(Picture of me standing on that exact point.. Pickeral Point Resort...Cir. 1972... where I turned my life around... a couple of times!)
A story that needs to be told..somewhere... in case I forget it all.
It was quite some years ago... maybe what? Ten years past now? And she has moved on.. and I have also moved on. But a story of love, hate, loss, jealousy, desperate feelings and suicidal thoughts.
Her and I had been battling each other for months..... years, more likely. We had broken up, re-united...broken up... reunited... and was on that downward, awful spiral again to the end of the relationship. Oh, there were outside influences...outside voices... outside pressures.
My mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer...and was declining in health. I took refuge in this new technology thing called the Internet. She took refuge in her friends and in her work. I took my pain into my playing of music... and was rewarded with many "groupie" women that wanted me (or...at least so I thought)... She was cold, and hard and at times treated my son and me as second class citizens in our own home. I was accusing, and awful.
It was all so awful. What started out as sort of a "storybook romance" hit upon the realities of real life... children and ex-husbands, and jealousy, and other outside voices, and family histories, and all the things that make up the human drama.
She took her children and left on day...the last day we were together... got in her car and backed out of the driveway...quickly.... I was left standing in the (apropos) pouring rain, crying and asking her to come back. She did not.
The days and weeks after my mothers' death were not easy ones, indeed. And the absence of HER was palatable. I had heard she had taken up with a "new guy"... I was instructed to clear out my belongings from what had been our house (apt).
I staying on my now deceased mother's couch, as I was the only one to dispose of her home and belongings; her many bills and settle accounts.
On one hot and unbearably humid Labor Day Weekend, my band was to play at the Hillsboro Annual Fireman's Festival. It was an annual fair held in the little Hamlet of Hillsboro, WI. At the end of the night... (still pretty inebriated, by the way)... I packed up my equipment, and headed back to my mother's trailer house (where I was staying...out of the way of HER and her new man).
I unpacked some of my band stuff, and loaded the car (a company car I was using at the time) with all the clothing I could find and headed north. I drove all night long, until I found a spot to pass out for a few hours before the dawn. Upon awaking, I continued North to Wausau and north of that... to a place called Pickeral lake area, just North East of Antigo, WI. Big fishing and recreational area.
I had no plan as I was driving north... but a plan started to hatch in my head. I was going to end the pain. I was going to kill myself. I formulated a plan that I would find a hardware store (abundant in the North Woods), purchase a shotgun, rent a cheap hotel room, and within... blow my brains out.
Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel of Love CD was playing all the while this plan was hatching. Every single song, every single note, every single anguished song were written as if in my very soul. Tunnel of Love. One Step up (Two Steps Back) . Brilliant Disguise. Valentine's Day. When you're alone (you're alone). Spare Parts (and broken hearts). All that Heaven Will Allow.... All of the songs held a magical quality that seem to speak to the very darkness in my heart.
I drove along planning my ultimate demise, all the while screaming the words along to the songs playing full blast on the CD player in the company car.
At first, I thought I would just drive North until I crossed over to the UP in Michigan, and the further north to Canada... ditching the car and getting lost in some small place in Canada. I decided I would just end it all... in a place where a few summers before HER and I held a very tender moment together, at a nice little spot called "Pickeral Point" resort.
A few summers before, we (HER and I) had visited the area...and I had taken her in my arms...and we kissed a very passionate kiss just as the orange ball of the sun was setting on the lake... Fireworks! wow. But now, I was driving to end it all at (or near) where we had kissed that kiss.
Without stopping at the hardware store, I made my way to the Pickeral Point Resort (which, by the way, is still there)... got out of my car, and headed inside for a beer (or several)... after awhile, I made my way outside, and out to the beach. I sat there beside the lapping water and had a long talk with God. I apologized for all the wrongs I had done.. I was crying, and sobbing...and then I heard the laughing and frolicking in the water of a whole bunch of little children behind me... they were making sand castles in the sandy beach... oblivious to my awful thoughts. After telling my tale to the water, I stood up.. and just as an explanation point to it all.. that song someone decided to play on the juke box from the resort (the back window was open) came pouring out..
CRAZY... I'm CRAZY FOR FEELIN' SO LONELY.....OH, I'M CRAZY....CRAZY FOR FEELING SOOOO BLUE...
This was our song. The song that we shared together one night, dancing closely in our living room... truly a mind crunching moment. It was as if that song held all of the feelings of US for the past many years we were together. It was over!
I got back in the car. And at that moment I knew I was not going to buy a shotgun. I was not going to rent a room. And I was NOT going to end my life.
The next CD in the bunch loaded into the car's CD changer, and it was ABBA's Greatest hits. As I tore out of the parking lot of Pickeral Point....and pointed the car South... I knew that I was going to heal. That I was going to find love again. That I was going to be okay...
The Song SOS played and I SCREAMED it at full volume, as I pointed the car back home again. All the way home, I listened to the best of ABBA. As I got closer to home, the songs from this CD spoke to me the same way the Bruce Springsteen songs spoke.
And I had the uncanny notion that an angel was riding back home with me then. I've had many such apparitions since....but for the first time, she was beautiful... she was light.... she was lifting my heart..
I knew I was going to be alright. And, eventually...... I was.
Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find
I tried to reach for you, but you have closed your mind
Whatever happened to our love I wish I understood
It used to be so nice, it used to be so good
So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me SOS
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me SOS
When you're gone How can I even try to go on
When you're gone Though I try how can I carry on
You seemed so far away though you were standing near
You made me feel alive, but something died I fear
I really tried to make it out I wish I understood
What happened to our love, it used to be so good
So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me SOS
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me SOS
When you're gone How can I even try to go on
When you're gone Though I try how can I carry on
So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me SOS
And the love you gave me, nothing else can save me SOS
When you're gone How can I even try to go on
When you're gone Though I try how can I carry on
When you're gone How can I even try to go on
When you're gone Though I try how can I carry on
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