Life story supermarket pianist autobiography asaph adonai double sided edition may 23rd 2014

1250 34th St #L202Missoula, MT 59801

[email protected]

Supermarket Pianist

Autobiography

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Asaph Adonai

1250 34th St #L202Missoula Montana 59801

[email protected]

I Asaph Adonai dedicate this book to my Mom.

Mrs Lois Stevens

I Love You Mom Your Son Asaph

Mrs Lois Stevens

My Mom

Son, just wanted you to know… My Dear Son

I’m thinking of you, and praying daily for God’s hand on your life. You are in my heart and prayers. Mom.

This is from a Hallmark Card that Mrs Lois Stevens had kept for a year, and had intended to give it to her Son Tom. She recently lost her husband Frank after 57 years of marriage. A short time after that, her Son Tom passed away.

After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to be her Son. This is a woman I’ve known since I was 12 years old. She watched me grow up, and she was always there for me whenever I needed her. Tom and I had one thing in common. We were both born on the same date, October 26 th .He was three years older. Since we were born on the same date, I thought “what a perfect gift I could give her, to be a second Son to her”.

I knew I would never be able to replace her Son. I told Mrs Stevens, “I know that you loved your Son, and I know that I would never be able to replace him in your heart, but I could be a Son to you, and I want to be the best Son I could be”.

The very next letter I got from her said “My Son”.

I feel like the most blessed guy in the world to have this lady as my second Mom. I never got the opportunity to have a relationship with my birth Mom, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I finally have someone in my life I can call family, and Mom.

I Love You MomYour Son Asaph

Table of Contents

Mrs Lois Stevens My Mom

A Forward by Asaph Adonai ix

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 JeannieMarie The Greatest Gift

Chapter 2 My Britney Spears Experience

Chapter 3 To Error Is Human

Chapter 4 Supermarket Pianist

Chapter 5 The Taipei Years

Chapter 6 Exodus To Montana

Chapter 7 The Liberace Of Missoula

Chapter 8 How I became a Pianist

Chapter 9 An Invitation to Heaven

Acknowledgements

About the Author

In The Name Of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost

vii.

A Foreword by Asaph Adonai

Greetings

My name is Asaph Adonai. This is my handwritten Autobiography.What makes this Autobiography Different, I use Television Shows to make analogies with Old and New Testament Truths. This book talks about mental illness, depression, compassion, healing, forgiveness, the trials, the triumphs, the victories, the defeats, two failed marriages, and growing up.

Though this book may not tell every literal thing that has ever happened to me, it does Chronicle Key things that happened to me in my lifetime.

It’s not one of those tell all books, and It’s not one of those who did what to whom. I’m not interested in that. I wanted to write an authentic book on the life of Asaph.

One example,crediting my Father for the resentment of my birth name because of the horrible way he treated my birth Mother throughout their marriage together when I was growing up. As a little boy, and in my adolescence I always felt relatives on my Mother’s side of the family, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins but mostly my Mother’s siblings were always uncomfortable whenever I was around them, because I was the oldest child, the Son of the man who was abusing their sister. My presence served as a reminder of the suffering my Mother was always enduring at the hands of my Father.

ix. I was always seen in the eyes of my Mother as the creation of this horrible man because my Father treated her so poorly. Mom suffered with bipolarism issues but wasn’t discovered till years later. It was always harder having a relationship with my birth Mom than my Father because Mom felt trapped having to raise me, having to marry this man because she got pregnant with me before they married,Being trapped in an unhealthy relationship with my Father so when I was born she didn’t see me, she saw the cause of her problems and Mom never saw the person I was or the person I became.

I believe my sharing my Father’s name may have helped drive my Mother’s resentment towards me throughout my life.

Mom never saw the person I became. She never saw the Pianist I became.

I think this book will help a lot of people. I wrote this book to help other people, let them know no matter how dark things get, there’s always hope,

And if I can bring comfort with the comfort I have been given as written in the book of the Corinthians, If I can help others through my experiences I feel like I may have done a kind thing for another person.

I hope this book will be an interesting, and fun book to read. I want this book to be an Informative, and authentic book on the life of Asaph Adonai.

Supermarket PianistAsaph Adonai

x.

The Lord Bless You

And Keep You

Introduction I’m sitting in the comfort of my Apartment Home. It’s December 24 th, 2009 Thursday evening Christmas Eve. I’m watching a television show called Roseanne. In this episode the character Roseanne Conner is older. She has raised her children. They have married and moved out of the house. Her husband Dan has died. She is sitting alone at home and doing one of the things she has always wanted to do but never seemed to get around to it because of the affairs of what she was doing when she was raising her family. She is writing her life’s story.

