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The pace picked up dramatically and the runs to Richmond for water increased dramatically. The kid I was training to take over the route was perfectly young, dumb and strong. He would be getting the support of the Fort Meade office and he only had to deliver water. They were keeping the phone number 28WATER and answering service for the time being. My accountant’s secretary said I should have held out for a lot more money but the cash down would get me out of town and I paid rent three months in advance in Orlando for a three bedroom apartment about a mile from the warehouse complex campus of Full Sail. I was told that roommates wouldn’t be difficult to find. I told the housing person I wouldn’t mind younger people since I wanted to find out what was going on in the minds of 20 somethings. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said. I was enrolled in the film program and my 13 month cycle began the middle of June. I would be receiving monthly payments for the next year and everything seemed honky dory. I was being given the opportunity to reinvent myself in a win win situation for everyone involved in the transaction of faith–Faith that if the circumstances present themselves where value exchanged is relevant to all participants, one upmanship or kill or be killed is eliminated from the equation. If anything can figure this out it should be the rational human mind. I bought a bicycle and gave the canoe to Decker. “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.” Rupert adds, “You can fill a head with knowledge but you cannot make it think.” I wanted to learn new things and be a productive member of the mind controlling media. I wanted to make movies that were worthwhile projects. I wanted and wanted and wanted to get out of the outhouse and into the shit.
Everything I couldn’t fit in the back of the truck I gave away. The new bike scrunched in the rear along with a bed, couch, books, trunks of tapes and ten five gallon glass jugs of Mountain Valley Water in plastic stackable crates and a water cooler. I invested in a cell phone when cell phones weren’t cool—but they were expensive to use—big, bulky and the roaming sucked eggs. In early June I was outa there. Ciao.

The winter was grueling. The year ‘round water business had picked up, requiring bi-weekly runs to Richmond and weekly runs to Fort Meade for Mountain Valley. We managed to have a winter session of tai-chi ch’uan in the Berlin Town Hall that doubled as a dance studio without mirrors. With skill, cunning and daring and a volunteer carpenter, a wall of mirrors was donated to the town of Berlin and a wall of mirrors was donated to Professor for teaching the class. Everyone takes for granted how things /merchandise appear in America as though it is our birthright for easy access of plenty: “Charley says, love that Good and Plenty”—An American Value. Somewhere somehow there is work involved and sometimes the workers even get paid a livable wage or something even. My money was pouring out the back of the truck as though I drove around with the door open. My priorities had definitely shifted. I borrowed 1500 from Professor and signed a note to keep from going down the tubes when the business was doing better than it ever had. I even had an accountant that was handling the water and the tai chi but it all went on the same bill– mine.
I finally negotiated with Mr. J to take the Eastern Shore off my hands. I just wanted to leave. He hired a 21 year old kid, a relative, and offered him more money than I had ever made in a year just to deliver. He rented small warehouse space and I trained the kid. All of the water would be delivered to the kid. My accountant said I didn’t need a lawyer for the deal and I took his word. I also took Mr. J’s word that I would get all of my money. I had basically cut new ground for a product that did no advertising. I called Full Sail Center for The Recording Arts and a student loan was approved after a nice cash down payment. I drove to Orlando for a weekend to look at “the campus”. I had faith.
The weekend was a marketing “FLY IN” when the FOOL SALE plane trucked in groups of parents and kids for a weekend of heavy duty marketing and smiling and nothing but positive energy with a touch of Christ being the founder of the school who got to tell his story and his dream and the hope for all of the worthless offspring that couldn’t make it in the university structure of four years or even two. The FOOL SALE offered an Associates degree in 13 months and job placement and small class sizes and fajitas and nothing but smiles. “Learn the Rules of the Jungle” was their jingle, all for 18,000 dollars at the time.
In early May Ocean City had initiated SPRING FEST featuring Beer and music and art and food and beer in an attempt to kick off the season early and promote the town as a family resort. It was my last May. I learned that skydivers would be landing on the beach, flying out of Ocean City Airport. I contracted for a tandem jump from 10,000 feet. I was strapped to the largest jumper and our combined weight was that of a small tank. I wore shorts. We went out of the plane and went into a spin and the fool pulled the cord almost immediately. The straps for the tandem cut into my leg and cut off circulation. We floated over the Atlantic Ocean—the pain was excruciating. I called up to the skydiver that things weren’t going well and he let me stand on his feet to take some pressure off the cutting straps—tough to do dangling fron a parachute at 8,000 feet. Everyone else from the jump had landed on the beach in the heart of Springfest. There was a DJ from a local radio station announcing the landings on the beach.
“Here comes the Waterguy,” he said. “What took you so long? She really wanted it. And you’re jumping out of airplanes you big dummy.”