and The Terribly Ugly...

Back to the story of my life…

I was shocked that my contract was not going to be renewed, I had just saved the company several millions of dollars and made them a few million more in new sales. It didn’t make sense until Sherman told me that they could not afford the company’s health insurance (he had a bad heart, Marvin had a bad heart and Marvin’s wife had MS). He said that because of the number of problems that I had with my heart during the last year their carrier to drop them…he swore that he would deny that he ever told me this…but that’s the way it was. He offered to let me consult for the company (without benefits), but then I would not be able to COBRA my coverage, and the way my health was failing I had to be insured.

It didn’t take very long for the word to spread throughout the industry that I was a “bad risk”. I had to find some other way of making money so I started working at a convenience store and within a year I was managing five stores. My wife was not thrilled about this because she thought that it was demeaning…then I had another pretty serious “heart episode”. My wife had a daughter and a son by a previous marriage, and the son had cerebral palsy…she was sure that she would end up as care giver for both of us…so she asked me to leave.


It was a desperate time for me: failing health, no job, and no home. If it hadn’t have been for the love of my children, I might not have made it emotionally. I was in the VA Medical Center for over three months that year, stayed with my best friend and his wife for about a month, and ended up back in the hospital. Before I was discharged from the hospital, my sister and brother-in-law visited me and told me that I was going to live with them until things got better. I stayed with them for about thirteen or fourteen months while I waited for Social Security to start. They saved my life…and I began upon a new adventure. My wife notified me that she had filed for divorce and I started drawing Social Security.


I moved into an apartment in Hinckley, Minnesota and began to supplement my Social Security by selling artwork at flea markets and local arts and crafts stores. I started going to Pow Wows and exploring my Native American ethnicity. I discovered that I was three-eighths Cherokee and three-eighths Choctaw…the rest being a mixture of Scotch-Irish and German. I was beginning to see a new direction in my life.


More of that in the next Post.

Until then…