When I saw that it sparked a new desire again to do what I had thought about doing before. Somehow this episode inspired me to want to write down my life s story. I had thought about writing before, but one reason I didn’t, I wasn’t sure I wanted to relive some of the terrible memories of what had happened to me in my past if I were to start writing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember very painful memories, or have thing’s come back to mind I may have forgotten. But that is very unlikely because I can remember as far back as before I was in the first grade. xi. There is a Bible verse in the Book of Philippians that talks about forgetting those things that are behind and pressing forward. I think you can use this verse to apply to what I am talking about, forgetting things that are behind. The other side of it is that this could be very therapeutic for me if I write my thoughts.

I’m well aware that if I do this, there may be people in my immediate family that might not be comfortable with me writing what I am about to write. They may even prefer I not write it. They may not even appreciate, or like what I am about to write. And that’s Ok, I can understand.

There may even be relatives, family members on both my Father, and my Mother’s side who may not be comfortable with what I write. Some may not even agree with my accounts, but that doesn’t matter because I’m telling these account’s of my own personal experiences.

I’m not writing this to hurt or embarrass anyone. I’m not interested in airing out anyone’s dirty laundry as the saying goes.

This is my Autobiography, my life story and I want this book to be an informative book about my life, and experiences.

And if I can help other people through the experiences I’ve had then I feel like I may have done a kind thing for another person. Asaph Adonai

xii.

JeannieMarie Adonai

The Greatest Gift

Chapter 1 Of all the six billion people on this planet, of all the beautiful woman in this world, of all the nationalities, races, backgrounds, cultures, of all the women in this world that God has created, if I could have one woman it would be JeannieMarie Adonai. I wish she could know that. I wish somehow The Holy Spirit of God would reveal that to her, maybe in a dream for example. It’s been said, all things are possible with The Lord, who can do anything. Nothing is too hard for Him. If only she could know how much I love her to this day. Not a day goes by I don’t think about her. I loved her when we were married, and I still do. I miss her very much. She has been gone for over three years since she decided to go back home to her family. When we were married I think she was torn between the love and loyalty to her family, and me as a husband. That’s no way to live. Her family was not in support of the marriage, and she was becoming increasingly unhappy each day. Her knowing my feelings for her this day I don’t think would make any difference. It probably wouldn’t want her to come back. I prayed everyday she would come back anyway.

1.Supermarket Pianist

Sometimes a person can pray with all their heart and that desire may go unanswered. It doesn’t mean The Good Lord doesn’t care or can’t answer. Those are moments you have to have faith, trust, even if a request goes unanswered. If she could know I still love her would it make her want to be with me again, or want to come back? Would it make her change her mind? Would it make her say “Oh Asaph now that I know, I want to come back, I will give you (us) another chance.

That would make me the happiest person in the world. But all the knowing probably won’t get her to change her mind. In fact all the showing might push her further away. Those are the moment’s you have to give it to God and leave it in His hands. This looks like the case with JeannieMarie.

JeannieMarie and I were married September 30th, 2006. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Sure there may be prettier ladies by that so called standard we have in our society of what physical beauty may be. There may be younger ladies. Some may not see her the way I see her, but to me, she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known physically, and as a person. She is the most beautiful woman God has ever made. I prayed for months to have her when I was first getting acquainted with her. We first started writing to each other, postal mail, and email through a Christian dating site. What first caught my attention about her, the site had a rule that you were not allowed to give out your personal information, your address or phone number until you have written three letters. So when I introduced myself, JeannieMarie sent three short letters a sentence long on the spot to honor the rules of the site. That impressed me, and I thought anyone who would go through the trouble to do that, and honor the rules must be someone worth getting to know. Since we officially wrote three letters we exchanged addresses and phone numbers. As we started calling each other, I found myself becoming more interested in her. And I began to start praying God’s will concerning her. I have a collection in my home of stuffed animals, affectionately called my critters by JeannieMarie. Everything from Teddy Bears, Tigers, The Eveready Bunny, a Shar Pei Chinese Fighting Dog, to the Sexy M and M’s Candy. A childhood thing I always wanted. When JeannieMarie first sent me some pictures of her, one of them was called "Jeannie with critters" where she was standing near some life sized stuffed animals in a zoo setting that was taken when she was at a stuffed animal exhibit in Las Vegas. And that caught my attention. But what really caught my attention was how attractive this woman was to me, and when I first laid eyes on her it was "WOW". I knew then that if God would give me this woman I would take her.

