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- Herausgeber: DISCUS Publishing
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Autobiography of an Extraterrestrial: Experiences and Mastership of Unconditional Love lived on Earth Angels Dont Cry is the stunning sequel to Omnec Onecs autobiography FROM VENUS I CAME. This book is about the earthly life of the Venusian, who came to Earth from the astral Venus as a child and who grew up in the USA. Difficult family circumstances, constant changes of location and a spiritually unawakened environment presented very challenging conditions for the conscious child from Venus. The telepathic and sometimes physical contact with her friends and relatives from Venus as well as the awareness of her mission gave Omnec the strength to endure this life and to master it in love. Further rays of hope were her encounters with Indians, who recognized in her the prophesied Great White Hope, and in later years the re-encounter with her spiritual teachings through Paul Twitchell, who recognized her from an astral journey to Venus. Slowly, Omnecs way to the public was paved and the fulfillment of her mission as an Ambassador of Venus took hold with the publication of her life story by Lt. Col. Ret. Wendelle C. Stevens.The title, Angels Dont Cry, comes from a childhood anecdote.
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Angels Don’t Cry
Omnec Onec
Copyright © 2023 DISCUS Publishing, Anja Schäfer
This publication is the only authorized version from Omnec Onec.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book, text as well as illustrations, may be reproduced or translated into any language or utilized in any forms or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including social media, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission by the author and the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
For permission requests send an email to [email protected].
Publisher’s Website: https://discuspublishing.com
Cover Design: Peter Holle
Layout: Anja Schäfer
ISBN: 978-3-910804-10-4
Omnec Onec
Angels Don’t Cry
Autobiography
Introduction
We all make mistakes, so that we can learn from them. Likewise, we have to learn to accept our negative parts and problems, to laugh about ourselves, to believe in the positive and good and to focus our whole attention on it. We may never forget that our imagination is the key to creation.
In the first part of my autobiography with the title “From Venus I Came” I have described my life on the astral level on the planet Venus. This now is the personal account and description of my life on Planet Earth – a very strong contrast to my life of peace and beauty on Venus. I had been told by Uncle Odin and Aunt Arena that some Earth people believed Venusians to be angels.
Three years after my arrival, when I was only ten Earth years old, I was chosen to play an angel in the school Christmas play. My grandmother was a Christian and seemed to know a lot about angels and the human concept of heaven. She told I me all she had read about them including the wings and the halo. She seemed amused at my interest. I sat on the floor while she read from the bible where the angels appeared to the shepherds.
When I asked her, “Grandma, do angels cry?” she looked up in surprise and said: “No, I don’t believe they do. It seems to be their work to protect people from pain and suffering. So they sort of dry people’s tears.” – “Grandma”, I said, “do you think it is okay for me to be an angel because I do cry?” She hugged me laughing and replied: “You will always be my angel if you cry or not, because I know you only cry if you have to or for others.”
I continued my tearful journey here on Earth, learning about emotions unknown to me such as fear, anger, and aggression. And at the worst times, I always told myself in a whisper: “Angels don’t cry, Angels don’t cry.”
In reading this story of my life, it may seem unreal how one major experience or crisis follows another, day after day. It often seemed to me that I was given a rest only long enough to catch my breath, and yet another crisis would unfold, often leaving my mind reeling and my emotions topsyturvy.
This is what the Masters in Retz on Venus meant when they explained to me, that due to this being my last incarnation in the Physical, to expect a heavy load of Karma because of the choice I made to take Sheila’s suffering. I as Soul had created certain conditions which were difficult for my own experiences which would prepare me to my future mission here on Earth. They assured me that good will come from all the bad experiences and that in the future I would understand.
Many years later, I saw that what they explained was true. Many people on Earth have suffered as I have, and because of my suffering, they will be able to relate to me as a human being rather than an alien. Perhaps even inspired to accept and learn better to cope with their own difficulties. We all have our special angels to guide and protect us and even some physically here on Earth, disguised as friends who are there to comfort us and help us dry our tears and heal our wounds.
