Loosing My Religion (Part Five)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"I think people sleepwalk through their lives, and for me, I wanted to embrace everything. And that meant the agonizing pain and the transcendence, and you can't have one without the other."   -Aisha Tyler


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

I met Nana/Ronbo/Ronnie in Austin, Tejas in either late March or early April of 1985 (it's complicated). Suffice it to say, we later declared that April 7th was the day we'd celebrate for what turned out to be the next 21, almost 22 years.

She died on January 10th, 2006 in the Cleveland Clinic, primarily the result of the accumulated side effects of years and years of taking corticosteroids to keep her lung disease from killing her.

Accidentally being given penicillin (she was allergic) the previous Spring in one of our local hospitals here in Hootervile, Ohio didn't help.

Ironically, her lung problems were the result of being a preemie placed in a pure oxygen to help her breathe and develop her lungs. Medical science discovered the hard way that too much oxygen for preemies is as bad as not enough.

Think about it: She was accidentally rendered permanently ill by well-meaning docs. She was kept alive by a medicine, prescribed by well-meaning docs, that eventually helped to kill her. She was accidentally helped to find the exit by being given a medication, prescribed by a well-meaning doc and/or administered by a well-meaning nurse, that she was highly allergic to.

Big BUT

Having had to fight all her life just to keep her lungs pumping -- she was tired. When Dude the first was born she predicted that she would hang on for five more years, so that he'd remember her, and then she was outtahere. Dude 1 was five years and two months old when she left. She was cool like that.

[With all due respect, what's this got to do with you losing your religion? If I remember correctly you turned your back on Catholicism way back...]

Well, she was a drunk and had discovered the power of a higher power, and that was my first exposure to that particular concept.

[Huh?]


She was sober when we met and surprisingly enough remained so. Had she been a practicing drunk when we met I wouldn't be writing this letter, at least not to yinz guys. I've no problem with people that occasionally get drunk; I've never cared much for full-time drunks, even when I was a full-time pothead.

I was a mildly self-righteous pothead, with rules; I've hinted at that in the past. As I mentioned, I'll be writing more about that in the future. Anyways... Very long and complicated story short, a fundamental tenet of Alcoholics Anonymous is that a given drunk (or any sort of addict for that matter) needs a higher power to find their way back to sanity.

A traditional version of God, a highly abstract and/or esoteric version, or something in between -- whatever works to serve as a conduit to what I call the transcendent.

All that said, the subject of this letter is not about beating alcoholism/addiction, it's about the importance of transcendence, for everyone (part one).


Your religion, their religion  -- or the lack thereof -- is up to you/them. If organized religion doesn't work for you there are no shortage of other paths available, including atheism. I believe that everyone, even atheists, need a higher power to live life to the fullest. That's the subject of my next, and final, letter on this subject. What follows below needs to come first.

Personally, I believe that one or the other of two things is true. I'm going to die and that's that. Now I exist, now I don't. See ya. Take care. Or, I'm going to be reabsorbed back into what I call the Great Big Sticky Whatever the Fuck (GBSWF).

[Note: current column and meatspace policy dictates that I use the F-bomb sparingly so as to preserve its power. The way things are going at the moment, by the time you're grups this word will have long been rendered completely innocuous. Your loss.]

Very long story short I believe that, all that is, is, "God" manifesting itself. Think of it this way. If you're God, by definition infinite and unlimited it all ways, what's the one thing you would lack? Limitation. What else would there be to do but manifest yourself in every possible way and enjoy the show?

[Show! Tell me, did you enjoy having Cancer! What the hell are...]

Well, Dana, everyone enjoys a good tragedy as much as a good comedy. Perhaps the best show is one in which everyone has a part but forgets they're playing a part till they snap out of it, till they wake up, till the house lights come up and they are -- enlightened?

I've had a rather intense taste or two of this sort of thing, but it's never lasted long enough for me to feel certain of anything, not even long enough to write a self-help book. Or start a cult. Good money in cults. I've often wondered if I could start a lucrative, nice cult that didn't damage my followers in any way. A person's got to make a living.

