HomeARC ML 0002
"GOD'S LITTLE MIRACLES" PART II--MO 19 OCTOBER, 1970 NO.2--DO
--TAPE 2 FROM EUROPE
Copyrighted May, 1976 by the Children of God C.P. 748, 00100 Rome, Italy
1. WELL, PRAISE THE LORD! Hi THERE, KIDS! WELL, guess what?--Here we are of all places at the headquarters of one of the world's greatest whores--Rome! Amen. Today is Monday, Oct. 19th, 1970, and it's 7:00 in the morning and I'm still in bed.
2. I'm LYING HERE IN THIS GREAT BIG BARN OF A ROOM with a roof that's about 15 feet high and windows that are about ten feet long and five feet wide with shutters on the inside, and shutters on the outside. Looks like they might have been afraid somebody was going to climb in. A gorgeous view, the sun comes in first thing in the morning.
3. YESTERDAY MORNING IT WAS COMING THROUGH ONE LITTLE TINY HOLE, the reflection from the roof outside so that it acted just like a lens and we could see the scene portrayed on the wall of the room, even people walking by! If you know how a box camera works, what they used to call the old pinhole box camera this tiny pinhole lets just enough rays of light through to project an image on the wall, inverted image of what's outside. And I don't know if that was significant or not, as though God was giving us a little peep-hole on the wall of our room as He gives us a little glimpse into the other world that He sees so clearly!
4. HE LETS A LITTLE PINHOLE OF THE LIGHT THROUGH FOR US and throws the picture on the wall of our minds by His mighty power. Just a little tiny pinhole is all you need, if you'll just even manage to open up one little pinhole in your heart, the Lord can let enough light in to really give you some pictures of what's going on outside and what's going on in the world the way He sees it. Sometimes they are kind of upside down but that's the way that world is. We think it's rightside up, but it's really upside down.
5. THIS MORNING I REALLY HAD A STRANGE EXPERIENCE and I think I've got to tell you that first for an eye-opener, because it sure opened my eyes and so shocked me out of a sound sleep!
6. YOU KNOW ME, I'M NOT USUALLY AN EARLY MORNING RISER, so for something to wake me up, it usually takes God himself to wake me up early in the morning, and it's always something really important, or very significant, or a dream that I can't forget, a dream that wakes me up that's still as clear as a crystal with the message along with it. Even when I'm sleeping the Lord won't let me go back to sleep until I tell somebody or write it down.
7. WE GOT TO BED PRETTY LATE, we stayed up late as usual, ate a ham sandwich in bed, with a little Spanish wine we had left over from Malaga, a great wine country we visited, which I'll tell you all about in a minute, but I've got to tell you this dream before I can do anything else, because I've got a notion that Russ, you or Miguel or somebody's gonna want to probably make a song out of it. It's just like one of yours or may be Marty's. Marty, our dear little Italian.
8. GOD BLESS YOU, MARTY, I HOPE YOU KNOW SOME ITALIAN BECAUSE THIS TOWN REALLY NEEDS A WITNESS. Of course, you better be really to die for your witness if you come here like the other martyrs did. But they sure need it. Anyhow, here's the dream that woke me out of a sound sleep early this morning and just couldn't go back to sleep.
9. I WAS GOING TO THIS GREAT BIG CHURCH, and dream is just like the words, so I don't think it probably needs describing, but here's the way it came as near as I can remember, and I sure can remember because it was so loud I couldn't even go back to sleep. Sometimes when you're so damn sleepy that you can't pay much attention, God yells pretty loud and keeps you awake and won't let you go back to sleep if you need to wake up! So this was it:
10. I WENT TO THE HOUSE OF GOD TODAY
To go to bed with His wife,
But found it was already full of lovers
She was fucking for all her life!
I opened the bed and disturbed her lovers
And found it was full of bricks,
And every brick was a block of ice
That's how she gets her kicks!
I ripped off her covers and exposed her lovers
And that's when they called the cop.
I went to bed with God's wife today
But she was just one great big flop!
11. WELL, HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD. THAT'S THE WAY IT CAME ANYHOW! Now if you guys will stop screaming and hollering I'll go on, and Russ, you or Miguel or Marty or somebody can ask the Lord if you want to, maybe if you're inspired somebody can write down these words for you and you might even get one of your zany songs out of it, because it was sure loud and clear!
12. I HOPE IT'S NOT PROPHETIC! We were going to go visit the St. Peter's or the Vatican but I think now I better stay away! (Laughs) I'm not quite so interested in going now after all! I want to get to Israel. So anyhow, praise the Lord.
13. LAST TIME WE MAKE YOU A TAPE it was so late at night that I had to talk softly for fear of disturbing our neighbors, and this time it's so early in the morning I think I better speak softly, it might disturb the neighbors. Praise the Lord.
