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Remembrances of the Late 50’s, Early 60’s (Part 2/5)

Continuing on with my pre-adolescent childhood remembrances from the late 50’s, early 60’s, I will continue this series of posts with three more pleasurable memories from that time period.

1953 – 1965 Childhood Remembrances

The Woods

  • The Creek — Many times I would enter the woods via the back yard of the Fox family, regularly playing with two of their sons, Niles and Earl. There was a steep decline which leveled out at a small creek. Once you jumped over the creek, you had entered “The Woods”. There were different trails leading to different areas of the woods. One area led to a swampy area. Another lead to a large hill called “Suicide Hill”. Another led to some back yards while yet another led to an area we called “The Indian Ruins”. Sometimes you would catch frogs and salamanders from the creek and then let them go again. Occasionally there was a turtle or two.
  • Suicide Hill — At the far edge of the woods, next to the City Dump and the Jersey Turnpike was a very steep hill called “Suicide Hill”. There were two stories of how it got that name. The first was that at one time there was a part of the hill that was more like a cliff and someone jumped to their death off the cliff. The second story was that the hill was so steep and rutted that if you tried sledding down it, it was tantamount to committing suicide. In any case, it was one steep hill and I never did try sledding down it. From the top of the hill, you had an unparalleled panoramic view of the entire surrounding towns including the skyline of Philadeplhia.
  • City Dump — Just what it sounds like. It was a great big pile of trash where the city trash collectors dumped their loads. No garbage though. That was picked up on a separate collection where the garbage collector sold it to local pig farms for feed. Sometimes I would nose around the dump and see if I could find any “neat stuff”. I brought home a broken lamp one time. When I told Mom where it came from, she threw it away and told me not to go back there anymore because a rat might bite me. That was enough for me to hear. I stayed away from the dump after that.
  • Toy Gun Wars — We had some great “wars” with toy guns back in the woods. Two or three to a side and once you were “killed” you had to join the other army. No projectiles of any sort, just make shooting sounds with your mouth. There was the inevitable “I got you” and the just as inevitable, “No, you didn’t, you missed”. So the only way you could ever claim that you killed an opposing army soldier was if you snuck up on him and were so close when you “shot your weapon” that he couldn’t possibly deny it. Sometimes guys would lie under a pile of leaves for almost an hour before they would jump out at you as you walked by. It could shock the shit out of you. Sometimes guys carried the metal tops of trash cans which they would claim were bullet proof vests so you had to get them from behind. Once the war started, you couldn’t leave the woods for any reason unless you “surrendered” first.
  • Swamp Area and Reeds — There was an area of the woods down by the turnpike that was lowlands and very “marshy”. Some cattails grew there and we used to cut them and dry them out and use them as “punks” to keep the mosquitoes away at twilight time in our back yard. Came home with some cattails one time with my shoes totally caked in mucky mud. “Hey Mom, look what I got” as I stepped into the kitchen. She took one look at my shoes and said, “I don’t care what you have. Go right back outside and get those shoes off”. Kids don’t have much sense sometimes.
  • Arrowheads — There was one area that we called the “Indian Ruins”. It had a couple of posts that nobody ever figured out what they were doing there but the reason we called it the “Indian Ruins” was sometimes we were able to find authentic Lenni Lenape arrowheads in the area.

One Time Events

  • Chief Halftown — We were at a company picnic at Riverside Park (an amusement park) and appearing there was a local television celebrity named Chief Halftown. Chief Halftown was a Native American who had a longrunning childrens show on tv and was well known to all kids. He was giving out a limited number of colorful beaded necklaces that day and I was lucky enough to get one. I immediately put it around my neck and wore it proudly for the rest of the day. I was going to wear it to bed but Mom said I might choke on it. Yeah kids don’t have much sense sometimes. I wore that beaded necklace off and on for weeks until the string broke and it could not be repaired.
  • Connie Mack Stadium — I was to Connie Mack Stadium (aka Shibe Park) once to see the Phillies play the Milwaukee Braves. My brother had won some tickets in a Philadelphia Bulletin newsboy promotion. This was still in the days of black-and-white television. I had never seen an actual Major League Baseball field in person. When we walked down the corridor to get to our seats, for the first time I saw that magical field of emerald green grass, with the brown infield, bright white foul lines, colors of the Phillies and Braves uniforms, and (to me at least) giant scoreboard. It was almost like entering another world.
  • NY Worlds Fair — In 1964, Mom took me, my brother and a neighborhood friend on a bus trip up to Queens, New York City to spend a day at the New York Worlds Fair. At the main entrance to the fair was the Unisphere, a huge 12-story globe structure, made of stainless steel. There were pavillions from different corporations as well as different states. I definitely remember the New York State Pavillion because of its observation tower. Other pavillions we visited was the one from Disney with the mechanical animated characters singing the song “It’s a Small World After All”, the General Electric “Future-ama” where you would sit in moving chairs and pass by scenes of “what the future would be like” (all with General Electric appliances) and the Ford Motor Compnany pavillion where you sat in actual cars (I think Mustangs) and rode past scenes with dinosaurs and cavemen. I think my favorite was the 7-UP pavillion that had different sandwiches from around the world and a soda fountain where you could drink as much 7-Up as you wanted. Of course, this was well before the ubiquitous soda fountains of today where endless refills are always available.
  • Frontier Village — This was a short-lived park about 10 miles from our house that was surrounded by a wooden palisade fence resembling an army fort from the old west. Inside the fence was a western street resembling the typical western street you would see in a western movie or tv show. Some of the buildings were just facade but some of them were real (the sheriffs office and jail, the saloon, the general store, the stable, the one room schoolhouse). They had guys walking around in cowboy getups, horsemanship and “quick-draw” demonstrations, a stage coach and of course a shoot-out between the bank robbers and the sheriff and the sheriff taking one of the captured bank robbers to the jail (Your’re goin’ to the lockup, you varmint”) to the delight of us kids in the crowd..
  • Kool Aid Show — This was a big show that was put on in the back yard of a neighbor. There were at least 15 or 20 kids there. It was supposed to be a show where everyone did some type of act while the kids not performing manned their wagons or tv trays or whatever they had to hawk Kool Aid or Lemonade or cookies and make some money. One kid was trying to sell pre-made peanut butter sandwiches (made special by having the crunchy type peanut butter instead of the creamy style). My brother had a real money-maker, he was selling root beer Kool Aid. Another kid put so much sugar in his fruit punch that kids were spitting it out and he had to run home and make another batch. It devolved into just a big food court type of thing until the father of the kids whose yard we were using came out eating a plum and said to the kids, “OK enough with this other bullshit, let’s get this show started”. They had the outer wooden shell of an old style console tv that you could get inside to do your act. Or you could stand on top of the console (it was really sturdy wood). Or you could just stand in front of the tv. A few kids did some type of puppet thing. Some told jokes. Some sang some type of song (“John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”) As I remember, most of the “acts” were pretty bad and some were booed off the “stage”. My brother sold out of his “root beer” that day and made a nice profit on the deal. He sang some type of Cub Scout song. I didn’t have to do anything because I wasn’t selling anything plus I was too young.
  • JFK — On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. It was a kind of farewell to the innocence of the era, The funeral was being broadcast on television, and I remember my Mom crying as she was watching it. I hated seeing my Mom cry. I scraped up five pennies from my junk drawer in my bureau and went down the street and bought Mom five cents worth of her favorite candy, orange turkish paste. I gave her the candy to try and make her feel better. She gave me a big hug and a kiss. I will always remember that day.

