his is a spiritual eating method. It will help you in many ways gain the focus direction and energy needed to improve your life. This method is about the way you eat literally. It is important that we eat our food individually no cross contamination. If you want to gain the energy needed to complete your daily activities invest in this program.

I am giving you this information free. Because after you have success with this program, you will come back to me for all of your other spiritual eating needs.



PREPARATION AND PRESENTATION



Two words are very essential to the success of this program—Presentation and Preparation. Presentation means the literal way food looks on the plate. Remember we eat with our eyes and our digestive system correlates with our mental picture of the food. Preparation is the way food was cooked separately. Yes, these two concepts are technically the same thing but the minute details between the two are extremely important for indigestation techniques



STEP 1 Presentation

Remember as was, stated before, we eat with our eyes. And our brains tell us no lies. If your steak, potatoes and green beans were blended together ,in well a blender, would you still eat or drink it. Why not its the same thing. Exactly, its the presentation of the sustenance that causes us joy. Why ruin that. The joy of eating is part of it. When we are having fun eating we are having fun ingesting. We will get to the specific eating method in a moment. Just remember move around your plate counterclockwise.



STEP 2 Preparation- No Cross Contamination

Many people mix their corn in with their peas or their rice with their beans. Don't do it. Don't do it. If your cook would have wanted them that way they would have prepared them that way. Keep your food segregated. Although mixing your food might be fun and pleasurable to the pallet that is actually too much enjoyment. We all want to enjoy ourselves but we must understand the fulfillment of our digestive system is equally as important. Spiritual eating and meditation relies on the connective melding of all processes involved.



STEP 3 Recognizing First And Second Preparatory Items

Lets get into the specific details of this program. First preparatory items are things like lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Make sure you order these items the same way. Now technically, you will not be able to get the same amount all the time. BUT you will at least get consistency of items. We also must discuss Secondary preparatory items like ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. One thing is key. Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. If you put ketchup on your hamburger one week don't put mayonnaise on it next week.

Once again, eat the entrée first and then move around the plate counterclockwise. Sometimes it will be beans then the rice or vice versa correlate with however they are prepared on the plate.

(Side note do not drink anything until after you are done eating all items.)

In Closing, do you want to reach that higher plateau you have always yearned for. If you want to climb to the top of Mount Serenity than join me why don't you. If you want peace of mind and more energy then try my program. You have nothing to lose. Or you can just stay where you are now and never understand the enlightenment spiritual eating will create for you.

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They considered themselves as midnight adventurers, coming off the hill they so lovingly called Henshit Mountain, to cross the pond in the dead of winter with sleds to “borrow” lumber from Artie Donolan who had ”borrowed” it from Breakheart Reservation, a state park. The park, at its deepest end, bordered on land that the Donolans had worked for years, including timber they ripped out of the state park as long as a few eyes stayed closed. To the boys from Henshit Mountain, the Donolan rape was not unknown, not to these teenagers, who were only enacting their own form of justice, borrowing enough lumber to build themselves a clubhouse at the thickly-treed section of the mountain. With various spurts of energy, even in summer when they floated rafts of lumber across the same pond from the same lumberyard, rooms were added to the clubhouse. The building rose majestically, they all agreed, they who had to a man become proficient carpenters and finish men.

Over a number of years, as they grew toward a global war surfacing on both oceans, meetings were held, elections concluded, designs and improvements of all genres initiated, trysts enamored, hope burst continually from that domicile in which no one lived.

Came the day when the town, through the office of the chief of police, demanded taxes be paid on the property, thus quickly abandoned by the clubmen to the town, to the weather, to the times, as they relocated their activities to another site, another phantom house they’d build on a tract of land without a road, deeper in the patch of tall pines, stray apple trees feeding off the ground since the Civil War days, soft maples, and tyrant oaks that never let go their territory.

Building membership included Frank Parkinson, Eddie Oljay, Bud Petitteau, Homer Barnard, Allie Devine, Clete Weavering, Asa Parnell, Poker Symonds, Nial O’Hara, Chuck Grabowski, and others, by adoption or temporary association, whose names will only resurface as the story progresses. Some girls, of course, toward that quick run at war gathering in Europe, had honorary admission at all hours after a code of secrecy had been imposed. Not one of those girls, from what I have heard over the long years, ever broke that code.

