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Source: Mary T. (Pearl) – 12 Step Study Part 7 1998 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mary-t-pearl-12-step-study-part-7-1998-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:14:23
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We had just, we'd been driving all over and it was in early May so there was still a lot of snow and the melt had come and the falls in Yosemite were just fabulous, just fabulous that year. And so here we are parked along this babbling brook and the water's like ice, you know, and it's so nice and brisk with a little bit of snow here and there in the campground and I'm in there just cooking away. And I've decided we're gonna have steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, tossed salad, and a homemade cherry cobbler. That's it. Gonna have it.
So I got everything fixed, left the cobbler inside, went out and put over the table, set the little picnic table out there in the campground. You know, we're gonna eat outside tonight, you know, instead of in there in the thing, we're gonna eat outside. And we went out there, we all said the serenity prayer, we all hugged one another, we all sat down on the same side of the picnic bench and slingshot our food in the creek.
Now that's too sane and sober, you know. And we stood there and I laughed, I said, well, the salad is hopeless, but I said we can go out there and we fished around and got the steaks and the baked potatoes, you know, we can start again here and the cherry pie was still saved inside. But, you know, we laughed about that, you know, because now you could have gotten real aggravated about that or whatever, but it was just so funny.
We had meetings around that table every night. We went from campground to campground. We had more fun. We pulled in to get gas in a little town up there, Sutter's Mill, where they discovered the gold in California. And while we were there in the getting, of course, when you're getting gas in one of those, you're talking a couple hundred gallons of gas, so it takes a while. I look and I said, look over yonder.
And Sandy said, what? And I said, look at all those people standing outside smoking. I said, that looks familiar to me. And so I put on my shoes and I went tearing over there and I said, what kind of meeting are we having, gang? And they said, it's a meeting of N.A. I said, oh, well, I was thinking it might be A.A. or L.N. Oh, they meet here later tonight. I said, thank you. You know, we know where we are.
You know, you can see those people out there, you know. Now, I have, like I say, lots of good memories. But I'll tell you, about eight years ago, I got into this frenzy about having to have a computer. I don't know how many of y'all ever had a computer. But someone told me I needed one and that's all it takes, you know. And I'm going, but what kind do I need? You know, what does it need to be? What's it supposed to do?
I don't know anything. I don't even know what rim-ram-rum is. I just don't know what any of this is. So I was talking to my sponsor about it. And she said, well, why don't you start you a fund. And then, you know, by the time maybe you get your money together, you'll know. So in August, I started a fund. By December, I had $30, $40 in the fund. What can I say? And so I went over to this house. This girl I sponsor, her boyfriend was an attorney.
And I was real irritated when I got to his house because here it was in January. And he still had his Christmas tree up. And he said that his mother had decorated it. And he's 40 years old. You know, I'm going, he needs help. Anyway, so I got thinking, I bet his mother is one of us. It sounds like something we'd do, go decorate our 40-year-old son's Christmas tree. But he says, there's a package under the tree and it's for you.
And I said, for me? You've got to be kidding. There's a package for me? And he said, yeah. And I opened it up and it was a keyboard. And I said, hot damn, it's like an Anna Pearl necklace, you know. And I said, excuse me, is this IBM compatible? See, that's a buzz phrase. I'd heard that. And he said, it's an IBM. Oh. See, you've got to think about that one for a minute. And then I said, well, that's it.
He said, no, no, no. And what it is, he had updated his stuff at the office. And he gave me an IBM printer, the computer, the whole nine yards. I mean, I had the color, everything. You know, here I am, you know. And I'm going, gosh, I don't have a clue. And there was a girl there that worked for a computer company and she came over to the house and she set it up for me. And they put WordPerfect on it and anything I wanted and showed me how to use it.
And I just went crazy, you know. And it was just a little 286, but, God, it was wonderful to me because if you've never had anything, you know. And then last year, not last year, year before last, now, I got this, it's not enough syndrome. Everybody's on the Internet. I can only dream of the Internet. I could not put windows on my machine. It didn't have enough hard drive, you know, so I didn't know how to do anything on that.
