The Threshold

Youth in upstate New
York (1953-1981) was exciting with loving parents, Dan and Olive. But life was peppered
with their arguments over money and alcohol. My undiscovered dyslexia caused
both confusion in school and a way for me to think outside of the box into
creativity.

Being raised as a
latchkey kid fostered a turbulent adolescence which set up the wild years. A
Harley Motorcycle crash first limited me physically with a back injury. Raising
my dog, Pipper helped me recover by daily walking with him.

Then as fate would have
it, the result from me colliding a dirt motorcycle into a stone wall, left me
greatly diminished with a traumatic brain injury.  Much of my twenty-one-year-old memory was
wiped away. Without any professional therapy to help me remember, time was
supposed to fix me.

De’ja’ vu’s would flash
in and out at times thrilling me with fleeting bits of my past. Desperately
stumbling into my own self-help recovery initiative, I began writing down those
capturing pieces of thought from years gone by. Acquiring the old me bit by bit,
as the new Diarist me, was exhilarating. That’s when my survival grew into life
again. The Diary was born I began living on the empty pages literally filling
them up. Routinely relating thoughts with pen to paper helped stabilize and manage
the rebuilding of my identity.

One boozy night (1976) on
the town singing Frank Zappa lyrics to the moon, something inside of me was provoked.
A new kind of creative thinking came out as my own song lyrics. On the blank
lines of my diary I was seeing a big idea in just a few original words rhyming and
shaping feelings inside. The process was cathartic not just therapeutic. That
wayward night was a catalyst for me entering a new paradigm of life to follow.  

My rebellious spirit
grew wings with creativity, as alcohol and drug use stoked the flames of
expression. A great desire to live life fuller, discover life more and write
about it pushed me with expectation. At the same time, I walked away from any
path of traditional responsibility included saying good-bye to my young true
love. Christine nursed me through my back injury and head concussion rehabilitation.
She and I were making plans for the future but our great love for each other was
an anchor. For me to chase freedom meant breaking free of her for no other
reason than going it alone. What kind of insanity is that?

The next few years I
went through a series of life’s rapids, I persevered in search of where I was
meant to be in this life. Developing as an artist I questioned life, loved
women and left them. Traveling on I endured across the spectrum of living a
dream to be a Lyricist. Always working two jobs, any job, one job was just for
money. Jobs like pounding empty nails, mundane factory work, etc. just for a
paycheck. The real work, the work I loved was writing which happened after work
long into the night or days in between jobs. 

Eventually (1980) Pipper
and I made our first attempt for reaching Hollywood, California. The west coast
was a chosen land to be a lyricist mining for recognition. Texas was as far as
we got. My brothers phone call telling me of my father’s death caused us to
abandon my apartment, leave my pick-up truck and immediately fly home for Pa’s
funeral. 

In 1981 my mother got a
phone call. It was my dad’s brother Phil’s wife, Ann her sister in-law. Several
years earlier in Schenectady, NY all us kids used to play together until around
seven or eight years old.  Ma and Ann
were close friends before she divorced my Uncle Phil and took the kids to
Florida. Ann’s call had big news she was so proud of her son Mickey; my first
cousin was a movie actor. His debut was in a film called Body Heat.

Mickey and I talked on
the phone for the first time in twenty years. Wow, congratulations Mickey! We
spoke about my lyric writing and he didn’t know much about that but he did ask
if I wanted to act. Without hesitation I expressed my love for writing. Mickey
said he would help me if he could and we agreed to meet in Beverly Hills at his
apartment when I got there in January of 1982. We did meet at his place and ate
lunch with his wife Debra, at a local restaurant. People were congratulating
him on his success as we made small talk about our lives and very different
worlds we lived in. He said he was flying to Europe soon. That was the last
time I ever saw or spoke to him.  I like
watching his movies.

