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MAGIC CARPET RIDE:
THE LOST YEARS
CHAPTER ONE:
THE LOST YEARS
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Written by Rick
Archer
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Rick
Archer's Note:
My three
books (or five if you prefer; Magic Carpet
Ride is a Trilogy) present a case for the
existence of Fate based on an collection
of highly unusual events in my life.
A
Simple Act of Kindness covers the immense
problems I faced throughout childhood, high school,
college, and graduate school. In particular, I
explain how the kindness of several key
individuals enabled me to deal with the serious
emotional handicaps caused by my tough childhood.
This book tells the story of 34 Suspected
Supernatural Events, some of which are flat-out
unbelievable. After reading these
stories, my Readers will have no trouble
understanding why I became interested in Fate.
Magic Carpet Ride is a Trilogy that covers a ten year span
(1974-1984) in which series of uncanny lucky
breaks created SSQQ, the dance studio
which became my life work. 'Suspected'
Supernatural Events 35-98 made my belief in Fate become unshakeable.
MCR:
The Lost Years, covers a three year period in
which I prepare for my upcoming dance career.
However, the Universe throws me a curveball. I am
kept totally blindfolded.
MCR:
The Disco Era, covers the three
year period where I begin my dance career.
MCR:
The Western Era, covers the three
year period where I create the largest dance studio in
Houston, Texas, my hometown.
Gypsy Prophecy tells the
fascinating story of why I believe my 2004 marriage to
my wife Marla
was predestined.
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The Magic Carpet Ride covers the curious
events that led to the creation of the largest independent
dance studio in America. At the start of this story, I
have hit Rock Bottom. I am a complete failure in love and career.
In
May 1974 I was unceremoniously dismissed from the Clinical
Psychology program at Colorado State University.
Returning to Houston, there was no Plan B. It was Blindness
that had caused my downfall at Colorado State. My
inability to know when to shut up in class had sabotaged my career
as a therapist. The thing is, I should have known
better. All I had to do was look around. My
fellow graduate students kept their mouth shut, so what prevented
me from seeing the wisdom in their strategy?
Blindness
also caused my downfall with women.
Dependency and groveling had repeatedly pushed
women away over a ten year period. One would think I would have figured this out
by age 24, but I barely had a clue.
The question, of
course, is whether these were Psychological Blind Spots or
Cosmic Blind Spots. From where I stand, I don't see
why one precludes the other. I am quite content to
accept my difficult childhood created the mental illness
which tripped me up in graduate school. I am equally
comfortable suggesting that Cosmic Blind Spots can be
imposed on one's mind in order to fulfill one's Fate.
Since this subject directly impacts my story, expect me to return to this issue
throughout Magic
Carpet Ride.
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During my year
of graduate work at Colorado State, I suffered mightily
under the spell of two Curses. Were these Curses
psychological or supernatural in origin? Interesting
question.
The first
problem was my inability to deal with Authority.
I referred to this fatal flaw as Murphy's Curse.
Mr. Murphy was a high school disciplinarian who predicted my
rebellious attitude would one day cause my downfall. I hated being told what to do by
someone who did not respect me.
If someone was on my side, I would do whatever
they asked. However I did not handle 'my way or the highway'
types very well. Imagine how angry I was when Murphy's
Curse came true. Dr. Fujimoto was the man who put the hatchet in my back.
He
told me I did not possess the right personality to
be a therapist. Due his low opinion, my cherished plans had
gone up in smoke. No doubt Murphy would have been
pleased.
The Buddhists
like to say the End is also the Beginning, but I was in no
mood for mystical diatribe. Beginning of what?
There was no clear direction for me. As things stood, I had the talent to move
into other fields. I had done well in my college computer
courses. Due to my fondness for arguing, I had
potential as a lawyer. I loved sports and was a good
writer, so sports writing was another possibility. In graduate school I had
discovered how much I enjoyed teaching. So what was
stopping me from pursuing one of these avenues? After all, I was
only
24 years old. Just pick one and start over!
