I had been rehearsing with John Harrison at his place in the North-end of New Bedford for a TV gig with Bobby Greene, the sax player. These guys were accomplished musicians and I felt very proud to be playing. Besides, we were all good friends and that helped with my getting the gig. While sipping on some "moonshine" that someone in the area had made, John and I was going over some of the tunes that we would be playing on TV later that evening.. I was surprised at the quality and the taste of the stuff. Being from the south had given me the opportunity and experience of what the stuff should taste like, and it was good. So we spared none as we sipped our way through the evening’s rehearsal. Unlike me, these guys had a bit of jazz background under their belt, but I was willing to learn and I did, but I also got soused in the process. When I left his house, I was more than wasted. The booze was very smooth and I didn’t realize what the impact was until I was in the van, yet somehow I still managed to make it home. It was only about a mile drive, but I had to cross several one way streets, with posted stop signs. When I awaken the next day, I had no idea how I got back to my house. I remembered the rehearsal at John’s house, but I didn’t remember driving back to my house at all. That was scary to me and I thought I would have to check myself more carefully in the future.

The next night we met at the bar near the TV station and swapped stories about our drunken driving experiences, including, making comments about the local news reporter whom was always half-in the-bag. He was sitting obliviously across the bar from us, not knowing that he would be going on the air after us. Everybody in town knew he was a drunk, so we weren’t surprised at all to see him there. He was there every night before going on the air. We went on the air, did the gig without incident, and was chalked –up as another great experience for all of us. Then we went back to the bar to watch the drunken TV personality and laugh along with the other bar patrons at his uncanny ability to read a teleprompter after so many drinks.

I was still a little off balance after the absent –minded driving incident. I just couldn’t seem to get it off my mind, so I thought that maybe it was time for a change in my life or life-style. I was doing a lot of deep thinking about what I was doing with my life and why I was on this planet and what was my purpose as a human being and things like that. After a few days of walking around in a tizzy, I designed a program for myself. I decided to do a week of fasting and at the end of the week I would isolate myself from all outside interference, i.e. telephone, TV, radio, people everything. I lived alone, so it wasn’t going to be that hard to do these things, and I thought this would allow me to focus and getting into some kind of a meditative state. I had done some prior reading on astral projection and found it quite interesting. I thought that maybe I could achieve this state somehow. I was already familiar with some of the workings of fasting, meditation and projection, so this adventure wasn’t totally foreign to me. I went about setting the stage by putting off appointments and making myself scarce to friends and my usual activities. The day came for me to go into isolation and everything went smoothly. I just went into my room and chilled out. It took a couple of days of sleeping and resting so I wouldn’t confuse sleep with meditating and projecting. On the third day, I felt that I was ready to try projecting. I was focused on specific questions and I really wanted to try to get as many answers as possible. I felt that the answers were somewhere out there in space, and all I had to do was travel a little until I found the source. It wasn’t long after I returned to a supine position that I found myself flying through the darkness of space at a speed that I could not measure. It was a comfortable speed and I had no real sense of the environment that surrounded me, except the vastness of it all.

I wasn’t surprised to find myself in this state, after all I hadn’t eaten in a few days, and all I did was focus on my mission for understanding. I knew all along that this would be a great task and mission and I didn’t try to speculate. I was more curious than afraid, yet I went forward with sincerity and determination. I was also ready to respond to whatever answer I would receive from my journey. I was committed to the process, because I felt this experience might be my greatest and I didn’t want to abuse the opportunity to learn from it. I had no idea of how long or how much time I had spent traveling through space. It was all- irrelevant. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I just took it all in stride. I was aware of what was happening; I just didn’t know what to expect. Eventually, a great white flash of light filled my eyes and the answers to my questions flashed before me on what appeared to be a screen or chalkboard or wall. On the screen were written the answers to my questions. I did not hear any kind of voice or any other kind of sound, but just the writing was visible. The question was what was my purpose here on earth? The answer was that I should work toward making the world a better place, by helping individual people in any way that I could, and not to be concerned with how it was going to happen, but I was to begin immediately upon my return to reality. I was not to be concerned with ownership of worldly goods and possessions of any kind. All I needed to do was work on my mission. That was the message I got. I was totally satisfied with my answer and I did not have any desired to challenge the message I knew it was legitimate and spiritually real. I made sure that I read the message clearly and that I understood what I had to do before I returned to my conscious state.

I was walking out the plant’s door for the last time, when I heard someone say, "You’ll never make it on the outside. This was the reason why I wanted to leave this negative environment. I was fed up with the negative overtones that permeated the atmosphere of the factory.

#49 TALENT SHOWS/ WORK/SCHOOL .1974

After my experience of self induced enlightenment, I still remained focus on my new direction in life. This was not a joke to me, but more like something real. Something I had to do in order to boost my self-esteem and my purpose for living. Each day, more and more information would come to me mentally as I went about my normal activities. There would be flashes or sparks of the imagination that would cause me to research and pursue things that I otherwise wouldn’t have done.

A near-by elementary school was looking for help from the community to do fund raising activities to buy books for the school. When I heard about it, I thought this would be an opportunity for me to get started on my mission work. I contacted officials at the school and took on the responsibility of having a talent show. I knew that it was something that I could do, because I knew many of the local musicians and I was sure they would lend a hand. It only took a few to get some of the best musicians to join into my first volunteer adventure. We started practicing at my house for the show. Bobby Careira was on drums. Richard Frye was on sax. Buddy Montero was on guitar. These were some of the local musicians that helped me with the project.

Over the next couple of weeks we rehearsed the songs of the participants, and the songs the band would do for the talent show. It took a lot of work to put the show together, but it was a lot of fun working with this temporary band. The show was very successful and we raised a good sum of money for the school. Everyone had a good time, and the school was able to buy some of the books that were needed. Not long after the show, I worked at the school as a teacher’s aid to the reading program. I found this type of work more rewarding than working at the factory.