This next installment in my Haiti experience is the start of my first visit as a naive young American business guy with an accounting degree that passed the CPA exam and who thought that I could rule the world. My first experience in Haiti was getting off the Air Haiti airplane at Port au Prince. When they opened the door, the overwhelming heat, humidity, and the overpowering smell of diesel fumes and body odor assaulted my nose. I thought, what the hell am I getting into? I was met at the airport by a “Christian” businessman who was a lot more hustler business guy than Christian, but he introduced me to my soon to be Haitian guy who knew everyone, and everyone liked him. He was related to Mario Theard, who was the cousin of Baby Doc, that I paid off in the last episode. Frantz Theard was a character, a likable scoundrel married to a lovely wife that graciously hosted us many times at their modest but comfortable home in Petionville.
My first night was at the Holiday Inn, across the street from the Presidential Palace (subsequently destroyed in an earthquake). This place was not your, “no, but I did spend the night at a Holiday Inn” type of place. It was walled in where doors and windows faced outside, and the walls were topped with mortared in shards of broken glass bottles that from a distance looked like colorful artwork. They were the last line of defense against anyone foolish enough to scale the walls. As Frantz was about to drop me off at the entrance, I a 12-13-year-old girl and her friends approached, they spoke in broken English, and for a quarter she would perform carnal services for me. After my initial shock and Frantz attempting to shew her away, I pulled out a $5 bill, gave it to her, and said, “Your day is done go home to your family.” Of course, she was probably going to her pimp and living on the street. I’ve never been to a place like this where human dignity could be bought for 25 cents!
Similarly, a few days later, as we rode in Frantz’s non-air-conditioned Honda down through the streets of the city. We stopped at a street corner to let a TAP-TAP (private colorful bus-like transportation) pass. A young zombie-like man came alongside the car (I had the window down because there was no air conditioning, and proceeded to give a public showing of his private parts at my head level way to close to my face and indicated that was also for sale. I wanted to lose my griot right there. Welcome to Haiti, blanc!
After a meeting with Baby Doc and his underlings, to do a ceremonial signing of the mine lease at the Presidential Palace and drinking coffee out of little cups (thank God they were little since I don’t drink coffee). This stuff tasted like the Bunker “C” oil that we used in the generator at the mine with a little Louisiana hot sauce to boot. This stuff was awful, but we didn’t want to insult this brutal dictator’s hospitality.
Baby Doc was married to Michelle Duvalier, who was smoking hot and known for her lavish fashion spending sprees in Paris on the poor country’s dime. She was Imelda Marcos on steroids. Baby Doc looked like Baby Huey, and Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert all rolled into one with the intellect of an ameba. Michelle “married” him for what they could loot from the nation’s treasury and bribes.
It was on the American Embassy to schmooze with the diplomats and had my first meeting with the business Attaché Aubrey Hooks. He welcomed our venture into Haiti and gave us plenty of diplomatic double-speak to stroke our ever-increasing egos. The embassy, also a small fortress, across from the Palace. With a nearby Haitian Army barracks (the military were soldiers first and stayed as much as possible out of the politics and corruption). The last I saw of Baby Doc was in his high-speed Mercedes motorcade heading down the narrow two-lane road coming down from Petionville, running everyone off the road including Frantz and me. He always traveled fast so that no one had a chance to stop him and drag him out of the car and pummel him. The people hated but feared him.
Our next stop was M street in Washington, DC. We had a meeting with Over Seas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) to procure political risk insurance to guard against losing our investment in case of the political instability of the host government. We were ushered into a room with two smartly dressed Harvard MBA Grad CPA ladies that were to interview me to see if we passed the smell test for financial stability and expertise in the mining field. The Mining part was easy enough; we had three generations of Waelti’s mining since the 1940s. The financial part was intense. I had to answer questions line by line on our financials and tax returns going back three years. Two hours later, I felt like I just had a financial colonoscopy, and they weren’t gentle. My marketing guy was with me and said, “Geez! That was like the Alamo, but you were still standing! After that, Ed and I got a cab to take us over to Blackies (the best steak house in DC) had a steak and some beers. We were watching TV when the news came across that Baby Doc Fled Haiti that morning (with Mario on board). We just about lost our steak, and subsequently, our political risk insurance was not in force, and we were hung out to dry. Days later, I got a call from Dean, from the only phone in Miragoâne, a community phone booth. There were no cell phones, and the Haitian phone service could be surpassed by two cans connected by a piece of string. (by the way, Bill Clinton, later scammed Tellico the Haitian telephone company for millions on back door deals way to go Clinton Foundation! Anyway, I heard gunshots in the background and feared that violence had reached the mine. As I could barely hear Dean, he said not to worry. We still had the local garrison of the army on our payroll and that two of them got into it, having a Quick Draw McGraw shoot out in the street, but it was over, and nobody got killed. When they ran out of ammo, they both went down to the little cantina and drank the afternoon away. Another day in the life of several fools to play off the old song from the ’60s.
As I let my mind wander, I’m taking yet another side trip from the Haiti story to what I woke this morning to write about, which is a topic relevant to my title. I have come up with a weird analogy of my state of mind periodically. The state of depression for me right now is like being a passenger in a hurricane hunter plane; you’re going right through a storm. You seem somewhat safe in the plane because it’s a stout aircraft and is piloted by capable well-trained pilots (aka my doctors). Still, every time I go through the turbulence of anxiety and hopelessness, I begin to think that the 3 Stooges are at the helm, and we’re going to crash any moment. Then we make it through to eye of the storm, where my home and family and my brief stops at my Bible Study Fellowship class, church, quiet times at home with my family, and Bear my dog give a reprieve to the unnerving journey. Then it’s back into the storm again. I look up in the eye, and I see peace from above the heavens and wonder why things are so dangerous around me.
