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The adrenalin rush from that first jump was the most amazing high I had ever experienced. “I just jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. Wow.” Totally narcissistic, instant gratification and it lasted the entire day into the night. I made a few deliveries on the way home and repacked the truck for Sunday deliveries. The best thing I had going for me was the ability to service the customers. They would call, the answering service would take the orders and I would be on it that day or within a day or so depending on when I was on the road picking up fresh spring water or in the area making deliveries. My customers were important even in the midst of the video production I never let it get out of control.
With work completed I had to venture across the Assawoman to the Beach; it was Saturday night. I went to where I knew live music I usually enjoyed would be present and the Angler Inn on the Bayside in downtown Ocean City didn’t fail me. I had a couple of tall Gin Rickeys, a refreshingly tart summer drink and stood off to the side and grooved with the music, not bothering anyone, simply enjoying the buzz. The crowd was much younger but I seriously enjoyed my own little world and hey, I had jumped out of an airplane that very day. And it felt good.
After two drinks it was time to leave and I edged through the crowd and across the dance floor, the only area where there were spaces between people. A fight broke out directly in my path. “I jumped out of an airplane,” was my only thought when I stepped between the two much younger men and pushed them apart. I pointed the one I faced toward a door. “You go that way, “I said all the while thinking, “I jumped out of an airplane.” The other jumped on my back—I crunched my shoulders and shook him off, turning to face him, pointing to an opposite exit. “You go that way,” I said, thinking, “I jumped out of an airplane.” They both left in their appointed directions. The fight was over and I went home. I did seven more static line jumps that summer at 40 bucks a pop, much more than I could afford but worth every penny.

Unable to develop a finished print because of the sound distortion and conflicting schedules in the summer created a conflict of stagnation in motion. I knew if we didn’t complete in a timely manner the project would die even though we had gotten as far as we did. As busy as the water business was, still there was always a money problem and the project was costing quite a bit out of pocket. I couldn’t start a new creative project with something unfinished on the table and the responsibility of producer that no one else wanted. When compiling the credits every person mentioned was someone I had dealt with.
I had dinner with a woman who told me she was raped by a local disc jockey and I didn’t understand what she was saying. I was overloaded with too much information. While we were having dinner a friend approached her and said that he had been skydiving. We both said that was something we would like to do some day. “Where?” I asked. “Georgetown, Delaware,” he answered. “Let’s go Saturday,” I told my date. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve got to do this,” I answered. Not completing the tai-chi video was diminishing my spirit. We couldn’t schedule the time when the sound man, Professor and me could come together until the end of summer. Jumping out of an airplane, though I was afraid of heights, seemed logical and necessary—conquering a fear—doing something I could control that took courage other than punching out a DJ for whatever reason seemed idiotic. Other women had told me about being taken against their will and I never understood what they were saying or what I should or could do about it—none had taken legal action against their rapist. The drudgery of driving and handling large jugs of water was driving me into the ground.
I contacted the small airport in Georgetown and learned the cost and schedule and made an appointment for the following Saturday. I caught up on my deliveries throughout the week–bright and early drove north from Berlin to Georgetown. I paid $150 and began my training that consisted of jumping off a two foot high stool and extending my pelvis forward while holding my arms in an upward submissive position. After a couple of hours “training” I was shown where they packed the parachutes and outfitted with a helmet and earpiece and a parachute.
I climbed aboard a Piper Cub with a “Jump Master” and three other novices. I got to sit up front with the pilot since I was the largest of the group. The plane climbed to 3500 feet. The “Jump Master” opened the door and when we were above the patchwork of agriculture and forest and waterways, “Are you ready to Jump?” he screamed like a drill sergeant. “Yes, sir!” I answered. “Move to the hatch!” I pulled myself out of my cramped seat and moved to the open hatch of the plane. The blast of air brought reality and anxiety to a crescendo. “Climb out on the wing!” Without thinking I automatically grabbed the strut and climbed out onto the wing as I had been told would happen in training. “Let go!”
Whoosh. I forgot everything and tumbled for what seemed an eternity but I didn’t care. The static line tensed and the chute was dragged from the bag and after another eternity I was flying. I reached up for the handles and instructions came through the earpiece to pull on the right and tug on the left and the blood filled my entire body with life’s force and exhilaration as the ground came closer and the instructions were followed with faith that I was being told the right thing to do to not die. “Pull both handles!” Whump.