Even as the members pillaged materials in small doses from other ready sources on Route One, begged and borrowed in addition to the stealing, the noises on the far side of two oceans began to sift into their meetings.

“Hey, guys,” Poker Symonds said one night as the moon sifted through the trees atop them, “I just heard Buzz Marchowski joined the Canadian Air Force, the RCAF, and is already up there in Moncton or Shediac or St. Something somewhere. Eddie Smiledge down The Rathole told me. Says Buzz’s all pissed off about the Germans screwing up Poland where his grandparents are, still living on the family farm.”

Symonds, whose name had been changed from a hard–to-pronounce beginning like Sczy and whatever, kept shaking his head as if he wondered why his name had been hidden behind soft edges. As it turned out, he’d be the first to leave the clubhouse one night soon and never come back again. Under the moon that night and in the light of the kerosene lamps, others knew what was cooking in him, for his eyes told about the deep unrest so recently kicked free.

Each knew his turn was coming, that he was bound elsewhere on the face of the globe. If it touched Saugus in any manner, any manner at all, they all swore an oath they’d be in the first line of recruits.

Germany was making too much noise, stepping on too many toes, bustling and bragging of their great inroads on small nations guarded by token armies, and Japan was stretching its imperial hands across the rich skin and into too many orifices of the tasty Orient. Within a week the balled fist of war came at them; one classmate, flying for the RCAF, was shot down over the English Channel; a neighbor of Parkinson’s was missing from an RAF flight over France; Clete Weavering’s uncle was stomped to death on the China coast trying to sneak out to a submarine after secret service on the mainland, and Oljay’s distant cousin was shot by a firing squad at the edge of a Polish ghetto.

War, in its demand for enlistment, called them, young and exuberant in their outlook. The next week they gathered in the clubhouse, the house nobody lived in, and made plans to help save the world.

Frank Parkinson said, “We don’t go as a group. We don’t get in one line to any branch of the service, and end up in one squad or one flight or one patrol, go down with one bang. We each go our own way. If we come back, or those who do come back, we’ll meet here. No Trafalgar Square for us or even under the clock at The Ritz. We will celebrate here someday. We ought to go down to see the Chief and tell him our plans. He might understand. If not, we’ll tell him not to tell us.”

“Why can’t we go as a group, the whole club of us?” Oljay said, seeing the whole group as a squad of its own, firepower from the start, Robin Hoods or Lone Rangers waging battle.

Parkie said, “If we walked in, got consecutive numbers, they’d split us up. They do things like that so we don’t clique it up. Makes sense to me, so we should each go our way. I’m for the army. When I heard about Big Red in Burma, I knew I’d end up in the army.”

In a day’s time, all was decided, for each of them. All services were involved.

The war to end all wars bruised them all, each one, each in different ways, some with dread permanence. Clete Weavering was blown off the deck of a Navy supply vessel in the Pacific, never to be seen again. A year later an envelope ended up at the Legion Hall, from Clete, simply addressed to The Boys of Henshit Mountain, Saugus, Massachusetts. The Post Office, having no proper or known address, delivered it to the Legion Post, #210, to hold for any survivors of the war who might have been The Boys of Henshit Mountain. As it was, one old WW I vet said he knew them and would deliver it to the first one who came home. The Legion held the letter for almost two years.

It was delivered to Bud Petitteau one evening at the Meadowglen Club. Bud had come home from two years in the far Pacific and hospital time, one hand gone from a nasty grenade. The old Legionnaire heard Bud was home, spending time at The Meadowglen with some guys already home, and delivered the letter, which was simple enough in its message:

“Miss you guys like hell, but some good guys here. I want to see if this gets through to the clubhouse or to any of you. We’ve heard stories about miraculous deliveries of short addresses. If I don’t get to see you on the mountain, I’m sure that we will catch up to each other sometime, someplace. Your clubhouse pal, Clete

PS: Say hi to Mildred Derning for me. I got her last letter about a year ago and never did answer for one reason or another. She’s a cute kid I’ve thought about a few times.

(A note here: It was not revealed until 1950 that Mildred Derning had an eight-year old son she had named John Cletus Derning. She never married as far as I know and died in 1981. John Cletus Derning took down his physicians shingle in 2002. I don’t know if he ever knew anything about his father, but I hope he did. If this tells him, it’s about all I can do.)

Homer Barnard didn’t come home from the 2nd Infantry Division in the Pacific, and the 31st Infantry Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, until 1954 and after he had served in a POW camp in North Korea for two years. One of his letters, addressed to The Clubhouse on Henshit Mt, Saugus, Mass., was hung up in a dead letter box and a postal center under construction until it fell from between the cracks of time in 1963. It was delivered back to Homer by a personal friend, an employee of the USPS and an army comrade from basic days, who had intercepted it finally en route to Saugus and recognized the sender’s name. He drove from New York one day in the fall to deliver it and spent a week in Saugus. He even visited the original clubhouse, which by then had been jacked up and a cellar placed under it, three rooms added, and a porch wrapped half way and more around the house from where a huge section of Rumney Marsh was visible as well as a great chunk of the Atlantic Ocean on a good day. The two men sat on the porch a good part of one afternoon with the owner, in Italy with the 10th Mountain Division with a few other Saugus boys, and the beer was free. They even went to see the Patriots play the Kansas City Chiefs at Fenway Park, which ended up in a tie game.

Parkie, who admittedly only wrote one letter to the guys, which has not yet surfaced, but about whom much has been written by me, ended up on the hot sands of the Sahara and could have been dead a few times. Of him it has been said, him being The Municipal Subterranean in a poem: He comes up, goggled, out of a manhole in the middle of a street in my peaceful town, sun the sole brazier, like an old Saharan veteran, Rommel-pointing his tank across the four-year stretch of sand, shell holes filling up quick as death. I think of Frank Parkinson, Tanker, Tiger of Tobruk, now in his grass roots, the acetylene smile on his oil-dirty face, the goggles still high on his high forehead, his forever knowing Egypt’s two dark eyes.

Frank told me his story one evening as we drank beer by old Lily Pond. It came around as “Parkie, Tanker, Tiger of Tobruk,” and many people have read it elsewhere.

Asa Parnell, it has been said, wrote dozens of letters to the guys but sent his via Harry Clemson at The Pythian Alleys (The Rathole Poolroom its other half), who held them until one of the guys picked them up in 1945, after the big boom went down. Parnell had 25 missions as a waist gunner of a B-17 over Europe, went to school on the GI Bill, ended up with his PhD, taught at two Maine colleges for more than 30 years before he drowned in a kayak ride on the Allagash River when he was over 70 years old. He only came to Saugus at the Founders Day festivities, out front of the Town Hall in September of the year when, at times, 10-15 thousand people might pass through the center of town during the celebration, the accompanying mini-marathon race, and the high school football game every other year. One year I heard that he found two other guys and they sat for four hours on the steps of the library hashing over the old days, and then he went north again, for his last ride a few years later.

Every so often, as if I’m being summoned by a voice, a face, the edge of a shared incident, I leave the vets section of the cemetery and visit Henshit Mountain, trying to find any remnant of a clubhouse, cellar in place, second floor added, perhaps a porch and a garage, a garden for summer attendance. Once an old fishing buddy, who had lived on the mountain for many years, pointed out two or three places that had strange beginnings. “There are no shortcuts in those places. They were built well by guys who knew their business. They had OJT before there was OJT. Go down alongside old Lily Pond and more than half the houses down there were summer camps before the big war, and when the boys came back home and were looking for cheap quarters, they bought a camp erected on cement blocks and after a while jacked it up, put in a stone or poured foundation, got central heating, raised a family, added rooms, sold it, bought or built a new place, all part of the economy. Some of the original camps are now so sprawling over the landscape you’d have to get a pre-war aerial map to find the beginning forms of them.

Parkie carried on for 20 some torturous years before he hugged the earth for the last time, but not on Henshit Mountain, home away from home for a long time in his short life. Every Memorial Day I re-flag his grave along with a host of people re-flagging other graves, and have done so for more than 25 years.