Recurring Treats

  • The Merry Go Round Truck — There was a man who would come by about once a month in the summertime who drove a truck that had a small merry-go-round installed on the back of the truck. He would come by and park on my block and play music over a loudspeaker so as to announce his arrival in the neighborhood. I think it accomodated about six kids. When he got a bunch of kids on board, he would start it up and we would ride the merry go round. He gave each kid a taffy as the carousel went around. I think it cost a dime to ride. Then after the ride and we got off, and he would then move on to another neighborhood that had small kids.
  • Cowtail Bar — Maybe two or three times a year we would get to go to Cowtail Dairy Bar on the premises of Holly Ravine Farm. A Real Treat! It was a sit-down place where you could get all manner of ice cream treats…dishes of ice cream, sundaes, banana splits, milk shakes, etc. As it was a dairy farm, the ice cream product was always fresh. You got a free complimentary small basket of pretzel sticks at your table. It was a cheerful place and you were always happy being there. I always ate my ice cream real slow so we could stay there as long as possible. You could go out to a barn and actually visit with the cows. Later in the mid sixties, they added a small petting zoo with sheep and horses along with the cows.
  • The Jersey Seashore — Once a year we would go to the Jersey Seashore, usually Atlantic City because it was the closest. This was before all the casinos came in during the 70’s. I remember the smell of the salt water as we got close. We wore our bathing suits under our clothes so when we found a spot to park, we would just take our clothes off and wrap them inside a towel that we brought to the beach. A blanket was spread out when we found a spot. Mom put suntan lotion on us so we wouldn’t get burned. We had fun with the waves. .After about three or four hours, we would pack everything up and head back to the parked car. Before leaving the beach, they had an outside shower where you could get a lot of the sand off of you. Back at the car we put our clothes on over our bathing suit and walked the boardwalk for three or four hours, usually getting some salt water taffy and/or fudge then getting something to eat at one of the many places on the boardwalk until nightime when we would head home.
  • Lunch with Mom and My Brother — Once every couple months Mom would pick us up at school and treat us at lunchtime to lunch at either a local luncheonette or when they came into the area, at a McDonalds. If we were a little late getting back to school by 1:00, Mom would give us a note so we would not be marked “tardy”.
  • Clementon Lake Park — This was an old fashioned amusement park about 7 or 8 miles away from our house. It was built in 1907 and featured “The Jack Rabbit” wooden roller coaster, as well as a bunch of other rides including “The Whip”, “The Salt and Pepper Shaker”, and “Collision Alley” (bumper cars), a fun house, an arcade, a dance hall where events were held, a picnic area, a shooting gallery and some other games, food concession stands , and a small train that traversed the perimeter of the park. It was similiar to Knobels Grove in that parking was free and there was no admission fee to get into the park. For any rides, you bought tickets that were available at a booth in the park. Every two or three years, we would visit the park. When we were older, my brother and I would ride there on our bikes.
  • Mister Softee — Not too often, but occasionally was able to have some spare change to get a custard from the Mister Softee truck with its continuous Mister Softee jingle playing as it rode down the street. A few kids would congregate on the side of the road and the truck would pull up and dispense its treats. Before Mister Softee made its rounds, there was also a white “Good Humor” truck that would sell ice cream novelties, announcing its presence in the area by ringing a bell. No more Good Humor truck but even today the Mister Softee truck still makes its rounds.
  • To Be Continued Next Week With Part Three
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Remembrances Of The Late 50’s, Early 60’s (Part 1/5)

American Folklore

I was born in 1953, the year Dwight Eisenhower was elected president with the slogan “I Like Ike”. My pre-adolescent life stretched into the presidency of John F. Kennedy, (“Leadership For the 60’s”} and the beginning of Lyndon B. Johnson’s tenure (“All the Way with LBJ”). I recently was following some of my own advice (see blog post of 1/7/21, Unclutter Your Life)) and throwing out the contents of stored away boxes of papers and other sundry unneeded items. As I was looking through the items as I tossed them in the trash barrel, I came across an old college report that I had written. It was an assignment in a college elective course named “American Folklore”. The idea behind the assignment was to assemble a collection of something that was representative of “Americana”. After assembling the collection, the assignment was to bring the collection into class and give an accompanying report about said collection and how it related to the folklore of America. There were no restrictions. The professor told us to use our imaginations.

The Memory Collection

I decided to collect pleasurable memories of pre-adolescent childhood from various people that I knew, both young and old. I handed them out a sheet describing the assignment and asked them to write down as many pleasurable remembrances of things that they did growing up between the ages of 5 and 12. It could be anything at all — watching cartoons on tv, going on family outings, fishing or swimming, playing in the backyard or park, etc. While waiting for the sheets to come back to me, I wrote up my own sheet as well, covering the period of time from 1953 through 1965. Most certainly, it was a very different era in America than the one we currently live in. Very different. As I reviewed my sheet, fond remembrances started cascading through the layers of my mind. Experiences, people, places, events became alive again. We did not have much money but my childhood was in fact, rich with experiences. In this blog post, and subsequent blog posts, I will relate some of them to you. Perhaps you experienced some of the same things that I did.