14. OH, YES, SOMEBODY HERE'S REMINDING ME THAT THE SCENE AS I WAS DESCRIBING IT TO HER, after I couldn't sleep and had to wake up and was going to write it down, but dear old faithful You-Know-Who was writing away here getting it all down. But the whole idea of that dream was as I can see it, of course it was so clear to me I figure you can see it, too, like you've seen the movie, but it was like l went there to get warmth and love and comfort and instead I found it was already full of a lot of other lovers and nothing but cold and hard and icy.
15. WHEN I GOT MAD ABOUT IT, I EXPOSED THE WHOLE SHEBANG, well, of course they called the cop, and I can still see myself just standing there with the covers in one hand and looking at that icy bed and her nakedness, and I was so disgusted I was actually sick in my stomach. Her lovers all piled out of that bed but there she lay, and I presume it means the church, of course, and she was one mess, one sickening mess, and just one great big flop.
16. THEY WERE ALL LYING THERE ASLEEP When I first discovered them, in this bed on these blocks of ice just like they drugged, all asleep. And were they mad because I woke them up! Wow! It was really something.
17. IT WAS LIKE GOD HIMSELF WASN'T THERE AT ALL. He was gone away somewhere, He was out, so she'd taken in all these other guys in His absence. There it is, you can take it as it is, whatever you feel like it means.
18. I STARTED TO SAY, "WHAT A CRAZY DREAM, what a crazy thing what a crazy poem, so crazy," and I lay here fighting the thing for along time. "God wouldn't talk like that, God wouldn't use language like that, God wouldn't stoop to that level to talk that kind of language, even to describe the helluva mess the Church is in!" And somebody just rebuked me and said, and it was very well put, and I felt very well rebuked because it's true, and said, "The foolishness of God is wiser than man!"
19. IT WAS JUST AS THROUGH GOD IN HIS DISGUST HAD STOOPED TO THE LANGUAGE OF TODAY and had sickeningly spewed out and spit out this sickening little poem. So there I go again, you know me, it doesn't matter where I begin whether it's a trip to Europe or whatnot, I'm always winding up on the church. But you'll have to blame it on God this time, because He started it, He woke me up and wouldn't let me go back to sleep until I got up to write it down.
20. I DIDN'T WANT TO WAKE SOMEBODY ELSE UP so I was wandering around here naked looking for a piece of paper and a pen and discovered that somebody else was already awake and immediately knew something was going on as they always do, very sensitive in the spirit, in fact, had been awake a long time just as long as I'd been awake just waiting to see what happened.
21. SO SHE GRABBED A PEN RIGHT AWAY AND WENT TO WORK, our little custodian of the Word of God and our little Keeper, God bless her! Praise the Lord? Amen! The scribe. Jeremiah's scribe. Praise the Lord. God bless her.
22. WELL, I SURE LOVE YOU KIDS AND I REALLY MISS YOU, I really get homesick sometimes. I really really think about you a lot and sometimes get a little nostalgic, wish I was there, but I know we've got to finish the job before can come home, if ever, or before you come to me and before we are reunited again whenever that is. God's will be done. Praise the Lord? Amen.
23. THIS LITTLE TAPE RECORDER YOU GAVE ME, Josh, or you kids there in L.A. gave me, I guess, put it all together, everything's ours, yours, and therefore whatever comes is from all of you, so God bless you and thanks a lot. But running this poor little thing on a few little penlight batteries it doesn't last too long. We can make about one tape on those batteries because we don't have a converter, so I better get said what I've got to say before it's too late here and we run out of juice. You know me, I never run out of steam, but this blooming tape recorder does, so forgive me if I push along here and try to give you more of what's happened.
24. I HAVE BEEN WORKING BUSILY ON THE DIARY we have, trying to keep it up to date so we'll remember to tell you everything, and here I am making the tape without it. So I guess the Lord will just have to remind me of the things that are important, and somebody else here, my little memory will probably help prod me, too, to tell you about the things that are important.
25. AS I RECALL IN THAT LAST TAPE I SENT YOU (see "God's Little Miracles" Part 1, No.1). I was just through telling you about the miracle it was that we got those Eur-Rail passes which turned out to be so important, and I could kick myself now for not having more faith and spending a few more bucks to buy some longer ones because it turned out in the long run we ran short of time.
26. I WAS WONDERING HOW IN THE WORLD WE WERE GOING TO USE UP THREE WEEKS IN EUROPE and how we could afford that much time or money, and it turned out we're kicking ourselves now having more faith to buy longer ones because we had to hurry so to make our whirlwind circle of Europe in three weeks, but anyhow, it was a miracle that we got the passes that day.
27. WE SLIPPED IN JUST AS SHE HAD ALREADY LOCKED ONE DOOR, so we rushed in the front door. She'd already locked the side door and as she headed for the front door to lock it, we rushed in just in time, and she locked the door behind us and sat down at the desk with this beautiful French girl who then helped us to map out tour of Europe.
