fellow was a true Christian and welcomed me to town, saying that Ashland was a melting pot of ideas, with everyone from the far-right to the far-left and all getting along together. The landlord turned out to be a sweetheart as well, taking a chance on us cash poor hippies. In fact over the years that we’ve rented the building, he has always gone out of his way for us and has only raised the rent a few times. We could not have found a sweeter deal; obviously it was our fate to move here.

There was even a large parking spot right in front of the store waiting for us to park the huge truck full of everything we owned. But moments after arriving, we had our first run-in with the police, who told us that we couldn’t park the truck there. How then could we hot-shot merchants move our stuff in? They said we should have contacted them to make arrangements beforehand. Then the downtown historical association condemned our pink and blue new wave signage, and the police were back to warn us that some art postcards on a rack in the window were illegal, showing a little too much skin.

But eventually we opened for business, found an apartment to rent, and found a place in the new town’s ‘alternative’ community. I couldn’t get my harmless 'Cruisin' radio program on the air, though; the program director of the local college radio station had heard 'Modern Mono' and vowed that I’d never get on the air here, and this turned out to be correct (until 24 years later when a true community radio station began broadcasting). Oh well, there was a certain amount of cache even in being blacklisted. So, I got involved with the coming ‘harmonic convergence’, made some Wiccan friends, found some good cocaine and read that channeling book.

As suggested by the book, I burned some white candles and prayed that no negative entities would be attracted to our Ouija board, but higher spirits only should respond. Then we sat with our fingers on the planchet, waiting. During the Debbie years, I’d picked up an Ouija board at a flea-market in Eugene. But a woman who saw me with it, G-d bless her, talked me into leaving it there saying that it was an evil tool of the Devil. I didn’t believe in an actual devil, but she scared me badly enough that I never again thought about acquiring one until this book suggested it a dozen years later. When Toys R Us opened in Medford, they had a huge display of these things; indeed it was tied for the number one best-selling board game in America at the time. How could it be harmful?

We moved onto the couch to get into a more comfortable position. I started pushing slightly on the planchet to ‘get it going’. Diana asked if it was me doing that and when I answered affirmatively, she bade me to sit perfectly still. She’d done this with her sisters growing up, and said to be patient; the planchet would move itself. They had asked the board innocuous children’s questions, does so-and-so think so-and-so is cute, things you’d ask a ‘magic ball’, never thinking about any connections with the spiritual realm. It was fun for a little while, then put in the closet and forgotten, probably like most Ouija boards. But now in 1986, once I’d relaxed the board started to do its thing to my total amazement.

Our "guardian angels" were named Timu and Hojk; two old souls in charge of watching over and helping us. I began to consult them daily about any matters that popped into our heads.  I remember asking what it was like 'on the other side' where there was no time as we understood it. “There’s time here, all right” came the answer, which surprised me. If you’ve read the Bible, you’ll know that the demons' days are growing short before they will be thrust into a lake burning with fire. I knew nothing of such things then. When these spirits claimed to be our 'guides', though mildly skeptical I had no cause to doubt them. They were fun and informative, and only slightly sinister, especially Timu, whom I thought of as the more serious one.

Kelly’s pet bird had flown its coop, and we consulted our 'friends' to ask where she could find it. They named a particular street and even tree where the bird was. In this case, the bird was not retrieved, but their information turned out to be right at least half the time in other areas. The top psychics only get about a 10% score in their predictions; we felt like 50% was an amazing result. Maybe Kelly just couldn’t see that little bird in that big tree. The Bible, of course, demands 100% accuracy of its prophets, but again I didn’t know that. 

Ever since 'One Step Beyond' as a child, I’d been fascinated by what is called automatic writing. The 'guides' as they preferred to be called, let me know that I was capable of this otherworldly 'writing'. Within days I was spirit writing like I'd done it all my life. Each 'guide' had a different handwriting style although it was difficult for me to tell which one was responding at first unless I asked. I began asking them anything and everything. Since we bought and sold used merchandise, they would tell me which ones if any were stolen. Being from New York and naturally suspicious, when an obviously non-Christian couple brought some Christian CD’s in to sell, I consulted the spirits, who told me to buy them; that these young people were struggling on their Christian path but could be trusted. It was so much easier to communicate with them by this method. Even paper and pencil turned out to be unnecessary, as I could simply use my finger on the palm of my hand. The now unnecessary Ouija board went into the closet.

Another time, an environmental type woman came in the shop to collect money for her group. The money was to be used to hold an organizational meeting-slash-party in the woods to plan how to raise money; i.e. not the type of thing most folks would donate to. I consulted Timu expecting him/it to say to throw her out. I was shocked when he told me to give her $250. We weren’t doing all that well to afford such a magnanimous gift; she would have been thrilled with $25. But the guide insisted on the $250, demanding that I trust him. I couldn’t believe I was doing it as I wrote that check. Years later I found a book by a man in a similar position. The demons in his life actually bankrupted the poor soul before he was saved; coercing him to make outrageous donations until his fortune was gone. Timu noted that I’d been on the stingy side in my life and needed to become a little more generous, which I had to admit was true. I also gave a generous donation to Greenpeace at his insistence, something even folks without demons sometimes do.