2009. 02-06. Friday.  Steve Renko Blog.

1.  Some St. Clair Croatians once thought I worked for UDBA.  The UDBA was a Yugoslav secret service agency.  They would find anti-Yugoslavs and make them say things be it true or false.  I wasn't that important.  St. Clair Croatians were afraid in one eye while the other eye was patriotic, especially, around April 10 every year.

Heck, I just wanted to hang out with the individual St. Clair Croatians as I was getting lonely hanging out by myself.  I had heard that story from a middle aged Croatian at a bus stop.  He was going to ride the RTA bus to downtown like I was going to ride it.  He was one of those guys, a small group of Croatian immigrants who left Yugoslavia for the sake of a better life in St. Clair, Cleveland.  One of the items they brought with them from Croatia, Yugoslavia was their doubt and suspicion.  I just wanted to hang out as if we were going to say something important, like freeing Croatia one more time, just like the other times, in a bar, over a Sunday meal.  In those days were always freeing Croatia.

2.  My foot is ringing.  Who is calling me at this hour of the day in Cleveland?

3.  Faith: “Don't be afraid of doubt.  It is weak.  It lacks connections.  It really wants you to turn on yourself.  Walking in God's victories pushes back the uncertainty.  There's work to do in the quiet understanding.”

4.  Clues.  If she was not going to visit it would be because she wanted it so.  If she was visiting it was a done deal.  She just wasn't going to be told what to do.

5.  We're in a cruise control in these minutes.  These minutes are brought into the light of the big lamp for the sake of receiving angles and angels with back packs.  They are loaded with air cells and straight arrows.

6.  Albuquerque, New Mexico-USA.  After so many trips to Zagreb, Croatia (Yugoslavia) it was high time to go somewhere else.  But where?  The question was answered early in 1999.  The answer was Albuquerque, New Mexico-USA.  The old route 66 ran through it in history and now through the nostalgia.

            &nb sp;                         

Where was I?  The lunch hour has arrived, again, same time, same place as yesterday.  How do the normals do this everyday and feel like they accomplished something?  I'm still wondering what I am doing here.  The stream of conscience is God's plan.  It is a moving on thing.  For us who are in it and recognize it for that we flow with God's plan.  Then there are the other folks, rocks in the stream.  Rocks in the stream don't move unless the water stream moves them.  Rocks usually credit themselves for movement.  Water can be a rock.  A rock can never be water.  There must be some envy involved. 

7. Personality Friends. 

   A.  Faith Voice

   B.  Miracle Parker

   C.  Jack Kurack-Narrator

   D.  Westend Jack  

   E.  Whispering Mansion     

I like this moment as if the thin veils of doubt are lurking in my thoughts.  Over the years doubts and weaknesses added up as if they were welcomed guests.  Thoughts take place in the mind.  We will call the mind, the “whispering mansion.”  This is a blogger's technique, a creative license, to move around in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.  I have given my mind to the Holy Spirit.  Since I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I have given my mind to the Holy Spirit.  It thinks for me.  It conveys ideas and thinking from God's Plan.  Such a deal.  It was my wife Anne who brought me back to Jesus Christ.  She is one of God's Warriors.  We who are in God's plan blog like this every day.  I have searched low and wide for a purpose in my daily life.  Here it is, being in God's Plan.  Only He can battle the devil's details successfully. 

8.  I like visiting Albuquerque from 1999 to 2006.  I don't have the exact dates.  My dad was ill in September 2004.  I was scheduled to fly to Albuquerque, which I did.  I stayed there a few days as the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta was going on.  My mom called to tell me that I must return back to Cleveland as dad's health was failing.  I did return to Cleveland.  The next set of weeks was experiencing my father's illness in the hospitals with the hope that he would recover.  He died December 2004. 