28. I'D ALREADY HAD IT MAPPED OUT according to how we'd studied and prayed and it turned out that she concurred that this was about the best way to make the tour in such a short time and cover that much territory, all the way from the low countries where we were to begin, Luxembourg, flying over there on Icelandic, around through the low countries, then I was thinking of taking a tour of the Scandinavian countries, but it turned out we didn't have enough time and only got to Denmark, and then down clear across Germany, through Austria to Vienna, swinging back again across Europe through the Austrian Tyrol's, through Switzerland, into France and up to Paris, and then down into Spain, perhaps Portugal, and finally across the Riviera into Rome.
29 THIS IS ABOUT ALL WE FIGURED WE HAD TIME FOR ON A THREE WEEK EUR-RAIL PASS for only a little over a hundred dollars. How to see Europe on $5.00 a day, well, it's quite a trick. I wonder even now how Frommer did it. But you can spot the American all over Europe because each of Frommer's How to See Europe on 5 Dollars a Day in their hand walking around. So this has been one of our "travel Bibles" so to speak to find out how to get there and what to see and what to do and most of all where to eat and sleep cheap, as cheap as possible outside of a part bench. That's the main reason we bought it' because after all, I figure the guy's been there and ought to know, and he sure knew a helluva lot more about it than I did, and it is one helluva mess!
30. BUT IT WAS APPARENTLY NECESSARY AND GOD'S WILL THAT WE SEE IT, because as you'll hear God has really done some miracles and it's been an amazing, amazing trip! Well, I better get with it so you can hear everything about what's happened. And you, you little rascal, better keep your eye on the ball to see how the tape's going, if it's still running. OK? Praise the Lord. God bless you all. you want to say hi to them? Say hi I love you. (Maria: Hi, I really love you. We pray for you all the time!) Amen. Praise the Lord.
31. SO ANYHOW, THAT EVENING WE HAD GOTTEN THE EUR-RAIL PASSES just in time to dash back over to Icelandic Airlines which was still open, to get our tickets, but on second thought, they had such a line up we decided we'd just wait till we got to the airport and then get them there, which is what we did.
32. THE NEXT DAY WAS THE DAY, as I recall, the 10th of September, 1970, a Thursday, the night of our flight to Europe. We drove the car into town that day and picked up the last mail.
33. AGAIN WE GOT SOME MAIL FROM YOU ALL, God bless you and thanks for your faithfulness in writing us. We love those letters and those reports. They thrill us, we laugh, we cry, we pray and we get excited and we make such a fuss I'm afraid we disturb everybody in the hotel! When we get your letter and we scream and we get your letter and we scream and we holler and we just have a great time here and then we get so homesick we want to catch the next plane home and be with you, but I know we can't until we finish this job.
34. THOSE PICTURES YOU SENT, Hosea, they turned out to be one of the greatest assets we've had. All those fancy big albums and scrapbooks that I had fixed up hoping to show to everybody turned out to be so big that it's always packed in my suitcase where I can't get at it, my suitcase is always checked somewhere or something, and so I can't get at out. It's packed so tight that I wouldn't dare unpack it until we get to the end of our journey in Israel. I'd never get it packed again!
35. SO THAT BUNCH OF COLOR PRINTS YOU SENT, MARIA KEEPS IN HER PURSE and pops out everywhere we are, sitting in a restaurant or on the plane or train or anywhere and we show them to everybody everywhere we are, and they go through them one by one with fascination and the kids are so interested. They ooh and they aah and they exclaim and say, "Wow, wow, this sounds like it's really it! Wow! We'll have to come see you! wow! It's really true! You mean you guys aren't really kidding us, are you, and putting us on? Oh, wow, this is wonderful!" and they just rant and rave about the pictures!
36. THEY LOOK AT 'EM AND ALL YOU KIDS at all your different jobs and what you're doing, and working and singing and dancing and playing and studying and witnessing and all the various things you do. About the only thing we haven't got pictures of is you guys in swimming, and maybe that's just as well. well, I don't know, that might be a good idea!
37. WAIT TILL YOU SEE SOME OF THE PICTURES WE'VE TAKEN!--Ahem! Of how we...well, I won't go into that right now, but how we manage to survive on a shoestring whirlwind tour of Europe and some of the crazy things we've had to do. Just wait till you see'em! (laughs) Oh, I can't tell you now, I just can't tell you, you'll have to see'em to believe it! But somebody's always been snapping pictures of me at unexpected moments when I wasn't looking and sometimes I get pictures of her doing the same thing, so I hope this doesn't shock the daylights out of whoever does the developing! But anyway, it's been a lot of fun as well as some agony, and plenty of problems, but plenty of profitable results for the Lord. So thanks for those pictures.
38. WE PICKED THEM UP AT THE POST OFFICE ON THAT LAST DAY, and we dashed on to the airport, almost late as usual, but we did get there in time to find a place to park the car in that big parking lot behind Pan Am at the reduced rate parking and it's a dollar a day, and those days are ticking away so somebody better go get that car before it stacks up much more. It's been over a month now.
