My father is very ill and in the last stages of his life, as we know him. I began to think about my father’s illuminated life full of wisdom and generosity. He centered his life on his family, his business and his community. He has always been generous and fair-minded. He obtained the goals and objectives he set for his life through hard work and perseverance. I love him and I am proud of him.

My father’s family originated in a shtetl called Grodno on the border of Poland and Russia. His father’s father left there and arrived in the late 1800, early 1900’s in New York. My great grandfather was a peddler. He yelled bottles, rags, rubber, etc. Just like the documentaries portray peddlers. At least he stayed true to himself and made his way to San Francisco where he opened a scrap yard. There were two brothers, one Joseph, mine and another Sam. Both brothers ran the business and somehow, Sam ended up going his own way. My father came to Huntington Park because his father sent him and his brother Stanley to open a new branch of the scrap business. Brother Stanley returned to San Francisco to help with the business there and my father stayed here to continue running the Huntington Park branch.

I was lucky to find myself on an Insight Tour to Russia starting in Warsaw. The name Insight could have not held any truer. I felt a presence with me for several days as we traveled from Warsaw to Belarus and the town of Minsk. My ancestors did all they could to contact me and let me know that I was welcome and wanted. This sounds insane and could be misconstrued, but it is the truth. My ancestors greeted me, blew my hair and told me things telepathically. When I wanted to buy amber they told me to taste it and I
would know if it were the true thing. True Amber has a tangy taste and is unmistakable. I licked and tasted many an amber piece. I settled on one with a bug trapped inside. Unmistakably tangy and a true thing that occasionally hangs around my neck. The prickles on my arms and neck, cheeks and back never happened before I went to this part of the world. The essences of my father’s family are still there and they wanted me to know they were glad I had come. I did not know what I was experiencing until I came home and contacted the family historian. He said I had just traveled the roads our family had traveled and visited places they inhabited. Now I know there is the ability to transcend one plane of living into another if you want to badly enough. Now I know that you can perceive it, as well, if you want to baldly enough. What do you think?

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I have read several different Gurus’ on self-processing and they profess that if you process down to where you can hear your own blood pumping, you have created fertile ground in which to do self-processing work. In accessing the level of hearing your own blood pump through your body, you begin to think of things you might ordinarily not contemplate.

Today I decided to quiet myself down until I could hear my life force, my blood pumping in my ears. I didn’t have to sit quietly very long because I heard it. It was my own heart beating, pumping. I have heard it before, but didn’t really take the time to think that it is my body talking to me. I am a jumpy person and have to be up doing and
saying something, or do I?

I hear myself ask? Who are you without your computer? The pounding seems to give me an answer. I am nobody. Oh sure you are someone, just someone different. With the computer I have lots of friends and a job. I can go to my computer everyday and find my work. I can find my website, my blogs, comments, questions, answers to life’s dilemma’s, history, philosophy and enter the world of others.
Again the question is asked. Who are you without your computer, not who are you with your computer?
Oh, I am a person who rises each morning, takes care of the getting ready for business and then, I go to my computer.

No, you have missed the point again. WHO are you without your computer? Oh yes.
I have become so involved with my computer that if it belches I start madly backing up everything recent. You still don’t get it. Stop talking about your computer.
So I have stopped, but I think what I am trying to say is that I must be mighty attached to my computer, but in reality, if I did not have the machine, I would fill the gap it would leave with other, perhaps more important life enhancing things of a relative nature. I hope I do not have to find out one way or another..

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I have re-thought my thinking on shopping. I have re-thought my personal ban on goods from other countries, my self-inflicted austerity program on being too much of a consumer and decided to bite the bullet and go shopping. In doing so, I thought I would go to some unique and unusual stores in an area of town I usually do not frequent, but have always wanted to become familiar. I moved rapidly through the stalls because at this point, I needed to find a restroom. I asked and was guided to the very back of the building. I entered the stalls designated for women. I began the process of readying oneself for the act.

You will not believe this because I hardly do and I lived it. I did not scream and I did not become paralyzed with fear. I pulled up my drawers, took time to snap and button them. I calmly walked out and stood in front of the door wondering about my next step. There was a mouse floating in an upright position, dead as can be, in that toilet bowl. As I was standing in front of the stall, still shocked, thinking about my next move, a lady wanted to go in. I stumbled and mumbled something unintelligible and shook my head no, but could not form my words. She just pushed past me and I could no longer help her. A few seconds later, I heard a shriek. She bolted out of the door and started to cuss me out. Lady, dear lady, I didn’t have anything to do with that mouse floating in that scary upright position in this particular toilet in this particular place. Calm down.