How tough is that?
Incredibly
bitter when Dr. Fujimoto dismissed me from graduate school,
my anger led to a
very poor decision. After a year of repeated humiliation
at the hands of Fujimoto, I refused to return to school to pursue the
education I needed to start a new career. Assuming men like
Fujimoto would exist in whatever graduate program I might seek,
I feared I would just be putting another noose around my
neck. So I made an ill-advised vow to never return to college. I had
a
college
degree; that should be good enough. Sad to say, this
glaring lack of common sense would cause me serious
problems during the Lost Years.
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The second
problem was my other curse, the enduring
Epic Losing Streak which now stood at ten years
and no end in sight.
My miserable year at Colorado State had taken things from
bad to worse. Falling prey to Vanessa, the Blonde Banshee
from Planet Treachery, I never regained my confidence.
They say Practice makes Perfect. Not so for me.
Following Vanessa's betrayal, during the spring I had approached 50 women for conversation
during a three-month 'Talking to Women' experiment. I did this as a way to
fight an intense fear of approaching women I did not know.
To my dismay, I struck out with
every one of them. These women were not mean to me,
they just weren't interested. I think they sensed my
lack of confidence thanks to Vanessa. However, there
was one woman who treated me poorly. A girl named Debbie
shamed me in a very cruel way during a March trip to Denver.
Debbie was the Final Straw. Thanks to
her, I avoided women like the plague for the last two
months at CSU. However, once I was back in Houston, I was
willing to try again in my search for a girlfriend.
Unfortunately, I did
not know a soul my age upon my return to Houston.
Mired deep in
depression following my dismissal, I had just enough energy
to tackle one task at a time. I had a choice to make. Do I
work on finding my next career or do I work on finding my
next girlfriend? The way I looked at it, a Career is a
Tomorrow issue, my acute loneliness was a Today issue.
So the women problems came first. It was a dumb
decision which would come back to haunt me dearly, but I did
not have the wisdom to anticipate this.
After all my problems with women in
Colorado, Vanessa in particular, I had the barest amount of
courage left to try again. I was scared to death to
face further rejection.
Over the past ten years, any time I felt helpless like I did
now, I had gone into hiding from women for long periods at a
time. I decided I could no longer run from this
problem. There was no time to wait; here is where I would make my
stand. I was going to lick my Curse with women or go nuts
trying. Unfortunately, I went nuts
trying.
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Upon my return
to Houston in June 1974, I suffered what would best be
termed a nervous breakdown. Considering how devastated
I was, I caught a break when a family I had been close to as
a boy offered me their couch.
Barely able to
function, I spent my first week mulling over the injustice
of being tossed from graduate school for the crime of being
a Bad Listener. Eventually my indignation eased
somewhat. That is when my thoughts turned to my
intense loneliness. I needed to find a girlfriend, yet I was so
fearful of rejection that I could not find the courage to
take steps to solve my problem. Instead I took the
coward's way out and spent countless hours paralyzed on the
couch feeling sorry for myself.
This prolonged
pity party lasted for the entire month of June. Then
one day I decided it was time to get on with things.
Early in July, I got a job and found an apartment the same
day. Two weeks later I ran across the mysterious book
that set me on my path to Destiny.
And with that,
let us begin The Lost Years.
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Age 24, June 1974,
the lost years begin
couch
catatonia
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Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty back
together again.
Following my dismissal from Colorado State, it was
now June 1974.
The period of my life known as the 'Lost Years' began
the moment I crossed the Houston city limit.
Although I was only 24 years old, I felt
like my life was over.
Burdened
with
bitterness and self-pity, I suffered from clinical-level
depression.
I
knew I was in serious trouble, so I
sought out the refuge of the Clark family.
I
needed sanctuary in the worst way.
Polly and Allen were wonderful. They said of course I
could stay with them. However, they reminded me with
three kids, there were no guest rooms in their
house. Polly said if I didn't mind sleeping on their
living room couch, I was more than welcome.