For the record (I'll deny this if my cult ever gets off the ground) while I did create the term Great Big Sticky Whatever the F-word, the concepts are not mine. They've been around for millennia. I'd suggest checking out Daoism, Alan Watts (before he sank too far into hippyism), and Eckhart Tolle, but there are lots more. Oh, and beware of cults, most don't seem to be very nice. Poppa loves you.

To be continued... and ended, next week.

Have an OK day. 
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©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

Loosing My Religion (Part Four)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

- Glossary  

- Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"There is a kind of mysticism to writing." -Irvine Welsh


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

Next up: My Philadelphia period. I managed to get through my freshman and sophomore years in a public high school with minimal damage. In the summer of '69, less than a month before I was due to start my junior year, my dad died.

This was not as horrible as it sounds, at least for me. And no, I'm not a cold-blooded sociopath, nor was he some sort of wild-eyed psychopath. I cried a bit, of course, but...

See, he married late and had a bunch of kids. I was the fifth of seven. He was 58 when he died and I was 16. Frankly, he was more like a benignly indifferent grandfather to me than a dad at that point. I bear him no ill will; he was more dad like till I was nine or ten. He took me to several Pittsburgh (with an h) Pirate games during the half minute or so that I was a baseball fan (roughly from five to seven years of age).

My favorite thing about going to (now long gone) Forbes field was riding a streetcar to and from the game and eating frozen custard. Mine is not an athletic sensibility. I...

Marie-Louise spits out a Sacre bleu!
Dana launches a snort of derision.
Iggy giggles.

Fine then. I did one more year of high school in my rich Burb -- in a brand new school that was more like a college campus than a high school -- and then me, my mom, and my two younger brothers moved in with my older brother who lived in suburban/almost rural Philadelphia.

That's a very complicated story; what follows is the condensed version. 


Senior year. Not a rich Burb. Working 25 hours a week in a small supermarket (my big brother the butcher got me the job). Mont Clare Market was a short story, perhaps a novella, unto itself.

In the course of five years, I went from a rich and sophisticated eighth grade in a Catholic grade school to a rich, somewhat less sophisticated public high school to a middle class and decidedly unsophisticated senior year.

The good news was that my final year of high school was easy as I was a bit ahead of my fellow classmates. I'm not bragging, it was dumb luck. I confess that with the possible exception of eighth grade, I never worked hard in school.

[Well, I did work hard obtaining my sporadically accumulated 39 college credits, but that was by choice, not compulsion.]

There were vague discussions about college but none of the grups in my life lobbied for that path, some were almost hostile. Vague notions of communes or NYC were replaced by a desire to get my diploma, work full time in the small supermarket, and get my own place. And so I did.

[What happened to religion? asks Dana.]

Iggy has left for school. Marie-Louise sweeps out of my subconscious in a huff (she loves dramatic exits/entrances).


As far as religion goes...

[Finally!]

...my vague, ill-defined notions of God were replaced, at some point, by an interest in Eastern mysticism. It was a significant part of Boomer culture, various rock stars were involved, and the bookstores were full of ancient Eastern texts. LSD was credited with sometimes bestowing immediate, if temporary, enlightenment.

It was a RBFD in certain Boomer circles for a few minutes. The circles are much smaller nowadays. While I was, and remain, spiritually/mystically/whateverly minded, my efforts at "seeking enlightenment" were half-assed, at best.

As my teens became my twenties I slowly but steadily became what I now call a hippie with a job. I smoked too much weed but always had a job, a car, and my own apartment. Eastern religion/mysticism/etcetersicism became a sort of hobby. I never stopped reading about it but didn't pursue it with any real vigor.

I eventually tried LSD hoping for a shortcut to Nirvana but apparently never stumbled on the real deal as I only had one brief hallucination, one time. Uphoria, giggling, vibrant music and colors. It was rather like taking an intense, long-lasting version of weed, combined with speed, that suppressed your appetite rather than giving you the munchies.

[Preview: Now that weed is becoming legal there will soon be a letter about weed specifically, recreational drugs in general.]


In my early thirties, I met and married Nana. I all but gave up recreational pharmaceuticals. Nana came pre-equipped with a kid and kids and drugs don't mix. The next 30+ years were spent keeping Nana (a.k.a. Ronbo) alive as long as I could, avoiding career success, and then helping your mom and dad/grandmother and grandfather to launch a life.

