I don’t have the words to finish the story of The Sad Boy and The Sad Girl at the moment so I will write something else and when the words come I’ll get back to it.

A few years ago, I was invited to a large 4th of July party on the Jersey side of the Hudson River, right in front of the Macy’s firework spectacular. It was among the best parties that I ever had the honor to be invited to and the pleasure to attend.

There, I was smart enough to introduce myself to a bashful man, who like me, didn’t know too many of the other hundred or so guests.

We started to talk and had such a conversation that here I am, a few years later remembering and writing about it.

I don’t remember the question I asked to spark that conversation and his reflection on the years that had passed. I only know I was lucky enough to ask it and listen to him recount a fascinating life.

He was of the baby boomer generation, born and bred in Manhattan. He had the good fortune to be on the street the day the Beatles landed in a New York hotel room for the first time. He told me about the first time he listened to their White Album, by a friends house in a drug induced haze because he said, that was the only way you listened to The White Album in the 60’s.

He told me about finding himself and cross country journeys and holding the hands of dying HIV patients before anyone knew what they were dying from.

He told me about his nephew; the only person he felt loved him in the entire world. He said it was okay but I could tell it wasn’t. He just wanted to be accepted for who he was and not judged for what he wasn’t.

He told me a piece of his life- so much that I told him he should write down his experiences. He said there was no one who cared- not a spouse or a sibling or a parent. And besides, he didn’t know how to write.

I told him that I cared. That all our lives and experiences put together made for the history of the world. There were so many stories that so many have shared with me and I love them all.

He told me I should write his story and all the rest that I hear. Just collect them and write them into a book, he said. Make a compilation because I cared and he didn’t think he was important or worthy enough to be included in the fabric of history.

So on your advice, Friend from the NY CBS office; I will relate the story and experiences of my friend Lee.

Life is funny. Sometimes it puts you next to people who are strangers one minute and friend the next.

Lee is one of my internet friends.

I met him many years ago while I was posting as an “Anonymous Coward” on a thread aspiring to be the longest on the internet, on GodLikeProductions.

My favorite was when he would post about the man he met in the late 1970’s called Mike. His posts referencing Mike were often cryptic. A sentence here, a comment there sprinkled enough to bait the curious reader knowing that there was a great experience behind the comments if only he would trust enough to share and others had the patience to listen.

“Mike said this, Mike said that…” Sometimes during an internet discussion Lee would say, “No, Goldilocks, you have it wrong…” and proceed to enlighten me and make me think in a manner I hadn’t before. Eventually, I had the courage to ask him how he came to meet Mike,

It has taken many years to pull the entire story out of Lee not because he didn’t want to tell it, but because the experience was so profound and life changing that he didn’t know how to relate it so that the listener would understand.

Slow and steady as the years have gone by, one question and answer at a time, he’s been able to more fully relate the experience. And I, with his permission, will share it with you and let you make your own conclusions.

I don’t know if this is the story of Lee or the story of Mike. Lee’s going to be upset and say “It’s not about me; it’s about Mike and the message. I’m nothing, just the fortunate man in the middle.”

I will dispute that Lee, because I feel it’s about being the vessel, in this case Lee, and watching God work in mysterious ways talking to us all. I also feel that Mike’s true name is Michael the Archangel but I will let each reader decide for themselves.

In order to understand the experience, you have to understand Lee.

Like many of us, Lee is immensely complex and extraordinarily simple. He has a beautiful singing voice and a heart filled with love. And like all my friends, he enjoys silliness and a gut busting laugh.

He is friends with a fox.

Lee is a master gardener. Loving the earth and gently coaxing seeds to sprout into glorious flowers and vegetables with an abundance of blooms and baskets of produce all from a piece of land in a small city in Middle America that is the size of my back porch.

Lee graciously lets his internet friends share his garden every year by posting photos of his daily labors and its progress from seed to glory. His plants always seem to turn just right when he snaps their photo.

Currently his garden is flooded and he has shared this small piece of land with a new neighbor. The gentleman’s name is Adam. I don’t really think it’s a coincidence. Lee is recovering from a stroke and I think God sent someone to help him with his little corner of the earth.

There is so much to what Lee relates, far too much for one blog post. But I’ll start by relying on quoting his internet posts because that’s the only way I’ll get it right.

~When I was in Arizona that January, I called my buddy Eric. He was telling me about this weird guy living there named “Mike Lucci.” I said “What makes you say that?”

Eric told me for instance that he could find lost (people who had lost contact with each other, not missing people) family friends or people just by making a short phone call”. He gave me several other examples of this guys “weirdness.”

Eric had recently been busted for pot, and was on a mild probation. He told me either this guy is a Narc …. is a CIA agent, or is an extraterrestrial! I laughed, told him he was being paranoid, and said I’d like to meet this Mike guy someday, and we said our goodbyes.

One thing Eric said was correct, and I already had a feeling which one.~

~I was a college student at the time. I was at ASU in Tempe, Arizona. I lived in Mesa.