Heck, the couch sounded great. I would have slept on the porch, the garage, or the
washroom if that's what it took. All that mattered was
that I
felt safe here with my adopted family.
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I knew Polly and Allen Clark from the Quaker Meeting here
in Houston.
Starting at age 10, Polly and Allen had begun
a tradition of taking me on long summer trips to
Colorado along with Shari, Margaret
and Jim, their three children.
Back when my parents divorced in 1959,
it broke Polly's heart to see how much I suffered. Polly wished she could have found a way to take me off my
mother's hands, but there was no graceful way to do so. Allen
agreed with her. So the summer trips were a nice
compromise. Oh, how I looked forward to those trips!
During the first trip, Margaret, age 3, stuck out her hand
just as I was closing the car door. The edge of the
door jammed her wrist. Fortunately her wrist was not
broken, but Margaret was crying and in a lot of pain. I felt
terrible. Desperate to make amends, I began reading a
children's book to calm the three kids down. That
turned out to be an inspired decision.
At the next town we made two stops, one to get aspirin for
Margaret, one to visit a book store. Polly returned
with eight children's books, then gave me a big smile.
Welcome to the
family. That is how
Allen and Polly became my surrogate parents. Thanks
to their amazing kindness, ever since that first trip I felt part of my
adopted family.
Following my dismissal from graduate school,
I sought
their kindness once again. Little did
Allen and Polly know they had acquired a basket case. I had always
been self-sufficient, so I think they were startled to
discover just how
broken I was.
The couch
and I became inseparable. Since the Clark family preferred to use the den
as their main living
area, they rarely entered the off-set
living room. Although there were no doors, I had
complete privacy. Sensing how gloomy I was, no one
came anywhere near me lest I bite someone's head off.
When my dark mood eased up long enough to allow me to make a
rare
appearance, the entire family was unfailingly nice to me.
And so the slow healing process began.
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Here in my darkest moment I did not leave that couch
for the first week.
At some point in mid-June,
I revived enough to track down
a temporary social work job. I assisted in a summer youth program for
underprivileged children. That gave me something
to do during the day, but after work I headed straight
back to the couch for sanctuary and further self-pity.
For the entire month
of June, unless I was working or playing basketball, I would lay on that couch
doing nothing. The couch became my best friend. I named it 'Couch
Catatonia' in reference to my near-motionless state of
being. I
was in so much pain. As I listened endlessly to the sad music
from the
Moody Blues Tuesday Afternoon
album ("Lonely Man cries for love but has none..."), I would throw a baseball up in the air and catch it
on the way down. I repeated this mindless ritual for hours at a
time. There were days when the only time I ever left the couch was
to retrieve a
dropped baseball or to obtain a peanut butter
sandwich necessary to sustain life.
My sole activity besides playing couch
potato was basketball.
To Readers of my first book, A Simple Act of Kindness, no surprise there.
Basketball was my passion.
By
chance, the Clarks lived next door to the Jewish Community
Center (JCC). Allen loaned me his membership card,
so every night I would play endless games of pickup
basketball. Sorry to say, I played rough.
Anything to let off my anger towards the human race.
Every
day consisted of the same routine.
My daily itinerary included an early morning pity party on
Couch Catatonia, social work
job, late afternoon pity party on Couch Catatonia, peanut butter sandwich,
early evening pity
party on Couch Catatonia,
a night of basketball, go to sleep. This went on
for 30 straight days. I kid you not. For 30
straight days, I wallowed in an ocean of sorrow and
self-contempt.
Allen and Polly were saints. Not once in that
entire month did they say a harsh word to me.
Not once. Here was this miserable blob who laid on their
living room couch for hours on end, but they just let me be. I
barely spoke, I barely interacted, I showed little
sign of mental activity, I displayed no signs of leaving.
Surely they wondered if there was any hope for me.
However they never said a word.