As this is being written that project continues but at the moment they're doing most of the work and providing most of the financing. I'd be fu screwed without 'em as I'm struggling with some health problems and an inadequate retirement income at the moment.


The good news is that on the God/religion/enlightenment front I've made a bit of progress and I think I've finally got a clue or two. Poppa loves you.

To be continued...

Have an OK day. 
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P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

For details, click here.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements and other items of interest there.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

Loosing My Religion (Part Three)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
                                                                                 -Allen Saunders                                                                                                   

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

My eight years of Catholic education (which took place when nuns still had hair on their chests) was over. Next up: freshman in a public high school. Most vivid memory: culture shock(s).

No, I didn't have to wear a tie. Changing classes or going to the restroom didn't involve marching. Not once did a nun waltz part way into the boy's room demanding we keep the noise down.

[For the record, the nun in a boys restroom scenario would make a great scene in a movie. Picture a half dozen or so frightened/embarrassed little boys attempting to become one with a urinal to preserve what they could of their modesty/dignity.]

Big BUT

There was gym class twice a week. Showering buck naked with a bunch of dudes, at varying stages of physical development was bad enough. The pre and post shower Lord of the Flyish dramas in the locker room were worse. Running a cross-country course for the first time in my life -- four times during the first report card period, for a grade -- was worse yet.

Going from staying inside for recess to try and be the first one to finish the current Agatha Christie novel that our impromptu book club was reading -- to running Cross-Country -- was like a 300 pound 17-year-old momma's boy trying to make it through Marine boot camp.

And don't get me started on girls in mini-skirts! Why I remember...

[What, has any of this got to do with religion?]

It's a reflection of my charmingly eccentric personality. Not to mention it serves as the literary equivalent of color commentary in a sports-obsessed nation. Not to mention that the phrase not to mention (followed by a mention) makes no sense, Dana.

[Hoo-boy...]

Before moving on I must mention one other thing. Had I gone to a Catholic high school I would've had an entirely different life. Obtaining the best grades I was capable of would have been demanded; there would've much pressure to go to college.

The majority of my unionized public school teachers couldn't care less if I worked hard or not and whether or not I went to college was between me and my parents. In retrospect, I don't take this personally. Tomatoes v. Tomahtoes. I sorta/kinda wish I had opted for the tomahto track but then again, I suspect I've had a more interesting life than the average bear.

And of course, I was blessed with/there wouldn't have been Ronbo, Valencia Procrastinatia, and the Stickies.


Ninth grade was a transition year as far as me and organized religion are concerned. One doesn't just turn one's back on eight years of indoctrination, that began when I still believed in Santa, just like that. At least this one didn't.

I joined a Catholic-based youth organization for kids that also didn't go to a Catholic high school along with my new best friend, Glenn S., who was in the other eighth grade of the same Catholic grade school I had just left behind. It was a large school. Social rules dictated that one's social sphere revolved around the kids you spent the day trapped sitting in the same classroom with.

We had quickly become foxhole buddies to survive public high school and riding a  school bus to same. The bus was yet another Lord of the Flies situation, but not as bad as gym class. We were best buds for quite a while, but no longer. He got normal years before I did.


The group, that I can't remember the name of, mandated doing a lot of "volunteer" work in various officially approved charitable situations. The only vivid memory that comes to mind is trying to feed a 300-year-old woman at a nursing home who kept yelling at me for not doing it right.

I can't remember when I stopped showing up, for the youth group or Mass. At some point, my mom acquiesced (she was in charge of that sort of thing) but I've no memory of exactly when.

My ill-defined belief is some sort of God became even more ill-defined as I drifted through/survived high school. My goals were to get laid, graduate, get laid, and then do something, um, cool. "Hit the road," or join a commune, or move to New York City and become a writer, etc.

[For the record, while I liked to read I hadn't actually written anything, not even tried really. As to why I thought I needed to move to NYC, and/or how this would result in my becoming a writer... Well, let's just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.]

I wound up living and working in a grocery store in suburban, almost rural, Philadelphia. Poppa loves you. To be continued...

Have an OK day. 
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P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements and items of interest there.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer