Today had to have been the best approach and introduction so far in my project.

I see a very stylish, very elderly gentleman walking towards me, I smile, he smiles.

‘You are a very beautiful woman!’  he said.  ‘Ha!’ I said ‘and you sir are not so bad yourself!’

‘Would you like to come and sit and talk to me for a bit?’  I said. I don’t think he was expecting that.  After our exchange and me promising him I absolutely wasn’t going to try and sell him something we sat down for the most fascinating conversation.  This man has lived a life, a tough one.

Name: Woody (Elwood)

Occupation: Orange County Convention Centre – Event Services

Before that for Honda Motor Cycles.

He had a bike in the 70’s.

‘During the 70’s I lived a crazy wild life, sometimes I think about it and I think it was a wasted decade but its not really but I really enjoyed myself and it was totally real.’

1.Where were you born and raised?

South Carolina by the coast.

‘I was born in no where, it has no name to it.  It was a little ‘ole shack in the woods.  My father, he was a bootlegger. He had a Whiskey steel out there. My Mother took me to this place, it was an old shack and then she took me down to a little stream there by it and she showed me that was where she used to wash me, we didn’t have any running water.’  ‘So that was the beginning of my life and then about the age of 1o we moved into town, I had one sister at that point and another came later on. I have mixed thoughts about my childhood.  We were very poor people and that didn’t bother me back then and I think it made me have more sense and values as an adult but I think too about when I started school, I felt inferior.  I had overalls with holes in them and old damn shoes and the kids in the city they dressed up so I felt bad during that period but I got over that.’

‘It was rather a dysfunctional family, my father was an alcoholic and one thing that bothers me even today was that he never said ‘I love you’ or ever complimented me on anything.  I went through life with that.’

‘They fought a lot my Mum and Dad and it was about then that I learnt about self hypnosis, cause if it was day time I could run to the woods but at night I could transport myself to a different place.’

2.Tell me a childhood memory.

‘Well it was back in the 50’s and my ex wife said aren’t you afraid of anything?  And I said ‘Just a black bull’ and I wondered why the hell did I say that?  And I wondered that until, Oh Lord, 12 years ago and I meditated and I could go back in time to my childhood and I went back to when I was about 5 years old.  Me and my sister were out in a field on a farm and a black bull from a neighbours farm had gotten lose.  We ran and jumped in a ditch and the black bull jumped right over us, and that frightened us a lot!’

3.What is your favourite season and why?

‘The seasons were quite extreme in South Carolina we definitely had four seasons.  I enjoyed the summer and fall most of all.’

‘When I became a teenager we would drop out, we became beach bums.  We would live off of tourists, we stole money and we drank PJ.  It was called Purple Jesus.  You’d mix a gallon jug of gin with fruit juice, there had to be grape juice in there for the ‘P’.  We would walk along the beach all day drinking this concoction, we were about 15.’  ‘I started drinking when I was about 10.  I found a bottle of whiskey under the seat of my Dad’s car and I had a little sip and it felt good to me.  My Uncle used to bring me beer and we would go to the woods and drink that, he was 18.’

4.Tell me about someone you love.

‘I love a lot of people.  Including strangers, I love you actually.  I love people. The first thing I would like to say is.  Twelve years ago I learnt the meaning of unconditional love because I went through the seventies and destroyed a lot of people, mostly women.  So when I learned unconditional love I could truly love people, it was a great thing.  A real lifesaver.  One person I love in the real deep way is my wife, she has saved me many times.  She came in my life in 1984 and I was pretty well done and she brought me out of that.  So someone I love has got to be my wife.  Her name is Cindy.’

‘I had one son, Eric, with my ex wife.  He committed suicide.  Anyway, that effected me a bit.’

5.What words of wisdom do you have for the reader about life?

‘Keep it real.’

6.Dreams for the future.

‘I dream to keep serenity and pass it on and help people.’

All the time Woody spoke I kept looking at his hands. So frail and vulnerable but this guy was as sharp as a tact.  He was charming, cheeky, weak and strong all at the same time.

I pictured him in my head as a boy in his dungarees, the legs too short, sock less, old boots and perhaps a strap broken.  Wearing a flat cap similar, although not as nice as the one he is wearing today, the frequent clips around the ear or worse.  Then as he grew, a proper tearaway, drinking, clawing his way through life.  I’m sure quite handsome and leaving a trail of broken hearts behind in his wake.

He felt no responsibility towards his parents for the man he became, for his problems and recovering from them, albeit he had them as an example.  I agreed that holding parents responsible is no excuse, we make our own way but they do have an effect on the people we are, as they conditioned us for at least 15 years.

Woody was great speaker, wise even though he has been reckless.  Now he has clarity he is quite profound and rather funny.

I like that most of the ‘creatives’ I meet like to talk.  Its a nice trait if I say so myself. Woody showed me his phone, nothing fancy, he bragged it was $20 and he was quite proud of it.  There were photos on it though of art works he had made from fallen palms. Masks he had painted, that said a lot to me.

The last few words he had were about his son.  He had committed suicide with a gun when he was 24 years old.  ‘How did you feel about that?’ I ask.  ‘Did you feel responsible because of your own problems? I ask not with blame but just to understand him.

‘I felt angry at first, he’d left behind a young family.  Then fear and then I felt guilt and I wonder if there was something I could have done. Now I wonder if I will see him again.  With God.  God abhors suicide.  I asked a woman at the cemetery if I will see him again. I wonder if he had asked for forgiveness before he did it.’

I told him we all have our chance to ask for forgiveness, sin is sin and we have already been given freedom from it if we are willing to accept that.

I hope Woody gets to see his son.  Make amends, hold him again.  Sat before me was a good man but I know that hasn’t always been so, I am sure he hurt many, he had already said so but past is past and he is sorry, the pain is etched in his face.

Guilt is an ugly thing, it eats you up and tears you apart.  We have all done so many things to feel guilty about, I have my long list and I see it every day.  Forgiveness should come from yourself, until you can forgive yourself it will always be with you.

You may spot the wonderful Woody about, I definitely want to see him again, if you are a lady I guarantee he’ll say hi.  If you see him say hello and tell him to ‘Keep it Real’..I learnt all about where that phrase came from today too. 😉