The experience I had with my Gayong Instructor while practically living with the family helped to groom me for my spiritual future as a Muslim, however in the years ahead i learned about why he had been reluctant to be the one who initiated me into the spirtual side of the martial arts, I had no religious discipline. I became agnostic who challenged the Creator by pointing my finger at Him, or cursed His name for having created me and caused all the crap to happen to me for no good reason. I took a 360 degrees turn and headed for damnation after i left the East Coast of Terengganu. I hated everything about my life and family by the time I left secondary school and as soon as i found a job and was able to buy a motorcycle I scooted out of the state. The last thing my teacher asked me in front of the rest of the martial art students was, What did i ever do to you?, when he learned that I was having an affair with his oldest daughter who was two years older than I was. I felt like a bastard then but today i can only understand it was just me. It was who I was and still am. Incorrigible!
I had a couple of great teahers and frieds who helped shape my life later on while attending the UNiversity of Green Bay, Wisconsin when I moved to the United States. They were instrumental in getting me to become an artist. One of them was a gentleman who was a computer sales man for IBM who took me into his home and in his own way kept from getting into too much trouble than I really could have been. I used to live in his basement with his sons who were then also students at the University. Mr.C.Sule and I became closer friends than I was with his children through whom I had met him and as time went on shit happened when I introduced hin to one of the waitresses at a restaurant I was a frequent customer. He decided to fall in love with the lady and the rest was history. I was accused by his children for being a home breaker and my relatioship with the family came to a bitter end. The wife and the children never forgave me especially when their parents divorced. I left Green Bay after my gradutaion from the University and headed for Alaska. Chuck as I used to call him left his IBM job and took up professional photography a hobby that i had helped talk him into when we were hanging out together. He seemed contented when I last met him, free to do what he wanted instead of taking care of his grown up children. When I offered him my oppologies he brushed it off and told me that it was the best thing that happened to him having met me.
There was my landlord Leon P. Lodl who I might have talked about earlier in my writings cannot rmember anymore after having wrote this blog over the years. However Leon or Lee as I called him was a bachelor whose life was a bachelor's dream and when I was living at his farm house on Humboldt Road in Green Bay I was indoctrinated into the life of wine, women and music, for Leon was a a perfect gentleman who loved classical and Jazz music, who dated elegant ladies and worked weekends on his church up north in Michigan turning it into a ski lodge. Having been much younger than he was I was inflienced by his style and his take on life. We would shoot the breeze by the fireplace through the Wisconsin winter when snow would pile up to six feet high along the Humboldt road making leaving the farm almost impossible. We'd read books and discuss philosophy and shared our thoughts on art and music and drinl good wine and ate great steaks and mushrooms which Leon was an expert at making. Come weekends we would drive up north to work on his church.
The late Bill Prevetti, Mike Kazar and Clarry Nelson Cole, they are all three gone now, were my art instructors at the University, however they were also friends who treated me like I was special. I was often invited to their homes and most of my art materials were through their generousity. It was what they impressed upon me as man to man that I valued most, their thoughts and philosohies, ther beliefs and dreams which they admitted every so often that they seldom shared with others that made me felt special and taught me to think about who I was. These were highly respected individuals in the Green Bay Community for their years of dedication towards the art education at the campus.
In Alaska I met one or two great individuals who helped shape my life while i fishing in the Aleutian Ilses. One such individuals was a pilot who flew a Cessna plane as a delivery service for the Aleut community delivering goods from island to island and would take me along for the 'beer runs' as he called it for company. I learned alot through our conversations while in the air or sitting at deserted makeshift runways waiting for someone to claim the delivery. Dwight Blackburn had flew all over the Baring Seas delivering passengers and groceries to small Aleut communities for many years and he had many tales to tell about the Aleutians and I was a willing listener. But most rewarding of these talks we had was his tips and advice on what i aught to do and not in order to survive the rough life of Alaska which I later applied to living anywhere I ended up. He taught me how to stand up to the big and ugly fishermen who were to him numbskulls underneath all their rough tough demeanor and how to not let them intimidate by breaking through this mask. He made me understand the Aleut mentality and how to tackle them instead of becoming their victim as I was allowing myself into becoming. Sammy, you are far more superior than ten of these Assholes so dont let them fuck with you, he would say. Dwight Blackburn gave me some of the most heart rending scenes that I would normally watch on National Geographic of Alaska from the Air. The small Cessna would fly us along side the tips of snow covered mountains and at one time a volcanoe that was spewing out mudlike clouds into the sky. I will never forget the feeling i had as we flew around the volcano in a complete circle close enough to see the red larva oozing out from its crater.