Albuquerque was a warm weather city.  It is New Mexico's largest city.  It has the only real large airport in the state.  It is the fifth largest state in America.  The population is not as large as I had imagined.  It is a state with a mixed population from Native Americans to Hispanics and, of course, the White Tribe population.  The sky was bluer in New Mexico.  The cities I visited were, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, San Antonio, New Mexico, Roswell, Grants, Jemez Springs and a few other cities and towns.  I did rent a car a couple of times I was there.  I drove twice to Roswell from Albuquerque, return.  I did drive to Santa Fe.  Otherwise, there I was driving on

Route 66 is an old and nostalgic Americana road network.  It was built in the 1920s from Chicago to Los Angeles.  A portion of it was built through New Mexico.  I caught it in Albuquerque and Grants.  At the time I was there most of it was not in the original state.  Street markers indicate that Central Avenue was Route 66 at the original time era.  Left over signs, houses, shops, hotels and quirky artsy designs indicate how it ran out of business after the interstate highway took over for vehicles that needed speedier roads to and from.  The furthest west I drove was form Albuquerque to Grants.  I wasn't certain what I was looking for.  On the one hand I was withdrawing from Cleveland and suddenly I missed the best location in the nation.  There I was on route 66 hanging out with my writer's personality far far away from the post-industrial line up for an excuse of a daily job.  How ungrateful I was for what I had.  On the other hand I was breathing deeply God's greatness left and right and no buildings in sight to block the expansive view of natural land with rolling hills, mountains painted by some angel, and Native land being kept as it was for centuries.  Sunshine in the natural brightness, with dry air, comfortable and no emotional baggage to carry on.

9.  Club12.  Pumpkin butt never talks to her fellow employees.  She only walks and talks around her two favorites, Rude and that other guy who shall go nameless.  The troika management insists on production.  There are too many accounts coming through for process.  There are not enough club members to process them.  Management feels they can handle the work load with a few members.  They have it wrong.  The troika tells five members what to do from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  They love to micro manage the production and the importance of being management.  Only management knows what to do and how to do it.  Accounts require research and questions are necessary.  But, the troika managers rarely have the minutes to take to establish points of interest and a proactive effect.  What this has created recently is overtime.  So many of the accounts are messed up at the expense of the outside paying membership that overtime is required.  God truly works in disguised ways.  Maybe that's why the thin veils are competing for attention.  God, also, works in disguise.  The way I see it, He gives all the tools and all the details.  He wants us to work, also.  Why should He put out and get no attention in return.  He is so clever.  That's my kind of God. 

10.  Daydreams.  Daily daydreams come easy.  The words not yet composed try to follow a route from the sleeve to the physical reality.  A parking lot is required, needed.  Parking miracles has become an easy task at large.  What is received from God is one miracle after another.  I have lived so many years that I wonder what to do now.    This is one reason I took up composing blogs.  I have to be in touch with who I am not, not what I was in the past.

11.  Yesterday was my dad's birthday.  Some four years after his passing I wonder about him.  He left us with many of his personal secrets.  He was a kind, mild mannered personality.  He only wanted to live his life, work hard, enjoy friends, family and visit places he only dreamed of back there in Klostar-Ivanic as a child.  He traveled to all the places he could while living in Cleveland with his family.   There were no thought police in Cleveland.  There were no state police bothering his political convictions.  He was a true and natural Croatian.  He was not a political creature.  He had a natural sense about politics; they very much were alike and ended up doing the same as the other political party.  He liked his cable television and his meals cooked by mom.  The years and the life that God gave him were good, fruitful and plenty.  I have no sad stories, nor bad moments.  He was a good man with a good life.  I know he is with God.

12.  Chicken feed isn't easy to fly inside a train station.  Pizza dough stuck to the seat is a reminder of unwanted winter gloves cheaply bought, worn till they became friends.  Came spring the voice was between seeds in the ground along with branches standing by to reveal attachments always there under the big lamp.

13.  Some days travelling didn't make sense.  I didn't feel like it anymore.  I really felt like a home life was plenty.  Where to next?  What to do next?  As it stands, God's Plan included the African Zimbabwean scene and living with Anne.  We met back there in November 2004.  Now, there's two experiences I looked forward to, a country in Africa and a woman from Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia.  My daily life was refreshed.  Still, I must conclude various past persons, places and things in the rearview mirror.                  

Tags: 2009 02-06 Friday