As many of you already know, there was a time in my life where I lived a dichotomic experience - at once the successful corporate wizard of technology and simultaneously a virtually homeless crack-addict. I was welcomed into boardrooms, but shunned by my own family and rightly so. I flew around the country meeting with CIOs and slept on a bench or in the men's room at the bus station.

But there was a Thanksgiving Day at the end of that period where my family extended a tentative invitation to a gathering - transportation not included. And so two days before, I left a late suit and tie meeting with a prospective Fortune 500 client, walked with my backpack to the highway and stuck out my thumb. I had neither hat, nor gloves and my trench coat had but one button. It was snowing in Denver and I got a ride from the Technology Center South to I70 to the east of Denver, bound for Illinois.

It was dark, the road was icy and one could see little but the twinkling of snowflakes under the streetlamps. There was little traffic. After an hour or so, a semi-tractor tanker barrelled by and then the brakes applied and the wheels locked and the truck skidded down the highway sideways and onto the shoulder of the divide and then down and then back up the divide and came to a halt stretched across both lanes and the passenger door opened wide some hundred yards past me. "Get in." said the distant voice. I ran.

"Where to?" said the young black man as I climbed in.

"Illinois," I replied.

My job for the the night and the better part of the next day was to keep the conversation lively, but that wasn't hard. Good man, good head on his shoulders. Obviously tired, but grateful to be home for the holidays.

From Little Rock, I made my way to Memphis. It was unseasonably cold and the bone chilling rain turned to snow and then back again. By midnight, I found myself in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Memphis and St. Louis. It was well below freezing and there wasn't a car in sight. I walked. And walked. I couldn't feel my toes and I was losing feeling in my fingers and I seriously thought I might just freeze to death. For the first time in a long time, I offered up a very short prayer. "Please, God. Not here. Not this way." I finally made it to a truck stop and spent my last dollar on a cup of coffee, then sat in the men's room for an hour or two working a little warmth back into my feet.

At daybreak, I hit the road again. Two hops to St. Louis and I was there by mid morning on Thanksgiving Day. It was a beautiful sunny day. And warm. Warm like October. A golden day and I thought to myself, "I'll make it to Chicago before they start on dessert." I kept moving. The roads were brimming, but mostly with cars packed with families headed to gramma's house. I walked across the bridge over the Mississippi. The cars became fewer. I kept walking. It was still a beautiful day - and I was still alive, though I hadn't slept in threee days and hadn't eaten in four.

I walked all the way past East St. Louis. I was out into nothing but farmland and the highway was empty. I became resigned to missing Thanksgiving altogether. The aunts and uncles would be gone. The children would be gone. The Kielbasa would be gone. The more I thought about Kielbasa, the hungrier I got. But it was still a beautiful day, there was no denying that and so there was something to be thankful for. That and the fact that I hadn't froze to death and at least I made it to Illinois and that felt like home already.

The sky had become overcast. Dark clouds were forming, but the sunlight shone through an opening in the clouds into the fallow field behind me. A brilliant and golden light that made the prismatic reflection of a cross in my eyeglasses and as my eyes followed that beam of light tracking across that field, it passed over a brown paper back not far from the side of the road. I went over, picked it up and opened it. Inside was a bologna sandwich neatly nested in a plastic baggie, a small bag of potato chips, an apple, a banana, and an unopened bottle of Dr. Pepper.

The clouds moved on and the light disappeared.

I can't explain this to you, but that was the best - the very best Thanksgiving I ever had. I hope you know that kind of joy. I hope you know that kind of love - the kind where you think you are all alone in this world and you find out you're not. I sat down and cried.

And then I thanked God and ate my bologna sandwich.

Shortly afterwards, a kindly truck-driver picked me up and took me all the way to Chicago. It was near midnight at the intersection if I55 and the 294 tollway. It was snowing. I didn't care. I couldn't feel the cold. I got off the highway and walked until morning along the streets of Franklin Park and DesPlaines talking to my long lost friend. I didn't put my thumb back out until I was well past O'Hare and arrived at the door of my parents house late that afternoon. I was right, the Kielbasa was gone.

For the record, I did not stop being a crack addict right then and there. It took a couple of months. But that's where the battle back up to humanity started. A bologna sandwich from God.

Happy Thanksgiving all of you.

Thoughts while sitting

on the side of a hill

I sat on the side of a hill one day

looking over a cliff that looked over a bay

And it came to me what they always say

that indeed God moves in wondrous ways

My mind, when at peace, the chaos at rest

The love of a child held close to my breast

The sounds of the day as the new morning stirs

or watching my daughter holding hers

The warmth of the earth and the wind in the trees

The sea gulls at play on the face of the sea

All I could hear and all I could see

God in his wonder created for me

There I decided as I silently prayed

that indeed God moves in wondrous ways

As I sat on the side of a hill one day

looking over a cliff that looked over a bay

Jack Dallas

Hitch-hiking is at once fraught with peril and rich with reward. "One never knows, do one?" (Leadbelly).

Your bologna sandwich epiphany may be countered by another's nightmare. One never knows when sticking out that thumb of entreaty what will entail.

I think I'll do a top-post on hitch-hiking experiences, unless you wish to expand the theme yourself.

Doc

Thanks Duc.Loved that bologna sandwich from God.Loved that you came back to humanity.A great Thanksgiving story.

I have always wondered what manna from heaven was.Now I know.

That was very very good reading.....

Duc -

Great story.

But sad story.

Sad sad story.

