Stepping Into the Time Machine With Lisa!! (Part 6)

[ABlairican Pie]

Okay, sorry if I keep you hanging there. Had to log out for a second. So anyway.
For the remainder of my stay there, I tried to avoid any confrontation with him. His wife, though, was very nice, she even helped me cook some things in the church kitchen. She was so nice I didn't see how she could be married to a creep like that guy. One church family paid me to pull weeds in their yard, even got to sleep out in their yard and was constantly pounced on by their kitty who kept licking my face for the salt. I'm a human saltlick! In order to determine God's will and direction, I read a chapter about fasting in Stormie Omartian's book, so I fasted all day, and after satisfying my hunger with a mini-box of Kellogg's Product 19, I decided I didn't see what the big deal was with the book.
So as the weeks wound down, and after spending the past few weeks scoring on nutrition at the local mission, hanging around one night watching a band at a bar and hoping to scope out a wet-T-shirt contest, and picking up a Fred & Barney "Bedrock Vice"
T-shirt at the mall, I was ready for the show the next day. Not sure what to expect, but I knew it was going to be good. I was a little disappointed, but not suprised, that the winners for the drawing for dinner with Lisa were already drawn, but--oh well.
I cleaned up at the church, when I met the evil pastor who had frightened me before. We got into a conversation and he told me
that he did find me to be a decent, upstanding individual after all.
(I think he probably confused me before with a lot of the vagrants and migrant workers who roamed through town. I had never been there before.) I was so relieved at this. I was to savor those comments, because I was to find that those would be the last time in a long while that a clergyperson would say words to that effect.
So I went out to the freeway heading to Richland, just an hour long drive, if even that. I was feeling good, I was so psyched. I was going to be there in a reasonable amount of time. So after a while, adriver picked me up and drove me about 20 miles out. No problem, just about another 50 miles to go. Piece of cake. Sun-shiney afternoon, went to a mini-mart for a 7-Up, then went back out. Except for traffic being a little thin, I hung in there. In a little while...What songs would she sing, I wondered. I was ready to
jam to "Love Believer." Who was in her band, and would there be signings? THAT would be cool. Just a couple minutes, and I'd be set. This was exciting! The minutes stretched out...into what seemed to be an hour. Or longer. My patience began to crumble.
My impatience soured into desparation, my agitation turned to rage. GOD, WHY IS THIS NOT HAPPENING? WHY ARE YOU NOT PROVIDING ME WITH A RIDE TO GET OUT THERE??!! Just needed ONE ride to get me out there--in less than an hour! And the way the sun was setting, it did not look good. The streets remained silent. So I decided to march up the road as the skies began to darken. I passed two workers in a tree grove by the side of the road and asked them what time it was. After seven, they told me.
Oh, damn, the concert had already started by now! This was just great, just dandy. Thanks, God. Just the concert I wanted to see, and I MISSED it. Greatly disappointed and having resigned myself to the fact that my night was shot to hell, I sulked back into town. Some little out of the way place east of Yakima called
Buenaway. I had missed Lisa's concert on what should have been the greatest night of my life, go figure. Life's a peach, then
you're cobbler.
But in that evening light, out of the gloom that set inside me, a tiny glimmer of a thought out of nowhere nestled in my frazzled brain: "How would you like to see Lisa under better circumstances, when she would be glad you came?" Suddenly, somehow, I began to laugh. I felt--hilarity, JOY!! Was there really a purpose behind missing this concert?? I felt that God was speaking to me in my distress. I sensed that sometime, somewhere, I would meet Lisa. And it would be good, it would be
a blessing. I laughed and praised God as I strolled through the neighborhoods, glancing at homes with t.v. screens in the windows tuned to "227". I went to a Safeway for a snack and caught up on newspaper headlines on the progress of the Voyager spacecraft, then sacked out on a vacant church lawn and fell into a blissful sleep.
The next morning, Sunday, I got up and headed back to Yakima, and this time, got a ride back bright and early. Made it back in time for church, where there was talk of this weekend's Harmonic
Convergence, a global New Age event which indicated a coming age of peace when devotees of the path to Higher Consciousness
gathered all over the world praying and meditating on peace. I had found my peace the night before. I sat down and opened my Bible to the book of Jeremiah: "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans not of fear...(but) to give you a future and a hope." This was a very comforting passage. Another thought entered my mind: How would I like to head back to sunny
L.A.? Sounds like a plan.