Flipswitch Kindling

How do pleasurable pre-adolescent remembrances relate to manifesting your reality? Well, the answer to that is by way of the manifesting technique called flipswitching. I will speak further of this technique in future blog posts, as well as in the book I am currently in the process of writing. The basic gist of flipswitching is to bring forth something in your mind, a thought form that you are able to sustain for at least a half minute or so, that does no harm to anyone and brings you a good feeling inside. Something basically that puts you in a “feeling good” mode. There are many ways to do this. One of them is to pull out of your memory storage banks, fond memories of things of a positive nature that you enjoyed doing at a particular stage of your life. It is my intention to use the memories of my childhood that I will be describing as part of my “flipswitch arsenal” whenever I use this specific method to manifest something in my life.

Grandmom and Grandpop

Always, always a pleasurable experience. They had a neighborhood store in Philadelphia until the later 1950’s. At that time they moved to New Jersey to a lakeside house. It was a wonderful place to visit. My maternal grandparents always welcomed our visits. Of course my brother and I would go swimming in the cedar water lake. Grandpop even added to the sandy soil of that area to make a small sandy beach for us. There was a small pier to fish and dive off of (plenty of “cannonballs”). He also had a rowboat that allowed us to travel to different parts of the lake. We used to bring inflated inner tubes and float all around the lake. After we were done swimming, we would take a shower to get the cedar water off of us at an outside shower that my Grandpop had hooked up outside of the tool shed. Then we would go in the house and Grandmom would have food for us to eat as well as “soda water” (her term for soda). We would listen to stories from my Grandpop. We would play pinochle. We would listen to Grandmom and Grandpop speaking Polish and me wondering what the heck they were saying. We would feed the ducks and geese. I loved to go out to the front yard and sit on the cement bench and just sit and look at all the rose bushes and flowers that were out front. I would explore all the neat stuff in Grandpop’s tool shed. Sometimes I would take a walk with Grandmom to the local diner and she would buy me a basket of french fries. Whenever I went with my Grandpop to the farmers market, he would always buy me a few comic books from the guy who sold discounted books and magazines from a stall. What a wonderful time we always had at Grandpop and Grandmom’s house. Most of all, we felt loved.

My Brother

My brother was only three years older than me. We experienced a lot together as we were growing up. Many good times. When we were involved in neighborhood games of baseball, football and basketball, my brother always insisted that I be included even though I was always the youngest one there. Up until I was six or seven, we shared the same bedroom and the same bed (“move over, you’re on my side”) until we moved to makeshift bedrooms in the attic.

Many memories. Sharing experiences together at my grandparents’ house…when Mom took us to different parks or treated us to hamburgers and french fries…riding our bikes…joking around and craning our heads from the end of the bed to see the tv in the living room in bed at night…one time we started laughing at something on the tv until we heard from our father “you kids better go to sleep in there or I’m gonna have to come in there (which meant “the belt”) …him sneaking out of the bedroom late at night to raid the refrigerator for us (knowing we would get” the belt” if our father caught us)…going camping together at Hospitality Creek Campground,,,sleeping outside in the back yard overnight under our makeshift “tent” (an old blanket tied to the backyard fence) curbball…wallball…watching tv together, especially Twilight Zone on Friday nights…watching him pitch over at the Little League (one of the few left-handed pitchers) taking our bikes, or the bus, to go to the movies (the Harwan, Coronet, Crescent and Ritz)…going “into town” on the bus to Leary’s Book Store…doing the dishes together after dinner when Mom had a night shift job…just so many memories during that time period (late 50’s, early 60’s).

It was as if a giant had picked me up and just flung me full force against a cement wall when my brother died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of twenty-three. I will always have those good memories of us growing up though, for as long as I live, and I think I will still have them even when I go into “the great beyond”.

Ball Games

While there was organized baseball over at the Little League field, unorganized or sandlot ball was the order of the day growing up. We played choose-up-sides baseball at a vacant lot next to the VFW. Neighborhood men even constructed a makeshift backstop for us. You needed at least six kids for a game (two fielders and a pitcher) although at least eight was best. We would go knocking on doors if we didn’t have enough kids. Baseballs used until the cover came off and then taped up with masking tape. One lady whose house was across the street from the field we called “the witch”. If someone hit the baseball on her lawn, we would have to get it fast because she would come out of the house and confiscate the baseball. She said one time somebody had hit her house and broke a window.

Two hand touch football in the street (“car comin’) or on the VFW parking lot if there weren’t any cars parked there (three completions is a first down). Tackle football on grass yards. A football game that you could play with just three kids we called “Kill The Man With The Ball”. You can use your imagination to figure out the rules of that game. Whoever lasted the longest without getting tackled, was the winner. With just three kids you could also play the “base stealing game”. It was two bases about 60 feet or so apart. One kid at each base. They would throw the baseball to each other. One kid on a base. When kid A threw to kid B, the base stealer on base B would run to base A to try and ‘steal the base” before kid B could get the ball back to kid A. If he made it before kid B got the ball back to kid A, he stole the base. If not, he was “out” and one of the other two kids became the base stealer. The base stealer was allotted one out. You could also have “rundowns” where the base stealer stops between the two bases and either kid A or kid B would have to tag him out. One time I chased a kid halfway down the block on a rundown tag. The one with the most stolen bases won the game. We played basketball at a makeshift dirt court with the wooden backboard sturdily fastened to a large tree in a neighbor’s back yard (they let us use the “court” anytime we wanted).

