Overall, growing up in a new suburb for the middle class in Jacksonville, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, was a wonderful experience for me, and I have so many great memories, especially about my cousins, my aunt’s and uncles, my grandparents, and how we all managed to spend time with each other on Holidays, and Sundays, which were huge for visits and outings. Jacksonville was at one time the largest city in the U.S., at least in land mass, but my family took turns visiting each other. I guess I can thank my Dad for that, for he was really big on keeping in touch with our family members. Many Sundays, Daddy would load us in the car, sometimes with food and gifts for outings, or just sitting and visiting with my grandmother, my Dad’s mother, who was the sweetest and wisest woman in the world, to my young inexperienced mind. My sister and Mom also made the trip way out Main Street, past the old airport, but we made that long hour long trip with no complaint.

Other times we drove to Mandarin, more to the south of Jacksonville, to visit with my Dad’s uncle Frank and Aunt Marilyn, both grand role models, for all the kids, myself, my sister Elaine, my cousins Angela and Robbie, one and two years older than myself.. Easter was a great day to visit with them for Frank and Marilyn always hosted an Easter egg hunt, and kids just swarmed over their large property they had bought up when the prices were still dirt cheap. I remember being the one to find the “golden” egg, hidden in Uncle Frank’s Texan style boot, which won me a big fat five dollar bill. I still remember his silly grin, when I started sniffing around him, thinking he was just oozing a big clue, if I could just figure it out. Finally, looking up at him, with my hands on my hips, I finally glanced down and spotted it in his boot. It was a reward for my detective snooping, but I was just two slow to find many of the other eggs, and a little shy to take off running like all the other kids, mostly children of members of the little country church, right next to Frank’s eighty-eight acres in Mandarin.

Even though Uncle Frank was my Dad’s uncle, they were quite close in age, apparently had developed quite a friendship over the years. Frank was well known in his community, quite the kidder, and a Free Mason to boot. My Aunt and Uncle came from the same humble roots as the rest of our family, but they were hard working, honest folk, who lived in a very poor neighborhood in downtown Jacksonville, but saved their money by living rent free in an old house on Schofield Street, until they were able to purchase their eighty-eight acres, and begin to build their dream house. They loved family and children, and Marilyn had no qualms about correcting any of the behavior of the children visiting their home. I always loved my visits there, even though Angie and I often were tasked with helping with food preparation and washing dishes. Everything was done in a spirit of community, love and family, and I miss those early days with them, and my family.

My parents had it a lot harder, for no one offered them a place where they could save their money, but they both worked hard to support their family, and I don’t remember feeling deprived of anything. At Christmas, we put up our tree together, and my sister and I always seemed to get the things we asked for, whether it be dolls or bikes, but this was before the time of computerized games, gadgets, or devices. I spent a great deal of time outside, after school, until I became old enough to start helping with chores around the house. Still I had plenty of time to spend with friends, or riding my English bike my Dad procured for me when I was about thirteen. I was able to explore all of Arlington on that bike, from University Bvd, which ran along the St. John’s River, where I discovered a library run by the Woman’s Club, all the way down Merrill Rd to Fort Caroline Road, which had some huge hills, quite a challenge to bicycle up, but so much fun to coast down. Of course, I also biked over the hill on Cesery Blvd, right where it joined two roads, coming from our house on Oak Summit Dr. That hill was really hard to petal up, but what a ride coasting down! I guess I was a bit of a Tomboy, but I loved being outside, executing a few cartwheels, and such, as well as riding my bike, just exploring everything in my neck of the woods.

My Mom came from a big family of thirteen children, one, my Aunt Matilda, was adopted into the family, who later married my mother’s brother, nicknamed Bootsie. He was the artist and inventor of the family, a left-handed genius I once played a game or two of chess with, and bested him at. I really regret that I didn’t challenge him to more games, for he loved that so, and he died only in his fifties, of kidney disease. He worked for a canning company, for whom he designed their machines for sealing the cans once they were filled with whatever those cans would hold. Another Uncle who is now deceased was Knocker. Where they got these nicknames, I guess I’ll never know. Then there was J.W., a rather course and rude man, who worked at the shipyards, where he and my grandfather worked as welders during WWII which then became their career.

