Hitting Bottom And Coming Back

Dear Chris:

I know how you feel right now. Things look bleak. When I turned 50 on October 23, 1998, I was sitting in Santa Clara County Jail facing 18 months in jail for contempt of court. My offense had been to disobey a judge's order. I was not charged with a crime. I had no money left. I had few material goods left.

I had the luck to get a great attorney named Nicholas Humy. I got that possible 18-month sentence reduced to an actual six months in jail. I left jail on March 10,1999. Luckily another attorney named Tom Miller had recovered $1,800 from a former employer. Friends had stored my personal possessions and two old cars. I spent one night in a hotel. It was nice to sleep in a decent bed with cable TV. When I got up I realized I had no job and my money would be exhausted quickly. I checked myself into the Inn Visions Homeless Program. I had to sleep on the floor in various churches until July 4, 1999,

I worked as a day laborer at Labor Ready from March until July, 1999. I earned only $50 per day. I had to do hard manual labor with men thirty years younger than me. The company officials were concerned about my ability to hold up to such hard work at an advanced age. I kept up with men much younger than me.

Both of my cars were broken so I rode around on a bicycle. I found an apartment for rent in the Willow Glen section of San Jose. The apartment manager was a nice man. He agreed to give me 2 weeks rent free. I had to come up with $450 for two week's rent and a $450 damage deposit. $450 seemed impossible for me to raise.

I got lucky. A dear lady named Rebecca Darr helped me to get a grant for the other $450.00. I moved into the apartment. I was no longer homeless. The Catholic church where I had been sleeping donated some furniture to me so that I would have some furniture in the apartment.

I was also lucky to find two firms that paid much better money than Labor Ready. I worked two jobs from eight in the morning until ten at night to get some money to survive. In October of 1999, I got a job at Telewave, Inc. paying $22 per hour. It was a big jump from $50 a day. I kept that job eight years.

In August of 2000, I won the lottery when I met Elena.

Please have faith that one door has closed to you because a better one has opened. You only need to see it and walk through it.

with kindest regards,