No folks, this isn’t a tale about some girl having fantastic sex and believing she’s getting a glimpse of heaven. These are a couple of stories about the power of prayer and how it can effect the mind.
1) The Gyrocopter: Don, a guy who I worked construction with wanted to fly, but he didn’t want to spend the $3,000 it took back in 1965 to obtain a pilot’s license. Plus, any decent used airplane would cost a minimum of another $10,000. This was big money in those days so Don decided to buy himself a Gryocopter. (This was way before ultrtalights.) It only cost $500 complete and you didn’t need no stinkin’ license to fly it either. You ordered it out of Popular Mechanics because it came in a kit which according to the instruction, an average guy could put together in his spare time in a month. Don told us he was going to order one.
We of course, though he was nuts because a gyrocopter is neither safe nor sane. It’s real small, it’s made of metal tubing covered with plastic, the motor and propeller that pushes the thing along are directly behind the pilot and it has another free whirling blade right above the pilot’s head that provides the lift. All in all, quite a nice little deathtrap. We all told Don he was crazy. Hell, I told him, if he wanted some excitement then for only $100 he could buy himself a really bitchen surf board and hit the waves. I mean, catching a 10 or 15 foot moving wall of water will give anyone all the adrenaline they can ask for, but he wanted to fly so there was no stopping him. He ordered the gyrocopter. A couple weeks later it arrived and he went to work on it. Two months later the gyrocopter was completed and Don was ready to soar off into the wild blue yonder. One Friday Don told us that this weekend, if the weather was good, he was taking the gyrocopter out to Ramona, a little town up in the foothills outside of San Diego that had a small landing strip and he was going to solo.
None of us saw Don again for a week. We thought he might have gotten hurt or even killed himself so we asked the Forman if he’d heard from Don.
He told us, yeah he had. Don had called in sick and probably wouldn’t be back to work until next Monday.
Monday came and so did Don. We all wanted to know what happened. Did he fly the gyrocopter?
Don told us that yes, he did fly the thing but it was a long story so he’d tell us all about it at lunch. At lunch we gathered around Don and as we ate our lunches he told us this tale. “Saturday morning the weather was beautiful so I put the gyrocopter on it’s trailer and drove up to the Romona airstrip. All morning I just taxied the thing up and down the airstrip getting the feel of it. After lunch I decided to try and take it up. I got the rotor going, gave it some power then took off into the wind. Man O Man, I was flying! What a feeling! I had never been so stoked in my entire life. I brought her back down to earth and made a perfect 3-point landing. I brought her to a dead stop and that made me feel even better. I hooped! I hollered! I was so happy. I spent the rest of the afternoon practicing my take offs and landings. By the time it got dark I knew I could fly! After supper I went to sleep dreaming about tomorrow when I would really take her up.”
“Next morning bright and early, I had me a pilot’s sized breakfast then hit the airstrip. I practiced take offs and landing for a couple hours and I nailed every one so I knew I was ready to take her up. The rest of the morning I took her to a hundred feet or so, fly a few figure 8’s then landed. Then I did it again and again until I got them perfect. I now knew I had total control over the aircraft and confidence in my flying ability. After lunch I was going up into the clouds and become a real flying ace.”
“After lunch the wind was right and the weather was perfect. I donned my flightsuit, goggles and gloves, refueled, checked the aircraft over, started her up, got in, taxied down the runway then took off and it was up, up and away. I kept her nose pointed to the sky as we rose higher and higher. Heading up into the blue I had never felt more alive. Everything was wonderful. Life was great."
"Then I looked down. I froze. There was nothing underneath me for thousands of feet except empty air. And it was such a long long way down. I tried to tell myself that everything was okay. That I could fly this thing and get safely back to earth but nothing worked. I’m ashamed to say it but I panicked. I knew right then and there that I would never make it back down to the ground alive. I was going to crash and die. I was still going up so I let go of the controls and immediately the aircraft started to stall so I grabbed them again and tried to level her out. I was so scared and sweating so bad I couldn’t anything, but I could tell we were flying again. I didn’t know what to do then I remembered my mother telling me whenever I got real frightened that I should put my trust in God because He would see me through anything. So even though I hadn’t been to church or prayed in years I closed my eyes and started praying. I asked God to please help me get back down to earth and land this thing. I prayed hard and long making all the usual promises about becoming a better person and starting to attend church regularly. And at the time I really meant them."
"Then I noticed that I had calmed down and I wasn’t so scared anymore. I opened my eyes then forced myself to look down. There was a field only a couple hundred feet below me. I knew as long as I stayed calm and flew this thing that I wasn’t going to die. I was so happy. I thanked God again and again. I landed her in into the field but because the ground was uneven and I was probably going a little too fast, the gyrocopter caught her right wheel in a rut. It broke off and we skidded sideways before coming to a halt. I looked around. I was down. I was ecstatic. I jumped out and almost kissed the ground. I saw I was about a mile from the airstrip so without so much as a backwards glance at the gyrocopter I started walking. As I walked I thought about the entire experience especially about the praying and asking God to help me. I figured He must have or else I’d have froze at the controls and be dead right now. I thanked Him again and told Him that I really would try and be a better person. Anyway, I got back to my car and drove home where I got drunk and stayed drunk for the next 3 days. Then I sobered up and here I am,” Don laughed then continued, “back down on the ground with the rest of you assholes.”
I said, “Gee Don, it don’t sound like you’ve changed too much at being a better person and all.”
Don replied, “Well, that was then and this is now. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It ain’t like I’m not grateful because I know if God hadn’t answered my prayers then I’d be dead right now, but hey, life goes on.”