My grandfather, known to his friends as Shep, short for his surname of Shepherd, was quite a colorful character. The family story goes, he used to sit in his rocking chair on the porch of the Old house on Walnut Street, where they lived when my Mom first met my Dad. The story continues that when Daddy came courting, and finally managed to ask for Mama’s hand in marriage, he stared at the crazy man, with his shotgun on his knees, and finally stammered out his request, but surprisingly, old Shep, just laughed, and said, “Hell yes, and while you’re at it, find a husband for Francis and, Mildred, and Mattie too.” Then he handed him a cigar, for I suspect I was already on the way here. I never could get Mama to give me her anniversary date, but I only wanted to know how many years they were married, when I asked her, sometime in my teens.

I hope all these stories of my colorful family are not too boring, but looking around at all the broken homes kids have to endure these days, I realize what a treasure these memories are, and of being raised in the fifties, for me, was really magical, and set the stage for me to begin to explore the more esoteric side of life, which I can say pretty well, began when I picked up a paperback book just entitled Yoga, by Ernest Wood, in which I was introduced to the twin laws of Reincarnation and Karma, which I will explain to you later.

My parents were not religious at all, although my mother had been raised Lutheran, and I do remember her taking my sister and me to Sunday School, when I was about five, at a Lutheran church in Riverside, another subdivision of Jacksonville, one of the older, more settled areas that was once an area of prime real estate. We were both baptized the Lutheran way of pouring the water over the forehead, while bending over the sacred fountain, at about the ages of five and six. To Lutherans, baby and child baptism are considered the norm, while parents or a godparent, take the vows for the child, until they can be schooled in the faith during Confirmation classes. These classes are held on Saturdays, from the age of twelve, for a period of two years. All this was a great mystery to me at the time, for nothing was explained to me, except “You will be baptized.” And that was that.

When I was about eight or nine, my family moved to a big house in Riverside, which my parents, my Aunt Francis and Uncle Sheron, and grandfather all rented together. The house was only a block away from where the St. John’s River passed by, and I was fascinated with the huge house, but dismayed at the huge cock roaches and brown spiders that seem to lurk everywhere. This was just a part of life for the working class, for they assumed that debugging the house by placing a huge tent over it to fumigate the bugs away, was just too expensive. And ants, which I remember my Aunt used to pour scalding hot water over all the counters, after washing the dishes each night. My Aunt Francis was another colorful character from my mother’s tribe, and I loved her dearly. She was a beautiful woman, wearing her dark hair long, when I was a child, but later, after she became a bookkeeper, she cut her hair in the shorter style. I remember her taking such pleasure as roaches and ants alike were scalded to death as she screamed, “Take that, you little piss-ants, take that”, then swept the carcasses out the backdoor, until the following night, when the ritual began all over again.

When I finally obtained my first home , being married to a sailor, who rented a very small trailer for us in Key West, where he was stationed in 1964. I informed him after a week there, that no matter what it cost, we had to get the trailer sprayed for bugs, as soon as I got a job there. I was able to get a temporary job for about three months, with the civil service rating I had obtained, after working for the Internal Revenue, for a year after graduating high school. All this is part of another story, about my misbegotten first marriage, which will be for another time.

So you pretty much have an idea of the environment in which I grew up, but there are many other parts that relate to how I was able to finally discover how relevant magic can be in our lives, and how one discovery led me to another that finally led me to practicing magic, along with strong spiritual and philosophical beliefs, no “knowings” that can affect everything in one’s life.

In coming segments, I would like to get into spiritual principles I have found common to just about every religion and spiritual philosophy I have spent my life studying, and which I would like to share with my readers, and leave to posterity, that I hope will be of value. This blog is not meant to tear down anyone’s beliefs, for I know getting into the dogma of different religions can be quite tricky. Everyone has the right to believe and follow a faith of their choosing, but for those interested in the subject of magic, I hope these words will be inspiring, and help you put together pieces of a puzzle we all once knew and practiced in remote years in the past, and for which we are at a new door of awakening and understanding.