I’m trying to fly the plane myself and find that, hell, I’m about as good at this as they are. God is my compass, but it is swinging back and forth between faith and despondence. I cling to a sense of direction through prayer so that I don’t end up getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle(too much Science channel, my guess). I become so frustrated with myself because “here I am mentally paralyzed when folks coming home from war with arms, legs missing, trama from the horrors of war, those around me battling cancer and the like seem to find their place and start anew. I’ve lost some eyesight that makes me not safe to drive, Big deal! And yet, by comparison, my bar is low. I surmise that we, no matter what the severity of our state is, we all share the despair of being left behind. Everything we thought we used to do, relishing in what we got right and repenting for what was not so right, still isn’t enough to “put us back together.” I wish I had a quick cure for that. If I did, I would practice the posed question “physician…heal thyself”. I have help. I have prayer partners and close friends and family, and THAT’S what keeps me from losing my mind. My neurologist just defaults to “the brain is complicated, and we don’t know a lot about how it works” (thanks captain obvious!). I think my happy neurons got disconnected when my afib heart decided to wig out and threw a clot (so the experts say). I’m giving up the big problems to God; let Him work them out. That Isaiah 55:8 thing about my(God) thoughts are not your thoughts my(God) ways are not your ways, is a tough one to grasp when you are built with your DNA like mine; that says, “quit wasting time GET IT DONE.”
Here’s a good read if you need a little encouragement to the fact that God does exist, and he wonderfully created us even though we honestly don’t always “feel the love.” Imagine how He and Jesus feel/felt with us self-centered slugs daily, blaming Him for all our problems. The book is by Francis Collins, noted genome scientist and believing Christian called The Language of God.
For this post, this is all I’ve got, but I would encourage anyone reading this to share with me your trek through life we may have crossed paths and not known it. Later today, I’ll try to finish the Haiti thing and have it in my next post. Thank you, my followers, feel free to pass this down the line if it helps someone you know.
After a few trips and lots of negotiations which I will get into later, our little family company ended up with 20-year lease renewable into perpetuity on a massive abandoned Bauxite mine complete with a deep-water port mining equipment and structures. The lease was for 1-gourde (Haitian currency) worth about 12 cents US per year.
Because of the years of corruption and government malfeasance, outside industries were leaving the country in droves. We were bringing the promise of jobs and a little contribution to Haiti’s virtually nonexistent balance of payments as well as fresh economic meat for the government to “tax.” We were big-time international operators who were legends in our own mind and in way over our heads. They gave us the keys to the whole place. The main warehouse was loaded with spare parts, including lubricants, Ford pickups, and Broncos. Several brand-new heavy Cat engines fan to flywheel in shipping crates along with rolls of 72″ wide new conveyor belt for the ship loading cantilever conveyor to get the ore to the ships. We surely needed this, since the locals stripped off all the previous belt in the past and cut it up to make roofs for their little makeshift houses. At about $20 per foot, it was a good thing we had about 1000 feet on rolls left behind in the warehouse so we could replace it.
After we got settled and hired the 100 or so people, We took a large Cat 988 (about an 80,000 LB machine and the entire army of guys we had and pulled that massive roll of belt unto the conveyor and threaded over all the rollers and got that running again. While we were doing all this, we got a $50,000 grant from the US government’s private-public insurance/foreign development/political risk insurance/loan guarantee OPIC to do a further study of the reserves of calcium carbonate. There were no core drilling rigs available; we did this by hand having a man digging a vertical shaft just big enough for a man to pass and hand up a bucket of spoil. We cored the deposit down 30 feet and still didn’t reach the bottom. Only in a third world country could you pull this off.
We hired security for the mine, to stop everyone from stealing our stuff, which consisted of one enormous and well-built gentleman armed with a machete, which he didn’t need since the sight of him made anyone give him a wide berth; like the Israelites fleeing Goliath but there was no David or God’s wrath to challenge him. He recruited his helpers just to cover the area, which were mostly unarmed. He was a gentle giant as long as you behaved yourself. He was so loyal that while we furnished baseball caps with the company logo on it, he also took it upon himself to get the local seamstress to sow on arm patches to his somewhat bedraggled shirt with a crude imitation of the logo denoting him as an official of the company. Our logo, by the way, was a melding of the Haitian flag and the US flag with Haiti American Mining Co. above and below it.
However, there was one attempt a couple of years before we took over the mine of grand theft when someone was able to try to steal a D-8 (30ton) dozer and drove it across the mountain behind the mine to National #1, the only main highway that crosses the country. They intended to transport it out of the country to sell on the black market in South America. It was easy if they had a cat key (which will start any cat machine) and a little fuel. They got scared and abandoned it along the highway. We intended to hire transport to haul it back to the mine. The problem with that was, having to go through the little town of Miragoâne, the turns on the streets were narrow to navigate. So, we decided to drive it the 3 miles over the mountain back to the mine. So off we go with our returned booty. When we started to climb the hill because it has been sitting so long, it leaked out enough hydraulic fluid that the drives in the torque converter wouldn’t turn so that it wouldn’t go over the hill. With the ingenuity of the locals, we rented a donkey and loaded him up with 5-gallon pales of oil from the mine and schlepped it over the hill to the dozer. News of this operation soon spread across the countryside. Since this doesn’t happen every day in Miragoâne, the headline, word of mouth joke was how the little donkey rescued the mighty D-8. After scaring a goat over the hill to his untimely death and plowing through a small cornfield (which we had to settle up the damages with the owner on the spot), We finally got it back to the mine and was once again peace in the valley.
We were off and running; equipment was moving stripping away the left behind Bauxite, revealing the white calcium carbonite below. A lot of hand labor was also involved, and we even thought about using a human conveyor with baskets to get the ore down the hill to the port about a mile away but decided to do the heavy lifting with the equipment we had.
We ran into an unanticipated operational problem with productivity. When I was at a meeting with Dean, our ramrod and he told me that by 1:00 in the afternoon, the labor force was wearing out (even the equipment operators). We made sure they had enough water in the relentless heat. Dean said the problem is that they are so malnourished that they just give out. We thought about that for a while, and we came up with a capital idea of hiring the local best cooks to cook an early lunch, give them an hour break and then start the afternoon shift. We could buy plenty of beans rice and griot to feed the troops rather economically to get the productivity up. We thought we solved our problem for about a day, and then something heartbreaking to see began to occur. At lunchtime, the men would meet their wives and children at the fence and hand their entire lunch over and feed their families. Once again, we were back where we were. Dean asked me, “what do we do now boss,” I thought for a few minutes, did some quick bean-counting in my head, and said, “I guess we’re going to need more beans rice and griot and hire a couple more cooks.” The third world is a different world, and you have to adapt to the conditions that Americans seldom face. Good old capitalism mated with heart and on we went. All was going well, and we were getting ready to mine, load, and ship our first load to the States within three months. Then the death blow hit. To grease the skids that Reynolds so dutifully engaged in for 30+years, I had to pay in the back of a car $10,000 to Baby Docs cousin (who also “owned” the Mercedes dealership in Port au Prince. Soon after that, one morning at 5:00 AM, Baby Doc fled Haiti along with the same cousin that I paid 10k to, on a plane out of the country.