It was spring break during mid-March of that year, and a strong urge was saying “go back home now” (that voice inside), so I packed up my car one night at 3:30 am, and started the long drive back east home. I went to Akron first to see friends and family, then it was off to Pittsburgh, to visit some friends. I was staying at a friends house whose father had abandoned them a few years before during a divorce. His mother had Multiple Sclerosis very bad, and was “bed-ridden” to a couch in the living room.

It was a large ranch style house with about 8 – 10 bedrooms. So, to help make ends meet, she rented out 4 or 5 rooms to “boarders” dirt cheap.

To my great luck, Mike was one of these boarders.

After we talked all evening, all night, and the next morning, it was time for me to leave, and start my journey back to Arizona. I was antsy to return, but looking back, I wish I would have delayed my departure a day or two.~

~Actually, my leaving was already delayed a few days. About 4 or 5 to be exact.

When I first arrived at the friends house, I had already known of this guy named Mike who was living there. I knew about him 2 months before (phone call) and was greatly looking forward to meeting him someday. What I was told about him, greatly intrigued me.

Thing was, he wasn’t there when I got there! He was in Florida! BUMMER!!!

I was delayed to leave due to a very odd circumstance. I wanted to bring my Raleigh 10 speed bike back with me. The summer before, I let my brother use it, and my parents divorce was finalized, and they sold our house when I was 19…! I had no home anymore at Pitt, and no place to crash while visiting, thus why I was staying at that friends house (Eric) the next year.

My brother, had left my bike at a old neighbors house for safe keeping for me. In March of 1977 he was in Miami, at college there (Univ. of Miami). Well, the lady/mother of the house didn’t realize it was my bike. She thought it was my brothers, and would NOT release it to me until she heard from him via phone that it was okay. That took 2 or 3 days.

It was during that period of waiting, that Mike came back from Florida on the very day I got my bike back and was going to leave, that we finally met.

Then I was delayed 2 or 3 more days!

The force was with me during that time in my life~

He showed me way to many things for him not to be real. He was telepathic, and amongst other things, was able to manifest things right in the sky. Plus, right before he manifested something right before me, he pointed out one of their space craft (they don’t need them to fly in), and told me what it’s purpose is.

Earlier in the evening when we first met, I asked him what we need to do on earth to have a better life and such.

He replied “If YOU people would just learn to live your lives in the true Spirit of Christmas, you would not die.”

Hours later, when we went outside, he pointed out a light in the sky to me and asked me to keep my eyes on it. It was a full or near full moon, and it was chilly out. When he told me it was one of their ships… what he called a “beacon ship” , I asked him if it was going to be there for a while.

He said yes. So while shivering, I said “Well I’m going in and grab my jacket.” I ran in, grabbed it, came back outside and sat down right in the driveway lotus style, and watched the craft. It was very far away.

I asked him if it was going to land, and he said “nope”. Drats I thought, I wanna go for a ride.

He told me that the ship was say 200,000 miles away, heading to the moon. He also told me what the real purpose of the beacon ships are.

I watched it for about 10 minutes, and during that time, had traveled about 20,000 more miles.

While I watched it, I suddenly noticed small puffy clouds that had a orange hue, were moving oddly. They weren’t moving with a current. They were moving towards each other!

The clouds then merged, and when they did, a silhouette of Santa Claus and 2 reindeer appeared and flew across the sky.

I started laughing my ass off at the appropriateness of it (the spirit of Christmas earlier), and he was cracking up as well.

He then told me that just days earlier while he was in Florida (Jupiter, FL) he did the same thing in front of 200 people at a huge beach party and it flipped and freaked many of them out!

I think he liked my response of not showing any fear, but laughing at it. ~

~Mike told me that our meeting was NOT planned at all. I asked.

I helped him, just as much as he helped me! I gave him a means to VENT! And believe me, he sure vented! just imagine what he was holding inside, for who knows how long? I come along, and he let’r rip!

Let’s just say he had a lot of pent-up frustrations and anger.~

MIKE

I met a man
From a distant land.
He stressed the point
That I Am that I Am.

He was a firm man
With eyes aflame.
The powers he possessed
Put me to shame.

He said;
“You can do
What I do, Lee.
The secret…,
Lies in brain capacity.”

We drove around
In his compact car.
While we talked of life
On his distant star.

Time seemed to stop,
You see,
For Mother Shakti
Was flowing through me.

He stressed a point
I must relate.
That man
Shouldn’t have to reach
The “Pearly Gate.”

He spoke of past civilizations
On Jupiter and Mars.
Are the ditches on the fourth planet
Battle scars?

The Earth may suffer
A similar fate
It’s in the Bible
They won’t set a date.

The Earth’s what’s so important
We shall see.
That NO ONE(!)
Messes with cosmic energies

They can spin us
If need be
To put Earth back on track.
Then we will implode
and if so,
Will we be allowed back?

He said;
“You should use fusion,
Instead of smashing apart.
Then pollution shall rid itself
When you are given this brand new start.”

Yes,
I met a man
From a distant land.
He made me “high”,
By the touch
Of his hand.

Lee Bell – May 1978

Maranatha, Lee
With all my love
Goldilocks