No doubt there was a
precise clinical description for my condition, but let's
keep it simple. I
was much worse than 'walking wounded', so let's refer
to my condition as 'barely
moving'. That
speaks volumes for Allen and Polly.
Who lets a disturbed mental patient stay in their home for
an entire month without any end in sight?
Their
patience was incredible.
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Age 24, July 1974,
the lost years
signs of
life
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One morning in early July my life force
mysteriously kicked back in. As I sat alone at the
kitchen table eating a bowl of Wheaties, I picked up the
newspaper to read the Sports section. By chance, I
noticed the Help Wanted section underneath. On a whim,
I looked through it. When I noticed the
Child Welfare agency was looking for caseworkers, I picked
up the nearby phone and set up an interview. Due to my
experience at Colorado State, I was
hired that afternoon.
I
have no idea what caused me to pick up that paper. Maybe I got another one of those
curious 'suggestions' that sometimes pop into my mind
out of thin air. Who knows.
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Whatever the reason,
I decided it was time to get on with my life.
My new job called for investigating reports of child abuse and
child neglect. This was hardly what I would describe
as a fun job, but I took it because it offered the
chance to help people. Despite my disappointment in
grad school, I still had a desire to make the
world a better place.
Following my interview,
I
passed a small
apartment project two blocks down the street from the Child Welfare office.
Stupid me, I thought the interview location would also be my
office. Since it was in the Montrose area where I had
grown up, I felt comfortable moving back to my old stomping
grounds. I leased the
apartment using my meager savings for the deposit.
Since I did not have anything to sleep on, I spent one
farewell night with my best friend Couch Catatonia.
The next morning I bought an inexpensive piece
of foam rubber to use as a mattress. Buying a real bed
would have to wait till my Child Welfare job started in
August.
Besides, I had a better idea for a way to spend my last
dollar.
On the
spur of the moment, I bought a pool table.
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Where did
this strange idea come from?
By chance,
last year I had seen a movie called Shamus.
It starred Burt Reynolds
as a washed-up private eye who hated the
world. My kind of guy. Living in squalor, Reynold's
only piece of furniture was a pool table. Lacking a
bed, he slept on a mattress
on top of the pool table. In the first scene, Reynolds awakes and notices a
naked woman
sleeping
under the blanket next to him. Lifting the
blanket, he realizes the woman is a complete
stranger. Reynolds covers her body, then reaches
to flick a bead marking his latest
conquest.
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Judging by the mediocre box office, I
was one of the few people in America to ever see this movie. Sitting
alone in an empty theater,
I was very drawn to the pool table scene. In the state I was
in, Reynolds' bitterness
towards women matched my current mood to perfection. Reynold's
best line came when the naked girl awoke and said it was
too cold. Reynolds told the girl to stick her feet in
the side pockets and quit whining. Wow! I had
just gotten my first lesson in how to be mean to women.
This was my new identity... tough guy. No more
groveling. For reasons lost to me,
the meaner
Reynolds
was to women, the more women clung to him. To
be honest, I was not cut out to be a tough guy.
However, considering my mediocre luck with women during my
year at Colorado State, I was ready to try
anything. Hence the pool table.
When
the pool table arrived, I was relieved to see it barely fit
inside the living room. Dumb me, it did not occur to me to
measure in advance. Tight, but doable.
The arrival of the pool table allowed me to practice my new
tough guy
identity. I had never shot pool in my life, but had always wanted to
give it a try. I wanted the pool table to teach me how to be cold-hearted like
Burt Reynolds. Joy was in short
supply.
I put the foam mattress on top of the pool table
and slept there one night. However, I wasn't
comfortable, so
I
transferred the mattress to the bedroom floor. Much better. That night I resumed throwing the baseball
in the air. However, on the following
night I put the baseball away and tried shooting pool
instead. I wasn't any good, but it was refreshing to
increase my entertainment options. Basketball,
throwing the baseball, shooting pool. Are we having
fun yet?
