1 January 2000 -- The life I live best
The sun made its way across the sky this afternoon as it always does,
unaffected by the celebration that swept around the globe in those long-awaited
24 hours yesterday. I saw all the lights on and the corner shops
in the village open for business as I drove out to the start of the two-track
road today. It is good to have all of that nonsense placed behind
me, but then I am faced with the truth of a life that goes on; one that
is no longer contingent upon a single moment of calamity. This prompts
a renewed appreciation of the inherent value of my simplified life up here
at the Cabin, and I find consolation in its being allowed to continue.
This evening, as the first day of the 00's is winding down to give birth
to another less remarkable day tomorrow, I am comforted in finally getting
a chance to be left alone. There is little as annoying to a man who
works early hours than the social expectation that he spend a Friday night
being out until 12:30 in the morning. The wee hours are largely unexplored
territory in my current "rut" of a life.
In this simple timberframe dwelling with kerosene lighting, the onset
of night is even more pronounced. I am always struck by the resemblance
to camping, where the tent goes dark after sunset, and not when the 100-
and 150-watt lamps are turned off. Tonight, as I finish up some canned
rations, the kind certain people must have embarassingly large supplies
of, I am struck by the imponderability of this 21st century, the one in
which I'll finish out what life is left in me. Last night was like
turning some kind of symbolic corner, or crossing a secular line drawn
by religious authorities in the sands of time. This, of course, is
not the proper mode of thought for a man who lives his life best one day
at a time. Little has really changed; my life is no harder or easier.
Work will be the same old routine on Monday, and the traffic is not going
anywhere. The social whole will let me continue to sit and fall behind
on my adaptation and conformity to the times, just as it always has.
It promises to be a fairly cold night tonight, though not bitterly so.
In the shadow-filled world of lamp-light upon the pine panelling and wood
floor, I find myself dealing with essentially the same set of concerns
I had in the 1990's. So long as I stay to myself, I can withstand
living without full participation and growth, even if such a life is futile
and ultimately unsustainable. This may have been the problem I had
with being forced into the global celebration of 2000--I was reminded of
my less-than-enviable position in the overall pecking order.
Others must see me as having an ironclad will to oppose the various
social conventions that make them look "better than me". I don't
care to have my free time taken up in what look like vain chases after
what I will never quite have. Indeed, much of what consumes
them, I might say in a sour-grapes analysis, is nothing more than
concession to the needs of the flesh. But it isn't that simple, and
I know it. The best practitioners of the committed life have the
principles of sacred conduct written on their hearts, and in a location
where they can read it.
This takes me to a resentment I've harbored for more than 20 years,
the one of lacking "sophistication", as I called it when I was 17.
I scoff at those who can continue in life a life rich in earthly delights,
largely because I have little to spend in such a marketplace. The
others are "on to something"; they are at a different and higher quantum
level of evolution than I am. Their worldly gratification is made
correct by sacred intention. But what am I going to do, even if that
is true? They still want me to be there, attending the social functions
and dragging myself to work. I can only conclude that they are reading
my heart in a way that I cannot.
"Bo"
4 January 2000 -- A tendency towards rest
The icy river continues to flow past, down behind the back porch and
the woodshed, as the long main stretch of winter gets under way.
It is easy enough to walk up to a sapling in the undergrowth and imagine
how it will finally express itself 3 - 4 months hence, but the actual event
is something I'll just have to wait out. In contrast, the principles
of urban free enterprise assume I could always have more, and in relatively
short order. I need only "believe in myself", "apply myself", or
implement some other motivation one might hear in a seminar. But
my response has always been pulling back, not charging forward. I
enjoy these Cabin visits most when I've been hard at it in the real world,
trying to live up to a set of standards whose one size hardly fits me.
With a new supply of wood hauled in to the box by the fireplace and
the latest non-perishables brought in from the back of the
truck, I am at last able to let up on the ever-vigilance with which
I watch for new duties. In the city, I might call this "collapsing
in a heap", as though there is implicit moral fault in looking so "lazy".
Actually, the practice of finding rest has been a major course of study
in my life, as these writings show. When I finally arrive at such
blessed apathy that I can crash out and not be fiddling with more bits
of "busy work", I can feel gravity regain control over my body. What
remains floating are the processes of thought, which seem to turn on precision
bearings in my mind that have little friction to bleed away the momentum.
