Turning Prayer Into Action

Turning Prayer into Action
SaveMyKid.org
I got my first gentle scolding because of my “charting.” That’s “charting,” not “sharting.” As in documenting a client’s participation by writing my observations of a kid on an official medical chart for each kid in my group, which, yes, was sent to the State of Ohio for review.
Apparently, the State Board that funded my program and audited my reports clearly didn’t get my humor or appreciate my cuteness when I’d write things like “This kid seems to be engaged, but I often wonder if he’s an Agent from Venus.”
But after some gentle redirection, it all worked out, and now I had something besides “Lousy machine set up/operator” on job applications before I graduated from college.

I’ve taken a bunch of kids from the Juvenile Court system to sober music venues and other events where they had opportunities to participate at camping trips, attend a local recovery focused conference, recruited volunteers to restore a classic 1954 Chevy Bel-Air which we entered in a sizable parade accompanied by a bunch of friends and lovely young ladies – our entry took 2nd place.

So our boys and girls have a little edge. Sue me!
When I was a kid, my Boy Scout troop, 88, selected me as the Senior Patrol Leader and an inductee in the Order of the Arrow in spite of me getting busted for skinny dipping in the Grand River and showing Debby Conlattii the inside of my tent at Osbornes Park during a local camping gig. I was also selected to attend the National Jamboree the same summer Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. He even gave us a shout-out while he was up there.
We watched and listened on a giant screen that was set up in an amphitheater at Farragut State Park in Idaho. Neil had been an Eagle Scout, and even though I was lightyears away from earning that rank, I advanced far enough (“Star”) to qualify for the National Jamboree.
The first man to walk on the moon’s name sounded like mine, though he spelled it wrong, but hey, whatever. I guess you could say that Neil and I were like bros. He was a scout. I was a scout. He was from Ohio. I was from Ohio.
Oh… and in 1973, I was the Senior Class President, maybe the first one suspended for smoking in the boys’ room. Probably the worst one ever, but still… I’m still invited to the reunions, and they even let me speak at our 50th. That’s the night some kid from 50 years ago stormed up to me, got in my face, and cussed me out, “I voted for you! You said you’d get vending machines in the cafeteria!” In spite of my apologies, he kept bitching and bitching.
Luckily, I didn’t think of it, so I didn’t say, “Well, it seems we both learned a little something about politics.
Anyway, the committee gave me three minutes. That’s not nothing, right?
The worst class president in history. I’m sorry.

Me: Note: Simply drop the lit butt behind the bare butt as soon
as you see, Mr. Chapman, the football coach, in the mirror coming to bust you.

My campaign speech, for Senior Class President
As high school boys sometimes do, a few of us adapted the practice of issuing a great call of solidarity to our fellows, often in serious moments requiring a great show of strength.
Fellow Mooses was our fellowship. We included all genders, all social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, no meetings, no elections, no nothing.
There were no officers, leaders, elections, “quorums,” or any such BS like that. There were no standards or requirements for membership, no dues, no political affiliations, endorsements, or money. Nada.
Fellow Mooses Unite was our signature move. Our only move. All within visual and/or hearing range were welcome. All were qualified to enact their moose right.
At any appropriate or inappropriate moment, any Fellow Moose (remember, all genders) was sanctioned and expected to rise, cup their hand in a little megaphone shape at their mouth, and bellow FELLOW MOOSES UNITE! At which moment all fellow mooses would jump to their feet, or rise up in their wheelchairs, cup their hands and join in a glorious chorus of MOOOOOOOOOOO as they stuck one thumb at each temple, waiving all their fingers and mooing to all the great moose fellows here, and respectfully to those who came before us, and those who would follow! We’d do this in the study hall, the cafeteria, through the hallways, and why not? Assemblies.
At the conclusion of my campaign speech, akin to Napoleon and Pedro’s closing but many years earlier, I closed in dramatic fashion with a call to the mighty! FELLOW MOOSES UNITE!

MOOOOOOO
It never stops. It’s in their DNA
Every man, woman, and moose in attendance roared! The rafters shook a little, and it got a little scary, but it was worth it! We were united and brave in our fellowship.

Dangit!

Senior Class Officers, 1973.
I’m not writing any of this to make anybody think better of me. If so, I wouldn’t mention the Friday night before the football game when my very close friend Bob, the President of the Band and the Senior Class President, (me), got sloppy drunk before the game.
I had to pee so bad before the pregame show that by the time we were done with the National Anthem and stuff, my back molars were floating. It was a miracle that I made it off the field without soaking my uniform and dripping all over the poor kids marching behind me.
By the time we were released, I limped into the bathroom. When it was my turn at the long porcelain trough, I stepped up, took my place, shoulder to shoulder with my fellow, boy peers on the boy’s room, and stood and stood and peed and peed while rows and rows of other kids, boys, on either side of me, stepped up, did their business tap tapped, and walked away. I know I smashed a urination longevity record that would still be standing (no pun intended) today if there were a way to document that.