To all my special angels here – THANK YOU!
Amual Abactu Baraka Bashad
(May the Universal Love and Blessings be)
Omnec Onec
What happened so far
Summary of From Venus I Came – Autobiography Part 1
In the first part of Omnec’s life story, “From Venus I Came,” the author describes her first years on her home planet of Venus, and more specifically, its astral plane.
After its atmosphere was destroyed thousands of years ago by environmental catastrophes and Venus became uninhabitable, the Venusians crossed over into the astral dimension of being, which may seem to us like a fairy tale land. Within the higher astral plane, the power of thought alone can manifest things out of nothing, and its inhabitants can teleport from one place to another. In addition, the Venusian people usually live many hundreds of years.
Omnec’s Venusian mother Shawik-Echo Lei died in childbirth, and her grief-stricken father Deashar was incapable of caring for the child. Deashar placed Omnec into the care of Arena, the sister of his deceased wife, and her husband Odin, with whom the young girl grew up and spent her early, carefree years. In Teutonia, a cultural center on Venus, Omnec made visits to the temples of knowledge, and was initiated by Odin and Arena into the laws of the Supreme Deity.
After her pilgrimage to the city of Retz, a spiritual master explained to young Omnec that she had been chosen by the Council of the Brotherhood of Planets for an important mission. He explained to her that she would take on a physical body, travel to planet Earth, and grow up there in an earthly family. The goal of her mission would be to gain first-hand insight into all shades of Earthly life. Her mission would better enable the Venusians, who had been involved in colonizing Earth aeons ago, to better understand their brothers and sisters of Earth, and thus help them to spiritually improve and transform their society. As well, Omnec’s mission would include enlightening Earth’s people about their true origins and history, so that they could better mature and eventually be ready to be accepted into the Brotherhood of Planets, an association of spiritually advanced inhabitants of our solar system. In carrying out her mission Omnec would gain the opportunity to dissolve her own karmic entanglements created in her previous incarnations on earth.
The spiritual master explained to Omnec that it was entirely her decision whether or not to accept this assignment. Curious as she was, Omnec chose to enter into this adventure, and her assigned teacher Vonic intensively prepared her for her new life on Earth.
When the time came, Omnec returned to Retz, a city which exists not only on the astral plane, but also under a climatic dome on the physically hot surface of Venus. Retz serves as a gateway into different dimensions, and here young Omnec received a physical body through a modification in her vibration, after which, accompanied by her uncle Odin, she traveled in a large spaceship to Earth.
The Venusian spacecraft landed in a hidden valley in Kashmir. In Agam Des, “the largest spiritual city on planet Earth,” she first spent one year in a Tibetan monastery. For centuries, space travelers have landed here to adjust to Earth’s coarser vibrations. There, Omnec laboriously learned to move in a physical body, and how to nourish and care for it.
After this year of adjustment, she traveled in a smaller spaceship with her uncle and a companion to the United States, where they landed in the Nevada desert. A contact awaited them there, and he transported their small group in a car to their destination in Arkansas called Little Rock. Upon their arrival, Odin, Omnec and the companion waited in the bushes for a coach. Inside the coach, a seven-year-old Earth girl named Sheila Gipson was riding from her mother’s home to her grandmother in Tennessee, with whom she would be living permanently. The spiritual masters on Venus had foreseen that this bus would have an accident and that little Sheila would die. The spiritual masters also recognized that Omnec was closely connected with Sheila through multiple common past-life incarnations. So it was that Omnec had been prepared by the Venusians to look like Sheila, dress like her on the day of the foreseen event, and to be ready to take young Sheila’s place upon her foreordained death.