Tonight, with the essential work of the day complete, I enter a familiar
form of contemplation in which I carefully expose the various emotional
fallacies I've adopted without thinking as I hurried along my business.
I still do not understand why I am so ready to be scared by lies, unless
the greater and deeper truths to my life are something even scarier.
I keep warning myself not to become too relaxed during my time off,
since I will supposedly have trouble starting back up again when the time
has concluded. But then, "trouble" like that is what life is about.
Others see the same need to get going as a challenge towards greater excellence,
and not a cause for fear. Thus, their relaxation is more profound
and survivable.
As I work on the fire and find some grocery items that do not need cooking
to tide me over, I come upon the central grand-daddy of the lies, the one
that tells me I'm not worth improving. This holds that I would merely
let the others down if I should try to be a "normal" person and
end up failing again. I tend to believe that there is a fair probability
that I can make at least modest, ordinary changes for the better, and that
such odds are greater than those of my being ultimately condemned.
But then another lie kicks in, the one that says that each of those changes
means more of the hustle and inconvenience and pain that goes with being
held fast in a tangled network of commitments.
I drop fatefully at last into the deep upholstery of the overstuffed
sofa, with the light of day outside the window nearly gone behind me.
It is indeed quiet up here, and it should be that way for some time.
I feel the shame of "laziness", right on schedule, but then so much of
the "good" in my life also has its cost in anxious anticipation.
I try my best to let the tension pour out along the length of my body,
as though there were drain plugs at the low points. There is little
point to pushing myself onto the stage of life's fuller activity now, since
my costume is not fully arrayed. The overwhelming truth I see in
my need for rest makes me believe this is what God might really want at
the moment. Each Sunday I pray "thy will be done", and then spend
the rest of the week searching for cues to the mechanisms that will support
such an outcome. With times of doubt like these, I can see that January,
February and March 2000 will indeed be long months.
"Bo"
8 January 2000 -- An enforcement of abstinence
Today is a day of bright sun upon the snow that remains, the kind of
day one typically sees in a ski tourism advertisement. There is a
bracing feeling to the air that has to be part of the wholesome feeling
of that particular sport, once a person gets past the details of equipment
and the lift. If the hills were not so terribly rugged above the clearing,
I would be able to take longer trips on the cross-country skis out in the
shed, enjoying that unique play of shadows on snow and rocks that appears
under these conditions. I'm not sure of how much of that I could
actually do, however, since my recent and most typical complaint when I
get here to the Cabin is one of being tired from real life routine and
just wanting to sit or sleep.
On this visit, I can at least enjoy the brilliance of the sun in the
crisp blue winter sky to the extent that it finds its way in through the
windows. Sometimes the front window lets in so much light that a
"greenhouse" feeling is established, where the true cold outside is no
longer pertinent to my experience of environment. I never seem to
want to leave the window blinds open in my city home, even if it is not
true that people can see all I do in relatively dark indoor rooms.
I'm sure there's a different real reason for this aversion to "exposure"--either
I don't feel at home in the setting of high-density suburbia or I do not
wish to be reminded of the many duties and distractions that are waiting
for me, once I get back out there.
Whatever the cause, it is not consistent with even my own limited participation
in the experience of being human to stay shut in without good reason.
I have observed that there's nothing like putting myself into the stream
of business and social activity to bring its relative safety to light.
I am probably suffering from a tendency toward "overstimulation"--the mongers
of collaborative living are dealing with such a hardened mass of "normal"
folks that their presentations are always intense, since they are in a
death-struggle for their subjects' attention. Too often I find myself
caught in the path of such pitches, which leave me dazed and grasping for
a return to stability and peace when too many appear at once.
I suspect this immersion in promotional hype and well-intentioned outreach
would be more welcome in my life if it didn't seem so consistently directed
to the others. When I have the time to handle one of these calls
to activity the way I deem proper, it typically comes out all right.
This, however, is dependent upon a careful selection of just the "right"
undertakings to consider and spending the time it takes to get the job
done properly.
This morning, as I sit with the sun pouring in behind me over the living
room sofa, I am well aware of all the adventures in life I am passing up
by leaving my position within the social fabric. I have no one to
blame but myself if I miss out on something that might actually have "worked".