This all took place within three days
after picking up the Help Wanted section.
Rat-a-tat-tat, just like that, I got on with my life. I
wasn't happy and I wasn't living in style, but I was alive.
Beats the
alternative.
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Age 24, July 1974,
the lost years
the
rejection phobia
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Now that I had
left the warmth of the Clark family, it did not take long
to realize how desperately lonely I was. There
was no Dr. Hilton to complain to. There was no Jason
to tell me to get out there and
try, try again.
Loneliness had been a lifelong condition for me, but I had
never felt
more alone than now. I did not know a soul.
Although I had grown up in Houston, I had been
away for five of the past six years.
My
one-time girlfriend Arlene was now living in Pittsburgh.
I had yet to see someone my age at the new apartment complex.
The people where I worked were older and married. I literally did not have a friend in the
world other than the Clark family.
This loneliness was
so oppressive,
I had to do something. Sitting in the
darkness of my empty apartment, I pondered what to do next.
I was angry at myself. Why did I move into this
apartment? This had been a hasty, impulsive decision. For one thing, I thought my office would be
just down the street. Wrong. That was the main
office. I had been assigned to a satellite location nowhere near
this apartment. Second, it had not occurred to me to
see if there were any girls my age in this
small 32-unit apartment project. When I discovered there was
not a girl to be found, I was fit to be tied.
Too late now. I had a lease, so
I was stuck with this place.
Now that I was alone every night, I had two choices,
basketball or shoot pool. The JCC cleared the gym for basketball three
nights a week, so do the math. Here at my pool table, I had
nothing better to do than reflect on my time at Colorado
State. It had been easy finding young ladies to chat with in
the CSU Psychology Department hallways. There were so many
women, I bumped into some girl I knew all the time. I
didn't get anywhere, but at least we had pleasant
superficial
conversations. Now, however, there was not a single woman in
sight. I had no idea where
to look in Houston.
I suppose I could try visiting a nearby bar and
try my luck, but that was out of the question. Due to
the Curse of Vanessa, the chances of finding the nerve to talk to some girl
I did not know were remote.
So far my new pool table had proven a poor substitute for
the laughter of a girlfriend. The pain of this
loneliness was so intense I had to do something. But
what? One night as I practiced shooting pool, my mind
fixated on
the dilemma of finding the courage to approach a girl in a bar whom I did not know.
The next thing I knew, my hands trembled so badly I could
not hit a pool shot to save my soul. Just the thought
of going up to a girl I did not know was so intimidating
that my heart was thumping and I broke out in a cold sweat.
I was shocked. What is going on here? This is not normal! The
intensity of my fear was way beyond ordinary.
I
was very angry to discover the Curse of Vanessa had followed
me to Houston from Colorado. Boy meets Girl. Girl
rejects Boy. Boy feels intense pain. Boy fears Next Girl
he meets. Once bitten, twice shy. Yes, I had a
right to be cautious. I should not be overreacting to this extent!
The kind of fear I was feeling was well short of D-Day fear, the nausea-inducing panic caused by bullets flying past your
ear. However it was way more intense than it should have been. There is no way the vision of a pretty blonde in
a nightclub should be able to evoke the level of panic
typically reserved for life-threatening situations.
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I blamed this on
Vanessa. Ever since her betrayal, women such as
Debbie, Christine and a cast of a 50 other women had kicked sand in my face
during my time in graduate school. As my
hands shook at the pool table, I realized my life-long fear of a woman's rejection had worsened to the
point where it had become Phobia.
For those
unfamiliar with the term, Phobia is a form of mental illness.
I did not even have to see a woman for the problem to kick
in. Just the image of approaching an attractive
woman I did not know was enough to make me violently sick in my stomach.
It was even worse in person. If I
saw a woman I was interested in, I would sweat and tremble with anxiety.
Phobias
are weird. They
make no sense at all to
the outside world. But to the victim,
Phobia is real.