The accident occurred as foreseen, and unnoticed by the other bus passengers, Omnec was exchanged for the dead Sheila, who, to the earthlings, never appeared to die. On schedule, she arrived in Chattanooga at the grandmother’s house, who never recognized the exchange of the two similarily-looking children because she had not seen her grandchild in several years. Having learned from her teacher Vonic all the relevant details about Sheila’s life on Venus, such as the names of her closest relatives, and appearing nearly identical to the deceased Sheila, Omnec easily fit into her new family. However, the comparatively primitive life on Earth, and especially the racial prejudices of the Southerners caused her considerable interior suffering.
Despite those circumstances, Omnec, now as Sheila, lived a largely carefree and sheltered life in Tennessee thanks to the loving care of her grandmother. However, she longed to be with her earthly “mother“ Donna, to whom she felt an inexplicably strong attraction. Unfortunately, those visits were rare. Donna, who was only fifteen years old when Sheila was born, was leading an unsteady life with a man named C.L. and both were constantly on the move. Finally, Omnec’s longing was satisfied when she was invited by Donna to visit her on Sanibel Island in Florida, where she worked with C.L. as the manager of a vacation village.
Chapter 1 – Living with a Dictator
It was a warm June day in 1962 when I climbed aboard the bus bound for Florida. I entered my life here on Earth on a bus and now it was once again one of these grey buses that should take me to my mother. I was excited and looking forward to seeing her again. What would we experience together?
I reflected back as we left the city limits of Chattanooga. My life with my grandmother in Chattanooga was exciting and sometimes disturbing. I learned countless things about life on Earth. Now I was looking forward to new experiences in a different part of the country. It was not the beautiful lush green mountains and scenery that I was glad to leave but the level of consciousness of the area. The limited view of the people caused by their Christian faith and prejudices was very often confusing to me. I remembered one incident in particular:
It was one of the rare cold winters in Chattanooga when we had ice and snow. We had services at the church we went to three times a week. It was a Monday night and we were on our way to prayer meeting. We were walking with a group of people. I was one of the few young children going to these services.
There was a family of black people that lived across the street on the corner from the church. Coming closer we could see smoke and flames, and in the distance was the sound of fire truck sirens approaching. I began to run when I saw that it was the house of the black family that was on fire.
When I got there I could see the lady running out of the house carrying a bundle in her arms and shouting for help. She laid a small child on the snow-covered ground wrapped only in a diaper! She ran back inside to get more of her children or belongings
I have seen all these people standing there, not helping, just watching her panic and the baby crying. I ran into the yard, got onto my knees and picked up the child of about three months old. I opened my coat and put the baby inside and stood up holding it against my body to keep it warm.
Soon grandma was by my side, then we heard voices from the crowd of people: “What do you think you are doing? That is a nigger baby! What are you? A nigger lover?!”
I started to cry: “Grandma, why are they angry at me? We cannot let this little baby freeze and be scared! They are supposed to be Christians!”
Then the black lady came and took the baby out of my arms and I was shuffled off to the church for services.
I remembered many occasions just like this one. It wasn’t my grandmother, she had taught me to love and care for people. She never dwelled on race. She had much love and compassion and was gentle and kind to everyone.
She was born to a well-known family. There is even a street named after them. She was married to a man of Irish-English descent who worked at a coal-mine. When he died of the black lung and left her with eleven children and the family lost all their money after the war, she had to go to work. She did housework for a black doctor’s family during the depression. This was very unusual at that time and she was always thankful to them.
I would miss her, she was the one who cared and loved me here. She was my protection. I really felt bad about leaving her. Still I was looking forward to seeing more about Earth. I was convinced that people in different areas had to feel differently about life and themselves.
As I looked out the bus window I could see palm trees: Florida – it was very flat and sunny!
When we arrived in Fort Myers, I looked for Donna but didn’t see her. Suddenly a tall man in a hat walked over and called “Sheila?” I stood there looking at C.L’s smiling face. He was about 6 feet tall, hazel eyes, dark hair and a mustache. My heart sank, I really was hoping she would come. He took my suitcase and I followed him to the car. He scared me.
“Where’s Mommy?” I asked timidly. “Oh, she’s on the island. We have to take the ferry over,” he replied. “A ferry!” I exclaimed. For a moment I forgot my fear. It would be my first boat ride ever.