As if it weren’t bad enough that the Senior Class President was in such shape, it was worse when Bob spent a good deal of the game in the band bleachers, slouched in the bottom tier, barfing. Then he’d barf again. Then he’d barf more.
Luckily, we had these giant-ass raincoats, so I fashioned a tent-like thing over him to spare the other musicians and the folks in the stands. (That guy ended up with a Master’s in Education.)

Oh, speaking of the band movie, I was a co-producer, co-writer, co-camera boy, and played the Mayor’s best friend/drunken Janitor, which is so ironic it’s almost unbelievable. Note: See “Romance by the Courthouse Dumpster.”
Band Boy and Tenor Clef in The Baker Kneads Dough was a parody of the wildly popular Batman T, V. show starring Adam West, so the script practically wrote itself.
Narration was provided by a pretty cool gifted kid, Ben Something, and Music by another cool gifted kid, Doug Somebody.
The star role of Band Boy was played by one of the coolest 10th-grade kids ever, and Tenor Clef was played by a young man who achieved the highest professional standing of anyone I know, and until recently, the smartest guy that would hang around with me.
Locations include Downtown Willoughby, 1972, my parents’ house, Casa Del’s Pizza, and Tim’s
What’s his Face’s Basement, where our heroes narrowly escaped from the conveyor of the deadly Pepperoni Slicer! Harrowing! (My design and my dad’s build.)
This video is currently being digitized and will be made available somewhere on the internet for no charge, and I guarantee, it’s worth every penny of that.
This stuff all really happened. I include this section only to show my heirs and others that even if some of us are more genetically loaded for hardships and extraordinary challenges than others, we don’t have to let those challenges be the boss of us because it is we ourselves that cause most of our own destruction.
I fell far, hard, and fast! Over a 7-year period, I underwent a systemic, predestined psychological and neurological change. Nothing could save me. Others saw it coming and happening, but not me. By the time my worst/best dragon had it out, the fight was almost over, ending in a draw. It really almost killed me.

I was wrapped tight in the bondage of myself, and though I felt it, I had never considered it. I was a small Hobbit hanging upside down in a dark tunnel, wrapped tightly in Shelob’s web. What was impossible for me to see was that I was both me and the spider. There was no escape. I was doomed.
That visual, that concept, had never occurred to me. It came as a deep and profound epiphany. “I’m the villain! I’m the soul of the evil dragon in my own story! The bad guy is ME! I give up! I can’t live like this and can’t die like this, even though I tried a couple of times. I give up! Please take over!”
My life has never been the same.

Dangit!

One Response

nealbritton says:

October 28, 2025 at 1:51 pm

Turning Prayer into Action
SaveMyKid.org
I got my first gentle scolding because of my “charting.” That’s “charting,” not “sharting.” As in documenting a client’s participation by writing my observations of a kid on an official medical chart for each kid in my group, which, yes, was sent to the State of Ohio for review.
Apparently, the State Board that funded my program and audited my reports clearly didn’t get my humor or appreciate my cuteness when I’d write things like “This kid seems to be engaged, but I often wonder if he’s an Agent from Venus.”
But after some gentle redirection, it all worked out, and now I had something besides “Lousy machine set up/operator” on job applications before I graduated from college.

I’ve taken a bunch of kids from the Juvenile Court system to sober music venues and other events where they had opportunities to participate at camping trips, attend a local recovery focused conference, recruited volunteers to restore a classic 1954 Chevy Bel-Air which we entered in a sizable parade accompanied by a bunch of friends and lovely young ladies – our entry took 2nd place.

So our boys and girls have a little edge. Sue me!
When I was a kid, my Boy Scout troop, 88, selected me as the Senior Patrol Leader and an inductee in the Order of the Arrow in spite of me getting busted for skinny dipping in the Grand River and showing Debby Conlattii the inside of my tent at Osbornes Park during a local camping gig. I was also selected to attend the National Jamboree the same summer Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. He even gave us a shout-out while he was up there.
We watched and listened on a giant screen that was set up in an amphitheater at Farragut State Park in Idaho. Neil had been an Eagle Scout, and even though I was lightyears away from earning that rank, I advanced far enough (“Star”) to qualify for the National Jamboree.
The first man to walk on the moon’s name sounded like mine, though he spelled it wrong, but hey, whatever. I guess you could say that Neil and I were like bros. He was a scout. I was a scout. He was from Ohio. I was from Ohio.
Oh… and in 1973, I was the Senior Class President, maybe the first one suspended for smoking in the boys’ room. Probably the worst one ever, but still… I’m still invited to the reunions, and they even let me speak at our 50th. That’s the night some kid from 50 years ago stormed up to me, got in my face, and cussed me out, “I voted for you! You said you’d get vending machines in the cafeteria!” In spite of my apologies, he kept bitching and bitching.
Luckily, I didn’t think of it, so I didn’t say, “Well, it seems we both learned a little something about politics.
Anyway, the committee gave me three minutes. That’s not nothing, right?
The worst class president in history. I’m sorry.

Me: Note: Simply drop the lit butt behind the bare butt as soon
as you see, Mr. Chapman, the football coach, in the mirror coming to bust you.

