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EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:
VINCE'S GYM
Stor 'n'
Locks Or Camping Out As Possible Options
I was coming
to the end of my lease of the gym. The job situation in the area had not improved. My Veteran Benefits were not
going to last much longer, the song and dance that Larry and
Harry had given me about ‘One for all and all for one” was just
them talking bull crap. Before I moved out from Pennsylvania, my
friends had told me that they would never let anything get in
the way of our friendship or get in the way of helping each
other out. Harry had told so many lies to Stacy telling her that
I was not to be trusted around women that she put her foot down
against me moving in with them, claiming that it was up to me to
get better situated.
Larry’s woman did not want me to move in either.
The thought
of having to move back to Pennsylvania in failure with my tail
between my legs was not an option. I did not feel too good about
chatting with my parents about my situation. In my mind, I could just hear
my mother and Jake, “My kids are prospering….James is making big
bucks on the Alaskan Pipe-Line, Lynn, is a high falootin
director at the Smithsonian Institute and my oldest boy is
living in a cozy stor 'n' lock and is a tribal leader of his
town's homeless. We are just so proud!
It wasn’t
just my pride that kept me from moving back, I felt that my
options back east would be even more limited. If I went back to
Pennsylvania, I would be faced with the same niggling problems
that I had faced before I got hired on with the federal
government. Where would I live and where could I find
employment, -- if they would hire me?
I thought of moving to more promising parts of the country, but
I had no way of knowing if I would be traveling great distances
to find out if I was essentially jumping from the fireplace into
the fire. I figured at least in the area of Oregon I lived the weather was
temperate enough that I could live in a tent in the surrounding
hills and wilderness if I had to. I could live in the wilderness
behind the Community College. During this period of my life I
had not learned how to put my pride aside and work on the skills
of networking.
I was so
busy, self absorbed and reserve, I did not understand the
importance of making new friends to network. My natural
inclination to mind my own business kept me from interviewing
people about their lives, which would have helped me to gather
more information and perhaps given me more options. My natural
inclination to minimize my problems, kept me from sharing with
other people my plight and of course this lowered the
possibility of anyone volunteering their help or ideas. Mainly,
aside from my mother, I have been conditioned to believe that
the only one I could truly count on thru thick and thin, from
beginning to end was just me. My other friends proved to be a
dead end as far as options went, either by their disinterest or
because back home they were struggling like me at home with
their parents, or with their spouses.
The only
option that I had was the women I met as a dancer, or from
school or the gym. Many of these ladies had made it clear that I
could move in with them. The problem with that option was the
spoken and unspoken insinuations of sex and commitment. It was
one thing to have sex and even friendship with these women with
an understanding that it would just be fun times; it was another
thing to lead them on or allow them to lead themselves on for
the sake of keeping a roof over my head.
I looked at
the wilderness around the community college and I even took my
tent and enough camping supplies that I could carry and I did
set up camp for five days to see how feasible that it would be.
I had a locker at the college and I could walk down from the
hills into the campus and change and shower there, which is what
I did during that week. I figured I could still scrounge the
supermarkets dumpsters for produce, get government cheese, eat at the
cafeteria and perhaps even see if I could store my stuff in a stor 'n' lock as close to campus as possible. I knew I could
make it work.
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(GENESIS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(EXODUS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(REVELATIONS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(JUDGMENT DAY)
ADVENTURES IN MARINE BIOLOGY
THE MARINES: GOD'S CHOSEN
WARRIORS
CONVERSATIONS WITH NEO
NEO TEACHES ME THE ART OF WAR
& PEACE;
His Version of The Matrix
MEMORIES OF MY FATHERS
ZEN & THE ART OF RESISTANCE
TRAINING:
A Yogic & Scientific Approach To Weight
Lifting
ZEN & THE BIOLOGY OF
TRANSCENDENCE:
The First Matrix of Psychic
Phenomena
ZEN & THE ART OF KINESIOLOGY:
The Yogic & Scientific
Approach To Movement
ZEN & YOUR ENERGY SYSTEMS
ZEN & VARIOUS ASPECTS OF
TRAINING
HOMEPAGE TO VINCE'S GYM
HOMEPAGE
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