Word of the video began to spread and we began to give thought to a design for the cover. The sound man who worked with the group CAPITAL STEPS suggested a photographer, Maloof–Maloof lived on the shore of the Wicomico River south of Salisbury with his wife, MSMaloof. The timing of our production was in line when David Carradine, the KUNGFU star was advertised in Parade Magazine promoting his own tai-chi video. Professor was impressed by this because of the impact the TV series had even in Academia for the philosophical aspects even though Bruce Lee was passed over for the part because of our national racism. Academia being interested in really fake TV shows other than the pure entertainment value was a pretty scary insight.
The multi-cultural aspect of our tai-chi video was something we were proud of though the marketing of an Asian exercise taught by an Italian to music we had chosen which was German classical with a Polish director was not even on our radar. We paid a musician to come up with his own arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon using a synthesizer since intellectual property rights was something we wanted to honor–a recording of someone else performing the popular dead composer’s music was out of the question. Professor was also intent on keeping the length of the short form at seven minutes.
The weather finally broke steady in our favor. I had to rent a camera from TCI Cable TV Company in Ocean City since we were actually leaving the immediate area and school was in session. Professor performed the form on grass with the river in the background and our recording off to the side for his timing. Over and over Professor performed until the 69 year old man thought he got it right. That’s what he did: tai-chi ch’uan, mathematics, riding his bicycle and caring about the environment.
The river shoot took several days since we had to coordinate other sections of the video in the river setting including the principles and stances and the five sections from the side angle view. The water business was exploding and time was diminishing. I again had the three quarter video transferred to VHS with time code and created an edit decision list with a rented TV with a recorder and another recorder. Some of the sound from the river was distorted but summer was coming on quickly and there wasn’t time to re-shoot anything. The sound man promised a voice over session in his home studio down the line. I booked twenty hours of late night editing at TCI cable in Ocean City and had a workable print as water flowed enough that I was driving to Richmond twice a week and Fort Meade once.

With rough cuts pasted together on VHS and the decision made to include the entire group for student participation with different levels of expertise on display we decided to introduce the group by name at the end each doing a section of the form. True Dancer wore shorts and leopard skin on the first decent day in the spring for our shoot in Salisbury Zoo Park. Spring break at the university provided us with the free use of a camera one last time. Number one student was the shooter for the day and we were able to compensate him with a few dollars. Fortunately the water business was finally beginning to support itself with an increase in cash flow though it was always out as well as in just more.
Section three of the form included a posture called repulse the monkey; True Dancer’s jungle garb was appropriate and a bit of independent rebellion after having spent hours and hours in the studio in beige and black with a blue background. Professor Wife was fair lady at the shuttles in section four. Professor’s second, Duke of Earl, who was an expert in his own right, having many students of his own, was given section three the second most difficult in degree and added his individual signature with an MRDUCKS tee shirt and a hand wave. Professor ended the program with section five and the sun cooperated with a wink at the very end in one of the several takes.
There was still a lot of shooting left with Professor explaining principles and demonstrating the complete form and a side view since we wanted to cover all angles, but work with the group was finished.

Professor was able to acquire the use of the University mass-communications studio for the video.
I had formed TAKE A BITE PRODUCTIONS while attempting to acquire funding for the song and short film promoting literacy. “You’re Waterguy.” I had defined myself by what I was doing no matter what else in which I was also involved; my public persona was that which I had become, except in my own mind. Of course, I was also asshole.
Having had no experience in film or video besides being an extra or writing what I believed to be screen plays learning the format from books, different than novels, more structured like the tai-chi form, dynamic calculated movement within a structure with a mathematical formula, I had learned the form well enough to convince others the video was a doable project with me directing and producing since no one else wanted to do the work nor had the instinct or will to pull it off. The fact that Professor had been teaching the form in seasonal classes for years and the number learning the complete form in this manner could be counted on fingers and toes was an incentive to create the video teaching aid.
Professor had created five sections within the seven minute Yang Classical Short form. He had studied and become friends with many masters before drawing his conclusions into a mathematical formula. The only hitch was his wife designed and made the costumes for the women for the Studio shoot—a gesture of modesty and propriety that dominated the relationship of professor/wife and a major hindrance in creating something that we had hopes of being a commercially viable product since there wasn’t anything that seemed to be a teaching aid for the tai-chi form on the market at the time. With no budget to work with I traded water for symbols and charts. Purchased rugs for the floor with water profits and fresh video tapes, three quarter inch tape since the university studio was set for that. After interviewing students two were chosen to be the videographers since I knew nothing. One in particular took the project seriously enough to show up and do the lighting and teach me what I had to know about time code and logging. The only professional was a water customer whose specialty was sound. We began shooting while the school was closed for the winter break. We learned quickly that Professor needed time to work on his verbal instructions and shut down production. Not being prepared the Professor saw it no longer as a game and took time and reflection to create what he thought was an intelligent design and method. Once back in the studio the group shots were completed in several hours over a two week period. The professor returned to perform on his own and in real time, while I read the scripted instruction off camera, performed the solo form in five painstaking sections before school resumed. Fifteen hour long tapes were transferred to VHS with time code and I spent my winter evenings in front of a rented TV with VHS and a separate VHS recorder creating mockup tapes for Professor to view and chose where he thought he looked best doing the form.