39. IT WAS SURE CONVENIENT TO BE ABLE TO LEAVE IT THERE and not have to worry about selling it or whatever, or trying to get it back to you, so thanks a lot. I sent you the ticket and the keys so somebody ought to be able to pick it up, because it looks like we're not going to get back for awhile. When I first sent it to you to hang on to it and not pick it p for a few days, I might be back any day, and that's about the way I felt then.
40. BUT THE LORD'S BEEN GIVING ME GREATER VICTORY and I'm beginning to see how God is working so much over here. I just can't help but see that the Lord is in it and He's doing miracle and great things.
41. BUT I CAN'T TELL YOU EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW, and I may have to continue this tape and send them to you as we finish them, whether the story's finished or not, and it may never be finished' I don't know!
42. I TRIED TO CALL YOU, Josh, at L.A., but I couldn't get through, you weren't there. I called Texas and they said they'd pass on the message that I had called, but they said there wasn't anybody there to take it.
43. I WANTED TO LET YOU GUYS KNOW WE WERE TAKING OFF, this was really it and the day had arrived and we were at the airport ready to board our plane to Luxembourg, Europe. So loaded to the hilt with all of our luggage and as I wrote you later, we were prisoners of our baggage, the things, the weight which so easily beset us, which slowed down the run and which we later had to trim down.
44. WE MANAGED TO STRUGGLE ON TO THE PLANE and sat down beside this lovely girl from Michigan with whom we became well acquainted on the flight, quiet a long flight as you know, leaving at 10:00 Thursday night not arriving in Luxembourg until 5:00 the next evening, about 18 hours.
45. WE HAD TAKEN, OF COURSE, THE CHEAPEST FLIGHT TO SAVE THE LORD'S MONEY, an old prop jet that put-putted along, and I didn't know if that old rattletrap was ever going to make it across the Atlantic, but I wasn't depending on the plane, but on the Lord, and it just kept buzz-buzzing' along and slowly lumbering o'er the waves, and sure enough it wasn't long before in the morning light we saw the desolate, marshy fields of Iceland!
46. WE LANDED AT THE ICELANDIC AIRPORT FOR ABOUT AN HOUR where we got off as you recall and wrote you some brief notes to let you know we were still alive and on our way, and took off again. We were well fed on the way, and we got in some good witnessing to this girl and some others.
47. WE EVENTUALLY LANDED IN LUXEMBOURG and were debating about what to do. We'd been praying all the way and praying weeks ahead what to do.
48. A LOT OF GOOD IT DOES TO WORRY ABOUT THINGS IN ADVANCE because when the time comes the Lord tells you exactly what to do! We'd been worrying about our plans and our itinerary and where to go first and how to do I, we had all these nicely, carefully, well-laid plans of how we were going to start by going up to Amsterdam where there's supposed to be so many hippies, so many kids, and then circling back around through the Scandinavian countries and so on.
49. BUT IT TURNED OUT GOD HAD ENTIRELY OTHER PLANS FOR US, and we might as well not have made any, because the first thing we did was make a beeline for London, England, which we had not even planned to visit at all! But I hadn't been in Europe many hours babbling with languages there and I began to realise that if I was going to have time to get adjusted to adapt myself to this new situation, I at least had to get someplace where somebody spoke English and I could get some information and kind of get oriented and lay plans and decide what to do from there.
50. SO INSTEAD OF STARTING OFF ON OUR WHIRLWIND TRIP THROUGH EUROPE, we immediately made a beeline to someplace we hadn't planned to go at all, and that was London, England and we did it that night of all things!
51. THE GUY TOLD US, "THERE'S NO MORE TRAINS TONIGHT'" but thank God for the schedule, the timetable that I'd gotten and I said, "Right here It's listed" and he said, "Oh, that one. I'd forgotten about that one." I'm sure he was trying to get us to stay overnight in Luxembourg to boom the tourist trade. "You can't catch that one, it's sitting there ready to leave right now." So I said, "You watch me!"
52. AND WE GRABBED OUR BAGS AND WE RAN every step of the way till I was practically out of breath and almost out of life and we jumped on the train just as it was pulling out, huffin' and a-puffin, and we barely made it, but we made it!
53. SOME OF THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO BE LIKE THAT ON THE TRAIN TO HEAVEN! You're gonna jump on God's will at the last minute and barely make it, but praise God, anyhow, like the dying thief on the cross, at least he made it. He didn't have much to show for his trip but at least he made it. Well, we made it and we had a very interesting trip, I haven't got time to tell you about that today on this little tape.
54. WE WENT ON THE TRAIN UP THROUGH BRUSSELS. Oh Yeah, we made a big boo-boo in Brussels and got off at the wrong station and then had to grab a cab clear across town to the station we were supposed to leave from where we were supposed to change to another train. I couldn't figure out why the Lord let that happen till later, otherwise we probably never would have seen Brussels.