Because of the turmoil of confusion that followed and not being able to determine who to pay off or who was in charge, we were forced to shut down and leave, just like Reynolds, only one big difference, we were a little company, and they were the Behemoth Reynolds Aluminum. If we stayed another month, we would have been broke and lost our Florida family company. The day we finally closed the gate, a herd of our workforce and their families stood at the entrance begging us not to leave. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
The intrigue, CIA, US government screw-ups, Voodoo, young girl prostitutes, Communist Cubans, and a pedophile corrupt Catholic Priest, who became president, are part of the next episode. Stay tuned. Reliving this part of my life helps me battle my depression. Thinking of what I was a part of and how thankful, with all I’m dealing with now, to have my family, my home, and all of it in the good ole USA.
I promised to dive into the rest of the Haiti story, but my heart led me to write this first. I was waning in my drive to write sooner because I can’t write if my heart isn’t inspired to do so. Instead, I’m going to return a bit to my main theme. I want to share with you my latest prayer ministry. Being a rather slow writer, whose most significant accomplishment before this blog, was torturing my high school teachers with book reports; and cleverly worded “pay or die” letters for our family-owned site development company. Upcoming topics will include the rest of the Haiti story Farm days with a message growing up in a generation that added so much but is sadly largely forgotten.
So today, we’re talking about prayer bombs. I got this analogy from a WWII story about an unsung American hero named Gail Halverson. He started an offshoot of the post-WWII “Operation Vittles.” In Operation Vittles, US cargo planes flew food and supplies into West Berlin. The Soviets blocked allied access over land in an attempt to “starve” the population into giving up their freedom under allies. One pilot, after meeting some of the starving children at the nearby airbase, soliciting for any food they could get became what was known as the “candy bomber.” Click on the links for more details. It is a story of redemption and forgiveness that started with the heart of what America stood for. While many of these pilots were, probably just a few years before, bombing Berlin into submission, they were now engaged in the heart of God’s grace with many orphaned children getting something they haven’t had in years, compassion, and something sweet. Gail was also known as Uncle Wiggly Wings. Flying over a crowd of children, he would wiggle the wings on his plane. This way, the kids knew the chocolate bars and goodies were to soon fall out of the bomber. Oh, how these bombs were so different than ones falling just three years earlier, killing their parents and siblings.
After some tears of my own, I decided that maybe there are some struggling souls (many close friends of mine) who battle depression and physical health challenges that make mine pale in comparison. A few months ago, I hopped into my prayer plane jalopy (also known as texting). I decided that in addition to my daily personal prayers, I would “drop little prayer bombs “every now and then, to give some compassion and hope and maybe a little sweet encouragement to those who need it. My hope is that I can relate and convey hope. Those German kids needed just that, and the candy bars were a bonus. No one suffered like those little kids in my, and maybe your darkest weakest hour; we’ll be lifted as well.
So, I guess now that I’m over my last bout of depression, I can write about depression. That doesn’t make sense, does it? When I need to be cheery on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Florida, I choose to write about something that sounds more like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Pit and the Pendulum,” and he was depressed most of his writing career.
Here goes, from my vantage point, I can only speak to what I’m dealing with. First, it’s not like having a bad day. I could shake that off, and when things went totally wrong, I’d laugh after my fit of anger and a cursory barrage of F-bombs and say Lord what next the locusts and frogs? No, this is like being between the reality of the past and being like a spectator in the present. People want to help, give advice, ask how you are feeling and console you, then move on in their hectic and plugged-in world, and you’re not. You wish someone would understand and give you the magic words that will snap you out of it and put things back where they were (only the good stuff, though). I generally accept that even the most well-meaning folks can’t do that for me.
My Christian Shrink is good and suggested I write this blog, so I am. He thinks I have some talent in this, but rest assured I won’t be a New York Times best-selling author, any time soon. I like to tell it like it is and enjoy sarcasm and earthy humor, and that’s how I write as long as my wife edits it so that it is somewhat readable.
A big help in my coping is a new dog we have named bear – we didn’t give him that name; it was given to him by his previous master, who died and was given to the ASPCA. With God inspiring my 16-year old son to adopt him after our last dog Teddy died in his arms while my wife and I were at the hospital getting a post-stroke stress test on my heart. Bear pesters me to play fetch with him and is my constant companion. I recommend a dog for a companion in the battle with depression. He doesn’t ask tough questions, just looks up at me with his eyes and a wag of his tail, and says, “let’s play ball,” no matter the weather.
After the stroke, I had a bit of depression, and my general practitioner prescribed anti-depressants. Following that advice was my first mistake. I had a reaction, and it sent me into an unannounced and somewhat violent seizure, and never in my life had I had this happen. I would look like a freshly caught bass flopping around on the bottom of a johnboat. After the 2nd bout of seizures, they did a DNA test and found out that I am prone to these reactions with the medication they prescribed. They fiddled around with dosages and different types and treating me like a science experiment. Nobody knows what the deal is, but going through seizures, losing some of my peripheral vision on my left side, left me not able to drive safely.
Very quickly, I went from a hard-charging go for the gold guy to suddenly sidelined, and I am now a virtual prisoner in my house occasionally going out to church, bible study, and the dollar menu at McDonald’s. Don’t get me wrong, it could be so much worse, and I pray each morning for those who have it much worse than I and that with thanks to God for my blessings, lifts me. I ask God the really tough question. What do you want me to do now? I feel like I just landed on the moon, wondering how I got here. I cry out to God, not for mercy and things, but how can I serve and be useful. The answer here to date has not been forthcoming, or my depression has shut my ears. I know God is there, but I don’t understand what he wants me to do. Isaiah 55:8 states, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” this gives me an excellent default for unanswered prayers or answers I don’t hear. But being an impatient and get it done kind of guy God’s not fast enough for me. I got Kingdom stuff to do. Don’t put me on the bench now! I also know that you must wait upon the Lord and give the battle to the Lord or, as an old business mentor, Walter told me when I was going through a rough stretch, “If you got a problem too big to solve, give it to someone else. He was an old school hard-nosed Irishman. I’m doing precisely that and letting God handle the stuff he won’t let me do myself, and he’s got “the juice,” to smite anything, just ask the Egyptians.