All of them are gone now, some here, some elsewhere. Four of the membership share the same plot with Parkie. None of them ever climbed to the back end of Henshit Mountain after the war. The house that no one lived in really had passed on in their growth, even its nostalgia, for they had rushed onto the real estate of the whole globe.

Now and then, usually close to Memorial Day and again at Veterans Day, I drive up the hill, for that’s what it really is, a rise of about 500 feet above sea level, on a series of paved roads. From the road I can see two houses, now lived in for more than half a century, where no one lived when they were built. I can visualize the membership crossing the pond in winter on sleds loaded with purloined lumber and supplies, or on rafts tied together in the dead of summer nights. I know where they kept their beer in underground coolers, where it stayed cool and was hidden from the temptation of potential thieves. I know some of the girls, still here with us, grandmothers time and again, and great-grandmothers, who swore to the secrecy code and will carry it away with them.

It’s on a rare occasion when I come face to face with one of those ladies in the aisle of a mall store, or at the library with a chosen book, or in the cemetery on a special day, and get a wink acknowledging the deep and mostly hidden years. We understand the past, the pact, the passions. We understand what loyalty means, and where things have gone in this short passage.

                                                                                                        
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y wife and I head down south for a second stab at buying a used car.  Rolling onto a busy four-lane packed with speeding cars and endless dealerships, I think back to our last trip down here, two weeks ago.  It was our first foray into the world of used cars, and we needed the next fourteen days to recover before trying again.  Our first attempt occurred at a Volkswagen dealership.  The visit didn’t last long.  When Molly asked about the mileage for a Jetta, the sales guy didn’t miss a beat.  Standing next to the car with a thin wisp of yellowing hair dancing on the breeze, the guy tweaked his bolo tie and confidently responded, “This car gets thirty.”  I glanced down at the sticker, which said “22 City/ 28 Highway” and managed to stifle a laugh.  A few minutes later the guy glanced at our car, an aging Honda, and said, “The thing about a heavier car like this is that it’s safer.  Granted, you don’t get as good mileage, but you don’t slide around on the road.  Has that happened to you in your Honda?”

No.  Never. Not in the ten years and 240,000 miles that we’ve had it.

We slog through a series of lights, roll into the Honda dealership, and park.  I yank the emergency brake, hop out of the car, and march toward the lot, away from the office.  I want to get some distance between myself and whoever comes out of the building.  Molly doesn’t keep up and gets brought down like a weakened animal on the savannah.  I’m thirty feet ahead of her and walking at a brisk clip when I hear the guy’s voice.  I slow down, prepare myself, and turn around.  I could just keep cruising away from the office, but I enjoy my low-key marriage.  I can’t abandon Molly.

The sales guy walks up to me and says, “Hey big guy!”

Stay nice.

I smile and shake his hand, answering a few questions about what we’re looking for.  Mostly we’re looking for a place that will let us browse cars in peace and will refrain from bad sales lines.  Admittedly, though, I’m not expecting this.  It’s a lot to ask for.

The sales guy proves to be a tagger.  There are two basic types of salesmen in the car business: floaters and taggers.  Floaters let you browse alone but always hover a car or two back, pretending to check windows or stickers on other cars.  Taggers stay right by your side, asking about the weather and playing up the merits of cars as you pass them by.  The guy two weeks ago was a floater, and we put some good wear on his cowboy boots by the end of our visit.

I glance towards Molly, who is looking at a Civic, two vehicles back.  As I move forward with the sales guy, Molly maintains her distance.  She’s floating our tagger, abandoning me to a stranger in a striped shirt with a plaid tie.  But I can’t blame her—she took the initial heat.  We’re like a championship wrestling team, taking turns with an opponent in a steel-cage match.

Molly eventually catches up when I stop by a solid looking ’02 Honda.  2002, not 1902.  The sales guy gets chatty, pointing out the merits of the car.  He’s suggestive but not forceful, and I’m staring to relax.  We drop into the car and check out the feel.  I glance around the floors and don’t spot any blood stains.  We decide to take it out for a drive.
Molly gets behind the wheel and I head for the back seat.  The sales guy offers me the front, but I chuckle and tell him that I’d prefer he have an air bag.  He looks at me for a moment, not sure if I’m serious, and then gets in the front.  I’d love to know how often these drives end in mishap.  Someone really should come up with a reality show called Alcoholic Test Drive.