55. ONE THING I WAS IMPRESSED WITH IN BRUSSELS WAS THE BEAUTIFUL RESTROOMS. Now some places in Europe they've really got some gorgeous restrooms, they even had flowers sitting around in the restrooms on the shelves. Of course, one thing that kind of shocked me was that when I was standing there going to the bathroom, the maid came in cleaning up and mopping the floor and paying no attention whatsoever to me standing there!
56. I THOUGHT MAYBE I'D GOTTEN THE WRONG RESTROOM for a minute, it scared the daylights out of me, I thought maybe I was in the Ladies' room! I started to go out and she held out her hand and she wasn't shaking hands either. What she meant was she wanted a tip for taking care of the men's room!
57. SO THEY ARE REALLY KIND OF REVOLUTIONARY OVER HERE, KIDS, believe it or not, this women's liberation movement must have been in effect over here in Europe for a good many years, because we found a whole lot of the bathrooms are co-educational and you find both men and women in them!
58. ABOUT THE ONLY PRIVACY YOU CAN GET IS TO GO IN A CABINETTE and lock the door. Otherwise, there are men and women going and coming and cleaning ladies coming in and out, and you can hardly get out of the toilet before she wants to come in and scrub it out, and banging on the door that you've been in there long enough! It's really a scream, and I'm beginning to get used to it a little bit, but I don't know if Maria's ever going to get used to it!
59. HERE YOU ARE SQUATTING ON THE FLOOR trying to hit this little hole in the floor and some guy comes barging in on you, "Oh, scusa, scusa!" and whatnot, and scared her half to death the first few times, but now she's even beginning to get used to it. I think we could do it in public now. So there's no segregation over here. They've done integrated, no discrimination, so you girls who want women's liberation you've got real freedom over here, you can come and go, but I don't know if you'll like it or not!
60. I NOW KNOW WHERE THEY GOT THE TERM, "PULL THE CHAIN" because there's a great big chain hanging over your head and a huge big water tank above that, and you pull the chain and you wonder if the whole thing's going to come down on top of you, but that's the way they get their water pressure to flush the toilets.
61. THERE'S SO MANY THINGS WE COULD TELL YOU, little things about what's different in Europe. The paper, for example: I finally figured out which side you're supposed to use! One side is slick as a whistle and you can't get any results out of that, but make a mess out of things, but the other side is very absorbent and you've got to be sure and use the right side, and if you crush it up a little bit in your hand first it makes it kind of soft, otherwise it's a little bit like sandpaper. But we're surviving, and after the first few applications and walking around a little stiff, we applied a little cream and then we learned not to use so much of that paper, not to wipe so many times, and we're getting along a little bit better! Praise the Lord!
62. WE CROSSED THE ENGLISH CHANNEL THAT NIGHT on the ferry without event They said it was a pretty smooth crossing, I thought it was great, and we sat up on this wooden bench and we kind of slept a little bit, and we didn't even get seasick, thank the Lord. I think the guy missed the port on the other side, though, and he had to back up in a hurry, I thought we were going on the rocks and I could see us sinking in the English Channel at this lighthouse, but I think it was just maybe the way he entered the harbour.
63. THEN WE HAD TO CATCH ANOTHER TRAIN WHICH TOOK US INTO LONDON, and we got to London on Saturday morning. We hadn't been to bed yet and were we tired! Two nights and two days on the road so to speak and we hadn't been to bed and hadn't had much sleep and we were exhausted.
64. WE STARTED PHONING AROUND AT SOME OF THE PLACES FROMMER HAD LISTED in his 5 Dollars a Day and it turned out that the 5 Dollars a Day is about 10 years old and he hasn't updated that book for quite a few years except for a few little additions on some of the information! It was kaput, was passé, or whatever you want to call it, anyway, it wasn't any good, it wasn't up-to-date. Finally we got desperate and prayed desperately, because everything was full of students and teachers and hippies and kids travelling all over the world.
65. I NEVER SAW SO MANY KIDS TRAVELLING WITH PACKS ON THEIR BACKS, kids from everywhere in the world travelling all over the world like the kids are themselves a new nation, a new people, and no matter what their language or country they all seem to have something in common, the hair, the beards, the long dresses, the long tresses and the long looks of understanding with each other, because they're kids and they're of this now generation, and even if they can't understand each other's language, they can understand each other's looks and they have a camaraderie, a companionship which I've never seen anything like it before. So the kids are all over the place and they filled up all the pensions, all the boarding houses, all the cheap hotels and there was hardly any room for a couple of wanderers like us.