The ferry trip to Sanibel Island was as lovely and exciting as I imagined. On the horizon was a strip of green, barely visible as I craned my neck over the side. What gorgeous sights greeted us as we docked and began our drive through the lush jungle! Most of the island was a tropical wilderness of palm trees, palmetto grass, skunk cabbage, and oh so many wild-looking plants. Flamingos and wild rabbits seemed to be everywhere. It was paradise.
Leaving the main road, we soon came upon a cluster of cottages set upon wooden stilts. All around were miniature orange bushes. The ocean sounded very close. “This is the Sandcastles Resort”, C.L. announced. He stopped the car in a small clearing, just ahead of the resort office.
Seconds later the door burst open and a beautiful woman in shorts ran toward us. Donna! Her long curly blond hair swinging and bouncing. It was all the way to her waist! Her skin was a deep, rich brown, and she looked so full of vigor, so alive. She threw her arms around me, just about squeezed me to death. It was so wonderful to see her again.
She was done with work every day at four, she told me happily. Then she was free to do anything, go swimming in the resort’s pool, or perhaps walk the beach collecting shells. Sanibel Island was famous for the many varieties of sea shells that washed up on the shores.
The beach was fantastic! Sandpipers were running up and down, jumping as the waves came in. All of this, the roar of the sea, the salty crisp breeze, the thousands of purple, yellow, and pink coquina shells looking like butterflies took my thoughts back to Tythania’s shores and the times I sat, with buried toes, just staring out to sea. It reminded me of the life I left behind that night we landed in the Nevada desert.
I waded out into the water, splashing with my feet as the waves came in, enjoying the afternoon sun. A beautiful multicolored flower came floating along and I moved to pick it up from underneath. Mom’s screams rang in my ears. I froze. She dashed over and grabbed my hand, a look of terror in her eyes. That beautiful floating thing was not a flower – it was a deadly jellyfish!
Mom pointed to the left. What a sight! Hundreds of flamingoes flocked on a distant sandbar. They were just too beautiful for words, like a pink cloud when a whole bunch flew off. Here was the flamingoes’ mating place. It was very uncommon, Mom said, to see them like this. They always choose out-of-the-way places to mate.
The sun was beginning to set, and my mother motioned for us to go. “We’ve got to hurry because the mosquitoes come out, and they’re really bad around here.”
Our cottage turned out to be way back in the woods. As soon as we drove up, I was warned to run as fast as I could into the house. Otherwise the mosquitoes would eat me alive. I was certain Mom was exaggerating. Sure enough, moments after I got out of the car my arm was black, and I mean black. It was frightening because the air was filled with clouds of them, and they covered my face and all the exposed parts of my body. There was nothing I could do but wipe them off by the handful.
For dinner we ate shrimp boiled in beer. I wasn’t sure whether I would like them because I never tasted shrimp, and I surely never heard of boiling them in beer. But I loved them! They tasted like out of this world. Shrimp boiled in beer are among my favorite foods ever since. Going to sleep listening to all the night sounds, all the creatures in the jungle making noises, was a new and strange experience.
The next day, Mom walked over to a large box and called me over to see something. “What is it?” – “It’s my art. See, I have been collecting seashells and I make pictures of some and others are rare because they come down the gulf from other countries, these I save.”
She showed me a completed picture. She would glue a piece of plywood to the back of a wooden frame, then paint the frame and background black. She would arrange sand glued along the bottom to form a beach scene, then glue seaweed that she dried in different places making plants, then colorful seashells were glued in the place, little coquino shells were arranged like butterflies. They were simply beautiful and many tourists bought them.
She showed me a book on seashells and I learned the name of various shells. I loved to be together with her. We were enjoying making art till C.L. came noisily back – yelling and obviously drunk. We hurriedly put everything away.