We roll out of the lot and head down the road.  At the first light Molly starts turning left and the sales quickly directs her to the right.  Laughing, she swivels back the other way.  I lean forward and say, “She’s a bit rusty … just got her license back from suspension.”  The sales guy handles the incident beautifully.  I’m starting to like him.
As we roll down the street the guy tells us a bit about himself.  He’s finishing college and has recently married.  Congratulations pass around the car.  The guy seems surprised by our response, as if customers rarely care, and is appreciative of our encouragement.  He loves ‘80’s music, which, by his estimation, is the only decade worth a damn musically.  The topic dies quietly.

We do a quick jaunt on the highway, make a few more turns without incident and approach the dealership.  It’s been a fun trip with pleasant small talk.  As we roll into the lot the sales guy chuckles and says, “You know, I work on a salary here.  I had a choice, but no way could I handle that commission racket.  What’s nice is that if someone doesn’t seem interested, I’m like ‘I could care less if you buy this car.’”

We all laugh.  I really like this guy.

We park and walk towards the office.  Heading into the glass-walled building we reiterate the fact that we’re just interested in talking about down payments and loans.  We don’t want to buy anything yet.  The sales guy assures us that this is fine.

Molly and I grab a seat at a table in a bustling showroom with a big car on display.  It occurs to me that dealerships always put their most expensive and fuel-crappy car in the showroom.  It must be a way to show your highbrow merits to the golf course set after they stroll through the lot.

Our sales guy shuffles off and comes back with some coffee.  I like this guy even more.

We fill out paperwork while the guy jots some notes on a paper form.  He grabs our attention, points down at the figures, and says, “The list price on the car is $12,995 and the sales price is $9,995.  So, you save $2,000.”  He circles the number assertively.

I’ll only take if we can save $3,000.

He grabs the forms and heads back into the office to get the manager.  A moment later a short guy with spiky, jelled hair comes out to our table.  He’s dressed in a sharp suit with a slightly loosened tie.

Uh-oh.  It’s a Closer.

I glance at Molly.  We’re not ready to buy—we just want to see some figures on loan amounts after various down payments, and then check out some other dealerships.  That’s all.  Molly flashes me a hesitant look.  We’re quickly losing control of the situation.

The guy asks about a down payment.  We throw out two numbers, which seems to set him on edge.  He’s looking for specifics and pushing to finalize the deal.  We’re still in the hypothetical zone, an annoying wasteland for Closers.  The guy asks the classic question about what it would take to get us into the car today.  A pistol?  Our hesitation is clearly getting to him.

The guy looks up from his sheet and says, “I can tell this isn’t the right car for you.  If it was the right one you wouldn’t be considering other options.”

There’s nothing like being chastised to help things along.  This guy enters the sales-line Hall of Fame, beating out the one in the stereo shop who asked my dad, “Are you looking for price or are you looking for quality?” To which dad replied, “I’m looking for something expensive that sounds like crap.”

We fumble through another minute before I get assertive.  I’m done and so is Molly, who looks tired with slack, baggy eyes.  She’s stopped talking and is staring at the tabletop, like a rape victim waiting for the police questioning to end.  I get a business card and jot down the car number.  I tell the Closer that we’ll think things over and call back later; if the car’s still here, great.  If not, no problem.

The Closer looks at me and says, “We sell almost forty cars a week.”  The insinuation is that we’ll miss out on the chance of a lifetime if we don’t get the car today.  Like we’re passing on the last cup of water in the middle of a scorching desert and will surely perish. 

The Closer heads into the back and we take a moment to thank the first guy, the one who took us out for the test drive.  He’s been sitting at the table the whole time, silently watching the ugliness unfold.  We start walking through the showroom, heading toward the parking lot and freedom.  We’re almost to the door when the Closer suddenly reappears.  He looks at me with a serious, jaded expression and says, “Why did you guys come inside if you didn’t want the car?”

Cause we like screwing with salesmen?

We have no answer.  We didn’t say we didn’t want it, pal, we said we were considering it.  Yes, there is a difference. 