66. SO WE GOT REAL DESPERATE AFTER FIGURING OUT HOW TO USE THE TELEPHONE, you get your money ready and you stick it in the slot and you have to wait until somebody has answered the phone and then you push real hard. If you're real strong you can manage to shove it in to the phone, but we've had to help several people, especially the poor weak-thumbed girls to push their dimes in the slot, I mean, not dimes, what are they, half a shilling or something, because the spring is real powerful and it's hard to get it, and then you hope by the time you got it in and you struggle with it and kind of shove it, that the party's still holding the phone. Sometimes they've gotten so tired of waiting for you they've already hung up. But that's the way it is in Europe.
67. BUT BY A MIRACLE GOD OPENED THE DOOR FOR US to just the right place at this beautiful old boarding house of mostly American students that we could talk to and witness to, out in the suburbs of London in a middle class old mansion. They used to be old mansions, now turned into apartment houses and rooming houses, used to be real old fancy places, gorgeous old homes and in a very interesting area. They told us how to get out there on the underground, but not being too familiar with anything but the American underground we decided to take a cab this first time and he knew where it was right away.
68. WE HUNG ONTO OUR HATS AND HUNG ONTO OUR BAGS and had the ride of our lives out there! The way they drive you'd think it was going to be their last trip and it makes you afraid maybe it will be! It's really something out here, but I guess they make so little money from every ride, they've got to stack in a lot of rides, so they drive like mad to get to the next one. We made it anyhow, thanks to the Lord, and they introduced us to life in a London garret.
69. WE CLIMBED UP SIX FLIGHTS OF STAIRS to the top floor, and of course the bathroom was two or three floors below! I've got news for you, the bathroom means just that, not necessarily anything else such as a little stool to sit on. It means just a bath room, just a place where you take a bath, no place to go to the toilet. When I took the room, I glanced at the bathroom through the bathroom door, and I thought, "Well, that's nice the toilet is only one flight down from the room even though we're six flights up, and that won't be so bad." As it turned out however, that was strictly a bathroom with nothing but a bathtub and a wash basin and no toilet and we had to go a couple more flights down to get to the toilet, so we wound up using the wastebasket, and that was our little secret in out London garret for the two weeks we spent there.
70. WE DID HAVE A NICE BIG OLD ROOM, and these old rooms are not ten feet tall but about fifteen feet tall and they're beautiful and grand in their old worn-out style. I have a kind of a yen for old architecture and old houses and old buildings, they have an aged beauty about them like old wine, and they're really, interesting I guess if they could talk they'd really have a history.
71. OUR WINDOW, THANK GOD, FACED THE MORNING SUN. It was kind of chilly in London at night, but it was just beautiful weather in the daytime. We had two weeks of the most gorgeous sunny weather. I had never planned to go to London at all from all I'd heard about London I just knew I would never like it. It was an old, stiff staid, conservative, blue-nosed, cold, clammy, foggy, dead old town. Well, let me tell you something about London!
72. LONDON TURNED OUT TO BE THE SWINGINGEST CITY WE HAVE VISITED in all of Europe with the swingingest gals and the shortest minis and the most gorgeous ads on the walls, ahem, if you know what I mean, and with the most kids and the most wonderful people, the most hospitable, the most helpful, the most kind, the most friendly and as I say, the swingingest, the most youthful, it's the most terrific town in all of Europe! London is really the place!
73. PARIS, HA! FORGET IT. Give it back to the Germans. It's as dead as a doornail. They've gotten so conservative in Paris that I think they must be wearing minis at the Moulin Rouge now! But somebody's reminding me that God rebuked me for criticising the Parisians. I hated Paris so and France so that the Lord finally had to rebuke me and tell me He had much people there and that we were going to have to do something there anyhow.
74. BUT ANYHOW, BACK TO SWINGIN' OL' DEAR OL' MERRY OLD ENGLAND. Let me tell you, it is a merry old place and instead of that horrible weather, all rain and fog ad cold that I was expecting, we had two weeks of the most gorgeous sunshine, and it rained only about one day and just a sprinkle at that. It was beautiful and so warm that we had to take off our sweaters and our coats and virtually walk around in our shirtsleeves, and me with my long underwear on, I was sweating up a storm! So London is not at all what you've heard. London is really beautiful and really great and the kids are glorious.
75. WE SAW MORE KIDS IN LONDON THAT ANYPLACE ON THE WHOLE CONTINENT, almost than all the rest of the big cities put together. London is a young town, full of kids and they are lively and hoppin' and swinging and sad to say, doping, because drugs are virtually open and legal.
76. ONE NIGHT WE WERE STANDING ON A CORNER IN PICADILLY CIRCUS and we were watching the kids shooting dope right there on the sidewalk, some of them stretched out in the gutter and doorways, or standing up half-asleep, and we just couldn't believe our eyes, it was such a pitiful sight, all these poor kids so obviously freaked out, mixed in with all the crazy looking Systemite tourists, all these stupid idiotic looking American tourists that were obviously American, well-dressed and laughing and thinking it was all funny, and there were these poor kids all doped up lying around on the sidewalk, draped over the rail, and it was so pitiful.
