Blog 2071 – 05.27.2021

Oklahoma!

I spent the night in Norman, Oklahoma after the first leg of my road trip from Houston, Texas to Norfolk, Nebraska where I will be living in my nineteen foot pull behind camper trailer that I have these last nine years referred to as “my little house on wheels on the prairie” for the next five months or so. I had planned to have two night stop overs in motels along the way with the first two legs of the journey being around four hundred miles each, saving the last one hundred and twenty miles for Friday morning. Pulling the trailer, I like to do all the driving in daylight and setting up the trailer is always easier if I get were I am going around midday for then I have a chance after set up to find the nearest grocery store before dark. I am right on plan having completed four hundred and twenty two miles thus far with only five hundred more to go, per Google Maps which has been quite reliable thus far.

My first trip to Oklahoma was by air to Tulsa in 1995. Like many I had fallen victim to a pyramid scheme called Equinox and flew up to Tulsa to attend a seminar on how to get rich quick. I was thrilled at the possibilities I saw in this promising venture. It turned out as most get rich schemes do to be a sham which only made the con man at the top and perhaps a few of his closest associates wealthy off the rest of us rubes. It is a story as old as time. Though pyramid schemes are not specifically mentioned in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, I suppose the serpent in the grass story was really the first con, and it was an inside job, or self deception with Adam And Eve’s ego’s being the true plotters and perpetrators of the get out from under the Big Guy scheme.

Like many a guy, in my mid-forties then, I was tired of working for the man and never seeming to get out of the hole or ahead. I was old enough to know that when a thing sounds too good to be true it usually is not, but despite all the warning bells and whistles going off inside my brain I went ahead and ended up several thousand dollars further in debt as a result of my misguided move. A few years later there was a class action law suit against the founder of Equinox, his homes, boats, planes, and limos were all impounded and sold to settle all the claims against him and his company. After all the legal fees and the government got there share I think I got a check for a few dollars that I never even claimed. The lesson was priceless though. “Listen to that still small voice, the only one you can ever fully trust.” i.e. “Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.”

As I was saying, I spent the night in Oklahoma, the home state of singing cowboy movie legend Gene Autry and famous cowboy comedian and philosopher Will Rogers, no relation to that other singing cowboy movie star, Roy Rogers. I had a better night’s sleep last night than that first night I spent in Oklahoma in 1995, fewer distracting voices in my head, just the one I have learned to trust saying something like, “I’ve got this, don’t worry, Baby, everything will turn out alright.”

Do I still occasionally make a misstep or ten? Of course, I do. Even with God and Goggle Maps I still made a wrong turn in the middle of Dallas, but like I say about my pick-up, I have this highly honed ability to just turn around.

I still love the opening of a rock ‘n roll version of the classic song, I’ve Got Rhythm, that was popular when I was a young man. It goes:

“In this fast and troubled world, we sometimes lose our way, but I am never lost. I feel this way because…I’ve got rhythm.”

For Rhythm, Google Maps, and a divine connection to the Universe. I am so glad and grateful…and for each and everyone one of you.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FgP076Q0NvmBsbn4NeJS8V6LmoJIivqo/view?usp=drivesdk

I’ve Got The World On A String