But it’s pointless to elaborate.  Sales-speak is an entirely different language, one where the words “maybe” or “possibly” don’t exist.

Driving home Molly suggests looking on-line first before our next attempt.  It’s the perfect idea.  You can say “maybe” to a computer screen without feeling the need to shower afterwards.

* * * 

Over the next two weeks Molly researches cars online.  We narrow the selections down to two promising prospects, a pair of well priced Honda’s.  On a rainy night we head toward to the airport to meet a guy selling a newer model Civic for $2,000 below its Blue Book value.  We should know better.

Driving down the highway in rush hour stop-and-go traffic I realize that this new approach has committed me fully to searching for a car.  With dealerships I can feign an existing commitment and escape this hell, allowing Molly to shop alone.  People don’t disappear from dealerships.  But a woman meeting some random guy in a Shari’s parking lot doesn’t cut it in today’s world.  I don’t want Molly to end up in a Bangkok bar as some sex worker.

With wipers flying we trudge through a stream of traffic leaving the industrial parks near the airport.  We roll into the Shari’s, park, and start looking for our mystery man.  He hasn’t arrived, so we sit watching the traffic and listening to the stereo.  I’m starting to think that the best way to car shop would be to enter all the contests that offer vehicles as a prize and just take whatever comes your way. 

A car backs quickly into the spot next to us.  It’s an impressive move given the heavy rain and darkness, executed with deft precision that mocks the narrowness of the parking slot.  The skill required suggests that the driver would be good at backing a stolen car up a ramp and onto a semi-trailer.

The guy steps out of the car and greets us in a Russian accent.  We hurry into his car to get out of the rain, which is falling in thick drops.  I jump behind the wheel, with Molly at my side and Igor in the back.  After a few questions I roll out onto the road for a test drive.

Creeping down the road we hear the car’s alleged history.  It was in a “minor” accident, requiring replacement of the headlights and bumper.  According to Igor the body is fine, since the airbags didn’t deploy and the light indicating their readiness is still lit up.  It occurs to me that the airbag system could be faulty, or a mechanic re-engaged the light after replacing the front half of the car.  I don’t say anything, however, and focus on preventing the car from having a second accident.  Headlights and neon shine through the rain into my eyes while I navigate an unfamiliar set of roads.

We land back at Shari’s.  Thinking things over I’m tempted to go for it.  The car is nice and rides well.  The mileage is low.  Igor seems like a good guy who isn’t hiding anything.  There aren’t any post-Katrina lines of slime running down the doors.

When I turn to compliment Igor on his car I notice the baby seat in the empty space at his side.  It could be legitimate, but something feels off.  If I was into buying totaled cars at insurance auctions and rebuilding them, I’d definitely try to make it feel like a family vehicle.  Something safe and well cared for with a lot riding on its tires.

Igor picks up on my subtle change in enthusiasm and offers to drop the price.  The low price is already a concern, and lowering it further doesn’t help.  I stumble through a series of words, an almost incoherent sentence, claiming to want to look around some more.  The car buying shift has occurred, where you just want to flee, and I sense the same feeling in Molly.  She agrees to the plan and Igor rambles through how to contact him, a vague process involving a call to his brother.  As Molly jots down the number I sit starting at the traffic, wishing the world were completely honest and trustworthy. 

Sitting in the Sharis, Molly and I look at each other tiredly.  We both know we’ll be back at it in another week or so.  The thought is discouraging.

Molly looks over at me, laughs, and says, “You know, we’re exactly the same when it comes to this stuff.”

I smile, thinking to myself that I could have jumped on this one.  Get it over with.  The two different shades of red on our car, which just recently became noticeable after ten years or trouble-free driving, suggest that a rebuild was done.  Maybe Igor’s car would be fine, rebuilt or not.  But we’ve had a good run with one questionable car and I’m in no mood to tempt fate.  And then there was that damn baby seat, calling out to me like a lighthouse shouting “steer clear.”

I look over at Molly and say, “I don’t know.  It seemed okay.  But I don’t really want Homeland Security kicking in the door and taking us away for supporting Chechen rebels.”

I stare out the window, thinking it might just be time to buy a bicycle.

                                                                                                      
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