77. WE DECIDED WE'D TAKE A FLASH PICTURE OF THE SCENE to send back to you and so we got out our little box, camera, our little Brownie. That little Instamatic you loaned Maria, you know you gave me that big fancy looking camera, but the first thing it did was go on the bum and it was so complicated that maybe I just forgot how to work it. But anyhow, I left it in the trunk of the car because it didn't work, and it must have been of God because goodnight, that camera was so big and heavy it would have felt like a lump of lead by the time I got through hauling it throughout Europe.
78. THIS LITTLE INSTAMATIC IS SO EASY TO OPERATE and so simple and so quick, it takes beautiful pictures and it's so lightweight, and works great.
79. BUT I'M SURE GLAD YOU GAVE ME THAT NICE EXPENSIVE CAMERA, Ho, because I took the camera out and left it in the trunk of the car and now I use the camera bag for my overnight case! You ought to see everything I've got stuffed in the. I've got one extra pair of long underwear, I've got my whole little vanity case with my shaving kit, my scissors, my fingernail file, my comb, my toothpaste, my toothbrush, my nail clippers, my razor blades, and my bar of soap. I've got a jar of deodorant, my washrag, my perfume or aftershave lotion, talcum powder, and that little clock radio you gave me.
80. THAT CLOCK RADIO HAS REALLY BEEN A BLESSING because we manage to usually get at least one English speaking station either from London or from Monaco or Radio Luxembourg to get the news and also to wake us up sometimes to catch a train, so it's been one of the greatest things, God bless you kids for donating it for the trip, it's really doing a great job, thank the Lord.
81. I ALSO HAVE IN THE CAMERA BAG a bunch of tracts in the little pocket for excess gear, and I put all the extra left-over coins from each country, after we've gone through the country in there, and various other odds and ends, all in the camera bag! I throw that over my shoulder and I can go for about a week without even opening my suitcase. Even two extra pairs of socks, and the only thing I haven't been able to squeeze in there is a shirt, but we wash out the shirts at night.
82. DEAR LITTLE MARIA, SHE WASHES OUT MY UNDERWEAR and my socks and hangs them up in the window. I was standing out on the street in Paris and I looked up to our window and there was my long underwear hanging in the little window of this hotel, horror of horrors! But anyhow, such is life in Europe.
83. WE WERE STANDING ON THE CORNER and we got out the little Instamatic and took a flash picture of all these kids staggering down the sidewalk, and then things began to pop! The minute I took that flash picture, I had a funny feeling something was going to happen.
84. SOME OF THOSE KIDS STAGGERED OVER and said, "What are you doing? You working with the cops?", and they kind of cornered us in a doorway. All of a sudden up rushes this real handsome, find-looking, clean-cut blond guy and says, "Who are you guys? What are you doing here? What are you taking pictures for? Are you working with the cops?" and so on, and he was quite bright and wide awake not like the other dopesters.
85. IT TURNED OUT THAT HE WAS THE LEADER OF THIS TEENAGE GANG OF DRUGSTERS and probably a pusher, and we stood there in this doorway in Picadilly Circus, believe it or not, talking to him for nearly two hours. When we first asked him his name he said with a snicker, "Oh, it's John Smith", but at the end of the two hours when we wound up praying for him, we laid out hand on his shoulder and began to pray, he asked for prayer, and while I was praying he interrupted me and said, "By the way, tell Him my name is not John Smith, it's really...." and he gave me his real name. It was kind of funny, he wanted to make sure the Lord got the right person!
86. THEN HE STOPPED ME AND SAID, "PRAY A PRAYER I CAN GET OFF THESE DRUGS, TOO. Pray I can get off of dope. Pray for my wife and kids too, will you?" It was so sweet, it really caused us to cry, tears where streaming down our faces while we prayed for him, right there with thousands of tourists passing right within arms reach of us, around this big amusement center of London, the theater center, the place to go where all the clubs are and the strip joints and the theaters and the cinemas and all that baloney and bullshit, all this junk was circulating around, and all the these damn stupid Systemites running around laughing and drunk and making absolute idiots out of themselves there in Europe, the "ugly Americans."
87. HERE WE WERE STANDING THERE PRAYING FOR THIS POOR DRUG PUSHER, this gang leader, and asking the Lord to help his wife and kids and get him off of dope. Well, it just couldn't help but touch our hearts and our eyes were streaming and so were his, and the Lord really, really moved. He gave us his name and address, and God willing, we hope to see him again when we go back to London. But such was our experience, one of the highlights of our visit to London. I can't tell you everything, but we were there for two whole weeks.
88. WE WENT TO SPEAKER'S CORNER IN HYDE PARK where everybody can go and spout off anything he wants to on any subject. They've only got two rules: You can't use any obscene language, and because they had so much trouble with the hippies having rock-ins there, you can't have any music, so they say. But we discovered to out surprise, that the hippies were having their music anyhow, like the old song, "Mama don't 'low no music in here, but we gonna have our music anyhow", and so they were.
