A Few Remarkable Alabama People I Have Known, by A Southern Lawyer Who Became a Mystic

   Two friends' and my dreams left me feeling I might wish to go back in time to a little book that came up out of me amidst oceans of tears and snot. I suppose anyone running for president, even if only make-believe, should share with the public a little bit about people who affected him in his early life and remain with him today.

   The book can be can be read for free at either of these links: https://afewremarkablealabamapeople.blogspot.com/2019/11/a-few-remarkable-alabama-peoplei-have.html ;

 https://archive.org/details/a-few-remarkable-alabama-people-i-have-known_202210

    The introduction below explains how the book came about.

A FEW REMARKABLE ALABAMA PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN

by A southern lawyer who became a mystic

This first little book in a trilogy (see links at very end) was set up by a poem, which fell out of me as fast as I could write it.

SHANGHAIED

A calling to serve carries its own wisdom,
which legitimates both the calling and the serving
so that the two are one.
Only the one called to serve
can know this wisdom,
and for some who are called
the knowing comes easily,
while for others the knowing is a fiery baptism.
Each calling is different,
and while some callings can be declined,
others cannot,
and those whose calling is without repentance
know they are in it for the duration of the calling,
and while others may try to persuade them out of it,
the calling for ones such as these always prevails;
thus is it advised to all called for keeps
that they view their calling as a blessing
even when it seems at times to be a curse,
and that they try to reconcile the loss of their captain status
and allow the Spirit of God to man the helm of their ship,
and be glad and willing crew members thereon,
knowing that all sailing ships of souls
need a crew as well as a captain
to maintain and navigate the ship through
seas of many tones, depths and flavors;
so consider each league sailed
as part of the overall journey
going to where the captain deigns to go
by using whatever winds and sea currents available
to navigate the ship to the experiences
this ship and crew need to have
in order to fulfill their calling and its wisdom
revealed by the journey of many leagues,
many known only to the ship and its crew,
all of whom come to know,
some sooner than others,
that once conscripted
there is no safe jumping ship.

(7 June 2004)

A FEW REMARKABLE ALABAMA PEOPLE 

I HAVE KNOWN

GREETINGS

This little book of stories about five large Birmingham, Alabama people, and one from Poland via Troy, Alabama, started falling out of me, amidst much weeping, in the early fall of 2004.

Here’s how this little book began:

From	sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com [no longer valid]
Sent	Thursday, September 16, 2004 4:33 PM
To	mecommentary@npr.ord, atccommentary@npr.org, sflowers@npr.org
Subject:	commentary submission

Dear NPR,

After a two-year hiatus, I recently had my geographic and fiscal circumstances change so that I could again listen regularly to NPR. Then late last week I heard on an afternoon NPR show a couple of commentaries about stagnated writers whose careers were rejuvenated by synchronistic experiences. The next or maybe the next afternoon, I heard a young woman read at length out of a book she had written about her public service experiences in Africa. Yesterday morning I was moved to tell a good buddy of a remarkable judge I’d once known, who was, I felt, a saint, even though he did not attend church. My friend said he hoped I would write it all down and give him and our minister a copy. I then sat down and wrote a piece that mostly wrote itself and took me into some pretty deep places. After I read it to my new landlady and new friend yesterday afternoon, and told her how it had all come about and that I was thinking perhaps of submitting it to NPR, she said that she was already thinking along those lines, and that the piece might be the first of a number of somewhat similar pieces, perhaps to make up a book. I had three non-fiction books published/handled by Simon & Shuster, several lifetimes ago, it seems. Then my writing became mostly mystical non-fiction, verse and novels, which I self-published and mostly gave away, as I then had money for doing that. This new piece perhaps is more generally accessible. Thanks for considering it, and, even if you don’t feel you can use it, for helping to inspire it.

Sloan Bashinsky

[NPR did not respond.]

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com