#16-Story Continues: Not dead … but why?
From book Chapter 6:
A woman in a small car had plowed into me going over 60MPH. I was at a full stop. She and her three children were killed. Others were involved when her car spun out across highway lines. My car was telescoped to a third of its size.
I was sitting on the sidewalk across from where my car was being opened by paramedics and fire department personnel in search of the driver’s body … mine. They couldn’t find so much as a drop of blood.
A fire fighter saw me and asked me if I’d seen the accident. I said yes I had. He asked where did the driver of that car [mine] get thrown. I said I was the driver. He looked at my untouched body and said “No way!”
I showed him my drivers license and he called a cop to investigate. Once it was determined I was the owner /driver they wanted to transport me to a hospital. I felt fine and declined. I should have listened to them. E., my wife at the time, picked me up and took me home to my desert ranchette outside of Casa Grande , Arizona, half way between Tucson and Phoenix. She was understandably upset but I seemed OK.
The next. day I was in great pain from severe whiplash. I was also psychologically changed . I knew I should have been dead. Others were. Why wasn’t I? All my religious background from earlier years came full circle.
Why did God let me live in what appeared to be a miracle?
For three years I was unable to work due to the pain in my arms and back. Soft tissue injuries the doctors said. No real structural damage. The insurance company I’d been paying big premiums to for such an event refused to pay as they said I was not hurt … only faking. I had to sue. In the meantime, I had no cash flow. My former partners were now getting paid the money I used to get. All I had was stock that would not pay out for years if ever. I was a millionaire on paper only. I was forced to sell my stock at a ‘fire sale’ price to the major company investor from Canada who took advantage for pennies an a dollar. I took $100,000 for a multi-million dollar potential. I had to for personal survival. Or so I thought. In retrospect I guess he was taking a risk too so I can’t harbor any ill will.
My wife couldn’t keep supporting me on what she made training horses for Olympic contenders. The strain of the finances was becoming too great. In addition, I was consumed with a need to discover why I was alive. She was still agnostic as her family upbringing influenced her. Money no longer meant what it had previously to me. My entrepreneurial drive was changed to spiritual investigative drive.
I used the money to buy and open new versions of two bookstores in Central Arizona, Casa Grande and Coolidge. I figured I could read and learn about all the world’s religions and seek my answers while making a living. I got more than I planned spiritually.
E. and I had moved to Casa Grande originally because she had many clients there to train horses. She needed cheap stabling while we grew our respective lives and businesses. We first rented, then purchased some land with money I was making … then we leveraged money to build a home on the land using sweat equity to build the place. It was the smallest, least expensive home in the area of very expensive homes. I commuted to Phoenix every day and she worked there in the deserts of Casa Grande.
After my accident these roles reversed. I worked primarily in Casa Grande and she commuted to Phoenix and Tucson where the bigger dollar clients were located.
I began to grow my bookstores. It was going well for a few months then another change in circumstances caused us to redirect again.
The country had been in the midst of a financial crisis in the mid eighties, the Carter years. A fifty-five MPH restriction was placed on travel on most roads. People tended to stay in the immediate area for shopping as travel to the big city was too time consuming. When I began operating the bookstores known as BookCentres, I had a good customer base. About then, I learned that the folks I’d purchased inventory from on credit had cooked their books to deceive me about the quality of the inventory. [ I was too trusting apparently].
Right in this same time period, the highway restrictions were lifted and two things happened together. People began to travel to far away Phoenix and Tucson again for shopping and a major retail store came into town with predatory practices for destroying the local business. Including bookstores of which I was the only one.
My plans for a nice quiet book business began to fail.We were forced to make some more hard decisions. This time the Universe again began to assert itself into my life spiritually speaking. The business failure led to some major spiritual experiences as you will soon see.
More next post.