89. THE HIPPIES WERE PLAYING IN THE SUBWAYS also, and we always seemed to run into them there. There'd be one or two guys or girls standing there playing guitars and singing and usually they turned out to be Americans and some draft-dodgers trying to bum their way around Europe. A girl or a guy would be passing around a bag for the money, begging for money while they were playing, earning their way, and it was really pitiful, really pitiful, poor kids.
90. BUT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH A LOT, even though the cops chase them off a lot they said, and run them out of the subways, but they leave and go someplace else. So you can play your guitars and sing and get away with it till the cops chase you away.
91. BUT IN HYDE PARK ON SPEAKERS' CORNER you can speak on any subject you want to just as long as you don't use any bad language, although we heard some bad language anyhow, so they don't enforce that too much.
92. THERE WERE PLENTY OF BOBBIES STANDING AROUND but they just seemed to be laughing and talking and amused, and the were the friendliest cops we have met anywhere in the world. They just laugh and crack jokes and they'll visit with you, and they are just really great guys, they're all handsome young guys, some of them with beards no less.
93. INCIDENTALLY, THE U.S. IS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD we found where the don't allow the cops or the military to wear beards or mustaches. In almost every country throughout Europe we have discovered that they allow the cops to grow beards, the soldiers and sailors to grow beards, and they're wearing beards all over the place. In fact, in Italy, the men even have feathers in their hats, the military, or tassles hanging down from their hats, all kinds of fancy uniforms.
94. SO GET READY FOR HYDE PARK! We heard a Jew in one place spouting off for Israel, and right next to him was an Arab spouting off against the Jews, and next to him was a priest of the Church of England spouting off against the Church and against the government and preaching Communism. What a disaster you guys could make out of HYDE Park Corner! Whew! What an impact! You could start a revolution there for sure and the cops would probably just laugh and think it was funny because they're so friendly. Praise the Lord!
95. GET READY FOR LONDON! It is the place, and the place to go, and they can understand your language and they love you, and they're ready for you, and the kids need you, and are just crying for you and dying for a place to go. They all said it was a great idea as we explained what we do and our plans to have a farm or a coffee house around London. It would be packed out in nothing flat, and the poor kids really need it, and they sure need the Lord.
96. THEY'RE OPEN AND RECEPTIVE AND RESPONSIVE, most of them, just a few hard nuts, but most of them were really hungry and pitiful like sheep having no shepherd. So hurry up, London team, get on the ball, get with it. You better get there at least by Spring when the weather starts getting better, because they do have some bad weather there eventually, but we haven't seen any of it yet.
97. ALL OVER EUROPE IT'S BEEN THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WEATHER of anything I've ever seen. I just don't understand it. It seems like all of Europe is kind of like California and sunny, especially France, Spain and Italy. Spain and Italy are kind of dry and very sunny and cold at night, but warm in the daytime. And I've asked several other American tourists if they had the same impression, and it seems that Europe on the whole has a climate than the States.
98. SO YOU CAN BE OUTDOORS MORE, WITNESS MORE, people are outside more and there's mobs of people milling around everywhere in every big city in the public squares and just oodles of people to witness to!
99. LAST NIGHT WE SAT OUT IN AN OPEN PIAZZA, in the Piazza something-or-other, some big long name. These words over here, man, they are jawbreakers, they're as long as your arm, you never saw the like, and you need to be some kind of a linguistic expert to pronounce them. But anyway, this guy was playing on something we never saw before. Do you know they've invented some kind of an electric accordion that you don't even have to squeeze and pump anymore and it sounds just like an organ, or like a whole orchestra? It's the most gorgeous thing you've ever heard. He was making this whole Piazza just echo, just absolutely thunder with the sounds of this gorgeous instrument, and we thought it was an organ at first, but it turned out to be nothing but this blind guy sitting there with his little accordion on his lap and an amplifier sitting on the ground in front of him, no bigger than some of your guitar amplifiers, but out of this thing was coming some of the most gorgeous music you ever heard in your life! It just made us literally sit there and weep!
100. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL CLASSICAL MUSIC OF THE OPERAS, a few light ones, but mostly classics, and you know me, I was an old opera fan in my early days, and it was once my ambition to be an opera star, so you kids can see how low I have sunk now through all this rock music of yours! (laughs) I love you! I love you, and I love it! It takes a lot of living and a lot of variety to make a world! We sat there in a little sidewalk cafe drinking a cup of cafe con leche and it was just thrill, thrill, thrill! His little "monkey," a drunk guy was going around passing the hat collecting money, they weren't doing it for nothing. But it was worth the coin we gave them. I don't know what it was, I haven't got all these Italian coins straight yet. I'm telling you, Europe is an amazing place!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family}