Phobia is also very embarrassing to talk
about. It seems so silly to a
healthy person. "Just go up and talk to a girl,
Rick. How hard is that?"
A
friend of mine
named Caroline had nearly drowned as a
baby. As an adult, Caroline married a man with
a swimming pool. One day at a party in her back yard, I
noticed Caroline give the
swimming pool a wide berth. She refused to go
in, even at the shallow end.
When I asked what that was all about,
Caroline told me she was terrified of
swimming pools, large and small. She
would not even go in her daughter's wading pool. I asked how she took baths.
Caroline avoided them by taking showers.
The swimming pool had the same power over
Caroline as the fear of rejection had
over me. I was so crippled
around pretty women my own age, I wondered
how I would ever conquer this fear. On one level, I
knew that young women did not bite. However,
thanks to Vanessa, I learned a girl had the power to hurt me in a way that would last
a lot longer than a mere dog bite.
To me, a pretty girl was more dangerous than a
growling dog. I could get stitches for
a dog bite, but not another broken heart.
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One of the curious aspects about Phobia is you can still function in everyday life. All you have to do
is avoid whatever it is you fear. Afraid of spiders?
Don't go in the cellar. Afraid of snakes? Don't
walk in the brush. Afraid of heights? Don't
climb the ladder. Afraid of dogs? Steer clear.
Afraid of girls? Hmm. Girls were a different
story. Much different.
My life as the Solitary Man had reached a crisis point.
I never had a date in high school. Attending a men's
school in college, women were few and far between for four
more years. My year at Colorado State was an
unmitigated disaster. When will this curse ever end?
Ten years and counting.
Here at the ten year mark of the Epic Losing Streak, I
had to take a stand or face the Point of No Return.
However, I was so afraid of being hurt by the next woman I
met, I was physically sick at the thought of rejection.
For this story to make any sense, you have to take my word
for it. I could not seem to make myself go up to a
girl and say hello. It was so much safer, so much
easier to hide in my apartment every night.
Walking wounded through life, the healthy side of my mind
understood the problem quite well. I had just been through a catastrophic year at
Colorado State where I failed at everything that mattered.
Once Vanessa pulled the trigger, I was never the same. During the second
half of the school year, I struck out with one woman
after another. I was the proverbial flop with chicks.
Looking for a reason to explain my failure, I seized upon my
acne scars. All a woman had to do was take one look at
my face
and run screaming. I was ugly.
Just between you and me, I wasn't ugly. But that is
what I thought at the time. The perception of feeling
repulsive was part of the Phobia. This
negative perception was so powerful in my mind I
could not get rid of it. However, there was something
very curious about my negative self-image. I had dated some
very attractive women. Vanessa for example was Beauty
Queen Beautiful. Apparently my scars had not bothered her a bit.
So I came up with a theory that some women were repulsed by
the scars while others did not care. If I were to spot
a pretty girl, how would I know IN ADVANCE which category
the young lady belonged to? Desperately fearful of
being laughed at and turned down upon approach, I became
paralyzed with fear. My uncertainty left me glued to the spot,
unable to move.
My solution was simple. If the woman made the first
move, I assumed the scars did not bother her. If she
said hello first, I
would let down my guard and take it from there. That
strategy
had worked with Vanessa. Believe it or not, Vanessa
had stopped me in the hallway to talk. It had been
easy to meet girls at Colorado State. But Houston was a
different story. There were no single women where I
worked. There were no single women where I lived.
In fact, there were no women in my neighborhood either.
Little did I know, I had accidentally taken an apartment in
Houston's gay mecca.
Living in the Land without Women, if I
wanted to meet women, I had to go on the prowl. Easier
said than done. Just the very
thought terrified me. As a result, I did not go
searching once during my first few weeks in my apartment. I
was totally paralyzed. Call it stuck in the mud, call
it quicksand, call it whatever you like, I remained
frozen with fear here in my apartment. I had no idea
what to do.
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