No computers, cell phones or electronics back then. A lot of outdoors stuff. Wiffle ball, where you could easily throw “curveballs” and you didn’t need as large a playing field as you did for baseball. Two ball games where you could play either one-on-one or alone were curbball and wallball. Curbball was where you had a sponge rubber type ball (but not too spongey, it had to be on the hard side). One player would be the fielder and would stand on the other side of the street. The other player would hit the ball against the curb and try and get it past the fielder. Get it to different areas for a single, double, triple and home run. If you hit it to the fielder and he caught it, it was an out. If he dropped it it was an error and you were credited with a single. If you tried to hit the edge of the curb to make the ball go farther and missed the curb, it was an out. If the ball went outside the designated “foul lines”, it was an out. Three outs to an inning. Nine innings to a game. When I played curbball alone, I always broadcast the game pitch-by-pitch in my mind (“Bunning winds and pitches, pop-up to the first baseman”.) Wallball was very similar only instead of a curb, we used the wall of the nearby hosiery mill which was about 15, 20 feet high and the “playing field” where the fielder stood was larger than just the width of a street.

Penny Candy

Oh, what a nickel could buy back then. A pack of baseball cards (with the complementary slab of stale bubble gum). A full size candy bar. A bottle of soda made by a local soda company was only a nickel as long as you drank it at the store at the fountain stool (another two cents if you took it out of the store because of the deposit). That magical glass case of penny candy with three rows of different penny candies. Orange turkish paste, peppermint candy cigarettes, caramel cream bullseyes, chocalate malt balls, candy dot strips, tricolor coconut strips, little wax soda bottles with sweet syrup inside, mary janes, turkish taffy, green, red and black licorice sticks, shoestring licorice, pretzel rods, bazooka bubble gum, little b-bats banana or strawberry taffies, red hot dollars, and on and on, all put into a little brown or white paper bag. That last penny’s worth was always the hardest choice. My eyes would slowly go over all three rows of candy again. Then I would finally make a decision when the owner said “Come on, I don’t have all day”. The candy store owner always had a cigar in his mouth and was also the town judge. When I walked out of the store with a bag full of candy, it was a great feeling.

I will never forget the day that my brother came into possession of a dollar that he had earned doing errands for a neighbor (he was 8 or 9, I was 5 or 6) and he spent the entire dollar on an assortment of penny candy for Mom, me and him. We were so impressed that he would do that for us. The candy store also sold Breyers ice cream. The cones cost ten cents, two scoops into a cake cone. My favorite was vanilla with the little specks of ground vanilla mixed into the ice cream. On Friday nights Mom would give me thirty cents for three cones, for her, my brother and me. They put thin wax paper over the top of the cones and I would walk home with the three cones. The store was only a block away from us. Actually on the six block walk from my school to our house, there were no less than five candy and soda stores. One of them was called Joe’s Sweet Shop and had a huge offering of five cent candy bars. I think he had every one that was ever invented. There was also a five-and-dime in town and two fully stocked newsstands that also sold candy and soda. Our town was “Sugar City”.

To Be Continued. Part Two Next Week.

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Emmet Fox and The Magic Key of Gold

Emmet Fox And The Magic Key Of Gold

“Emmet Fox and The Magic Key of Gold”. Sounds like the title of a children’s book or a fairy tale from Hans Christian Anderson, doesn’t it? It actually refers to a pamphlet written in 1931 by a man named Emmet Fox. He lived from 1886 to 1951 and wrote numerous books and pamphlets. He was minister at the Church of Divine Science in New York City and regularly spoke to crowds of 5,000 at the Hippodrome every Sunday.

In his pamphlet, The Golden Key, Fox claims to provide the answer to what you can do to successfully handle any problem that you encounter. Fox was very well thought of in his day (and still is today). He never had so much of a hint of impropriety or scandal in his life. His books have been read by millions.

There Is A Catch

You have to employ faith (imaginative belief) in order for his Golden Key to unlock the solution to your problem. Therein lies the catch. If you do not believe the golden key produces results, it will not produce results. As you believe, so it is. As the Bible states about one who doubts, “let not that man expect to receive anything from the Lord.” Nevertheless, there are many people (including myself) who have gone on record to swear that it does indeed produce beautiful results. Just fully commit yourself to the technique. Wishy-washy won’t cut it. With any legitimate manifesting technique, total commitment, as well as persistence, are both essential ingredients. It makes sense to me that only those giving total commitment have reported enjoying success in using the Golden Key.

The Golden Key – A Summary

I am going to do my best to briefly summarize for you the contents of this five-page pamphlet. It is available in full on the internet if you choose to delve further.

Emmet Fox refers to this Golden Key as scientific prayer. Fox states that this manner of scientific prayer will enable you to get yourself out of any type of difficulty. He clearly says not to just take his word for it. He urges the reader to simply try it. Try it for yourself. It is an exercise in letting God, Ultimate Intelligence, provide the solution, not you. You must provide the faith, God then provides the solution. No type of religion or church has a monopoly on the Golden Key. Anyone who believes in God can use it. There is nothing complicated about it.

Simplicity

The actual Golden Key is simplicity itself and here it is — whatever your difficulty is—stop thinking about it. Stop dwelling on your problem, how you are going to solve the problem, how the problem is hurting you. Just stop. Now. Then, dwell on the presence and peace and power of God instead. Stop bowing down and worshiping the problem, the false idol. Let your entire being experience only the Kingdom of God. That’s it. That is the entire Golden Key technique.

Instead of dwelling on ways and means to solve your problem, single-mindedly dwell on the presence and peace and power of God that is truly within you right now. Center yourself on the Source of All That Is and not on the problem or problems. “Yeah but if I don’t think of the problem, how am I going to solve it?”, you say. Go within. Go inside yourself to the Kingdom of God. Go within and the Infinite Intelligence of the Almighty will use the natural order of things to rectify your problem. Ways and means to solve the problem will come to you. Ideas will come to your mind. Events will naturally occur. Things will happen for your benefit. You simply have to pay close attention and take the necessary actions when they do.

Some Examples

Some examples that Fox gives are:

“There is no power but God”

“God’s love for me is without limit”

“God is always guiding me”

“God is with me right now”.

“The peace of God fills me”.

There are literally dozens of additional other truths that you can come up with to facilitate your dwelling on God. Fox tells the reader to not fret about the “how’s” of solving your problem. Just leave the “how’s” up to Divine Presence. Center your entire being on experiencing the Presence of God. The “how’s” will come to you. They will come to you naturally. When they do however, then, at that time, it will be up to you to follow up and do what Divine Guidance directs you to do.

