Portland

2009-4-24 06:02:00

Judy,

Your comments on Portland brings back memories.

I moved there in 1970 to pursue a girl who lit a fire in me causing me to think she just might be the one. It didn't work out, but I met another who caught my heart and would have married her except the voice within told me not to. As it turned out, that fall I took a journey of over 6000 miles to "Merry Old England" and married a girl there. That turned out to be a much rockier relationship than if I had married one of the other two, but if I had married a sweet gal and been happy in the (Mormon) Church I may have not been driven to ask the questions I did, especially concerning reincarnation.

Portland, at that time, was indeed a liberal Mecca and I loved the area even though I was a card carrying member of a very conservative religion. It was like a mini San Francisco with long haired hitch-hiking hippies everywhere. I have always been attracted to hippies since they first appeared and have ever enjoyed talking to them, even though I never joined them in their lifestyle.

Even though I liked Portland it was the most difficult town I ever tried to make money in. I went through a half dozen different jobs and about starved to death. I had several sales jobs there and couldn't sell anything. I have never seen a people so adverse to buying anything. I finally had to leave the city and go back to Idaho to survive.

Several times of late I returned to Portland with signs to sell just to see if it was possible to pull any money from the area and managed to sell a little. The little I made was sweet because of my memories of financial famine I suffered there.

One of these days I would like to return there and hold a successful seminar and go away with the feeling that I actually had success there.

"Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?"
-- James Thurber (1894 - 1961)