However, staring down creditors and the more personal ones with old relationships that you owe and are struggling to pay is not a prescription for a depression cure. Fortunately, and through truth and communication, the situation, with God in the middle, makes it more tolerable. The corporate greedheads who have made much off of me over the years, I treat with dignity to the worker bees and play hardball with lawyers and bullies. They can take everything sometimes but never your dignity, so in the end, the corporations are just a thing, not another child of God. Don’t get me wrong; you should always pay your bills, but if you have never been in business and on the writing end of paychecks, you may want to withhold judgment on tough life choices.
I remember one time we weren’t going to make payroll unless we let a check bounce to the Florida Dept of Revenue for sales tax. I’m staring at a parking lot full of wives and their kids waiting on those paychecks before our truck drivers returned from a grueling 10-12-hour day on the road. They live paycheck to paycheck, and there wasn’t any “oh sorry we just ran out of money could you wait until Monday when we got more money or borrow some? No, I did what I thought was the right thing to do on a difficult choice. That next day the FDOR got a warrant for my arrest for a bad check, and I was arrested in my own office and hauled off to county jail. In the holding room with me, I had the company of several fellow citizens who made tough choices, one for child support he didn’t get in on time by a week another for bouncing a $40 check to Publix for groceries to feed his family until payday. Friends this was 30 years ago, and nothing has changed, it is the way of the world. I got bailed out that night, but not before I had to take a ride with others of my criminality along with robbers and thugs AND plucked out of the holding room just before I was to be issued an orange jumpsuit and sent out onto the floor with the real bad guys. Never was I so happy to see my oldest son on that day with bail money. I made the check good the following week but had to serve 3 months’ probation. Once again, an angel, in the form of my longtime attorney and friend, Charles, had the whole thing expunged from my record. I guess this blog revealed that, but I don’t care I never feared the truth, and as Jesus said, “the truth will set you free.”
You see my brothers and sisters in depression; it can always be worse no matter what the injustices and persecution may be. I’m not feeling the pure joy of persecution and suffering that the Apostle Paul speaks of, but I don’t dwell on it either, this is where the Devil will destroy you.
How do I know Jesus has almighty power? Recently as I journey through this desert called depression, I had an episode while trying to sleep and trying to medicate myself with tv. I suddenly was overcome with sweat, chills, and severe headache and a bad taste in my mouth, and I thought maybe I was going to have another seizure. But this was different; I felt a cloud of pure dark evil come upon me and fear and panic. I read scripture earlier in the week about how demons and Satan were cast out in the name of Jesus. I was so panicked and desperate. I blurted out loudly, “IN THE NAME OF JESUS I REBUKE YOU SATAN LEAVE ME AND MY FAMILY ALONE AND BE GONE!” After just a few seconds, the chills went away, the sweat subsided, and the bad taste went away with my next swallow. I was calm and drifted off to sleep to the science channel. I woke up a few hours later and thanked Jesus and the Father for rescuing me. Somewhat more lightheartedly later, I thought, Wow! This stuff works.
Later, still, I remember another episode in my life where the Devil played to my weakness. My first wife and I, were growing passionless in our relationship and we began sharing and comforting each other with food instead of the passion we used to have along with that midlife crisis men have a tendency to experience, I plainly said to know one in particular ‘If I could lose a hundred pounds and be thin again, I’d give $50,000. The Devil was listening. He took the 50k, my business, my wife, and another half-million to boot. My oldest son was left to facing the world from a single-parent household. Well, the Devil kept part of his deal, I lost the hundred pounds got another wife had a beautiful daughter divorced her and landed into the wonderful person I’m married to now. Out of the Devil imposed chaos, a lot of help was given to me from a great young country bible preaching pastor named Ken Wagstaff, from the Ft. Drum Community Church, a Village Ministry Outreach church. We needed each other He’d ride back to Melbourne with me, and we’d talk about old cars which much to the congregation’s dismay he had several locals under repair on the parsonage front yard and sometimes one he’d own. One morning in worship praise time in this little country church I remember this little bedraggled 12-year-old boy got up in his rural southern accent proudly testified that he thanked the Lord because I quit chewing (tobacco) this week and abruptly sat down with the little congregation breaking into applause and praising God. As time went on, my 2nd wife and I fought more and more, and one night I spent the night sleeping in my truck at the local community dump because I didn’t have anywhere to go. Talk about feeling low. But that is different than now. My 2nd ex and my daughter live in upstate New York, and my daughter, now 28, lives with her taking care of her as she is not well. We still pray for each other, remember the best of what we were to each other, and marvel at how God brings good out of our foolishness.
While I’m on a full disclosure true confession role, my first wife and I before we were married had an abortion right after Roe vs. Wade. We were scared and murdered an innocent little boy. Yes, among other things, I am a murderer and an adulterer. My 1st wife now runs a church offshoot to counsel women who bear the guilt of abortion and works to help them seek redemption for themselves. God has a way of leading us back no matter how bad we are and making the terrible something excellent and Holy. He is an amazing God that I struggle to understand, but I can behold in awe.
Recently I attended a class at my church on discernment and hearing God. We got off on a side trip about Bartimaeus, the blind man Jesus healed on the way to/from Jericho and how he had faith, and Jesus stopped and touched him, and he got his eyesight back. I spoke up and told the class that if we add a little bit to the story that Bartimaeus might have been a successful merchant and lost his livelihood and everything he had and couldn’t provide for his family, well, I’m that guy! Sitting alongside the road my depression is my blindness in addition to the physical loss of some vision and waiting for Jesus to come by and stop to have mercy (not pity) on me and heal me and give me my dignity back like the real healing he did for Bartimaeus, restoring his dignity. Someone from the class complimented me on what an excellent interpretation of the parable I did and how transparent I was about my own life. I replied politely and thanked her, but being open is easy for me because it isn’t what you and others think of me. The truth comes easy, after all. When you do not fear your past or what you are going through right now. This is probably as good of a place as any to inject a long one-liner I have recently composed that helps me stay focused and grounded. I jokingly call it Chapter 1 verse 1 of the non-canonized book of Rick. THE ROAD OF CONVICTION LEADS TO GOD’S GRACE AND IS PAVED WITH REPENTANCE AND WASHED CLEAN OF GUILT WITH THE BLOOD OF JESUS, LIVE LIFE WITH NO REGRETS if I keep telling myself that I can get through another day.