As you start your Gold Key session, say for example “I gold key my lack of money situation“. (or whatever your problem is). Then stop thinking about the problem of lack of money. Instead, dwell only on the one true power, God.

Stay Alert……Pay Attention

After you spend a few minutes in a golden key session, dwelling only on God, Universal Mind, then totally drop the matter until your next gold key session. Accept only that your finances are improved somehow. Accept that your financial needs will be met. Then go on with whatever you have to do concerning your daily activities. Engage in as many sessions as you feel led to during the course of the day.

As you go about your day, pay attention to everything happening around you. Stay alert. Be ready to act quickly when opportunities, ideas and impulses will present themselves to you. If you are truly dwelling on the Kingdom of God, the ideas will surely come. It will then be up to you however, to be open to receiving those ideas, and then subsequently taking action on them. Be aware however that the solutions and ideas that come to you may not be what you expected. Ultimate Intelligence of your Creator is infinitely greater than your intelligence.

A Laboratory Test

I trust Emmet Fox. Emmet Fox was a man, as far as I can see, of impeccable ethics. No sex scandals, no money scandals, no abuse scandals, no power grabbing scandals. He reported that the Golden Key method of handling problems most assuredly works. He confidently states that it works well as long as you faithfully commit to it with persistence and have patience. A scouring of the internet that I have personally done (on many different forums, large and small) for people who have actually used the Golden Key successfully, bears this out.

The beauty of the Golden Key is that it is available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. No dues to pay. No club to join. No monthly subscriptions. The only belief system you must have is belief in God. If the whole thing sounds too simple and not rational to you, why don’t you just do a scientific laboratory test of your own. That’s the very best way to find out. Experience it for yourself. Then you will know better than anyone just telling you about it.

Every Day Without Fail

Every day for the next six months, at the minimum, in the morning when you wake up, and at night when you go to sleep, without fail, golden key your specific problem. Do this by dwelling on the presence of God within you right now. The Kingdom of God. Think, live, breathe in the beautiful Kingdom of God during your Golden Key session.. During the day, if your thoughts start turning to the problem, as they probably will, use the Golden Key. If your thoughts say to you, “this doesn’t work”, use the Golden Key. You cannot dwell on God and the problem simultaneously. Make your choice. Choose wisely. Choose successfully.

I have written down on an index card certain truths about Universal Source. I keep the card in my wallet and use this simple index card as my personal golden key. I have cut the card down to fit in one of the wallet’s plastic credit card sleeves. On the back of the card I have pasted a picture of a gold key.

God is always with me.

The Kingdom of God is within.

God loves me relentlessly.

God is the one true Power.

I live in the freedom of the Kingdom of God.

Truths about qualities emanating from the Kingdom of God such as love, intelligence, power, peace, abundance, compassion, imagination, creativity, impartiality of the Law can also be used as golden keys.

I Need It Now

In my own life, I have always found that manifestations usually take longer than I initially expected. They can happen quickly but many times they take much longer (sigh). They have always eventually materialized in due time however as long as I continue to do my part., Live in faith and look at God instead of the problem. That faith part is really important. My succumbing to periods of subtle fear, doubt and lack of persistence is the thing that always slows things down. Doubt is taking your eyes off God, breaking the connection. Just like a batter in the game of baseball, if you take your eye off the ball, you will strike out.

Put On Your Lab Coat, Professor

I have used the Golden Key successfully but please do not take my word for it. Put on your imaginary lab coat. Pick up your imaginary clipboard and horn rimmed eyeglasses. Conduct your own scientific experiment with regard to Emmet Fox’s magic key of gold.. From the very start just give it a honest chance. For the experiment’s time period, check your doubts at the door. Fully expect it to bring positive results in your life. I can warn you in advance however, that it will not work if you fear, doubt or skip using the Golden Key for days at a time. Fear or doubt will poison your soup every single time.

The more that you use the Golden Key in your life, the easier it will be to use. A person who wants to be a proficient pianist cannot expect to be a virtuoso within twenty four hours of first starting to learn to play the piano.

Why don’t you try it. It won’t hurt you. It will not cost you a cent. No fees to pay. No clubs to join. No monthly subscriptions. Maybe you don’t have any problems. Lucky you. Let me borrow your four leaf clover. If you do have problems to solve however, then give the Golden Key a try. I fully believe that you will be happy that you did.

Just as importantly, you can also use the Golden Key to help a loved one. Just specify during your golden key session that you are “Golden Keying” for whoever you desire to help and the problem that you want to help them with. Then proceed as if you were doing it for yourself. What do you have to lose? And if you are someone who truly believes in God, then how can it possibly hurt you to think about and dwell on the one true power, God.

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

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Your Grand and Glorious Jackpot

Gene Wilder As Willie Wonka

Have you ever watched the movie “Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory”? It was a fantasy/comedy made in 1971 and starred Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka and a marvelous supporting cast. Near the end of the movie, Mr. Wonka was testing the last remaining child who had successfully made it through the chocolate factory tour. Four other children had to drop out of the tour. The child, named Charlie, was to receive a year’s supply of Wonka chocolates which were prized the world over.

At first, Mr. Wonka refused to grant that reward to Charlie, stating that he and his grandfather, who accompanied Charlie on the tour, had violated one of the rules of the tour. Charlie’s grandfather flew into a rage. He told Charlie to leave the factory with him and they would go immediately to Wonka’s competitor, Slugworth, to divulge details of a very unique piece of candy Mr. Wonka had given Charlie. Earlier on the tour Charlie had been given the candy on the condition of never divulging it to anyone.

Willie’s Jackpot

Rather than leave with his grandfather, Charlie walked up to Mr. Wonka’s desk, where Wonka was seated, and placed the special candy on the desk next to Mr. Wonka. As Charlie was about to leave, Mr. Wonka told him to stop. He apologized to Charlie for having to test him and told Charlie with joy, “You’ve won Charlie!” Charlie asked, “You mean the chocolate?” Wonka answered, “Oh yes, the chocolate but so much more. You’ve won the grand and glorious jackpot!” It turned out that this jackpot was that he was giving Charlie the entire factory and letting Charlie and his entire impoverished family move in immediately to living quarters at the factory. Of course, Charlie was overjoyed at this prize as it was truly his fondest dream come true.