In San Francisco I met with many great minds especially at the SF Zen Center where I spent for almost two years as a Zen student. One of these individuals was my close friend David Carlson whose life before he joined the Zen community was a computer programmer for IBM and had helped installed the Bank of America Computer programes. David was one of a kind individual who was full of life and love for just about everyone he dealt with. He was very intelligent and was into everything thought provoking like the practice of Zen and Yoga or the interest in alternative lifestyles. We both got married at bout the same time and had our children within a few weeks of eachother. During those years raising our children David and i spent alot of time together at the Golden Gate Park where we would take our kids for their walks. David was a very good father and I was influenced by his ways and gentleness in dealing with children.
I
I had a couple of great teahers and frieds who helped shape my life later on while attending the UNiversity of Green Bay, Wisconsin when I moved to the United States. They were instrumental in getting me to become an artist. One of them was a gentleman who was a computer sales man for IBM who took me into his home and in his own way kept from getting into too much trouble than I really could have been. I used to live in his basement with his sons who were then also students at the University. Mr.C.Sule and I became closer friends than I was with his children through whom I had met him and as time went on shit happened when I introduced hin to one of the waitresses at a restaurant I was a frequent customer. He decided to fall in love with the lady and the rest was history. I was accused by his children for being a home breaker and my relatioship with the family came to a bitter end. The wife and the children never forgave me especially when their parents divorced. I left Green Bay after my gradutaion from the University and headed for Alaska. Chuck as I used to call him left his IBM job and took up professional photography a hobby that i had helped talk him into when we were hanging out together. He seemed contented when I last met him, free to do what he wanted instead of taking care of his grown up children. When I offered him my oppologies he brushed it off and told me that it was the best thing that happened to him having met me.
There was my landlord Leon P. Lodl who I might have talked about earlier in my writings cannot rmember anymore after having wrote this blog over the years. However Leon or Lee as I called him was a bachelor whose life was a bachelor's dream and when I was living at his farm house on Humboldt Road in Green Bay I was indoctrinated into the life of wine, women and music, for Leon was a a perfect gentleman who loved classical and Jazz music, who dated elegant ladies and worked weekends on his church up north in Michigan turning it into a ski lodge. Having been much younger than he was I was inflienced by his style and his take on life. We would shoot the breeze by the fireplace through the Wisconsin winter when snow would pile up to six feet high along the Humboldt road making leaving the farm almost impossible. We'd read books and discuss philosophy and shared our thoughts on art and music and drinl good wine and ate great steaks and mushrooms which Leon was an expert at making. Come weekends we would drive up north to work on his church.
The late Bill Prevetti, Mike Kazar and Clarry Nelson Cole, they are all three gone now, were my art instructors at the University, however they were also friends who treated me like I was special. I was often invited to their homes and most of my art materials were through their generousity. It was what they impressed upon me as man to man that I valued most, their thoughts and philosohies, ther beliefs and dreams which they admitted every so often that they seldom shared with others that made me felt special and taught me to think about who I was. These were highly respected individuals in the Green Bay Community for their years of dedication towards the art education at the campus.
In Alaska I met one or two great individuals who helped shape my life while i fishing in the Aleutian Ilses. One such individuals was a pilot who flew a Cessna plane as a delivery service for the Aleut community delivering goods from island to island and would take me along for the 'beer runs' as he called it for company. I learned alot through our conversations while in the air or sitting at deserted makeshift runways waiting for someone to claim the delivery. Dwight Blackburn had flew all over the Baring Seas delivering passengers and groceries to small Aleut communities for many years and he had many tales to tell about the Aleutians and I was a willing listener. But most rewarding of these talks we had was his tips and advice on what i aught to do and not in order to survive the rough life of Alaska which I later applied to living anywhere I ended up. He taught me how to stand up to the big and ugly fishermen who were to him numbskulls underneath all their rough tough demeanor and how to not let them intimidate by breaking through this mask. He made me understand the Aleut mentality and how to tackle them instead of becoming their victim as I was allowing myself into becoming. Sammy, you are far more superior than ten of these Assholes so dont let them fuck with you, he would say. Dwight Blackburn gave me some of the most heart rending scenes that I would normally watch on National Geographic of Alaska from the Air. The small Cessna would fly us along side the tips of snow covered mountains and at one time a volcanoe that was spewing out mudlike clouds into the sky. I will never forget the feeling i had as we flew around the volcano in a complete circle close enough to see the red larva oozing out from its crater.
In San Francisco I met with many great minds especially at the SF Zen Center where I spent for almost two years as a Zen student. One of these individuals was my close friend David Carlson whose life before he joined the Zen community was a computer programmer for IBM and had helped installed the Bank of America Computer programes. David was one of a kind individual who was full of life and love for just about everyone he dealt with. He was very intelligent and was into everything thought provoking like the practice of Zen and Yoga or the interest in alternative lifestyles. We both got married at bout the same time and had our children within a few weeks of eachother. During those years raising our children David and i spent alot of time together at the Golden Gate Park where we would take our kids for their walks. David was a very good father and I was influenced by his ways and gentleness in dealing with children.
I
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