This blog will jump around - but what the hell - it's my blog. So, when I was 8 years old my father was killed in an auto accident - that is a whole story in itself. Sometime in the following year we (bro & Mom) trained our way across the glorious West & Mid West to Chicago. (this was a 2night, 3day trip or reverse). It was the Empire Builder with the real Pulman cars, dining rooms with silver pitchers, silverware and starched white linen. It was still the day when all of the porters were black and we had a most precious "Sam the Pillow Porter". I think he worked that route every time we traveled and when I made the trip alone at 9 years old he was my Guardian Angel. Bless his soul - the best thing was that all boundaries of race were eliminated in me at a very young age. On one trip there was a television personality of great note - lost to antiquity so I will not mention his name - Sam asked him if he would see 2 little kid fans. TV Star agreed and we were ushered into his Pulman Suite, he talked to us and signed autographs. Forget that - if you can - as a little kid. Wow.

Anyway, we made it back to the homestead my mother was raised in - again this house is a tale in itself. It was broken up into rooms or apts, depending on who was renting it - an old fashioned rooming house. In the upstairs apt (where my uncle & aunt lived just a few years before when we all lived there) there was now a family living. They were from Madras, India. Humm. The family consisted of wife, in a sari and all the traditional dress, husband - standard issue dress, and a son. The son was in our age range (bro & I being 7&8, I'm the oldest) and cool. He had polio as a small child which affected his legs - he could wrap them around the back of his head without it ever being a yoga posture) and loved Batman and Robin as much as we did. Side note - this is the Batman of comic books in 1957 & 8 - not the Dark Knight of 2008. We hit it off well.

I had just lost my very loving father. He always made me feel as if I could do anything and that I was very smart. He taught me the lessons that have held me in good stead all of my life. #1. I cheated once and he caught me. His lesson was that "If I cheat then he couldn't know where I needed help and he didn't think I ever needed to cheat, that I was smart enough to figure out the right way. He never told my mom.

#2. Caught me playing with matches. Lesson: I was so beautiful and pretty that I should never do anything willingly that would disfigure me. Note he did not rant about the house or others, but focused on what a 5yo child cares about THEMSELVES!!! When someone handed me a vial & spoon of drugs (snorting type - figure it out) I took it and went to the restroom with it, feeling so very cool and sophisticated - I looked in the mirror and at the drugs and thought to myself ("Do I want to look aged beyond my years, selling my body to support a habit for this?) my dad's words came back to me as if he were in my head and I never did it. Take care the things you say to your children.

Back to this Indian family living with us. The father's name is U.G. Krishnamurti. This is perhaps one of the few actual names I will use. He has since passed but if you Google him you will see how much of a story this really is - especially in the "search for spirituality".

So - you have a little girl - crying herself to sleep every night - missing her father (mainly because bro & I figured out that Mom was F*cking CRAZY) discovering a kind and sensitive father was under the same roof. He had 2 daughters in India, left behind while they sought medical care for their son with polio, so he had some understanding of children and maybe he missed them. He would visit me when I was in bed at night crying my eyes out and just sit there - sometimes he would put his hand on my head - I mean only my head - nothing weird or anything - I have a very good memory and never have blocked anything out - I do remember others not so supportive - so there. He would talk to me and encourage me to talk about my father or anything else - he is the person I told I had a tooth cavity - not my mom. He told my mom (by the time she did anything about it is was so huge that I had to have it pulled. Thanks mom).

So that is my first encounter with U.G. He and his family lived with us for several months and we were neighbors a year or so later - but that is really another story. end for this post