The afterlife

Dear Editor,

Fifty-seven percent of late teenagers and millennials believe that socialism is the answer. That Medicare for all the green new deal, free college tuition, on and one, where does it end!

This is for those of you who don’t believe that God exists, that religion isn’t relevant in our enlightened society. For many years my friends have urged me to write this. There is an afterlife, I’ve been there!

I was a millennial once. When I was 22 I lived in Tigerd, Ore., my hometown. I’ve also lived in Eugene, Ore. I worked for a window washing company and built hot rods in my spare time. I was on cloud nine, I was engaged to Patty Stone. The actress Sharon Stone was her cousin. Patty was beautiful. She had been runner up for Miss Eugene one year. We had been engaged for months, and I spent every weekend with her, 200 miles round trip.

It was at a Christmas party in 1966 that my world came to a crashing halt. She told me she had been seeing someone behind my back and was pregnant by him.

I never returned to Eugene again. I became a recluse, cared about nothing but the best way to kill myself. I built a car to do the job right. Once it was finished I went out to I5 early in the morning to hit a bridge abutment and go out in a blaze of glory. Before I could accomplish it, I blew the motor up.

Then I went all out and bought a 650, a full racing motorcycle. I’d decided that when it was built I’d become an easy rider. Two of my younger friends talked me into riding it before it was street legal. The bike was unbelievably fast. As I rode the bike back I knew how far I’d gone downhill. I wanted nothing more to do with the bike or my new life! I had become a man I didn’t like anymore, and it was time to grow up.

I told my friends that I wanted to get rid of the bike, and one of them asked to ride it. I went down to the end of the park near the bridge. My friend was riding the bike. It sounded wrong, revving way to high. I looked up as he was sliding toward me, throwing a rooster tail high in the air of mud. Frozen on the bike, hearing toward the cliff and the river, and certain death. I stood in front of the bike, it was moving pretty fast. I grabbed the handlebars with one hand and knocked him off the bike with the other hand. Then I went somewhere else.

A place of infinite beauty and peace. It was an unbelievable afterlife experience. Others explain it as a neurological dream because of the trauma. I can only tell of my experience.

I did for a moment see myself on that muddy trail and my two friends trying to keep me calm. Then I was somewhere else. The first thing I noticed was a cobblestone path that I was standing one. On earth, I was destroyed! But where I was, I was whole. It was like I walked through the Bible. My eyes were closed as I felt and experienced peach that knows no understanding. I was totally calm. Music flowed through me, starting at my feet and up through my veins. I can’t possibly describe the beauty of it all. I felt so much peace and joy I wanted to explode with it. Where I was, time meant nothing. I opened my eyes. I was dressed in a white gown and white sandals. The sky, the mountains, the grass – the colors were pure. Unless you have been there, you can’t possibly understand what I mean.

Remember when you were little and exploring the world for the first time? I was that child again. I believe that your mind and brain, that you totally use it for the first time. There were beautiful sounds, birds singing, life all around me and in me.

Mike Nelson

Kingman

P.s. To the gentleman who made out that I am a fool about fossil fuel, I’m not. In 1985 I ran into a geologist in the Nevada desert who once per year bled off gas from capped oil wells. He said between there and the Pacific Coast there is enough oil below to take care of America’s needs for at least 100 years.