I am chemical free for depression. I’m relying on prayer, discernment of the Holy Spirit, and my always supportive and faithful wife. I’m not cured like Bartimaeus, but I’m coping and accepting my lot. Some people may be able to cope with help from the chemicals; I can’t. Thomas Jefferson said, “Question everything, even the very existence of God” Thomas wouldn’t have made that statement had he at least known the answer was yes to the last part but question everything else that comes from man. Question your doctors and Psychologists. Don’t make them your God but ask God to guide them, use them. Be careful, the world is a minefield, walk with God, and you won’t perish except to journey to a better and safer place.
Next, we’ll get back to Haiti with more to that story with intrigue, tears, and laughter. Kind of Tom Clancy, Samaritans Purse, and the Keystone cops all rolled into one. After that, we may take another stroll down music row with my bazaar and comical performance sketches and some original vintage recordings by Topaz from 1979 (wow! that was 40 years ago. man am I old.) I hope to “talk” to you all soon if I’m not too depressed. 😊
My Counselor suggested that I, in blog terms, encourage you “my tribe” and solicit feedback and insights from my readers. I would love that, and I hope I might connect with you all.
I was planning to give insights to the main title of my blog today since I have rambled on about everything but depression. Well, today is not a lot different since I’m too depressed to write about that topic just now, ironically. I’m going to share with you the back story about my Adventures in Haiti. We were there between 1984 – 1987.
To frame this right, I need to digress into a little background of what I know about the Haitian people. In a nutshell, what I experienced during my time there are people, who are poorer than anything the US has ever seen, that always wearing a smile and suffer indignities with grace.
There were the mulattos that were family lines of intermarriage over generations with French whites. There are incredibly dark-skinned black folks. The mulatto’s post-revolution assumed a status among the population and discrimination, not unlike ours in America back in the post-reconstruction days. The Haitian black people, like the United States, consisted mainly of slaves in the colonial days and beyond and were under the French, explaining why French and English were interwoven with African dialects to form what most Haitians speak as Creole. While they were speaking Creole, you could hear the occasional English, and proper French words sneak in. That is why I could navigate by communicating with them in English and picking up a little French. If you spoke fluent French, communication was rather easy, especially among the mulatto society.
The people have a long history of tyranny, and under the French working in the sugar plantations that made American cotton plantations look like Club Med. As I learned from tradition, the French had a unique form of punishment and sick amusement that was called blasting a black’s ass. This consisted (sometimes publicly) of restraining some hapless slave, inserting a stick of dynamite into his rectum, and lighting the fuse. Later on, when I was there, a little more civilized form of discipline, if you could call it that, was administered by order of Baby Doc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Duvalier and his father Papa Doc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Duvalier, the undisputed dictators of Haiti. By ordering the Tonton Macoutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonton_Macoute, their paramilitary thugs to enforce. Unlike the police, they wore blue shirts hung out under the trees, sometimes in the back of a pickup armed with machetes and an occasional pistol and waited for something or someone to do.
However, the one benefit to white foreigners like us, civil order was well enforced, and a “blanc” (white) never feared at any time or anywhere. Since the ruling class would do whatever it took to protect the flow of French, American, and Canadian cash into the country with which they sustained themselves. They maintained a close-knit oligarchy of trade and essential services like fuel, tires, food, and autos. These essential services were only a luxury that cash bearing foreigners and the Haitian Elite were able to avail themselves. A quick trip down any Port-au-Prince street would reveal the visual and overpowering odorous smell of feces, urine, and body odor. There were two economic classes: one for the elite and one for everyone else. What I found surprising was that transactionally they were segregated from each other. For example, our mining operation paid the going wage of $3 per day for unskilled labor and maybe doubled that for equipment operators and mechanics. Now before you label me a capitalist pig, this sub-economy operated on a different scale. Goat beans and rice on the black market were purchasable within the means of the lower working class.
To illustrate this difference more clearly in Pétion-Ville, a more affluent nearby town of Port au Prince. A modest, cozy, and excellent restaurant called Chez Gerard was located; Where the elite went after the “workday” in Port au Prince ended, which was usually about 2 in the afternoon. Here the real business got done over drinking and food. This place had the best blackened prime rib and all the sides of any five-star restaurant on the planet. We later learned that the whole place was bugged by either the CIA or Baby Doc; we were never sure, so the conversations were always guarded. During one evening business meeting, the check for an evening of drinks and food for five people exceeded our entire day’s payroll at the mine. While we dined on prime rib, I’d look over the railing at our open-air cabana and not 10 feet away I saw this massive pile of blankets, and it seemed to be alive. I quickly realized that it was at least 50 people and families sleeping there. I had a hard time finishing my food and wondered if these people had ever had anything more than griot (pronounced gree·ow -generally made with pork but in the absence of pork, which was regularly, using goat) in their entire life. After this introspection, it was back to business, discussing how we were to arrange to get more concessions from the “government,” how and who we had to pay off, and how much we were going to have to pay for fuel after “taxes.”
Our mining operation was in the middle of this, 50+ miles away from the center of corruption in Port-au- Prince in this little town of Miragoâne. Incidentally, within 30 days after we opened the mine good ole capitalism did its magic. The cobbler opened his shop; the local markets came back to life, and the local economy flourished overnight. Our ramrod Dean would go into town the night before payday to pick up little sundries because he knew that everything would be sold out the next day. Miragoâne was a smuggling port for black-market supplies of beans and rice. Virtually none of this commodity could be grown successfully in the country, making this a quasi-black market, because instead of paying the exorbitant official duty “taxes,” the importers paid some thug at the harbor to offload cargo with the government fully aware. Another layer in a corrupt government would get a piece, and so on up the hill ending at Baby Docs personal account on its way out with what he couldn’t spend there on the island to Swiss or French foreign banks.