Your Own Grand And Glorious Jackpot

What is your own personal “grand and glorious jackpot”? Have you ever given it some deep thought? Have you ever given it any thought at all? It might be receiving a large sum of money. Maybe it is landing your dream job. Perhaps it is getting relief from a health affliction that you suffer with. It could be the repairing of a broken relationship. Another possible jackpot is that you are able to provide substantial help to a loved one with a lifelong challenge that they face. Maybe it is a combination of any or all of the above.

Whatever your grand and glorious jackpot might be, how would you feel after you received it? How would you feel inside? How would you live your life each day as a result? Refrain from giving a cliche or standard answer to those questions. Refrain from the common response that those “jackpots” are out of your reach so what’s the use of even wasting time thinking about it. You say you will just get depressed that it is not “real”. Just put all that crap aside and spend five measly minutes, three hundred seconds of your life, just feeling. Feeling how you would feel if receiving your jackpot was already a done deal. It won’t hurt you. It won’t cost you any money. It will cost you merely five minutes of your time. Three tenths of one percent of your daily allotment of time. Even a lawyer charging hundreds of dollars an hour can spare five minutes for something important. And this is important. It is your life.

Your Own Personal Smuggler

If your mind just won’t let you imagine that you have already received your jackpot, try again later. The very best times to do this are either immediately upon waking in the morning or at night as you are drifting off to sleep. You are at your most relaxed at those times. Relaxation is your personal smuggler that gets you past the various internal checkpoints that your mind has constructed. If you can ultimately get yourself up to five minutes, then next go for ten minutes. It’s much harder than it sounds but there really is a payoff for you if you can do it.

After you have fully put yourself into a state of consciousness where you have already received your jackpot for five or ten minutes, then end your “jackpot session”. Do this without fail every day for a minimum of ninety days. If it is in the morning, after you are done your session, get up and go on with your daily activities. If it is night, then drift off to sleep after your session.

Get The Hell Out Of The Way

Let your subconscious mind do all the heavy lifting. Get the hell out of the way. Pay attention to everything that takes place in your life. Be alert to ideas that appear in your mind. Things will happen for your benefit if you are truly faithful to the process. The things may be small. They may even be tiny at first, but good things will happen. Take advantage of opportunities that present themselves to you. Expect positive results of some sort in your life at the conclusion of that ninety days,if not sooner. Refrain from skipping a day. Treat it as a scientific experiment where if you skip a day, you compromise the entire experiment. This whole process has been called “living in the end”. It is a form of prayer, It is materializing the precious words of Jesus Christ: If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

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Huey Long “Barbeque Speech” On Wealth Inequality

The Kingfish

Have you ever heard of the politician Huey P. Long, aka “The Kingfish”? Huey was a prominent political figure from the state of Louisiana. His political heyday was in the late 1920’s up to 1935 when he was assasinated in the Louisiana Capitol Building. He became well-known throughout the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. In order to stimulate the economy, he advocated a program he called “Share Our Wealth”.

Millions of Americans joined Share Our Wealth clubs which were springing up all across the country. Long was either loved as a populist champion of the poor or hated as a dictatorial demagogue who was a threat to democracy. In the 1920’s when Long argued a case before the U. S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice (and former president) William Howard Taft called Long “the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced” before the court. Long was mortally wounded by a lone assassin in September of 1935.

Share Our Wealth Program

The basic gist of Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth program was that way too much of the wealth of the United States had become concentrated in way too few people. These mega-rich individuals used their riches to buy political influence and continuously tip the scales of the system in their favor. He advocated for a wealth tax and wealth redistribution program he called Share Our Wealth. In December of 1934, he gave a speech before the Washington Press Club that history has labelled the “Huey Long Barbeque Speech”. It is freely available on the internet if you wish to actually listen to it. I will give you a few passages to give you an idea of the flavor of the speech.

The Barbeque Speech

“How many men ever went to a barbeque and would let one man take off the table what’s intended for 9/10ths of the people to eat. The only way you’ll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub he ain’t got no business with.”

“We have been praying to the Almighty to send us to a feast….The Lord has answered the prayer. He has called the barbeque: ‘Come to my feast’ He said to 125 million American people. But Morgan and Rockefeller and Mellon and Baruch have walked up and took 85 percent of the vittles off the table.”

“Now how you going to feed the balance of the people? What’s Morgan and Baruch and Rockefeller and Mellon gonna do with all that grub. They can’t eat it, they can’t wear the clothes. They can’t live in the houses. Give ’em a yacht! Give ’em a palace! Send them to Reno and give them a new wife when they want it, if that’s what they want.”

” But when they’ve got everything on God’s loving earth that they can eat and they can wear and they can live in, and all that their children can live in and wear and eat, and all their children’s children can use, then we got to call Mr. Morgan and Mr. Mellon and Mr. Rockefeller back and say, ‘ Come on back here. Put that stuff back on the table here that you took away from here — that you don’t need. Leave something else for the American people to consume’. And that’s the program.”

It’s Concentrated

Wealth in America is concentrating more and more into fewer and fewer hands as the years roll on. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans now possess 50 percent of the nation’s wealth. The top 10 percent hold about 85 percent, while the bottom 90 percent holds roughly 15 percent of the nation’s wealth. Picture a large pie sliced into ten slices to serve ten people. One guy comes along and takes eight and a half of the slices just for himself. This is where things stand nowadays.

Of that 50 percent owned by the top 1 percent, an astounding 50 percent of that is held by just 1/10th of 1 percent! Between 1989 and 2016, the wealth of the nation held by the bottom 90 percent of Americans decreased from 35 percent to 15 percent while the wealth held by the top 1 percent increased from 30 percent to 50 percent. Events are definitely trending in a certain direction. What do you think? How do you feel about this ongoing financial development? Do you believe that the mega-rich are going to be satisfied with stopping at 50 percent? Were they satisfied with stopping at 30 percent? 40 percent?Here is the most important question of all. What can you personally do about it?