Carrying five gallons of water in large glass and plastic jugs, driving hundreds of miles a week, dealing with the public, dealing with a variety of actual businessmen that believed in making money more than making time valuable, writing, rhyming, writhing in pain, running on empty—I split into so many alter-egos, none of whom did anything that well—directing was the only logical sequence of activities. I was carrying water to make everything else possible—never being satisfied with working for others because I always felt I worked hard and never felt appreciated so I basically worked for food. I was the narrator of my own story and the only audience but always looking for a philosophy that works.
Professor was a mathematician who taught tai-chi ch’uan. His wife was 25 years his junior. Breadman worked as though there were no tomorrow and allowed me to use his property for storage. Decker and Felicity were early customers and always had a little time for me. Andrea the librarian had faith that I would carry things until the OC Friends of the library took on its own life. Tom Clancy was an asshole. Water was a way that kept me grounded. There was always something or someone that made time valuable. Mr. J was happy when Clinton was elected because Mountain Valley Water from Hot Springs, Arkansas would remain in the White House even though he was a Republican and Bush drank it also. I had to escape from the water business. If you’re a co-creator of the galaxy you inhabit is it possible to transcend your situation and transport to another galaxy. If the universe is a collection of galaxies and all of the galaxies are the same what would be the point of change. Is the awareness of other galaxies the first step in the ability to explore other galaxies. If you inhabit a world where the major belief systems were created when the world was small and flat and the center of the universe and suddenly the world becomes a dot in a galaxy that is a dot in a universe with only unanswered questions is it time to throw off the old belief systems and look for new systems in which to have faith. If money becomes god and god doesn’t care should there be faith in an uncaring god or is the quality of time spent the only value to be respected.

Rhoda Apple, former owner of the Hope Springs Eternal Hotel in Grantsville, besides sending French teenagers my way also introduced me to Root Lady Reverend Rose Sharon. The Rev was a prophet and a Baptist minister. Rhoda Apple had been consulting her for years—that’s how she got into coffee futures and why she sold the hotel to an oil company in a town that didn’t like outsiders unless they got gas and went.
I had consulted Root Lady on occasion. I liked Root Lady. Root Lady lived near Pimlico Race Track. On consultations an appointment was made at her house. The waiting room was a clean living room usually in the company of her nephew, Wee Willie who was constantly on the phone either taking appointments or bets. When it was your turn a door would open. Wee Willie would nod and the short walk past the aquarium and through the opened door was always accompanied by Wee Willie’s smile and play by play chatter: “He’s up and stretching—I think he has a bad back—the spread is four points—he’s in…” and then it would be through the door into Root Lady’s bedroom where she was sitting in a comfortable cushioned chair with a Bible in her lap and a small TV turned on to some sporting event with the sound humming on low chatter. After sitting across from her Root Lady read a short verse from the open Bible. Finished reading, Root Lady sat quietly smiling with the open Book in her lap. After a donation was inserted in the Bible Root Lady closed the Book and said a prayer asking for guidance in the prophesy. Root Lady saw me driving a truck; she saw me making movies; she saw me on the big screen; she advised me to get a passport for unexpected journeys.
Root Lady organized a bus trip from Baltimore to a small wooden church and hall south of Saint Michaels on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The trip took place on a Sunday in August and packed the church with singers and chanters and people who sweat including me. After singing and anointing and a walk to the Chesapeake Bay for baptisms, a supper of baked chicken and greens and salads and corn bread filled the void where spirit and passion worked up an appetite and Wee Willie sat on the sidelines smiling and chattering a play by play of what happened.