We had an old but huge Waukesha diesel-powered generator (that was removed from a WWII era ship) at the plant, powering the mine. The Reynolds Bauxite mine needed this much power when they began ship loading. At non-peak times, we bought power from the little town down the road called Petit-Goâve. Their central generator, for the whole town, was a small 671 Detroit Diesel 300KW generator, and the wires to and from and around town looked barely heavier than your average American construction site extension cords. When we cranked up our generator, we would back feed power to everyone up and down the line. Even air conditioners could be powered again. Our behemoth generator ran on bunker C heavy oil (one step up in the refining process from tar) that they use to power ships, and we had a 20,000-gallon fuel tank left full from Reynolds when they left the mining operation unable to stomach any more of the corruption. We figured that would last us until our first ship came in, and we could snack on the ship’s bunker C.
The purpose of our being there was not the bauxite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauxite but what was under it. Pure white calcium carbonate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate. It was soft and easy to mine compared to hard white stone in the US. The calcium carbonate was such a high quality that it could be used in everything from pharmaceuticals to paper to swimming pool marcite to any plastic filler that needed an extremely white color. We had ports and buyers interested in Florida to the eastern New England coast. The international magnate started by our little Florida company seemed to be on its way. Stay tuned for part 2, where we’ll get into the intrigue and excitement.
While I might be considered a street Christian with my coarse language and my track record of not always the most reverent guy in the room with a litany of not so holy moments, I persevere to improve and grow. To illustrate the paradoxes of my life, let me share the following. I would play clubs with my band Topaz, as we got on stage before a crowd of diners, drinkers, and couples out to hear a good band and dance. Before we hit the first note, we lowered our heads in prayer, over the cacophony of clanging plates and loud talk. Sometimes people would look up and wonder what the hell are these guys doing, many would know and first with surprise, and then with a small smile knew that this wasn’t your average band. Though ladies were openly trying to seduce us, we just wanted to engage the audience with music designed to allow couples or impromptu couples to dance the night away, make new memories, rekindle old ones, enjoying a night out. Unfortunately, some of our Christian band members succumbed to temptation. It was rare and met with rebuke by the rest of us. I, among my many sins, never allowed it to become beyond a Jimmy Carter “lusting in my heart” thing, but naughty just the same, worthy of rebuke. Then like so many of us club musicians, we got tired of the drunks and the seamier side of music and turned to praise bands for finding more meaning. It was a pretty good fit since we as a praise band segment of the musicians who had the chops and filled a talent gap that exists/existed. In contrast, we had our roots in secular/commercial music (frequently a band was measured by how many drinks you could sell versus how good you were in management’s eyes and learned this art well.
Let me digress, for a moment, into tales of night club music. A memorable moment came just before we went on a break. The crowd was packed on the dance floor, we went into our break song that was the theme to the motion picture Rocky, and a fight broke out between two inebriated patrons, who thought they were in the ring. We went on to finish the song. The dance floor cleared and left the two drunks missing more punches then they landed. It was a great soundtrack for the absurd. The fun was over when the ex-marine bouncer escorted them out, not too gracefully. Just another full moon evening at the old Merritt Island Casino when the happy drunks turned mean, and the mean ones made fools of themselves. Just for your information, this same bouncer stood in the middle of State Road 520, pulled his military 45, and shot “warning” shots at a car speeding away with a waitress’s tip money at 2:00 am. Ah, yes, they don’t make them like that anymore. Only the stupid would mess with a guy who could have been a real-life participant in the Viet Nam saga Apocalypse Now, but he always protected the innocent in a Joshua true old testament way.
Out of this rowdy environment, I and several other of my hooligan comrades were persuaded to form a praise band for my old church. My Pastor’s leadership was trying to move the church into the 21st-century, kicking and screaming, from a liberal but very traditional hymn singing United Church of Christ Midwestern/New England church to two services, one traditional, one contemporary. She was the Pastor, who married my Wife and me. With my Wife’s prodding, Pastor convinced me to jump-start the contemporary service, with ringers from the club band and me as the worship leader, I thought that was a stretch. We rocked the house and started with 15 congregants, within a year, grew to over 120. We rocked the house with good Christian music and secular music that we often changed the words to be more church-like. After a few years, I realized that we were becoming more entertainment instead of worship, as my wonderful Pastor tried to steer me. She left the church and ministry all together for reasons she only knows. But shortly after, the heavy hand of the National UCC Denomination installed an openly gay pastor in our local church and promoted all the open and affirming stuff that split our church and went against the doctrine I knew. Just a sidebar here, I have friends who are gay, and you don’t work in the arts for any length of time without working with, loving, and respecting gay people. Still, I couldn’t handle forcibly having the whole thing foisted upon me in my church (my mom and dad would roll in their graves if they knew what happened to the church they started when we moved to Florida in 1962).
Moving on, I, in addition to performing with the club band, due to economies of scale and we couldn’t afford a sound guy. I ran sound from the stage, even using a foot pedal to change the effects so that I wouldn’t have to take hands off my sax to change up the sound. After years of that, I decided to find another church (my last day at my old church that happened after a congregant dropped the F-bomb on my Wife, who produced all the video, one Sunday morning for some petty thing. We ended up at Faith Fellowship Church, and I was quickly recruited, under the tutelage of D.W., to run sound on a 48-channel analog Mackey board. Here I learned the difference between worship and entertainment. There are similarities in mechanics and engaging with the listeners. Still, the whole Holy Spirit thing was a revelation to me. I learned that mixing sound IS worship and that glorifying God is a whole new ball game. You must be absorbed in the moment. Don’t get me wrong getting cues right, and a little show biz helps. In music, I like extremes and dynamics; when it needs to be loud, shake the rafters and make them feel it their gut with subs. When it’s soft, make them strain to hear soulful sound and intimacy of a whisper. Present the Word with clamor and loud like David clanging his Cymbal as he marched ahead of the Ark into Jerusalem. And yet hear the soft harmony of David playing his harp to soothe the troubled heart of King Saul. David was referred to as a man after God’s own heart. I’ll bet he wailed on harp!
My response after reading our church’s daily devotional, link noted above.