One night at full moon we went out to find seashells. That night the tide would go out away from the island, exposing miles of the ocean floor that was usually under water. It was amazing. It was a breathtaking experience and strangely quiet as we walked into the moonlight. All you could hear was Mom and I laughing and talking. Mom and I walked out onto the exposed sand – it was alive with shells, you could feel them wriggling under your feet. We scooped up all we could into our bucket and carried them back.
C.L. had waited in the office drinking, of course. He did not have the enthusiasm for shell gathering and collecting that we had. He was impatient and drunk. “It’s about time”, he bellowed. “Let’s go out of here.” Mom said we would clean the shells tomorrow. C.L. had a violent temper and had on occasion hit Mom.
The next morning Mom and I took a water hose and rinsed the sand off the shells over a screen, then put the washed shells into another bucket. Mom explained to me that we had to boil all the shells to retain their sheen and remove the dead sea creatures – they look like snails or crabs. We had some beautiful and rare ones! We also had Sanddollars. These were very popular among the tourists. When they are first caught, Sanddollars are not as white and glossy as tourists see them. They are really brown and funny-looking until soaked alive in bleach. Soaking them alive in bleach – I thought that was horrible. How could people do such a cruel thing.
I was invited to many social events on the island – dances and parties with other young people whose parents managed other places. I was never allowed to go. C.L. was a very possessive man. I was afraid of him and avoided being alone with him. He had tried to force me to drink many times.
I really loved Sanibel Island and found it peaceful and educational. There was so much to see and learn. Once I was swimming out into the ocean and saw two fins coming toward me. I screamed and started swimming frantically toward shore. Mom was there and she was laughing. I was saying “help, it’s a shark!” – “No”, she said, “calm down, those are dolphins. When I first saw them, I was scared, too.” I looked behind me and saw them jumping in and out of the waves. I loved swimming. In no time at all I learned to swim from one end of the pool to the other. Doing ballet under water was more of a challenge, but it was more fun, too. Swimming in the ocean was no fun. The salty water smelled good, but it burned my eyes and tasted terrible. Most of the time I sat on the beach and stared out to sea, thinking about my new life. Being on Sanibel Island, I appreciated my life on Earth more and more.
As the days passed, my mother and I grew to be close friends. Before, when she visited me in Tennessee, I saw her only two or three days at a time. Now I was with her every day. I could easily have stayed on Sanibel Island for the rest of my life. I wrote Grandma and all the folks back home how wonderful it was.
Even though C.L. wouldn’t let me go to the parties, I had plenty of friends. I met and played with the children who came to the resort with their parents.
But as the weeks went by, C.L. became less and less kind. Mom and he were on the road to their old ways again, drinking and fighting. They told me I wasn’t going back home to my grandmother. Then Mom and C.L. had a big argument about my going back to school in the fall. C.L. won. He wasn’t “going to pay for no brat to go to school.”
I wrote Grandma about all this. Her answer was not what I expected: “I won’t force you to come back, Sheila, because I know how much you love your mother, even though I have custody of you until you’re eighteen.” And that was that!
We stayed on Sanibel until mid-August. It was near my 15th birthday when I found out we were leaving, it was a sudden decision of C.L. based on the fact that a lot of money had come in for reservations for fall. C.L. was tempted by all the money and instead of depositing it as he usually did he kept it. Everything valuable he stole. I watched in amazement as C.L. crammed the car full of coins and pop from the vending machines, a typewriter and the two-way marine radio, all of the cash from reservations and payments, and assorted goodies. Now I saw for myself how C.L. did his dirty work. I was shocked, there was no warning, just pack and let’s go!
I ran down to the beach. There was a beautiful sunset. This is how I want to remember this beautiful place I thought. Because there had been talk of a bridge being built from Fort Myers to Sanibel – then I knew big hotels, paved roads and lots of changes would make this a popular rather than a quiet close to nature island.
