Faith Boils Over

1976.8.29

It has been well over a month since my last entry. My old journal is now full, and this is my first one in the new journal I got, along with everybody else on the team, to commemorate the bicentennial. Everyone made an effort to write for the first week or so, but I think I'm the only one still doing it. I only have a little time to write and much to say.

Our team has been struggling much these last few weeks, though externally we seem pretty united. Captain Turegano gave each of us our personal goals. Mine is $140, which is not really so much, but lately it has been a struggle to make even $100.

Jack, Michael and myself have been out in a compact car fundraising small towns. Captain said by uniting together and making our individual goals, we are restoring the position of the three archangels who failed Adam.

Miraculously, I made my goal every day, though it was sometimes an awful battle. Even on the day when we didn't really start until 4 o'clock, I made $170. We got a late start because we spent half the day in El Dorado recovering $400, which Jack had to pay to bail Michael and me out of jail the night before. It happened right around 11:30 pm, just as I reached my goal.

There are many other things I would like to say because a lot has happened, but there is no time now. I will have to try to catch up later. The main thing is it has been very hot and sticky every day and I have been suffering with a lot of boils -- seven so far. None as big as the first one on my hip, but they're still big and painful, and when they break, there's a lot of drainage. Right now I have one in my left armpit, which just came to a head. The fever and pain knocked me out for couple days in Little Rock. The combination of boils and low totals has almost done me in.

Captain took me to see a doctor, who gave me a shot of antibiotics and some painkillers. While I was lying on the exam table waiting for the doctor, I dozed off, which I do all the time now whenever I lie down or stop moving and shut my eyes for a second. At night I can count backwards from 10 and be asleep before I get to 9. Anyway, I started dreaming I was lying in the doctor's exam room, but now it was kind of gray and cold.

There were some people standing around, looking at me. One looked like the man who chased me twice before in other dreams. He came over and started poking me. He wasn't angry but he was very insistent. He kept saying. "You're not dead. Get up. Get up. Keep working." The doctor came in a moment later. I don't think I was asleep even 10 seconds.

I talked to mom tonight. She told me that Gail Gerzin, a girl from high school I'd once had a brief relationship with, was killed in an automobile accident in West Virginia. Her car -- I think it was a small convertible sports car -- ran off a mountain road and down into a heavily wooded ravine. It was several days before they found her. She had been training to be a goldsmith.