Pastor Jeff. The maestro. I read your devotional Monday 2/3/2020 and related so much to it being a musician myself. The maestro, in the classic sense of a traditional orchestra with his hands and the baton during a performance, brings to life each note played and is the great high priest of harmony. Through his gestures, he blends and augments the humanity and passion of the individual players. Each one is part of a conversation when masterfully blended marvelously form the harmony. He signals the flutes and strings when to be a little softer and tender and summons the brass to be strong and powerful and blends it all to create a breathtaking experience to the audience conveyed through sight and sound. The audience can see the passion and hear the harmony of a well-tuned orchestra with all its human flaws and beauty. Today we are in an amplified and sadly too digitized world where humanity becomes lost in the pursuit of mathematical perfection. Sometimes perfect harmony is stale and uninspiring A little dissonance within boundaries is a blessing and individual freedom
The modern-day sound engineer is more and more the true maestro behind the curtain. That person behind what used to be a console in a holy place that should not be subject to distractions from others who want to chat. The maestro is a servant to the worship experience and must always immerse themselves in the act. Total focus on the musicians while they add their part to the conversion picking up on every note and delivery of the sound and timbre of that sound, which is the humanity part. While they will seldom admit that even the most accomplished musician is anxious inside during a performance. Part of that person behind the curtain through their thoughtful actions, lift them and lets their passion come through, without overpowering the others, guide them fist like the front stage maestro uses his baton in the form of faders and gestures to guide the musicians. To lift this from simply rearranging ones and zeros, this person must be a musician and know what it’s like to be on stage. God is the ultimate maestro or sound man, and through Jesus, he knows what it’s like to be on that stage because He wonderfully made us with all our humanity. He knows we will miss a note now on then and be slightly off-key, but because of who He is and who we are when we meet, it’s truly beautiful music.
I hope not to bore you all with all this old stuff about me, but maybe you’ll get to know me better and know where this drivel originates. I know some of you older people, like me, remember having to sit through hour upon hour of the family slide show of the same pictures of someone standing in front of the elephant cage at some zoo you visited. Someone was ridiculously positioned in front of his trunk. A friend of mine recently sent me a video of a rather well endowed young lady from Australia standing in front of an elephant who had just removed her bikini top with his trunk. I guess he was just looking for peanuts in all the wrong places, but I digress.
I’m attempting to convey some true-life stories about my life with a sort of message, a chuckle, and maybe a tear or two that I am a firsthand witness. Where I’m the central character, kind of like the Forrest Gump movie, where Forrest, who just shows up, sometimes as an extra, sometimes in a cameo, and sometimes as the main character in a life’s journey through the 50’s to the 21st century. If you just started following me, you were subjected to my first attempt to recall my time in Haiti, more on this in the future.
This time around, I want to share my early music background, my other passion, with a piece I wrote in 2006. I wrote this little history to show my appreciation for what my old school did for me in a different era with different values. Incidentally, in my senior year, in the height of the Vietnam war, the draft was done by lottery. That year, they put out the numbers for the next year, I was number 88 out of 365, and they called up to number 86. I literally and figuratively dodged a bullet. Unfortunately, many of my classmates weren’t so fortunate. I guess God had a different plan for me, and I’m still trying to figure that our 50 years later. Pray for me to figure that out sometime. Join me in my Music Trip…..
2006
My days of playing from high school forward were always memorable times. My years at Eau Gallie High School were some of the fondest of my memories. I remember my sophomore year with Nat Baggarly as our director, and we barely stretched across the field in a company font with just 64 kids. Nat had a way of motivating us and making us a team. In my junior year, James Moody was our director, and it was sort of a rebuilding year. My senior year was a great year. Under Joe Johnson, we learned how to pull together. The band was about 100. We played Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qKn5ShUcr4 for the band contest, all the other powerhouses at the time, Merritt Island, Melbourne, etc., didn’t think little old Eau Gallie (a new school at the time) could cut that piece and that we played way over our head. We got superiors and a standing ovation.
!The Jazz band was pretty good as well. I played ride tenor and alto sax in the Concert and Marching Bands. It was cool to go out and do paying gigs with the local band directors. The leadership and dedication of my teachers in Concert Band, Jazz Band, and Music Theory were to serve me well in my later years, and I owe them so much. I graduated in 1970 (incidentally, I still think that we had the coolest band uniforms, with the marine jackets and cross belts, and yes Mel Hi marched backward off the field as their big finale to every half time show even back then!) Here, I would like to say how totally impressed I am at the quality of the music program at Eau Gallie High School and Johnson Middle School. These kids play far better than we could have hoped for, and I believe that this is a direct result of caring, compassionate, no-nonsense, leadership provided by Mr. & Mrs. Singletary. (directors at the time of this writing ) While I would like to think of my generation of band kids were pioneers and on the cutting edge during our time, the quality of character and musicianship of the kids in these schools today is nothing short of awesome! 50 years have passed since I was a proud member of the Eau Gallie High School Commodore Band, and practically everything has changed except for one thing – the love and compassion of the band directors who lead this program. I guess some things never change. GO COMMODORES!
I went to Brevard Junior College (BJC now EFSC) on a tuition waiver for music (even though I was an accounting major), played lead alto sax in the jazz band under my old friend Nat Baggarly. We had a pretty decent jazz band, and one of the greatest moments was doing a joint concert with the late great Stan Kenton and his band. Our sax section did Opus in Pastels (a piece written by Stan Kenton featuring the sax section) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9KOYv4UHTI as a dedication to Stan. That was pretty cool. Many from our group that year went on to become part of the Airmen of Note and other military bands.
Jim Bishop directs Band at BCC now (aka EFSC), and Kenny G was one of his students when he was an intern at Northwestern. Jim, however, sat second chair behind me at BJC (just had to rub that in Jim!) I went on to finish my accounting degree at the University of Florida (GO GATORS!). Oh, before I go on, I took private lessons while at BJC under Charles Colbert, who was a great teacher and a real taskmaster pushing me to practice hard. The climax of that experience was playing the Paul Creston Sonata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaxNpfT1p9E (which is a complicated piece) at a recital pulling it off without losing my cookies.