I heard Mom calling me and turned away from my last glimpse of paradise and all the beautiful living things. I had grown to love these past three months. I sadly walked back to where the car was parked – it was packed full. I had to ride in the front with Mom and C.L. Fortunately they had also packed our trunk full of shells. It was getting dark as we headed for the cottage to get our clothes and to wait for daylight and the first ferry. C.L. wanted to be across the state line as soon as possible since he was stealing everything he could. He said we were going to Mexico. It was the 15th of August and as I rode miles down the road. I thought, where will I be in five days on my birthday? I wished I had known we were leaving, then I could have written Grandma or called her. Even though my life with her had been boring it had been secure. By all means I had to try to keep in touch with her. So here I am, starting a new episode in my life. First Mom showed me how to mix drinks. She was sitting between me and C.L. who was speeding as always. The vodka was on the floor on my side of the car with some lime and grapefruit soda. I liked the soda but not the vodka.
Well, here I am mixing drinks as we drive down a highway toward Mexico. What a life! It certainly wasn’t boring.
I closed my eyes to reflect on the place we had just left, the only place close to paradise on Earth since I left Venus. But even Sanibel could not compare with it. Life on Venus seemed only a beautiful dream.
I always wanted to remember Sanibel Island with its soft white warm sand, palm trees waving in the warm balmy wind. The sound of the ocean, peaceful yet powerful. The jungle foliage in the background. The sandpipers chasing the waves – running out and in with them. Sometimes dolphins’ cries mixed with seagulls’. The hot sun – softly warming the body and turning it golden brown. How the moon made a silver path across the ocean that I dreamed of dancing on in my astral or Soul body. The sun rises turning the water pink and gold.
Even storms were wonderful – the ocean becoming dark blue and grey. How you could see the rain in the distance as it approached your area. Falling in blue grey swirls from the dark thunder clouds toward the earth. Thunder rolling off, then becoming louder, lightning playing across the heavens, creating a special-effect for those who watched! Raindrops falling back into the ocean from were it came. Each drop making small circles running into one another, almost looking like drops of silver and jewels from above. The wind which had increased made the water look rough and foreboding.
I loved the calmness, as the dark clouds blew away and the sun once again dominated the sky over the island, color once again becoming aquamarine blue. Water dripping off the trees sparkling like so many jewels decorating the plants. How quickly the sand absorbed the moisture as once again everything took on a certain clearness. The rain had washed away the dust and haze, returning my paradise to new beauty and wonder…
I was jolted back to reality by the halting of the car! We had arrived in Mexico. Only a few days later we went back to Florida. We rented a bungalow just across the backyard from C.L.’s mother. None of C.L.’s family really cared for him. Leslie, C.L.’s daughter, couldn’t stand him. She mentioned to Mom that she didn’t trust C.L. around her four little girls, and most of the family knew that Leslie’s mother lost a child because of C.L.’s beatings.
I began to see more and more of the mean side of C.L. Why he had such a terrible temper I didn’t know; but I remembered that his own mother believed he was possessed by a demon.
C.L. was a dictator, a very domineering person. I was afraid of him, always nervous in his presence. Everything had to be done his way, and violence was his favorite sport. If Mom and I didn’t eat when he wanted us to, and what he wanted us to, he would hit the both of us. If the food wasn’t cooked the way he liked it, regardless of what we liked, C.L. would be furious. When I asked for ketchup for a hotdog, C.L. screamed: “I don’t eat ketchup on my hotdog, nobody else eats ketchup on their hotdogs ... only a fool eats ketchup on their hotdog!” On another occasion, Mom got up from the table to go to the washroom,
C.L. promptly beat her on the head for not asking permission.
So there were many days when Mom and I sat on the porch hoping C.L. wouldn’t come home. Later, when we lived out West and C.L. was in the contracting business, we hoped he would fall off a scaffold and break his neck. That’s how bad it was to have him around.
C.L. hated music, except of course when he himself was singing. And he hated radios, too. Mom and I enjoyed sitting up at night, talking and listening to country western music. Usually he went to bed early and was sound asleep before we dared turn it on. But for C.L., quiet was not quiet enough. “Shut the God-damned radio off!” his voice would boom from the bedroom. Living with C.L. was like being in a prisoner-of-war camp. In ways it was worse.
