Excerpt from “On a Forty Year Drunk”…    

When you are a small kid, dreams are sometimes hard to tell apart from reality.  I still rather recall the one where I was walking on top of a cloud, with two bald headed men wearing white robes.  They were tall and slim, and never said a word.  It seems they were my “Escorts”, or something similar. I was about to exercise my free will, and do the thing my peers had all strongly advised me not to do, because I was not yet ready for it.  This was to enter the “land of the living” down below. 

      They had communicated this to me shortly before, not with any language you could hear, but with something like mental telepathy.  There were several of them, some setting, others standing on the curvy surface of the cloud.  I see me moving away from them.  I was angry and determined to have my way.  They, in turn, seemed saddened and afraid for me.  As if they knew, and I did not, what might lie ahead for me?

     We were approaching the edge of the cloud, and the two tall people stopped.  I continued to the edge, and looked down.  We seemed to be about forty feet in the air, and I felt no fear at all looking down.  I sat down on the edge of the cloud and my lower legs dangled in the air.  Below me about half way down was the top of a small tree, along the side of a narrow dirt road.  The leaves on the tree were small and I could see clear to the ground. 

       At the base of the tree there was an object, I could not quite make out what it was.  Suddenly I felt a powerful desire to find out, and next thing I knew I was on the ground.  I have no idea how I got there, but I went over to the object that drew me so strongly.

       Low and behold- it was a rather dusty clear glass, one-gallon jug.  It had no labels, and seemed to be an old Jug that had been there a long time.  There was no cap on it, and about an inch of amber colored liquid in the jug.  I picked it up and sniffed at the opening, and as young as I was, I knew the smell of Whisky.  Deep inside, I realized that this was the reason I had insisted on coming to earth. 
  
At this point, I had just seen the driving force of my life, which would hold me captive for forty years.    
The above preface is from my new book “On a Forty Year Drunk”.  The
reference to the dream came from some of my earliest memories, I don’t
recall my age at that time but everything in the book is true, warped only
by the effects of time on memory.  Several decades later, I can see some of
the ill effects of a dysfunctional family on a young child, coupled with the
lack of adequate parenting allowing the youth to make serious choices and   
decisions, not in their best interests. 

While there is life there is hope, however, and I am one example of this.  On
the other hand, one may want to avoid the various physical and mental
pains we suffer doing it the “hard way”.  Perhaps my story will help some
young person avoid the pain.

Robert Black