Remember

I sat on the edge of the dam gazing at the perfectly still lake. The only sound was the fall of the water through the overflow pipe that extended from the top of the dam. The surface of the water reflected the image of the full moon riding high overhead. In a moment I would stand, turn toward the deep ravine, and jump.

Committing sucide wasn't a spur of the moment decision. I had spent a lot of time considering it, and had come to the conclusion that it was the logical thing to do. With the decison made, I planned the final event of my life with two considerations. First I intended that my death would be appear to be accidental so my family would be able to collect on my sizable insurance policy. My second consideration was personal. I wanted my death to be quick and sure.

I evaluated a number of ways to perform the final event of my life. Only one satisfied both of my considerations. When I was a child my parents often took my sister and me on family holidays to a remote mountain area less than a half day's drive from our home. One of my favorite spots on the mountain was a lake that had been created behind a tall dam that blocked the natural rush of a small river. As a child I spent many hours sitting on the dam. Sometimes I'd face the lake side, other times I'd face the deep ravine and gaze at the water that surged out of the overflow pipe built into the top of the dam.

I don't know how long I had sat there before a movement caught my eye; ripples on the surface of the lake. I raised my gaze and stopped breathing. In the bright, cold, moonlight I saw a figure walking on the water. I thought that I was halucinating and then thought that maybe that happened just before death. I rubbed my eyes, looked again, and the figure was still there, only much closer. It was a man, a tall man, and even at that distance I could see a smile on his face. I wasn't afraid. After all, I'd come here to die.

Then he spoke. I can't describe the voice because I'd never heard anything like it before and I'm willing to bet you haven't either so any attempt at description would have no basis for comparison. Suffice it say that the sound was pleasing and totally encompassing. He said, "Jamie, everything is going to be fine."

Somehow I knew he was right and I noted that he had called me by name yet that seemed totally natural. Then he was sitting beside me. Though there was a luminous nature to his presence, it was more a feel than an actual physical manifestation.

"You're the One, aren't you?" I asked.

Looking into my eyes and way beyond them, he said, "In fact, we are all 'the One,' but to answer the question that I know you are asking, yes, I am the one that you have in mind."

"What are doing here?"

He smiled, then said, "You're about to end your life, at least your human life, and it seemed appropriate to talk about that before you actually went through with it."

I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything, I just nodded.

"Jamie, long ago, in a place you no physical memory of, you choose to live this human life. One of the interesting parts of that choice is that early on in your human life you forgot that you were here by choice."

He paused and I knew that he was waiting for a response from me. Finally I said, "Well, I forgot totally because I can't remember a thing before the age of three."

He laughed, "That's the way human life works. First we forget the choice that put us here then if we are serious about the experience we dedicate ourselves to remembering the choice."

"But I thought life was about accomplishing things, grand things."

Again the soft laughter filled the night. "That's what you were taught but consider this, you were taught that by other humans who had also forgotten that life on earth was a choice. They were taught by others who had forgotten the choice. That progression of forgetting goes back to the beginning of humanity on earth."

"How am I supposed to remember something that I have no memory of?"

"You do have a memory of the time before you were born, the time when you were life manifesting in another form. The first thing for you to do is to know that the life that is the essence of you has existed forever. When you know that, you will begin to recall the time before you were three, before you were two, before you arrived here."

Neither of us spoke for a long time. Understanding and experiencing your life as a human begins with remembering that you weren't created here. You chose to be here. When you remember that, you will know the rest."

He laid his hand on my shoulder, smiled in a way that warmed me through and through, then said, "You're already beginning to remember, don't stop."

He stood, stepped onto the water and walked away. As he reached the middle of the lake his figure merged with the moonlight and I could no longer see him, but I could still feel his presence and hear his words, ".....you're already beginning to remember, don't stop."

That was over forty years ago and I haven't stopped, nor will I ever.

Fourth and Forever

I looked up into the driving snow. It was mid-afternoon and it was coming down so heavy that I could barely tell that the stadium lights were on. I bent at the waist and the rest of the University of Montana’s offensive team did the same.

“OK, no speeches. This is it. The whole season, everything we’ve worked for comes down to this.” I took a breath and said, “And here’s my guarantee to you. If the snap is good – and the ball is put down on my spot and held there – and you guys keep everybody out for four seconds I’ll kick it… and it will be good.”

Nobody made a sound for a moment. Someone shouted, “YES!” and we all repeated it, slapped hands, and broke the huddle. I paced the distance from the line to the spot where I wanted the ball placed, knelt there and wiped the area clear with a towel. Green, the place kick holder knelt in position. I knelt beside him and said, “Tommy, when I point at you, call the signals.” He just nodded.

I stepped toward the opposite goal line counting my paces as I went. At three I turned sharply and waited for the referee’s whistle that would signal the timekeeper to start the clock.

In that moment the butterflies left my stomach just like they had always left in Vietnam, when I turned my chopper onto final approach for what I suspected was going to be a hot landing zone. Though that had been fifteen years earlier, I thought, ‘some things never change.’

I heard the official’s whistle and pointed to Green. He turned back toward the line. Facing away from me his voice was muffled by the snow but I could still hear him; “Ready, set, hut one, ….

Without moving, breaking my concentration, or losing a bit of focus, for one split second I saw everything that had happened for the past ten months, from the moment I discovered that Kathy, my wife of over twenty years, had died in her sleep. For the next two weeks I wasn’t sure I could go on, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go on.

Kathy and I had been childhood sweethearts. Neither of us had ever had as much as single date with anyone else. We married less than a year after we finished high school. Because of Vietnam, I was drafted. After my first tour in Vietnam I reenlisted to go to helicopter pilot training. Our intention, mine and Kathy’s, had been to leave the service and get a civilian job flying helicopters. Things didn’t work that way.

Bobby, our only child was born. The Army needed me as a flight instructor. Kathy’s job with a bank turned into a management opportunity and before we knew what was happening Bobby was a high school senior and I was nearing retirement. Then Kathy was gone and since my retirement coincided with Bobby’s graduation we decided that we would go to college together.

The snow was driving without letup and I could hear Green continuing the snap count. Part of me was totally focused on the snow, Green’s voice, and what I was about to do and another part of me was clearly reliving the moment that Bobby and I left Fort Rucker, Alabama, and headed west to begin our collegiate career at The University of Montana. I somehow saw the day that Coach Jenkins, who had discovered that I was self-taught football place kicker had recruited me to coach his punter in place kicking, and then talked me into joining the team as kicker, then added the position of backup quarterback after assuring me that I would never play a game as quarterback.

Green finished the snap count, “hut two, hut, hut…” I saw the moment in the fourth quarter of the first game when Jeff Samuelson, our starting quarterback, went down with a broken collarbone. I remembered how I felt running on a minute later, the forty-seven year old UM Grizzly starting quarterback.

The ball came out of the snow as true as if our center could actually see Green, though I knew that in the snow there was no way that was possible. I heard the soft thud of the ball striking Greens hands. He caught it perfectly, and started bringing it down to the spot I’d cleared seconds before, at the same time turning it so the laces would be facing the goal post. I began moving toward the spot.

Part of me recalled every moment of the next ten games as I quarterbacked the undefeated Grizzlies until I went down with a broken hand in the last quarter of the last regular season game and Jeff came back on to run the team. Now here we were, one kick away from a perfect season and UM’s first national championship.

I took my last stride, planted my left foot solidly, and begin swinging my right foot toward the football. Everything was perfect and no one had broken through our line. With my head down, totally focused on the ball, I “kicked through” it and knew at the moment of contact that it would go true and that under normal circumstances it would easily carry the distance. I just didn’t know what effect the snow would have.

I raised my head and watched the ball disappear back into the snow from which it has appeared less than two seconds before. It seemed like a lifetime of silence passed before I heard the stadium announcer scream, “It’s good! IT’S GOOD! Grizzlies win!

Bobby heard about my joining the team as the kicker at a practice session. He exclaimed, “Daddy is on the team!” Someone who heard him shouted, “Daddy is a player.” Quickly it became a chant and in that moment, and for the rest of my football playing days I was known simply as “Daddy.” I didn’t mind. In fact I was rather proud to have had the chance and I considered the nickname an honor.

The morning after the final game the headline in the Missoulian was, “Daddy and the Grizzlies Win it All.” That headline and front page article is framed and hanging on the wall of Edwards Consulting International, mine and Bobby’s business, headquartered in Missoula, Montana, where outside, as I write these lines, the snow is coming down so hard I can barely see the street lights though it is mid-afternoon.

Maddog and Miss Kitty

I pressed the transmit button and said, "We are clear on the right, Sir."I released the button and heard Bob, the crewchief say, "Clear on the left, Sir.


"Captain Petty's voice boomed into my headset with the same words he spoke every day, as we were leaving our final landing zone and heading home, "Then, Gentlemen, we are out of here."

As we lifted off, I remember thinking that's it, five more days and I'm out of here with over 600 missions and not a scratch.

We weren't more than ten feet off the deck when the tree line ahead lit up with what looked like a million muzzle flashes, and a mortar round went off directly under out ship.

I must have been knocked out for a while.
The next thing I heard was Bob saying, "You're going to be OK, Maddog, just hang on."