Uncle Odin once said that a person who doesn’t like music is certainly being controlled by the negative forces. C.L. had no interests in culture. His only loves were money and liquor.
Logic was one gift C.L. had more than enough of. Because he could make me understand his way of thinking if he had to beat it into me, I learned a great deal from him. I learned how to be logical and practical whenever I needed to be that way.
C.L. punished himself for the loss of his child. He raved about how he had beaten his wife, his pregnant wife, and that the baby was later born without a kidney. Yes, C.L. was mean. But he did have a mental problem and a drinking problem. There were times when he did show his nicer side, but his mood changed drastically from one moment to the next. I could never tell how he would treat us, whether he would be nasty or kind.
C.L.’s bad health came from his drinking, especially the liver sores on his hands. And there was always a newspaper on or near his bed for him to spit on.
I felt sorry for the man as much as I disliked him. C.L. was himself suffering inside, for all the mean things he had done in life. I knew he felt guilty about many many things, and I am sure they will haunt him for a long time to come.
One day, C.L. declared that it was time to do conventional work again, and his new job was at his brother-in-law’s produce company. I wasn’t sure what he had in mind when he brought home a huge barrel of crushed and moldy fruit. The next day, when there were more grapes, bananas, and oranges, I knew: C.L. was going into the moon-shining business, and Mom and I were his first two (unpaid) employees.
We spent our days slashing and stamping around in a huge foot tub in the living room, squishing the grapes, bananas, oranges, and who knows what else with our bare feet. I can’t say we didn’t have a hilarious time, Mom and I, dancing around and laughing, and feeling the grapes popping between our toes.
Every day C.L. came home with more fruit, and five pound bags of sugar. Our first problem was with the neighbors; they kept getting a sniff of our fruit. The barrel sat covered with a sheet on the back porch. They assumed we were making preserves, and C.L. readily agreed. The day C.L.’s mother visited us and sniffed her way to the back porch, I could see he was worried. But she too was naive enough to believe the fruit-canning story.
Our wine turned out delicious! One whole day Mom and I sat out on the porch straining the brew into gallon jugs. We carefully lined the funnel with a cloth and poured the well-fermented goop through. Then we had to squeeze the cloth, together with the squishy fruit inside.
C.L. came home and was pleased with our accomplishments. The next day he sold the wine to his fellow workers at the produce company, and this went on for some time. C.L.’s next idea was to drive around the town picking up cases of empty bottles from the bars. Soon we had a whole business going, of Mom and I sitting all day straining the stuff into all sorts of little bottles, and C.L. going out to collect the money. It was full-fledged boot-legging.
Not satisfied with his scope of operations, C.L. began selling by the case. Late at night C.L. would set a case or two out by the mailbox. Early in the morning one of C.L.’s select customers would arrive with the money, stuff it in the mailbox, and pick up a case.
The straining kept us busy for hours and hours, day after day. Never once did we finish our work sober, because of the fumes, and one day it was so bad we couldn’t even talk straight. Just then the landlady stopped by to say hello. By the time C.L. came home, Mom and the landlady were stretched out on the living room floor. C.L. laughed. But when the landlady went home, C.L. unleashed his fury. Mom went to bed with yet another beating behind her.
Our business ended as abruptly as it began. The Tampa police somehow got wind of it and came cruising by one day early in the morning. Peeping out the front window we saw the squad car slowing down right by the mailbox, where our case of wine was sitting.
We were terrified! As soon as they were out of sight, C.L. ran out, grabbed that case, and dashed into the backyard. Minutes later we were busy digging a hole. In went the last of our brew from the barrels, and all of the wine Mom and I spent so much time straining. There was so much wine in the hole that the dirt was just floating on top. And did it smell! For days the fumes were like a cloud in our backyard. Willie the Worm, our landlord’s sausage dog almost drowned in that hole. The poor little thing waddled around our yard drunk for days.