Adventures in California
continued in 1982 for me and Pipper Dog. At the Hollywood writer’s and authors
guild, I met Jack Segal, that was a huge blessing. Jack wrote the lyrics for
When Sunny Gets Blue, and many others. His songwriting/lyric classes in
Hollywood and at Northridge Univ. helped me more clearly see the tree in the
forest. He was cool, our friendship grew over the years.

Song collaboration started
with Dan Brown.  The rock band started in
a garage in North Hollywood (1983-1994). The wild years got wilder. Crazy
times… brought fun, adventures, hard times and heartache. Before more of life
crashed.

In 1988 I was
thirty-five. After years of steady progress with interest from the music
industry the band changed names a few times Mischief, The Fables, Tom Sawyer, Sage,
etc. and eventually broke up. My purpose for being in the Hollywood area was
for the songs. As long as I was there, I took acting classes and tried a bit of
it on stage and sought work in films and TV. Acting opened a new avenue in my
life and surprised me with challenge, reward and the then disillusionment. Glad
to have had the experience of being in a created character it was sad to then
leave the fantasy and check back in with reality. The mental and emotional
swings weren’t worth the damage from coping with it all. Dealing with reality
based on a lot of make-believe did not hold my interest.   

Pipper had been getting
older than me, then he got too old. With a broken heart I screamed in agony putting
the old boy down in 1987. No band, dog gone, girl friends were far and few. My
truck broke down, no job and little money. There at the bottom of the barrel, a
person can stay in the dark or look up to the light with hope.

A long eighteen months passed
by with increasing frequency gaining my interest, subtle and obvious introductions
of things pointing to God kept happening. At age thirty-six (1989) I was still meandering
amid the ashes of broken dreams. Then all of a sudden God’s gift of salvation grace
came busting through, shocked and saved me. I was Born Again. Spiritually alive
with God’s biblical truths my new awakened conscience began contending with my
own lies in a world of deception. I quickly learned how easily I became a
hypocrite.

Alone with the Bible
and the Holy Spirit, I was off to a rocky start. Hypocrisy would be a mild
description of me being a baby Christian trying to crawl. Without guidance from
Christian people or church, I listened to Christian radio day and night in the
dark sound proof garage. The space wasn’t empty I knew God was working on me.

Of all the Christian
radio shows on the west coast teaching the Bible there was one that came across
in a clearer way for me to understand. The Pastors name is John MacArthur and
the church was Grace Community Church, in Sun Valley. When the time became
obvious for me to seek like-minded people and direction in life I went there
and received great fellowship, teaching and love. To be part of such a glorious
congregation worshiping God is an enormous blessing.

Returning to New York
in late November, 1993 I began yet another life of drastic change. Coming back
home to family and friends with Jesus, the greatest gift in all the created
universe was my thrill to share. As a returning dreamer without the first prize
of attaining my lyricist goal I plowed ahead into the field planting God’s
will. God wants His children to tell others about Jesus but the east coast was
cold to that idea. Family and friends put up with me, their hearts weren’t
changed like mine. Only God can change someone’s heart.

Helping Ma in her
retirement was a gift from God. Working a job with Learning Disabled (LD’s) for
seventeen years was clearly from God’s play book. Lyric writing continued
praising Jesus. With hope of telling others about Jesus I used my diaries (2001-2013)
as a giant salvation testimony written two self-produced books. “The
Threshold” volumes one and two and the lyrics are first and foremost,
written to honor God.  

Today is June 6, 2020,
God willing in ten days I’ll be sixty-seven years old. A lot has happened in
the last seven years, since the end of volume two. God only knows if there will
be a volume three. Some of my lyrics become self-produced songs, which I hope
others are blessed by. The greatest privilege in life is to be a Christian, a
child of the Most High God. The most thrilling drama and humbling life is to be
a Christian. Thank God for it all. My target audience for what I create and how
I live will always remain the Holy Trinity. By the grace of God, thirty-one
years of walking with Jesus is the pinnacle of my life. Thank You God, Lord
Jesus Christ.

John 14:6 New King James Version (NKJV) ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.”

Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked;
for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.