It becomes a strictly enforced process of refusal, when I begin the life
of distraction-avoidance; an all-or-nothing formula. All too often,
this becomes an insidious process of unwanted "recovery" from the "positive
addiction" to enriching activity that is the substance of good living.
Yes, my "life had become unmanageable", but not from the activities themselves,
which are usually designed around the themes of entertainment, social enrichment,
gainful profit or rewarding work.
The problem that requires attention from my Higher Power might be the
same as the one the other programs address--the impulsiveness to jump in
to more distracting opportunities than I can handle at once. There
is a life of muddling mediocrity that still has its share of the vital
nutrients of human exposure, and this is the life I witness in the successful
ones. They do what they can and have the wisdom to stop there.
For me, today, the impulsive call is to hide out at the top of the long
dirt road, in the cold and the snow, where I couldn't pick up on those
many activities, even if I wanted to. Someday, I'll stop needing
to control myself and apply such stern measures; someday I'll be "turning
it over" more completely.
"Bo"
12 January 2000 -- Establishing some controls
While activities continue without abatement in the real world below,
I settle myself in for another night in my outpost, alone amid square miles
of rocks, trees and snow. I see plenty of animal tracks, as from
deer and rabbit, when I'm outside in this weather, so I'm not truly alone.
I have yet to master that mode of contemplation, however, where a wilderness
tract can "come alive" and begin to include me as a real member in good
standing. No, it is just a hinterland of isolation and confinement,
these woods. Here, I can hold a greater number of input variables
to my thought processes constant and perhaps observe cause and effect more
efficiently than I can when I have to untangle the mysteries of life in
urban chaos. It is hard sometimes to clamp down some of those inputs,
especially the kind I've learned to crave from the media. If the
locus of my internal emotions did not travel as often as it does into the
realm of stark fear, I could stay "plugged in" for longer periods.
It looks like another night of 20 degree F weather tonight, the kind
with snow flurries and crystals blowing up to melt on the ruff of my parka
when I need to step outside. The snow is now like an old friend,
something I can count on being here for another two months. I keep
an outer layer of fleecewear on as I walk about inside, since the cold
is "getting to me" tonight a little more than usual. Experience of
external conditions can be subjective in that way, just as with day-to-day
social interaction.
It might appear that life cannot be lived with scientific repeatability,
making me wonder what I'm doing here. Why don't I just go back and
be blown about by the crowds on the streets the way I'm blown about in
the noticeably colder conditions up here? I am well aware that each
person has a point where he starts doing too much to satisfy commitments
to others and then begins to burn out, soon to be thrown on the scrap pile
of the disabled former-greats. My backing off has undoubtedly saved
me from such a finish on many occasions. But then I have had to live
with the stigma of being a "quitter" and having "sold myself short".
There seems to be no way to win this one.
I continue my practice of isolation this evening by watching the fire
in the fireplace, an experience that shares certain features with tending
outdoor campfires. The wood is consumed at a fairly predictable rate,
and a person can see when a log will eventually weaken to the point of
breaking up. Living as a human being is hardly as well-defined.
I am reminded of Twelve Steps teachings again at this point, since the
life I so often describe does not typically do well when I attempt massive
intervention at my own hand. The solution of just taking it easy
and turning it over, however, is hard to accommodate in a world that needs
me at high competence every day and appears to expect so much. I'm
beginning to think I might really have a level of function today that I'd
truly envy if I ended up crashing. It is probably all right to coast,
and take a fuller inventory of what I've done, as well as what I've
failed to do.
It may well be that my analysis of who and what I am is scientifically
flawed for this under-representation of positive and negative effects.
I began with the ludicrous hypothesis that I am irretrievably at fault
for whatever anguish I suffer; that this is what I deserve. Then,
like any good data-cooker, I did not hesitate to note the flaws of my character
in exquisite detail, but the offsetting achievements I simply threw away
as insignificant "noise". Since this form of fact-finding will never
reveal correct results, it seems odd that I would bother with it at all.
A good bit of that "failure" was really a part of a significant experience
in learning and growth, anyway.
This is how I begin to think when I remove the connections to the outside
world. I really wish I could have the other kind of experience
up here at the Cabin more often, the one where the surroundings are their
own subject for contemplation and I'm not just thinking of me and
my actions to date.
