We already know we don’t follow the same calendar as you folks do so don’t let that trouble you. I think I have just about got the handle on this NEWS blockade. You see, I am an addicted news junkie. Every hour or so it seems I am checking MSN, FOX, CBS, to see what the latest events are being churned out at an ever increasing speed. And if you want to quit a bad habit you have to cut it off at its head. That’s the way I quit smoking, In one weekend, cold turkey. I haven’t looked back. Same thing with drinking, it wasn’t like I was addicted and believe me in the past I have put away some liquor, maybe it was a bad habit or nothing, its just a waste of money.

Some of the benefits of banning the news is that you are not cluttering your mind with murder and mayhem, nor are you listening to infuriating politicians lying to you constantly evoking rage within you. Doom and gloom is not deterring you from going out of your house in fear for your life. Even the weather and traffic can have deleterious effects on your well being. So in a very real sense it is freeing to rid yourself of the junk coming into your life.

There are some other things I am going to look at this year but they are not like I MUST do them. If I do, I do, if I don’t, so be it.

ANNIVERSARIES: On January 13th, 1978 (Friday) I will be acknowledging 45 years since I left the Federal Prison system and at the same time entering a new life at Reba Place Fellowship.

On April 12th, (1980) Mary and I will celebrate our 43 Wedding Anniversary.

March 1, 1978. I moved into God’s Promises household, where I would live for 4 months.

September 1, 1978 I would move into the Sherman/Madison Bldg. where I still live today.

I once spoke to a class of prospective lawyers at DePaul University about prisons and what not, and also what I had been doing since my release, when an attentive student raised his hand and said. “WAIT A MINUTE?” “On the one hand you have told us how you lived this life of crime and prison and on the other hand what you are doing since you left prison. {And using his hands to demonstrate, one to another} “How did you get from this hand (prison life) to this hand. (A life of freedom) Therein lies the crux of the story. How did I?