One of the other guys in the crew wanted to know what he did with the gyrocopter. Don told him, “As far as I know, it’s right where it landed. You can have it if ya want it cuz my days of flying are over. From now on any time I gotta go somewhere I’m taking the train because I ain’t never leaving the ground again.”
Now here’s a funny thing. Twenty years later Dennis the Menace, a friend of mine from LA who came out to the hot springs in the desert most weekends, decided he wanted a gyrocopter. When he told me about it, I told him all about Don. Dennis just laughed and said Don must have been a wimp. He went ahead and bought then assembled one. However, he also only took it up once to any height and he too crashed it upon landing. The only difference being he fixed it back up then whenever visited, he proceeded to fly it around the hot spring but at a very low altitude and never for very long.
When I questioned him about this he told me, “Going up high is boring. It’s a lot more fun going fast low over the ground, buzzing the folks and giving them a little thrill.”
I just thought, ‘yeah, right.’
2) Scared Straight: I had been stuck in my treehouse on Maui for a couple days due to heavy rains. So when it cleared up I decided to hitch over to Lahina for the day to meet up with some of my friends under the Banyan tree and check out the haps. While waving at the passing cars in Pahia a white van pulled over and the dude asked where I was headed. When I told him he said, “Great. That’s exactly where I’m going, hop in.”
I did and down the road we went. As we rode we chatted. He told me his name was Zeke and that he was a delivery guy of lost luggage for the airlines. In fact, he told me, that’s why he was headed over to Lahina now. I looked in the back of the van and saw it was loaded with luggage.
When I commented on this, he said, “Yeah, I got real job security because the airlines ain’t too conscientious about where the bags go. I deliver anywhere from 10 to 50 misdirected bags a day.”
I told him it sounded like a pretty sweet gig.
He said, “Yup, I got no boss looking over my shoulder and as long as I get all the bags delivered by the end of the day, they don’t care what I do. In fact, most of the time I do the job high. Want to burn one?”
Of course I said yes.
He whipped out a joint and fired it up, took a hit then passed it to me. As we were smoking the J he asked, “Hey man, you wouldn’t happen to have any acid on ya, now wouldja?”
I laughed, took my wallet out opened it up and extracted a hit of windowpane wrapped in tin foil saying, “It’s free if ya take it right now.”
Then I unwrapped it and handed it to him.
He smiled as he took the Clearlight and popped the gel. We rode alone finishing the doobie. A few minutes later he pulled in to Lahina and dropped me off. I wished him happy trails as he rode off into the sunset.
A few months later I was at a party at some friends house in Makawao when in walked Zeke. I went up to him and said, “Howzit hangin’, Bro?”
He looked at me for a second before he recognized me then said, “You’re the dude who gave me the acid.”
I acknowledged the fact then asked, “So, how was the tripp?”
Zeke shook his head saying, “Man, that’s the highest I’ve ever been. In fact, it was scary high.”
I told him, “It was only one little hit of Clearlight, you shouldn’t have gotten that fucked up.”
Zeke said, “It was the first time I ever tried LSD. I thought it would be like smoking some real righteous weed. I just didn’t know how it would be.”
I laughed and asked for all the gory details.
He told me, “After you got out of the van I felt pretty good for a while. I even make a couple deliveries before thing started getting just too weird. I called my boss and told him I had to take the rest of the day off cuz I was sick. He said okay, I could finish the deliveries tomorrow morning and for me just to go home, but there was no way I was drivin’ anywhere. Luckily, I was at one of the big hotels right on the beach in Kaanapali so I thought I’d just hang around groovin’ until the acid wore off. You know, in an hour or so. Or so I thought. But instead of coming down I kept getting these body rushes that got me higher and higher, and things just kept getting weirder and weirder. I glanced around and everything got real sinister looking like it was out to get me."
"And then, well, “The Fear” got hold of me. I just knew that if something didn’t kill me right then I was going to die of a heart attack anyway. Evil looking things started rushing towards me and I panicked. I knew I was about to die and I didn’t know what to do. Then I heard a voice say, “Believe in God and all will be well.” So I closed my eyes real tight and fell to my knees right there in the sand then I started praying. I told God that if He got me out of this then I’d never, and I mean never, take LSD again. If He would save me by helping me come down and be normal again then I’d be as good as person as I knew how. Anyway, I prayed like that for I don’t know how long. Then I felt this calm feeling kinda wash over and through me. It was just like getting in a nice warm bath except it was from the inside out instead of the other way around. I got all peaceful and serene feeling. I knew my prayers had been answered and that I was all right. I knew I was safe so I opened my eyes and everything, including me, was normal. Man, I was never so relieved and so happy in my whole life. I looked around and saw that people were staring at me so I got up off my knees and started walking, but before I could get away, a couple came up to me. They said they’d noticed me praying then asked if I was all right. I told them I was fine but that I had to leave. I got to the van and just sat there for a while until I knew everything was normal for sure. It was, and since I was feeling pretty good and it was still early, I finished my deliveries then I went home and slept for the next 20 hours. Next morning everything was fine and I felt great. Since then I’m being the best person I can be. I’ve quit doing any kind of drugs including booze. I don’t curse anymore, and I’ve even joined a church and I go every Sunday.”
I told Zeke, “Man, you shoulda told me you hadn’t taken LSD before. I would have been happy to guide you, and I’m sure you would have had a really bitchen tripp. I mean, we are already here in paradise.”
Zeke shook his head then said, “I just didn’t know how it was.”
I asked him if he ever would consider taking acid again.
Zeke told me, “No way dude! I made a deal with God and I intend to keep it.”