And so I prayed about it and I talked to people about it and I prayed. And I told J.D., I said, that's what I want for Christmas. I want a computer. And he said, well, so get you one. And I said, but, J.D., it's so expensive. He said, but that's what you want. Go get you one. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid. But I finally make my decision. I say, okay, this is what I'm going to get. I prayed about it. This is what I'm going to get.
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If you don't tell me something different tomorrow morning, I'm going to go get.
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Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. And this man says, hello, is this Mary Pearl? And I said, yes, it is. And he said, this is Santa Claus. And I said, really? And he said, yeah. He said, I live in South Dakota. And I said, I thought you lived in North Pole. Because I thought it was somebody putting me on, you know. And he said, no. He says, I live here at Gateway in South Dakota. And he said, some of the elves love you very much and are having you a computer built here at Gateway.
And it won't be there right at Christmas, but you'll get it later. And just wanted you to know. And I said, you can't imagine. I was going to go buy one tomorrow. He said, that's what they were afraid of. And he said, that's the reason they had me call. And I said, well, who are the elves? And he said, they prefer to remain anonymous. So I sit there and I thought, well, maybe I have one. Maybe I don't have one.
Well, probably I do. Why would he call? You know, all those kind of things. And so I said, okay, I won't buy it. So I kept waiting. Now, the 15th of January is my program birthday. And so on my 20th birthday, Gateway arrived. And I had this Gateway. And like I say, I've got a real nice one. I was looking at all these things. I'm saying, I've got to have at least, you know, 8X CD-ROM. I'll have a 12X CD-ROM.
And I've got this big color printer and computer and screen. And it's got every program known to man on it, you know. And it's just like flip-flip over the Internet. It's just crazy, you know. And I'm saying, but how am I going to learn how to do this? Well, one of the guys that I sponsor, he sent the head of his computer department over to my house for two days to teach me how to use my computer. And he's real mean.
He won't let you write anything down, you know. He just says, here's how you do it. And you go, you don't know. I'm old. I know. He said, I learned more in the last year than I knew in the 8 years before. I'm serious to tell you. And it was so neat because every once in a while somebody will call and say, well, this is, I don't know how to do this. And I'll say, oh, well, if you double-click on this and if you do this.
And it's like, I didn't even know how to do that. You know what I mean? I didn't know I knew it until you have to do it kind of thing. And so that was really neat. And it was really neat. One of the girls says, well, aren't you going to try and find out who did it? And I said, and ruin it? I said, the thing about it is, you know, it says just for today do something good and don't get found out. If you get found out, it doesn't count.
I don't want somebody not to have that count. You know, I don't want somebody not to have that count. You know, I'm my most comfortable when I'm with y'all, you know, because I can be me with y'all. And the thing of it is, gradually over the years, I've learned to be me out there. I don't have to protect me from them anymore. I can take what I learned in here and take it out there, and I don't have to be afraid out there.
Because what can they do to me that y'all, with God's help, can't take care of? You know, I can be me. I'm not fearful anymore. I don't have those limitations on my life. And I wouldn't have had that. You know, my life is so full. I have been able to go up to Toronto every year for the last several years, and I get to do something up there every year. And it's real funny because this guy that I sponsor up there, he always says, Don't you want to do something different?
I say, No, no, no. If it works, don't fix it. I go see the Phantom of the Opera at the Fantagious Theatre up there in Toronto. And there's not a, you know, there's a Fantagious Theatre in California. And if you've never seen the theatre, it's worth going if you just sat there and didn't see anything. The theatre is an old theatre, but it is one of those really fantastic, gorgeous things with the murals.