"Bo"
16 January 2000 -- Further consideration of myself
The weather today is once again non-descript and cold, typical of the
way this January has felt at the Cabin. Under uniformly overcast
skies, there is a scant snowfall of lightweight crystals that blow about
in what wind there is. The steady state of winter outside tends to
lull me into complacent restfulness on days like today. I do enjoy
time to myself, and nowhere does my time have fewer demands upon it than
when I've crossed over and come up the road into these woods.
Sometimes, as I go about the predetermined routines that I know to be
vital in my real life, I enjoy the thought of being finished more
than the actual time off. These days, my mind goes through time rather
rapidly, perhaps indicative of what happens when a person grows old.
I hate to reach the end of a stretch of time with the sense that it was
not used "well", but by its very definition, leisure time is not
something that must be put to work achieving constructive goals.
I should be free to be as frivolous as I want when the hours of non-occupation
come.
On my visit into the hollow this Sunday afternoon, the fire is stoked
up and my various warm garments and coverings are at hand. I settle
in for more free time, camping out against the cold and grey, which can
numb both mind and body. I realize the wealth of activities in my
real life that could have drawn me along for the entire day had I not come,
but so many of those give out and leave me feeling flat. It is better
sometimes, even when inspiration is greater, to shut things down and "stop,
look and listen", as the old safety warning went. This means advancing
to a passive, rather than active, mode of thought; a form of tolerant listening
instead of impassioned shouting. I should be glad that this practice
does not always result in self-denouncement and self-pity, my all-too-common
bad habits. There are times, yes, when I can hear what I should be
hearing.
The profound silence of these woods and the absence of continuous commotion
outside the windows leaves me walking up and down the storeroom shelves
inside my head, taking note of some of the curious items that are there.
I suspect most people can live with quirkiness and imperfection better
than I can. Still, it is a cause for wonder and possible concern
that I should be exactly as I am and cleave to the ways I do. It
is not so much my objective to seek out a "nature or nurture" cause
for the situation. What good would it be to know that? I'm
looking instead for a more objective analysis of relative merit; a shining
of light upon things I usually avoid under the assumption of their inherent
evil. I have seen these errors in judgment exposed often enough to
have learned by now.
Maybe I am dealing with matters beyond my control--a shortage, for example,
of one or more of those wondrous neurotransmitters that explain so much
in medical science. It would be good if I could cop a claim of "disability"
in that regard, though the "normal" out there begin shying away when that
explanation is advanced too forcefully.
As I lay in my bunk, looking up at the timbers of the ceiling, I try
to dismiss the need to categorize my state of self in terms of "good",
"bad", etc., since I probably don't know the whole story yet of why my
life has to be what it is. This gives me cause to carry on in life,
like in the old television programs from the 1960's where the viewer was
left in utter suspense at the end of one week's episode, so that he might
return at the "same time, same channel" next week to find out what happens.
I can already look back on my earlier years and see value to what I thought
was worthless at the time. Much of that was the result of inner and
innate tendency, so I should not find immediate fault in everything I might
spontaneously do now. One day, I just might be valuing the time I
had spent "doing my own thing" as much as I look forward to such
occupation now when I'm in the struggle to keep up in urban living.
"Bo"
21 January 2000 -- Trying to conserve heat
Up here in the hollow, the cold has become such a presence as to take
on its own form; to act as an almost-solid enclosure around the Cabin building.
Today the winds have kicked up, and I can feel the air trying with a vengeance
to work its way past the front door and deny me my life-sustaining heat
as I rapidly come back in from a trip to the woodshed.
I suppose I could soon wind up with the classic claustrophobia of "cabin
fever", though this is usually accompanied by a driving will to get outside
and be active in the outdoors. I'm just as content today to stay
by the fire or bury myself in the sofa. Yes, I really do enjoy getting
under numerous covers when the drafts begin picking up from the front window,
even if it means the immobilization of being "buried". The analyst-types
could no doubt divine some latent relic of past trauma and/or joy from
the way I like to be enclosed, even to the point of comparing it to life
in utero. When I think it over long enough, I see in this
a tremendous potential for further personal growth, since enclosure in
human groupings has benefits I cannot rationally deny. The problem
to date has been my reluctance to accept all the terms for membership in
those circles. They want me to show up on time and speak where I
can, when I should, and similarly exercise restraint at its proper time.