"You wouldn't lie to a short-timer would you Bob?"

He laughed, "Not a chance soldier, not a chance."

I grabbed his hand and said, "How about Captain Petty and Mr. Jacobs?"

"They're fine, Maddog. Nobody was scratched but you, and you've just picked up a little shrapnel from the mortar. There’s a dust-off on the way to pick you up.  It's no more than five minutes out. "I knew he was lying about how bad I was hit because I'd said the same thing more times than I cared to think about.

I must have blacked out again because the next thing I remember was hearing a lot of turbines winding up. I felt a hand on my arm, opened my eyes expecting to see Bob. Instead I saw the face of the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life.

"Is this heaven?" I asked.

She leaned close so I could hear her above the whine of the jet engines. I smelled her hair and a touch of perfume as she said, “It’s close to heaven, as close as you’re going to get for a while. We’re in an Air Force Skylifter. We’re going home soldier." 

We didn’t go home, at least not to my home. We went to San Antonio and then to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, where I spent the next eight months. The “few pieces of shrapnel” I’d picked up had almost taken off both my legs.

The angel who held my hand most of the thirteen hours it took to fly back to the states was Lieutenant Kathleen Timmons, an Army nurse, on board the hospital flight, because she had finished her tour of duty in Vietnam and had been reassigned to Brooke.

During the eight months I was with her, I told her my whole life story at least five times – it wasn’t very long in those days. She told me her nickname was Miss Kitty after the character of the same name in Gunsmoke, her favorite TV show. I told her that my nickname was Maddog, and it had nothing to do with dogs, but was directly connected to my reaction whenever I was shot at.

Miss Kitty wasn’t the angel I had originally thought she was. She was in charge of my therapy and took her responsibility seriously. In spite of my begging, threatening, and on more than one occasion, crying, she never let me miss a single step of therapy. More than once I told her that I’d kick her cute ass if that were a physical possibility.

Every time I said it, she laughed and said, “You’ll thank me for it one day, Maddog.”

Through the pain I managed to say, “Yeah, fat chance that will ever happen.”

Somewhere in the countless miles we walked together, we fell in love, but we never admitted it, not to ourselves, or to each other. We were both too busy fighting the demons of Vietnam that had come home with us. The same ones who came home with everyone who served there.

Late one night, about a week before I was discharged, Miss Kitty came into my room. She sat down beside my bed, took my hand in hers, and said, “Don’t say anything Maddog.”

I opened my mouth and she said, “Hush.”

I did. Then she said, “I’ve resigned my commission. Tomorrow I’m going home. I love you, and I think you love me, but I have to get my head on right before I can think too much about that.  I know you have to do the same thing.”

She stopped talking, and we just held hands for a long time. Then she stood, leaned over, and kissed me so gently, I barely knew it had happened. “When the time is right we’ll be together Maddog; don’t ever doubt that.” And she was gone.

I week later I was home, alone, angry, hurting. Inside of a year I was fighting to kick alcohol. Two years later I was married. Four more years passed and I was divorced. Two more years went by and I remarried. Eight years later I was again divorced and alone.

Spring came to Georgia, and I knew I couldn’t keep going the way I was going. Within a week I’d resigned my corporate job, cashed in my retirement, sold my house, sold my Mercedes, and bought the big Harley I’d imagined owning for longer than I could remember. I rolled out of Atlanta at ten on a Friday night and headed north on Interstate 85.

An hour before sunrise ,I parked the bike in front of the Lincoln Memorial, saluted Abe, and turned toward The Wall. I don’t walk fast. I haven’t since getting shot up, but thanks to Miss Kitty, I do walk. After walking the length of The Wall, stopping often to listen to the hushed voices of those whose names are carved in the granite, I turned toward the Women’s memorial. I was the only person moving in the area. The sound of my footsteps seemed to be amplified.

I didn’t notice the small figure sitting on the sidewalk beside the Women’s Monument ,until my footsteps got her attention, and she turned toward me. “Maddog? Maddog, is that you?”

I stopped cold. “Miss Kitty…”

She was in my arms before I could say anymore. Neither of us said a word for a long time. Hell, we couldn’t talk. Finally, she managed to say, “I heard your footsteps. That sound is branded on my brain. Oh, Maddog….”

Again it took us a while to regain the power of speech. When we did, we couldn’t shut up. Thirty minutes later I shifted the Harley into fifth gear and let it ease up to 70 miles an hour, I dropped my left hand off the handlebar and reached back until she grabbed it, and placed it on her thigh. Leaning forward she shouted in my ear, “It’s finally time, Maddog.”

I didn’t try to answer, I just squeezed her thigh. For the first time in almost twenty years the world was right.