It's just gorgeous. And I got to sit right there in the orchestra section at the Phantom of the Opera. You know, it's the most wonderful thing because, see, I love music. I just love it. And I could sit there, and the music, it just makes it. And I start crying when it starts, you know, because I know how it's going to end. You know, it's a tragedy, but, God, I love it, you know. And then another thing, I like to go to this other girl's house up there because she lives way out in the country.
And I discovered something wonderful about living out in the country. She has a swimming pool. I can skinny dip. We go out at night, and under the stars with the airplanes going over, we skinny dip. Did you know, now you guys wouldn't know this, but ladies, your boobs float. I found skin that I never knew existed. It's so fun out there, you know. And the freedom to do that, you know. And then I went to Washington, D.C., something that I always wanted to do.
And I went, and one of the girls that I sponsor in Virginia called me, and we went to Washington together. And I got to go to the National Art Gallery. And, see, I love to paint. And I went there, and they were having a Whistler's exhibit.
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It was the largest collection of Whistler's work ever. It was the largest collection of Whistler's work ever. And I got to see it. I got, you know, you can touch it. It's just absolutely fabulous. And Monet is my favorite of all. And I got to see originals, you know. It's like, oh, my God, I've died and gone to heaven. I can't believe it. And then after we left the art gallery, I went to see the Vietnam Memorial.
Now, my ex-husband was over in Vietnam for a while. And to my knowledge, I don't know anybody on the wall because, like I say, my brother was killed in Korea. And so I didn't have anyone close that was in the Vietnam thing that I'm aware of. And so I'm out there, and I'm looking at the wall. But I don't know how many of you all have seen this wall, but there's something very, very touching about that.
And you see all these people coming, and they're touching those things. And they're taking the rubbings of the name off the wall. And you see grown men crying and what have you. And it's just a really moving experience. But I had a sense of there's something to do here at the wall. And I was talking to the girl I was with, and I said, I know somebody who's on the wall. Now, there's a girl named Martha C., and she's from Virginia Beach.
And her son is one of the missing in action. And his name is on the wall. And I said, I'm going to get a rubbing for Martha of her son's name. That's why I'm here. And the girl I was with said, okay. So we went over, and you look their name up in this big book. And he was at the tippy top of a real tall part of the wall. And you can't reach it. And I'm standing there, and then all of a sudden, here's this older fellow coming along with a ladder.
And he said he's a World War II veteran. And he said that he works there all the time. He donates his time. He's not paid. But he comes every day with his ladder, and he helps people get names off the top of the wall. And so I gave him the piece of paper, and I said his name is John Consalvo. It's up there on the top. And so he went up there, and he got that. And I sent it to his mom when I got back home.
Now, that wasn't a big deal. But what happened was, I mean, it was so touching inside. You know, it's like when you see the names and how many of them they are, how many of them they are, to have lost that many people. It's just horrifying. And so when I sent it to his mom, his mom sent me a letter back. And she said he has two children, and I've been making a scrapbook. And she said it's so painful.
She only had one name, and she needed the other name. You know, I did what I felt like I was supposed to do. And so now his son has the name that I got that day. And that means something to me. It's like I know John because I know his mom. See, that's the big family we are. You know, you know them so that you know the other. And then we went, one time I was out in Colorado and going through the Loveland Pass.
And all of a sudden, we came into a herd of the bighorn sheep. A herd of them, you know, just right out there by the road. Those are great, big, curly, pretty sheep. You know, it's like, God, I can't believe such things happen here. You know, I am so lucky. I am so blessed. I am so blessed. And then last summer, I got to take a couple of my pigeons, something they'd always wanted to do. And we went to see Elvis's Graceland.
Now, I wasn't high on my list, but you know something? I enjoyed seeing them enjoy. And isn't that what love is all about? Whether you care anything about that, you love seeing them enjoy. And God, they were just like two little kids. You know, it was so neat. I would have missed all that if I hadn't had you and I hadn't had those steps that made me change my life so that I could enjoy life and so I could be happy, joyous, and free.
You do the deal. You can be there, too. And surely, you'll meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. Thank you. Thank you.