I seen the mail-carrier Post-Lady (or whatever the kids call it) drive down the driveway to deliver mail. This ment that my copies of The Great a Dismal Swamis newest release, Phantom Tollbooth, was here! Finally! The same record I'm credited as a bona-fide designer (or whatever the kids are calling it now)!
Jason Rowland, had confirmation from mailings that Dismals in Los Angeles had gotten their records but not me... Jason had no answers, but I did.
I went out into the thick, Cincinnati/Sputh-Western Ohio climate. Dew-points were reaching 74 degrees and that's bad. Real bad. Since I was already on alert for a unrelated package from FedEx I went out to greet the mail-carrier. I could tell she was feeling bad and although I had never seen her a single day in my life before, she wasn't right.
She was sweating profusely. She was breathing shallow. She thought she might be having a heart-attack. she claimed she hasn't taken her blood pressure medicine... Like lightning my wife, daughter and in-laws visiting from Florida kept into action.
It turned out that her blood-pressure (taken with a personal at-home apparatus was 179/150... The highest blood-pressure I have ever seen taken. This story is much more complicated than I care to really get into but under tear-field eyes she acknowledged her failing health and said I saved her life. This affected me deeply. She had no family she trusted so I sat and listened while the hospital doctors did their thing. I listened while she was discharged. I listened as we walked to the hospital pharmacy and while we waited for her new medicine.
I listened as I drove her around to find a fellow co-worker who she trusted to hand her keys to and then back to the Post Office.
"If they see that I can walk they will force me to work..."
She was ravaged with anxiety... My heart truly ached for her and her co-workers who live under never ending scrutiny. Despite being unionized, incidents that clearly seem as manipulative and horrendously cruel, were regularly committed...
So I listened to her and her life that she felt was crumbling around her.
"If it wasn't for you getting that package today I would have went on with my day and died."
That package was copies of The Great Dismal Swamis records in lieu for my cover design. It's strange how peoples lives become inter-connecting at times, and everyone is where they need to be after all.
My batch of Swami records, in essence, saved a persons life today.
-Thanks
PS: I could go on and on for thousands of words that would include a recent post on THWART...!
If you haven't read The New Bolsheviks and the Next Red a October check it out below.
http://shawnabnoxious.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-new-bolsheviks-and-next-red-october.html
I can't say more about The Great Dismal Swamis record that wasn't already said by THUGBARIAN Blog http://thugbrarianreview.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/set-list-the-great-dismal-swamis-phantom-tollbooth-45/