My campaign speech, for Senior Class President
As high school boys sometimes do, a few of us adapted the practice of issuing a great call of solidarity to our fellows, often in serious moments requiring a great show of strength.
Fellow Mooses was our fellowship. We included all genders, all social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, no meetings, no elections, no nothing.
There were no officers, leaders, elections, “quorums,” or any such BS like that. There were no standards or requirements for membership, no dues, no political affiliations, endorsements, or money. Nada.
Fellow Mooses Unite was our signature move. Our only move. All within visual and/or hearing range were welcome. All were qualified to enact their moose right.
At any appropriate or inappropriate moment, any Fellow Moose (remember, all genders) was sanctioned and expected to rise, cup their hand in a little megaphone shape at their mouth, and bellow FELLOW MOOSES UNITE! At which moment all fellow mooses would jump to their feet, or rise up in their wheelchairs, cup their hands and join in a glorious chorus of MOOOOOOOOOOO as they stuck one thumb at each temple, waiving all their fingers and mooing to all the great moose fellows here, and respectfully to those who came before us, and those who would follow! We’d do this in the study hall, the cafeteria, through the hallways, and why not? Assemblies.
At the conclusion of my campaign speech, akin to Napoleon and Pedro’s closing but many years earlier, I closed in dramatic fashion with a call to the mighty! FELLOW MOOSES UNITE!

MOOOOOOO
It never stops. It’s in their DNA
Every man, woman, and moose in attendance roared! The rafters shook a little, and it got a little scary, but it was worth it! We were united and brave in our fellowship.

Dangit!

Senior Class Officers, 1973.
I’m not writing any of this to make anybody think better of me. If so, I wouldn’t mention the Friday night before the football game when my very close friend Bob, the President of the Band and the Senior Class President, (me), got sloppy drunk before the game.
I had to pee so bad before the pregame show that by the time we were done with the National Anthem and stuff, my back molars were floating. It was a miracle that I made it off the field without soaking my uniform and dripping all over the poor kids marching behind me.
By the time we were released, I limped into the bathroom. When it was my turn at the long porcelain trough, I stepped up, took my place, shoulder to shoulder with my fellow, boy peers on the boy’s room, and stood and stood and peed and peed while rows and rows of other kids, boys, on either side of me, stepped up, did their business tap tapped, and walked away. I know I smashed a urination longevity record that would still be standing (no pun intended) today if there were a way to document that.

As if it weren’t bad enough that the Senior Class President was in such shape, it was worse when Bob spent a good deal of the game in the band bleachers, slouched in the bottom tier, barfing. Then he’d barf again. Then he’d barf more.
Luckily, we had these giant-ass raincoats, so I fashioned a tent-like thing over him to spare the other musicians and the folks in the stands. (That guy ended up with a Master’s in Education.)

Oh, speaking of the band movie, I was a co-producer, co-writer, co-camera boy, and played the Mayor’s best friend/drunken Janitor, which is so ironic it’s almost unbelievable. Note: See “Romance by the Courthouse Dumpster.”
Band Boy and Tenor Clef in The Baker Kneads Dough was a parody of the wildly popular Batman T, V. show starring Adam West, so the script practically wrote itself.
Narration was provided by a pretty cool gifted kid, Ben Something, and Music by another cool gifted kid, Doug Somebody.
The star role of Band Boy was played by one of the coolest 10th-grade kids ever, and Tenor Clef was played by a young man who achieved the highest professional standing of anyone I know, and until recently, the smartest guy that would hang around with me.
Locations include Downtown Willoughby, 1972, my parents’ house, Casa Del’s Pizza, and Tim’s
What’s his Face’s Basement, where our heroes narrowly escaped from the conveyor of the deadly Pepperoni Slicer! Harrowing! (My design and my dad’s build.)
This video is currently being digitized and will be made available somewhere on the internet for no charge, and I guarantee, it’s worth every penny of that.
This stuff all really happened. I include this section only to show my heirs and others that even if some of us are more genetically loaded for hardships and extraordinary challenges than others, we don’t have to let those challenges be the boss of us because it is we ourselves that cause most of our own destruction.
I fell far, hard, and fast! Over a 7-year period, I underwent a systemic, predestined psychological and neurological change. Nothing could save me. Others saw it coming and happening, but not me. By the time my worst/best dragon had it out, the fight was almost over, ending in a draw. It really almost killed me.

I was wrapped tight in the bondage of myself, and though I felt it, I had never considered it. I was a small Hobbit hanging upside down in a dark tunnel, wrapped tightly in Shelob’s web. What was impossible for me to see was that I was both me and the spider. There was no escape. I was doomed.
That visual, that concept, had never occurred to me. It came as a deep and profound epiphany. “I’m the villain! I’m the soul of the evil dragon in my own story! The bad guy is ME! I give up! I can’t live like this and can’t die like this, even though I tried a couple of times. I give up! Please take over!”
My life has never been the same.

Dangit!

Leroy Enn Author

One Response