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First of all I want to thank Johnny Blake for not violating me in the ninth grade. I loved him so much I had fainting spells when I thought of him. He had the wherewithal, the maturity and the grace to tell me no. I thank you Johnny for that and I thank myself for the rest.
I ran for 9th grade president. The elections were held in our homerooms and then, taken to the whole 9th grade. The ballots were passed out and the voting began. I saw my name and I thought I had arrived. I had arrived I thought because I was such a nice person. I was, but that had nothing to do with it. I signed up, simple as that. I thought since I was such a nice person, I would vote for the other guy because that is the nice thing to do. Not at all, I lost the election by one vote. You know whose vote it was that dinged me, don’t you? You are right. You are absolutely right. My own vote did me in and that was a lesson learned the hard way and one that I have passed on to you. Always, I mean always, vote for yourself. My goodness gracious, you do not need to be so nice that you ace yourself right out of the election.

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Now that I am considerably older, I have a dream. I want to go up the down elevator in Nordstrom’s Department Store. I want to start at the bottom of the down and make it to the top. Why Nordstrom’s, because there is always a piano player there and I can do better exercises to music. Today was the day I was going to do it or else. I drove to the closest parking spot, which led me directly into the menswear department entrance. It is the closest to the escalators. I was nervous. My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I didn’t even lock my car. I was single focused. I had my eyes on the door. I entered and walked directly to the escalator going down. I waited for people to come down. There it is, my time is now, the steps were clear. I took a giant gulp of air and held my breath during the entire journey. I trampled over my self, got on all fours and plowed at the stairs. I grabbed to see if I could pull myself up and there I was just a tiny distance from the top. There were only two or was it three stairs to go and I would be there. Not so fast because, down I went, my knee hammering the edge of the stair and the working of my arms and hands plus the grabbing at the stairs stopped as I let the escalator’s mechanisms take me down to my starting point. I was so close, I said to myself. I was nearly there. I had the goal in my sights. My knee was bleeding and several people stopped to help me up and to see if I was going to be all right. One lady said, “ Just what are you trying to do?”
I answered her with, “Following my dream.”
“What kind of dream is this?”
“Getting to the top.”
“What are you trying to prove?”
“Prove that I can still have a dream. Prove that I can make it work.”
“You can have your dream, I guess, but are you alright and you need to fix your knee. Here is a napkin. It will do for right now.”
“Hey, thanks.”
I started eyeing and surveying how I could make that climb.
“ Dear, you are not going to do it again are you?”
I stood at the bottom of the down, contemplating if I should go up another time, sure of myself, sure I would make it. Within moments of dabbing my bloodied knee, I came to realize that I am not going to make it to the top but I choose to keep thinking I can. I still have the dream and one day I will try it again. Meanwhile, the dream is secure and if I never get to the top, I have made the effort and given a descent crack at it. I have done the best I can for right now.

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“IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD NOT FAIL
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?”

I saw this in a gift shop and decided to let you know about it. It certainly is motivating. I say it over and over to myself. I did not buy the wall hanging, but think I have it memorized. If not, then, it is: ” What would you do if you knew you could not fail.” Either way it says the same thing.

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Hey Sheila,
This is a great article, it reminds me a lot of my own experiences
and the things I saw while I was at school. Look, I really dont
understand why some teachers dont give students a chance to be good in
class, or do good on a test and most importantly just be a good student.
Coming from my own experiences, I started to like studying and school in
general once I found out that I have the potential to be a good student.
I feel that teachers aren’t ready to deal with kids that are hyper. Dude,
they are kids, you cant expect them to act like machines. That’s what
teachers want these days; they want their students to be submissive
robots who follow rules and directions. However, thats not what our world
needs today. We need people who are ready to make changes in our society.

Harry

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Dear Mrs. Clapkin,
My name is Hamid B. I was a student of yours at Calvert
Elementary. You might know me better as “Harry”. I just wanted to thank you for all your help when I was in your class. I am now finishing up my Bachelors at UCLA and have also applied to dental school. I just came back from an interview at Harvard; and was thinking to myself that I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t do what you did for me. Although I didn’t change much as a youngster, I did remember everything you taught me later on. Thank for everything. Please let me know if you remember me.
Hamid B.