The plush enclosures I build in places like this Cabin, on the other
hand, are there for my use alone and do not feel slighted when it comes
time for me to pick up and go. The cold outside is certainly a more
threatening set of surroundings than the typical office or club, but living
in its midst is simply a matter of having shelter and enough fuel.
I can see the difference between human and inanimate protective perimeters
easily enough when I think about them that way: crawling under the
covers and holing up is an insular act, while participating in the
social melee necessarily draws something out of me. I still
haven't the faith to cast perfectly good bread too widely upon the water
by that kind of selflessness.
I am so tired this afternoon. I shall no doubt remember
winter '99 - '00 as the one I would have slept entirely through, if it
were possible. I work my bare feet against the soft upholstery and
fabric covering of the sofa. They are still recovering their full
warmth after the time I spent clearing the walkways this morning.
Another 8 inches of snow came by overnight. I know I would feel self-conscious
if I tried relaxing like this at people's homes, though some are equipped
nearly as well for such relaxation. I'd see them looking as though
they're expecting me to "participate"; to join in their festive plan.
They would be trying to drag something from me that I might imagine I still
need. For now, I seem to need my time in the shell, or "cocoon",
to use that fad word of the late 1980s. This is the inherency of
my behavior; perhaps it is a necessary phase of my life.
It occurs to me that if I am to be held fast in these ensconced positions
during most of my free time, at least I have access through my admittedly
low-bandwidth spiritual interface. I realize that it is a woeful
inadequacy to stop just with personal, conversational prayer--conventional
wisdom says I need to be out in the community and in the world, after having
such awakenings. This must explain some of why it always feels better
to come up here to the Cabin and plop myself down after a stretch of hard
work amid the others in real life. My thoughts then are reliving
times whose value has no controversy.
As the fire burns on into the night at 3765 feet, with the world of
ice, snow and wind in a tempest all around, I let loose the tension on
my various muscles, the ones that carry me through so many lanes and strictures
in real life. I'm well insulated and warm, as I carry along the sense
that I at least tried. Still, the barriers created by this running
away continue to keep my spiritual life in the cold, when a world of warmth
beats against my stubbornly-maintained layerings.
"Bo"
25 January 2000 -- A time for holding out
It is another day where one feature dominates the outdoors most--the
snow. Since it has not had a chance to melt to any appreciable extent,
it has drifted considerably, adding contour beyond that of the large granite
boulders that will end up surviving it in the clearing. A good bit
of the brush is now completely submerged in these drifts, giving an appearance
of diminished life beyond that already created by the barren trees.
It appears to be a day for trying to work on matters inside the Cabin,
since I'm pretty well sure of what I'll see when I look outside.
These are the times I become tempted to put a telecommunications receiver
in place, so as to have "wires" comparable to the ones in my real life
home and office. I am aware that video-on-demand is still something of
a dream awaiting universal implementation of the "big pipe", and because
I rapidly tire of the internet when my mood enters certain sectors, I suspect
that such a connection would ultimately leave me wanting "something more".
Thus it is that I come up against one of the frustrations of my particular
instance of human living--a mind that all too often gets stuck with nothing
that "will do". It is as if I really were "endowed by my creator"
with some entitlement to life's ongoing and continuous enjoyment.
When times like today last long enough, I can eventually begin building
constructs for survival; internal rationalizations and explanations that
harden me and carry me through. "Of course a person has to suffer
hard times in life", goes the reasoning, "or the good times wouldn't be
'good'". But is this really how a person is supposed to find appreciation?
Assuming that it is, I can sometimes begin long campaigns of empty times,
which are sure to create a vivid contrast to anything of positive merit
that follows. Indeed, I can get so "into it" that I turn away the
very events that would lift the self-imposed siege. It seems important
in this practice that I am the one putting the affliction in place.
The helplessness of being at the mercy of external adversaries is something
that typically leaves me feeling victimized without reason. It is
hard, being under the dominion of another, but when it's me, at least I
have some sense of negotiating authority.
Today, as I walk around looking out the windows at the now-familiar
snow, I wonder just how far I'll have to take my peculiar practice of rigorous
denial. The answer, oddly enough, depends precisely upon what I fear
most--a power beyond myself. It is none other than the whimsy and
chaotic dance of my unconscious process and other "lower" artifacts of
neurology that ultimately make or break these scenes. They look so
easy to defeat, as anyone caught by the temptation of street drugs would
testify, yet their mastery appears to involve leaving them alone to be
"who" they are. The thought of independent agents with ultimate authority
standing supreme over my every mood is not a good one, as I most consciously
work to keep up the fire this afternoon and find enough to eat among my
non-perishable rations.