A bit over 17 and a half miles from the DELMARVA Peninsula to Newport News, Virginia, over and under the water, and one lane in each direction it was not fun to pass another vehicle and less fun to be passed. The trip usually began at about 3.00a.m. with a short nap on one of the man made islands until the sun came up, continuing on to Good Christian Dave’s Diamond Spring and bottling plant where the 180 five gallon bottles would be unloaded onto the conveyor belt and run through the wash and sterilized before being refilled, blasted with ozone and capped. The ride home was always treacherous being about 3500 pounds above the gross vehicle weight for the one ton Ford Econoline van with a single axle. The challenge was to get back across the bridge tunnel without breaking down, back onto the Peninsula where the earth was flat. Once back to the storage trailer the truck was mostly unloaded and restacked with crates of glass bottles and cases for the next days delivery or the trip north on the Peninsula and across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the biggest hill, to Fort Meade where Mountain Valley would be loaded. The supply from Hot Springs, Arkansas was trucked in by Earl, Mr. J’s truck driver. He had a big truck and many Ford econoline vans to serve the Baltimore/Washington DC area and the White House. The summer was driving and stacking and lifting and carrying and I seldom saw the ocean only in passing Indian River Inlet in Delaware, another hill.
The tai-chi ch’aun classes were in the Autumn and Spring and then twice a week until the entire form was second nature and a few people actually stuck with it and learned the form—a very few. In the Autumn of 1992 the possibility of a video was discussed between The Professor, a senior student Earl and myself. I volunteered to produce and direct and soon we had a project. The Professor wanted the Wife to participate. Dancer True would be the second woman since there were none in the classes that had stuck with it enough to learn the complete form. I worked with Dancer True on the choreography of the form over several weeks along with her intense lessons with Earl and the Professor.

Along the winding road that ended in a trailer park on Assawoman Bay there were about twenty residents and one motel directly across the creek from the harness track. One of the residents who took up both sides of the road was Bread Man. A Korean War Veteran, Bread Man knew nothing but hard work from before the sun came up until after the sun set. His products were Pepperidge Farm, Martin Potato Rolls, Thomas’ English Muffins and Arnold. He loved his quality products but Arnold made him money–An American Value. Across from the modest stone house on the creek he shared with his wife Bread Man owned a triple door garage with a dugout loading dock, and another 15 acres with a row of chicken coops backed up to a forest. He had been there for many years having started his bread business with only the quality brands before adding the mass marketed air brand.
Bread Man saw me at all hours hauling water and saw that I was legitimate and actually took trips to the spring in Richmond. Seeing the similarity in the way he grew his business over the years Bread Man offered me space on his land to park a trailer for storage. I purchased a 40 foot insulated refrigerator type trailer and had it parked far off the road and hidden from view of passersby. In exchange for the use of his land Bread Man asked for an occasional glass jug of Mountain Valley for him and his wife, Bread Woman.

The natural spring water, Diamond Springs of Richmond began to out sell Mountain Valley very quickly because I could sell it for a lot less and my markup was exponential as opposed to a percentage. Mr. J didn’t like it one bit though I assured him the cheaper water that I picked up myself at the spring outside of Richmond would give me the extra cash flow needed for survival so I could continue to expand his territory on Mountain Valley. I had looked into other options of perhaps even buying a spring. I researched the differences in labeling that had evolved. I was told by a man in Maryland’s health department how many years earlier he was investigating Great Bear Water and went to a warehouse in Jessup, Maryland and was told by the warehouseman that the water came from a hose. In my travels I learned that Great Bear was being bottled at a huge bottling plant being fed by a spring south of the James River near Richmond. The spring had been purchased by Suntory a Japanese Scotch company. I learned that natural spring water was bottled at the source from a protected spring and tested regularly. Spring water was from a protected source and trucked to a bottling plant. Pure water was more than likely from a municipal source and repackaged as simply bottled water. Both Mountain Valley and Diamond Springs of Richmond were natural spring waters. Good Christian Dave was very proud of his Diamond and had it checked regularly for any impurities or aberrations. I drove weekly with a load of empties and the bottles were washed and sterilized and refilled at the spring where I stacked the filled bottles in Iris’s box before driving back home to the creek, picking up accounts on the Virginia point of the DELMARVA PENINSULA along the way. For a time I used the second bedroom for storage, backing across the patio up to the sliding glass door and carrying two bottles at a time once a week and then repacking the Mountain Valley for delivery the next day still making weekly trips to Fort Meade where I picked up Mountain Valley.
I soon had to buy my own plastic bottles and have them labeled with my phone number and name: THE WATER WAY—28WATER with IRIS on the edge. I bought plastic bottles from a man in New Jersey. He also manufactured condoms, his main business. The man told me of a project at Rutgers where they had a prototype of a machine that turned mixed recycled plastics into lumber. The Professor, my tai-chi teacher was creating a field called environmental mathematics. I told him of the plastic lumber. We created a company: Pangloss Was Right/PWR/Plastics Waste Recycling. The Professor and me went to Rutgers to visit the machine and were showed a deck constructed from the plastic lumber. The Professor believed plastic lumber was a good idea. We were both too busy to do anything about it. Pangloss was a friend of Candide. He was right but not able to do anything either.