Hey, Harry,

I just got home and found your wonderful message. Do I remember you?
Absolutely, I DO. I even remember some of the lessons you learned. In teaching them, I learned them all over again. I am very proud of you. I knew you were listening. I just knew it and see, it did serve you well. Not everyone listened or used the lessons they learned along the way to help them, but I am so glad you did. Now that we have made contact, I want you to keep in touch and I will keep in touch with you. Say hello to your family.
I am retired, but I am working on my own things and my own life’s dream. I wrote a book. Writing it was the easy part, the editing and the re-writing was the hard part and made me crazy, still is. I keep finding errors no matter how many times I go over it.
I am proud of you Hamid/Harry. You know I called you Harry to get your attention and it worked. I really am thrilled you are doing so well and keep up the strong effort.
One great thing you did for me was to tell me about what is happening with you and let me tell you back what is happening with me. Harvard? Gosh I hope so, but whatever you decide, it will be right. You know, I went to UCLA.
Sincerely and with respect,
Sheila Clapkin
You can call me Sheila if I can call you Harry.

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BITS AND PIECES OF A GRASSHOPPER MIND

Chapter One: The Blog
FULL CIRCLE

“The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.”
John Foster Dulles

Bits and Pieces from a Grasshopper Mind is a blog technique I will be using to write this book so that I do not have to follow the templates found in the books I purchased thinking I would learn how to write a novel. I poured over them, all twenty-eight of them, and not one suggested I write the way I write. Grasshopper is a book that will create a metamorphosis in your mind, which allows you come out thinking how you can use what you have experienced.
Have you noticed that unique thinking is round and comes full circle? What does full circle mean? According to Merriam-Webster it means: through a series of developments that lead back to the original source, position, or situation. Just the sheer recognition of knowing that approaching thinking in a circular way is enough to begin this process. Circular thinking must be done in a coil effect so that in circling around you can come to the center.
Completion is a task in which many of us find ourselves in limbo. You procrastinate until you can’t even remember what you were going after or what you were going to do in the first place. This is why thinking round is the perfect solution. You have to start, but where? You may start anywhere on the perimeter of the circle, go around and around using the coil effect until you end up in the middle and then you have covered all of the territory. Again, you have made the full circle. What you have learned and what you will do with this new enlightenment is your personal, individualized metamorphosis. You have lived fully, you have thought the entire circumference of the issue, you have circled around to the middle and you have analyzed to obtain the truth of the matter.
Personal, individualized metamorphosis comes from being in the middle of the moment and grasping what you know, mixing it with what you have learned, resulting in a newly- formed vision. What you will do with this prophecy is the plan that will change your life. Coming full circle will be your in-depth, extraordinary, all-inclusive hopefully forward-thinking result of the process.
Coming full circle is as easy as getting up in the morning, the starting point. Brush your teeth, use the toilet facilities, brush, wash, comb your hair and get dressed. You go along, completing your daily routines, using your newly acquired thinking round expertise, and then circling back home to the starting point.
All books on writing say you have to follow a template. Follow a formula, and the rules of beginning, middle and end. If every task is now round having no beginning, middle and an end, then why should I follow an old-fashioned template? I offer you this piece of work, Bits and Pieces of a Grasshopper Mind as a rounded progression. A grasshopper hops here and there, just everywhere. You think it is random, but he knows his purpose. You are only the observer, as I am in Bits and Pieces. The grasshopper has easily distinguished characteristics, diversity, range, and biological camouflage, which aid in its survival. We are all interested in survival methods. The grasshopper eats and excretes, has a nervous system, which is highly sensitive, reproduces, and has circulation and respiration systems, which support its life. We are all interested in supporting life. The term, “Grasshopper” sometimes is used in reference to an inexperienced person, who “ has much to learn.” I bring you this rounded succession of observations as a person who has much to learn.
Our sun, our life force, rises forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both life-giving entities are round. The moon in its phase’s, waxes and wanes formulating its full circle. The seasons of our earth as the seasons of our lives form a circle in the changing and coming back again to where they began. The life of a man is a circle. Go forth and come back to your starting point full of worldly knowledge, full compassion and a full circle of understanding.

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