Make Your Choice

This concentrated wealth is utilized by those possessing it to purchase influence in the structuring of society’s laws, rules, regulations, and norms. To coin a phrase, “the thumb is on the scale”. That is why it is absolutely critical that you make the choice to learn how to effectively use the true power of your subconscious mind to manifest the reality that you desire. Your subconscious mind is your direct connection to the Almighty, the Divine Force that supersedes everything, everybody, everywhere, the Divine Force that holds everything in the universe together.

A Stacked Deck

You are no match against the raw power of the billionaires. The deck is heavily stacked in their favor. Their ultimate plan is clear — to take even more of the nation’s wealth than they now possess. A lot more. Unfortunately, their intent is to simply crush anyone who gets in their way and control the rest. Fortunately however, billionaires are no match whatsoever against the power of the Kingdom of God. And the good news is that the Kingdom of God is within you always. Believe it. It is the way the Creator made you. Make the choice to live your life with true power. Power that does not come from society, from the permission of the billionaires, but from the Kingdom of God. The power of the Kingdom of God within you is stronger than all the world’s billionaires. It is your protection. It is your peaceful fortress.

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

Jesus Christ stated it with crystal clarity. “Whatsoever things you desire, believe that you have received them, and they will be yours.” Your belief has to go beyond your surface consciousness. It has to go far beyond “I think I can achieve this” or even “I believe I will achieve this”. It has to go all the way to the end. Your belief has to go to the “I have already received this and I am grateful.” belief level. Most humans, myself included, find this difficult to do for extended periods of time. Doubt and fear always want to crash the party. If however, you are one that is able to do it, then my friend, you truly have in your hand the golden key that opens the door to your success regardless of any and all societal conditions, conundrums or chaos.

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

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Time — The Ultimate Trickster

Time – The Ultimate Trickster

On this April Fool’s Day, it is genuinely appropriate to discuss the ultimate trickster of them all — Time. Just what the heck is this earthly construct called “time”. Time – measured by today’s atomic clocks at over nine billion cesium energy jumps per second. There is more to this “tick-tock, tick-tock” trickster however than meets the senses. Have you felt that experience of time “flying by” when you involved in an activity that you enjoy doing and are good at. The greater the enjoyment, the faster time speeds up. Conversely, when you are doing something that you have zero interest in or find distasteful or boring, time then slows down to a snail’s pace. You look at the clock and it seems like invisible gremlins are holding back the hands of the clock. Yes, time is indeed the ultimate trickster.

The Eternal Now

According to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, time slows down or speeds up depending how fast something is moving. The ultimate conclusion of this is that time itself would stop if you could hypothetically move at the speed of light. On earth, time remains a constant, neither speeding up nor slowing down but our perception of it varies widely. It has been postulated that when your spirit or soul leaves your body and proceeds to wherever it belongs, time, as such, ceases to exist. Everything happens in the “now moment.” Time does not travel forward from a point in the past to a point in the future. The present merely changes. Everything happens in the now. In the 1300’s, the theologian, philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, ” There exists only the present instant…a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.”

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

When your soul moves on from earth, there will be no calendars, no clocks, no time. No placing an X over a day on the calendar or tearing off a page from a calendar for a month that is over. Here on earth however that would not work. There must be the “tick-tock, tick-tock” of time in order to allow you to measure your movements, your actions, your life. You can do your very best to live fully in the current moment but you are always aware of time past and time ahead. Even while writing this post, time was playing games with me. I found myself looking down at my watch and thinking to myself “What – 7:30 already! That’s ridiculous. It was 6:00 just a few minutes ago!” Another thing about time that I have discovered is that the older you get, the faster time zips by. The years crawl by when you are young, but then, each successive decade of life, time goes by faster and faster. When you hit your sixties, time appears to perversely speed up exponentially, seemingly to get you to your ultimate demise all that much quicker. So what are you to do with this thing called “time”.

Improve Your Relationship With Time

One of the wisest men in the history of the world, King Solomon, may hint at the answer. From the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verses 12 and 13 (ESV): “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in his toil.” The philosopher and a-theist Albert Camus ironically comes to somewhat the same conclusion in “The Myth of Sisyphus” when he states that Sisyphus can only be free when he comes into harmony with his circumstances. Whether you are involved in a major life undertaking or cleaning your ceramic toilet with a scrub brush, focus on what you are doing in the “right now”. Do it the very best you know how to do it. It doesn’t totally take away the mischievous trickery of time, but it does help to “take the edge off”. Plus, in the world of manifesting, learning how to focus on feeling as if your desire is real, right now, is definitely “where it’s at”.

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The Elephant In The Room: Unanswered Prayer

The Elephant In The Room

This post is a tough one. It is a post however, that is necessary, to address the subject of unanswered prayer. I mean those prayers where you prayed so intensely that you thought your insides were going to explode. I mean those prayers where you felt that somehow, someway, through your prayers, the solution to the problem would arrive. Then it didn’t. Up front I want to emphasize that this post is not a “how-to” on how you deal with unanswered prayer. If you do an internet search of “how to deal with unanswered prayer” you will come up with tens of thousands of websites that will claim to have that answer. The purpose of this post is to address this issue — the proverbial elephant in the room — and ask you to do your own search for answers to this universal phenomenon. I ask you to do this because it will be a search that will wind up enhancing your life, making it fuller, making it richer. Isn’t that something that we all want out of life?

Answers To Unanswered Prayer

The are a “gazillion” of ministries out there that will give you their answer to unanswered prayer — “Joe Blow Ministries”, “Sally Dingelhammer Ministries”, “We Really Want Your Donations Ministries”, “We Know Everything About Everything Ministries”, “If You Don’t Agree With Us, It’s Blasphemy And You’re Going To Burn In Hell Ministries” and so on. Some are sincere and helpful. Some are not. It seems that the short and sloppy answer that most often crops up is that every single prayer is answered. Every single one of your prayer requests is answered with one of three answers: Yes, No or Not Yet. I don’t think Maybe is in there. I cannot see Almighty Supreme Intelligence scratching his beard and saying “Hmmm, I’ll have to think this one over”.