A man with the kind of experiences you've had in your life should have acquired more from them than the dubious notion that bologna sandwiches come from God.

If there is a god, the only thing that comes therefrom is the desire for faith. And bologna sandwiches seem like an awfully cheap way for an ominipotent omniscient being to bribe folks into that desire.

Sorry bud - it rings true, but at the same time - terribly, terribly false.

Indeed, if that were the end of the story, I would be tempted to agree with you. But as we both know, no story really has an ending. Certainly not until the last chapter is written.

back in California, when I was just a baby Christian. The story is just too long to tell in a post, but also there are too many stories to tell, as well. Periods of times, homeless, preaching on the streets, starving, once I was fed by angels; another time I just prayed my way back; okay, tell you about that one...

Let me think, this was long ago, uhm, Spring of 1982, I was in Watts, Los Angeles. My ribs were sticking out, it was a warm day and it started with me finding a dime; if I could find a nickle I could buy two day-old donuts from the local baker; I started hunting the sidewalks, I walked a long time. I never begged for money but this one time in my whole life, I was getting tired so i asked this man for a nickle, told him i was there for the testimony of Jesus, he just jingled a pocket full of change and told me "No" ... so I kept walking. It turned into a hot afternoon, I think I dehydrated, I was getting delirious, I kept walking, looking for a nickle. My vision went double. I kept walking, I seemed to handle the double vision. Then my vision went quadruple, that was too hard for me, I couldn't keep my balance, I was going to collapse right there, so i shut my eyes and prayed, i prayed a long time that Jesus would return my vision to double, because I could still walk with the double vision, I was afraid to open my eyes, I must have stood there for 10 minutes with my eyes closed praying, then I opened my eyes and my vision was back to double. I kept on wandering, but never found a nickle that day.

I came upon a Lutheran church and went inside and the pews were open for prayer; no one was in there. I prayed for about an hour and my vision returned to normal; perhaps it was the coolness inside, but the first time out in the heat was pure prayer, anyway, I picked up one of their hymnals and sang a dozen hymns and went to leave, and the Pastor happened to be standing there, and the church secretary said something like "he was in there over an hour" so I asked the Pastor if the church could spare a buck to a starving Christian, and he gave me a five dollar bill, and I went and bought a real cheeseburger and drink. That was the closest I came to starving to death in the streets; it was years later before it struck home that I was a lot closer than I realized at the time.

Well, going hungry is not so bad, it is healthy to fast now and then, but being homeless is hard; I never want to go back to being homeless... I think about how war makes so many people homeless; kids lose their parents and find themselves starving in the streets; whole families lose their homes and jobs and starve in the streets, and I know God's grace is sufficient for it all, but it makes me cry, because it is an evil time, and too many evil things are happening. My wife was telling me today that over in Southeast Asia the oil corps are employing actual slave labor to work their oil rigs; same as the old labor camps in Siberia, they weren't fed no thanksgiving dinners today, and they likely don't believe there is a God. Who can blame them?

I'm thankful for the two Christian families that came to visit with us today and share in the meal my wife cooked, they were both broken families - Audrey and I are both on our second marriage... and the long phone call from my little brother in Florida... both my wife and myself struggled through 3 hospitalizations for mental breakdowns before we met, my little brother is an alcoholic who has finally found the right woman and job and everything is working for him late in his life, we talked about the trials of being a step dad; something we both endure. And we still talk sports, but mostly it is special just to talk; we've helped each other up over and over down through the years, in a twist of fate, we were shut out by our parents and older brothers for becoming Christians; we were raised atheist.

I don't understand a lot of stuff, I don't have answers for a lot of things that happen, I'm not big enough to understand why God does everything that he does, but I'm thankful he's been watching over my progress; I know the goal is spiritual and the flesh needs to be cut off, but I'm thankful he keeps me sane and fed and warm; and my wife and kid; because we need those things, and we really need God to provide them. I remember back in Brookfield my wife was buying gloves and hats for kids who had none, and she is always praising the children and treating them dignified and kindly, all I have to do is take care of this one crazy woman and hundreds, if not thousands, of children get ministry, and it makes me wonder, because I was homeless and couldn't help myself, let alone others, it makes me wonder in amazement to see all these things happening.

Actually, duc, the last chapters of most folks' lives are written long before their deaths. I would hazard a guess that very very few people change their most plausible denouements after forty.

"We know what we are, but not what we may be":is a young person's line.

Listen - I admire and respect you for the life you've lived and for the wit and urbanity with which you lived it.

But the whole "felt the angel wings" "Lost Weekend" "12-steppy" "couldna done it with out the Lord" tone to your post - well as they say here in the south - that just goes all over me.

If you've got to believe that it was God and not you who helped you, then maybe the very necessity of that belief within your belief-system should clue you in to what the real problem has always been - your unwillingness to take responsibility for yourself - for worse, or more sadly, even for better.

A, "... wizard of technology and simultaneously a virtually homeless crack-addict."
Really? Seriously? I never knew that. Good to meet you.

What a great story. Something as simple as a child's sack lunch was worth more than thousands at that point in time. Touching. It leaves me curious about your family's reaction.

Curious, too, is Dave's reply(ies, it turns out).
There's a bit of God in each one of us... that's what God's made of. IMO.

Hope this Pie Day was as good for you as it was for me.

that makes the Slate's Frays so worthwhile. Thank you for sharing this story, stranger. It's beautifully told.

So that's where my bologna sandwich went! Mystery solved.

Glad you are a homeless crack addict no longer. And I don't think you're story was baloney, either.