Cowboy Country

She stepped off the curb without raising her head or glancing in either direction. Someone screamed and time shifted into slow motion. Then, out of nowhere, a shadow of a man detached itself from the asphalt less than ten feet from the woman.

At the last possible second the blurred, airborne, shadow-man rewrote what appeared to be a foregone conclusion. He struck the woman in the chest, knocking her clear of the truck.

Anna moaned softly, looked up into the soft brown eyes of her rescuer and passed out. The shadow stood and became a tall, stooped man of indeterminable age. He found his old felt hat, bowed his head, and shuffled away.

Two seconds later time shifted back to normal and the witnesses came to life and began moving toward the girl quickly forming a circle around the still form. The woman who had screamed took charge as she knelt beside Anna, shouting, “Call 911!”

In less than a minute sirens began to wail as police cruisers pulled away from the police department, three blocks away. As the first cruiser came to a skidding halt less than ten feet from the circle of spectators, the sound of the first of what would ultimately be three ambulances that had been dispatched to the 911 event could be heard leaving the regional hospital six blocks away.

The overweight, crew-cut, young policeman removed himself deliberately from the cruiser as though he were a TV cop. He walked carefully to the circle of people and it parted in front of him. He looked down at the woman who was in charge.

“What happened?” he asked in his best TV cop voice.
The screamer, who had known the policeman since the day he was born, twenty-four years earlier, looked up and said, “Shit, Calvin, what does it look like happened? She about got run over by a crazy kid in a black pickup truck and Cowboy saved her life.”

Calvin looked up and down the street – there wasn’t a vehicle in sight, not even a parked one. He looked again in both directions, as far as he could see and there was no sign of Cowboy.

He looked down again and said, “Agnes, how in hell do you think I could know that?”

Someone in the crowd laughed softly and Agnes said, “Calvin, you watch your mouth when you talk to me. I can still spank your butt, gun or no gun and don’t you forget it.” There was more laughter.

Officers James Peterson and Gunnard Sims, stood by silently, more than willing to let Calvin deal with Agnes. At that moment the first ambulance came to a halt dangerously near the group, scattering a few of them.

Amanda Sims, driving for the first time in her career as an EMT, charged through the crowd, almost as out of control as her vehicle had been, and came to a halt two inches from Calvin’s formidable stomach. Looking directly into his eyes, still red from a long night of brew busting at The County Line Inn, she said, “What happened here Calvin?”

Calvin, a quick study, didn’t hesitate, “Hell, Amanda, can’t you tell. She almost got hit by a crazy kid in a pickup and if hadn’t been for Cowboy she’d be dead by now.”

Amanda looked up and down the empty street, leaned even closer to Calvin and whispered in his right ear, “What time did you leave the County Line, Calvin? I think you’re still drunk.”

Overhearing the remark, a number of the bystanders forgot the gravity of the situation and laughed loudly as Amanda said, “Don’t answer that, Calvin. I have to get to work.”

Anna, was beginning to show signs for regaining consciousness. Amanda listened to her heart, smiled and put her hand on the girl’s cheek, “You’re going to be fine, Honey, but we’re going to take you to the hospital so a doctor can check you.” Anna, still not totally present, nodded slightly as a gentle smile spread over her face.

Four minutes after Cowboy had slammed Anna out of the path of the youngest McCurdy boy’s hemi powered, Dodge pickup truck, Amanda Sims slipped the gearshift lever of Jones County’s newest ambulance from park into drive. In the same motion she hit the switch on the screamer though there still wasn’t a vehicle in sight. As she pulled smartly away from the curb she floored the accelerator, wondering if her daddy, at his feed store on the other side of town, could hear the screamer and if he could would he wonder if it was her.

To be on the safe side, the young intern who examined Anna, decided to keep her at the hospital overnight. No one came to visit. She didn’t expect anyone. She had been alone as long as she could remember.

She lay in the dimly lit room, staring at the ceiling, as she recalled the amazing event that had ended with her admission to the hospital. As she thought of Cowboy laying on top of her the smile returned.

She didn’t hear the shadow as it slipped softly into the room. However, when Cowboy gently took her hand she wasn’t surprised. She didn’t jump or make a sound. She turned her head and once again looked into his amazing eyes. He quickly bowed his head but didn’t release her hand.

They stayed that way for a long time, neither of them making a sound, their fingers linked, locking them into oneness. Finally, so softly that only Cowboy could possibly hear, she said “No man has every touched me before.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally he raised his head, looked directly into her eyes, an action that took a lot of his energy, and replied, “I’ve never touched a woman. I’m sure glad you’re the first.” Their hands tightened and they stayed that way, smiling, for a long, long time.