Various Responses

There are a number of ways you can respond when your prayer requests go unfulfilled. The first is just giving up and stopping any further prayer in the “What’s the use, I don’t want to be disappointed any more” response. The second is guilt in the “I guess I’m just too sinful for God to even hear my prayers”. The third is anger in the “How could a loving God allow something like this to happen” response. The fourth is found in the example of the importunate widow in scripture in the eighteenth chapter of Luke…. just keep praying…even if you don’t feel like praying.. How have you dealt with it? There are many other types of responses but the above four are those that I have experienced. And yet, despite the crushing effect of unanswered prayer, we are left with the unmistakeable instruction to keep on praying (“pray without ceasing” KJV First Thessalonians 5:17). Every time I have a lapse in my prayer life, that short verse from scripture always comes up and slaps me flush on the face. So I resume praying. but with a difference. My desire increases to learn more about effective prayer, true prayer, righteous prayer. To pray wrongly is not prayer. I get this intutive feeling that true prayer and manifesting my life’s true desires are inextricably intertwined. So I continue pushing on with the search for effective prayer. I will probably keep on searching until the day I die. Despite all the disappointments you may have suffered, I hope that you do also.

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One Foot In Front Of The Other

My Mother

I admired and loved my mother deeply. She was a wonderful woman. I miss her dearly. She was also a fiercely independent woman. She lived alone the last thirty years of her life. For many of those years she had given up her car and got to different places through different means. Sometimes she took the bus. Sometimes friends would drive her. When I was not at work and especially the last ten, twenty years, I would drive her to where she needed to go. And sometimes she walked. Every day after work I would drive from work to Mom’s house to see if she needed anything. One day I got there and she left a note that she had walked up the pike to the drug store. I got back in my car and drove up the pike and saw her walking on the sidewalk on the way back home. I made a u-turn as fast as I was able and as I watched her walking, I observed how the arthritis had slowed her down. Each step was an effort but she kept moving. I caught up with her and she got in my car. She was glad that I picked her up and I said, “Mom, I know your arthritis is bad. How are you able to walk all the way up to the CVS and back?” She said, “I just put one foot in front of the other and just keep going.”

Your Focus

Yes — absolutely yes — you may have a long distance to travel. You may have a long way to go in whatever you are doing, but you can get there by taking steps…consistent actions … consistent effort … every day … one step, then another, then another, and so on. Focus on each step, not on the distance. Your focus is your vision. Your focus proves your intention. Your focus strengthens your faith. Your focus is sharpened by your gratitude. Every step you take brings you another step closer to your destination. The armies of Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world traversing 22,000 miles over twelve years from Greece to India and back to Babylon…..one step at a time. I recently viewed an internet video of an elderly man mightily struggling to carry a case of water up a flight of stairs at an apartment complex. The video was taken at the time without his knowledge. He was a man in his sixties working a delivery job to make ends meet. He had some stroke residuals and you could observe that each step up the stairs was a struggle. He used the wall next to the steps as kind of a brace. He just contined to focus on one step at a time until he reached the top. As it turned out, the person who took the video subsequently spoke with the man and a gofundme campaign was started for him with wonderful results. The funding he received meant he would not have to struggle with delivering cases of water up flights of steps anymore. All emanating from the man just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

Stick With It

Many of the things that have been mentioned in previous posts are not easy. While they may sound simple, they require hard work and discipline. The concepts are definitely not for you if you wish to merely dabble in the manifesting process and will bail out when results are not forthcoming according to the time schedule that you want. The concepts won’t work if you constantly take days off. The concepts won’t work if you doubt. You must stick with it — one foot in front of the other — until the results are achieved. Adjust your focus and your attention to putting one foot in front of the other in whatever it is that you are doing. That is what is eventually going to get it done for you no matter what the deal is that you are working on.

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Tell Rostov, It’s Time To Die

Invasion USA

In 1988, a movie was made featuring Chuck Norris titled, “Invasion USA”. The gist of the movie involved Chuck single-handedly saving the USA from an army of saboteurs who had silently invaded the country. The arch villian and the leader of the saboteur army in the movie is a man called Rostov played by perpetual movie villian Richard Lynch. In the movie there are two lines of dialogue that one tends to remember. The first involves Chuck telling one of Rostov’s minions that he better tell Chuck what he wants to know or “I’ll hit you with so many rights, you’ll be begging for a left.” The second is a line that Chuck uses a few times in the movie directed at the leader of the army — “Tell Rostov, it’s time to die.”

Tell Rostov It’s Time To Die

I thought about using an image from that film for this blog but due to possible copyright issues, I decided to stick with an available free image. If, however, you wish to view the climatic image from that movie where Chuck tells Rostov in person that it is time for Rostov to die, just conduct a google search, “invasion usa it’s time to die”, then hit “images” after you get your search results. In that image, you will see Chuck standing about twenty feet behind the villian. They both have portable rocket launchers. The villian has been stalking Chuck to kill him. All of a sudden, from behind, the villian hears Chuck load the missile launcher and say to the villian, “It’s time to die”. The look on the face of the villian says it all. He knows that he is totally screwed and Chuck has beaten him. The villian attempts to turn around and kill Chuck but Chuck shoots first and the villian winds up in a million pieces.

Reject Fear

In your life, you have a Rostov stalking you. He is called Fear. Fear of failure. Fear of poor health. Fear of loneliness. Fear of being useless. Fear of being unloved. Fear of enslavement to poor health or poor finances. Fear of not having your life mean something. Fear of not getting your fair share of things in life. Fear of this. Fear of that. Fear. Fear. Fear. Just as Rostov stalked Chuck in the movie, fear is always stalking you. To be successful in manifesting the life you desire, you also must tell fear that “It’s time to die”. Use appropriate manifesting techniques and earnest prayer to use your own inner rocket launcher to blow fear into a million different pieces.

There Are Two Root Emotions

In the image above, Edvard Munch’s impressionist painting “The Scream” epitomizes how it feels for a person to be in the grips of fear. To live in fear is a type of nightmare. Someone once said that there are only two root emotions from which all other emotions spring — love and fear. Love is truth. Fear is error. Make the choice as best as you can in your precious life to choose love. Fear will always take you down a one way street to nowhere.