On to UF, I played lead alto in the number 1 Jazz band for two years, under the direction ofhm out of North Texas State. The music department at Florida was pretty relaxed, but the jazz band had to pick up the tunes quick and had a heavy concert and tour schedule. We backed up the Temptations on a 3 hour notice one time, they came in with written charts, and we had one rehearsal about 2 hours before the performance, which took place in the old Florida Gym. We played a concert to a captive audience 😊 at Raiford Max Security Prison, where the Notorious Murph the Surf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Roland_Murphy carried my horn cases in for me.
I paid for most of my tuition at UF by playing Frat parties, proms, and clubs while I was there. The highlight of the UF Jazz band experience for me was when the band was invited to tour Romania for 3 weeks as an Ambassador of Friendship group to help thaw out the cold war with a cultural exchange of American Jazz. Going behind the Iron Curtain at that time was a pretty big deal, especially for a bunch of “long hairs” from UF. We were treated like celebrities wherever we played. One of our not so glamorous moments was on our last night in Romania. They took us to a Biergarten kind of place, we proceeded to get very drunk. The local band made the unwise choice of inviting a very drunk group of American musicians to sit in. After a very poorly played rendition of “Tequila” that seemed to torment the rest of the patrons for hours, we poured onto the plane that would take our very hung-over bodies back to the US of A.
After I graduated from UF, I sat for the CPA exam and passed it and went to work for my Dad’s mining company in Melbourne. I played clubs, did some recording, and learned the entertainment business while doing my day job. In 1976, I formed a Band called Topaz, and we have been playing around the stat3e ever since with a long Alumni of varying members. We opened for the Commodores in the early 2000s, and back in 1986, B.J. Thomas opened for us on the 4th of July (I was writing the check, so I pulled rank). I started leading the praise band in the early 2000s, at the church, my family helped start (Crossroads Community Church). I enjoy music as much as anyone can.
My latest ambition is to build a 5-story building on the property that I own here in Melbourne and dedicate the bottom two floors to a jazz club, multi-style state of the art performance facility. In addition to having a resident house, multi-style musician group, the 20,000 square foot facility would have a particular time available for local school groups to perform in a commercial setting to experience the feel of that kind of audience and performance. With my background in performance, running my own small recording studio supplemented with training from Full Sail Recordings in Orlando, my dream was to make Club Rio a place to come to for a great performance of music and a good time. My dream of Club Rio never materialized due to funding and the ever-present government red tape. Oh well, I dream big, most of the time exceeding my pocketbook.
Originally written – 10/18/2018 – 3 months post stroke in a text to my Big Sis
To use a farm analogy it’s like wandering into a corn field and getting lost, because you went too far and lost your bearings and you struggle to find your way out back to home but the more you thrash around the more lost you get. You cry out but no one hears you and you just want to get home and do the chores, and everything be normal again.
I’m just a dead weight that must be cared for by others and I can see that not only is it not fair to them, but it isn’t going to last much longer. No one can pull the wagon I left behind. It’s too much. At least I can tell you these dark things because you were always the big sister that would patiently listen and not judge. Thank you. I love you so much. – Lil Bro
What a great analogy – using the cornfield!!! You nailed it. I’m surprised you remembered that as you were so young when we moved. I love you and please try to keep the faith – Big Sis
Originally Written 11/7/2018 – 4 months post stroke
Just checking in to let you know I’m still kicking. I’m on antidepressants. I’m bored, but not quite as depressed. I’m getting back into going to church and my Monday night men’s bible study. I go with J to the Skate Park so he can do his BMX thing. This is a new one we helped build, so I have a couple of hours sitting time while he rides. I read my bible study stuff and Tom Clancy novel and run numbers on our property to either sell or develop. Alluding to my cornfield analogy I’m out of the corn but I can’t seem to find the farm. If that makes any sense. I’m not where I want to be. I should know in the next 6 months or so whether my vision will come back at all. In general, it’s a waiting game. You know how patient I am. LOL. Take care of yourself. I love you very much, Lil Bro
Who is this great person that I got a VERY encouraging text from!!! OMGosh – I’m SO HAPPY to hear things are getting better for you and your “impatient” self is showing!!! It’s so good to hear you are back at church and bible study. Glad you are taking some meds that help you and there’s encouraging news about your vision. Can you believe it’s been 26 yrs. since Mom has been gone? What a lot of changes and events we’ve been through in all those years! I’m so glad we have each other yet to “be there” in whatever we must deal with.
I don’t know if you remember when we lived on the farm and all the family came to our farm for thanksgiving, but we always wished for our FIRST snow to come then. What the heck happened? I don’t know if you had wacky weather this year but ours has been way off! But determined as farmers are, they finally got the corn and soybeans harvested in spite of all the flooding and I managed to get some good hay for Rascal out of it too. So great to hear from you. I love you very much. – Big Sis.
Originally written November 17, 2018
Just checking in. I’m at the skate park with J and one of his buddy’s. I don’t remember if I told you, but we have a new dog – a 3 yr. old mixed breed, we got from the shelter. He’s trained and we’re training him more. Bear brings a little lightness to our someone gloomy household. He is a good dog, likes to ride in the truck and J has a sleeping companion. I’m just moving along, I feel like I’m a spectator, not a participant in life. Taking the antidepressant meds takes a little of the edge off. But I’m still in the twilight zone between the way things used to be and the way things are. I’m not happy but I accept that this is the way it is and wait for God to give me something worthwhile to do. I’m surrounded by good people and a devoted wife. I pray for you daily and give thanks to the Lord for a sister like you. Love You. – Lil Bro
Originally Written 11/21/2018
Well another night at the skate park. But it gives me time to pray and give thanks for the blessings. You are one of those blessings that I do cherish. Hope your Thanksgiving is peaceful with those memories of the large gatherings and Grandma W. would get huffy if we didn’t eat a dump truck load of her pies and goodies. Love you, Lil Bro
Boy, you hit the nail on the head about Thanksgiving and Grandma. But it all was SO GOOD! LOL! And we always had thanksgiving at our farm. I will be having a quiet day. Love, Big Sis.
As I let my mind wander, I’m taking yet another side trip from the Haiti story to what I woke this morning to write about, which is a topic relevant to my title. I have come up with a weird analogy of my state of mind periodically. The state of depression for me right now is like being a passenger in a 
Tales from Depression and Dealing with it. 