The respected advocates of personal accountability, of course, will
tell me that I have the final say. It is as if the veneer
of my free will has a veto that cannot be overridden, at least to hear
these people talk. I appear to live too much of a responsible city
life these days to blame anyone but myself if I should fail after this
point. I do not want to let go of these words of the well-intentioned,
for to do so is too large an invitation to give it all up. So long
as some bit of fight is left in me, somewhere, it is like the ember I might
find in the fireplace in the morning that can be kindled back up to a working
fire once again. Things get drawn awfully thin in that regard sometimes,
and I wonder about my ultimate tenacity and breaking point, but nearly
38 years of putting up with some rather unique and involved situations
should be enough for me to know that the odds are on my side.
"Bo"
29 January 2000 -- Relaxing on my own terms
On a cold, clear and windy day in "the pit of winter", my name for the
January/February boundary, I try to achieve a stretch of truly unconditional
rest, up here in this removed location. I am reminded, whenever I step
outside, that my activities over any significant time in these woods should
be indoors, by the fire and the shelter against a wind chill that is serious
business when any amount of flesh is left exposed.
I'm in my typical pose for spending time that is not claimed by other
activities, and that is one of being stretched out on the sofa. I
am well aware that I can only have this indulgence if I continue with real
life activity and run the many circuits having people in my way in the
suburbs of Northern Virginia. Indeed, I am so conditioned to be "doing
something" all of the time that I cannot simply say, "OK, now it's time
to stop and relax". There are people who can relax on demand, and
these have my respect.
I have seen that my sense of obligation to duty at any given moment
is not directly correlated to what actually needs doing. I'd think
I should count myself fortunate, if I must live with an obsession, to have
one that tells me I'm "always behind", rather than one that tells me all
about frivolous activity that doesn't produce any tangible results.
The commercial interests in my real life that are dedicated to "leisure"
have clearly not anticipated one as worn as I am. They build barriers
and constraints into their "fun" activities that make them worse than simply
going to work for the day and doing what is better understood and completed.
As I let my weight sink into the plush upholstery of this central piece
of Cabin furniture, I try to see the travel and hospitality providers in
a more objective light. Their events have their share of free time,
to the extent they're not making me meet planes and depart on tours.
The structure of even these nominal requirements, however, becomes a scapegoat
for why I cannot enjoy myself by getting away as the "normal" do.
Maybe the others see the hustle of being herded about as well-intentioned
and completely worthy of rendered payment to the benefactors. Something
in the makeup of a "social creature" might make it feel at ease when it
has a sense of belonging in a plan larger than itself. These are
the collectives, of course, in which individuals do not have credible significance
when compared to the glory of the group. "A people" is certainly
a more noteworthy entity than "a person".
I don't understand why I don't simply give in and accept the guidance
of the "benevolent brotherhood of man", to use the phrase from How to
Succeed in Business. For some strange reason, I continue to accept
the arbitrary and capricious reasoning of my one mind, unstayed by the
vast pool of wisdom that is immediately at hand. Maybe I've just
seen too many examples of scurrilous and unprincipled humanity to place
any blind trust in "man". Indeed, it is better to take refuge in
God than in human leaders, as the Psalmist writes. I have had preached
to me the notion that I can find a trustworthy manifestation of God, dwelling
among the human population, and this explains why so much happiness in
the others results from their seemingly foolhardy dependence upon connections
to the collective. This is where a person can start postulating notions
of synergistic pools of many minds, where individuals sacrifice individuality
and independent action in order to receive more than as much back in the
proceeds of belonging.
The day goes on up here at altitude, and my mind continues to move about
in a space that has no points of stable equilibrium. I will have
to leave, soon enough, and return the control of my mind, to the extent
I've seen as necessary, to the various centers of organization that seem
to value my presence, even when I'm wincing as I take their yoke.
I must still look terribly "wild" to them, with ways that do not admit
to my easy assimilation. Perhaps there is one so tolerant
as God in an organization that would have me as a member.
"Bo"
Ahead to February 2000