2. JeannieMarie The Greatest Gift

When I first got to know JeannieMarie she told me she struggles with mental illness, and depression. But that didn’t matter to me. I knew I loved her. She was trying to live a life without having to take med’s because of the effects the medications would have on her.

I commend her for her efforts. She was hospitalized 14 times over a two year period for reactions to what the med’s were doing to her physically, and to her health. God bless her, I don’t blame her at all for not wanting to take med’s. I don’t think I would want to do that if I were in her shoes. I humbly have to admit, I have never walked in her shoes having to take med’s. I have always been blessed with health, something I clearly do not deserve. My Mother Primrose and my Sister Kim also struggle with mental illness, and depression. The exact illness JeannieMarie struggles with. And my Mother, and (God bless her) she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, because of the struggles she has had in her own life, and in her past. Bipolar disorder is a brain condition that causes unusual or dramatic mood swings. And my sister has struggled with hallucinations. If I could wave a magic wand, I would set JeannieMarie, my Mother, and my Sister free of their struggles. I say that very reverently, no disrespect to the power of God, and to the Sovereignty of God who has the power to heal any person. I’ve seen people in my life who may suffer with mental challenges, and when they may not get well, you feel very helpless to help them. I think those are moments you may not understand why God just does not instantly make them well as you would like them to be, and you just have to trust that The Lord is in control. Mental illness and depression is a struggle JeannieMarie has had almost all her life, and she has always been a very sensitive person. Some of her experiences with being sensitive were how grades dropped when her family moved to the east coast when she was a little girl. The east coast can be known for not having sunny days, which can make a person feel sad. Those kinds of sensitivity’s along with moving can be one example of an early sign of depression in a young person’s life. I knew she struggled with depression when we first got married. But I knew I loved her. I knew God had sent me to her. I once said to her that I take her just as she is weaknesses and all. But reassuring words spoken throughout the marriage, and the best of my intentions were no match for the deadly enemy of depression, and fear that she battled. Yet she has taught me so much since being married to her.

3. Supermarket Pianist

It didn’t help that I was struggling in my life, starting my life all over again when we got married. It didn’t help that her family, people in her life, and in her world in Arizona where she is from didn’t seem to be in support of the marriage, and her decision to get married to me. Maybe it was because of her Mental illness. Maybe it was because of past relationships in her life, and the struggles she went through when she was in them. Maybe it was because of how quickly we married from the time we started to get to know each other.

JeannieMarie’s reasoning to marry was, I lived in Montana, and she in Arizona, and it would make sense to marry, and start life since we would not have the chance to date like most people if they live in the same state. It sounded like a good idea to me. It made sense to me. I wanted a life with her, and after much prayer, even asking God to close the door if this was not His will, or not of Him. I felt in my heart then this was the direction to go, and I still feel this way to this day even if we are not together. I had an inner peace, and confirmation came the night I gave a performance before I was to go to Arizona the next day to meet her in person. I got just the money I needed in tips, plus what I got paid right to the literal dollar. Plus a friend who normally doesn’t loan money gave me extra money for the trip, and I didn’t ask for it.

I have no regrets marrying JeannieMarie, and if I had it all to do over again, I would marry her all over again, I would love her again, I would not have changed a thing. I understand these illnesses so much more, how to handle it, and that’s where compassion comes in.

4.JeannieMarie The Greatest Gift

Wedding Vows

These are the vows I said to her on our wedding day. "You are the greatest gift God will ever give me this side of eternity. If I ever say, or do anything to hurt you, just know it’s not intentional, and that I will never leave you". But those words are something I failed in, saying I would never leave her, and for that I take full responsibility. And yes I take responsibility. I clearly failed in that I left her, but it is not the way you think. Divorce was not my idea. I didn’t’ go to her and say "JeannieMarie I want out" "I don’t want to be married to you anymore". Sometimes things happen beyond your ability to fix. I was struggling economically and financially when I brought JeannieMarie to Montana but I knew everything was going to be Ok. We were living with a friend in her home as I was starting my life over because I had taken a job I should not have taken, and that’s how I lost my home before JeannieMarie and I married. During the struggle I think JeannieMarie was afraid if something went wrong she would end up with nowhere to go and be homeless. She had experienced that once before when she was married and her first husband left her. I understand her fears, but I wasn’t worried because I knew everything was going to be Ok. I had asked her to give me one year as I planned and prepared for our life together. I was preparing to move to Missoula, and I was completing my first Piano CD called "Lean on Me JeannieMarie" named after her. I would tell her if there was anything to worry about I’d tell her. Because of the depression struggles and everything we were going through, she was beginning to reach a point where she thought she was going to have to commit herself to the Mental Health Center. Prior to that, she was beginning to show signs of scratching herself. That’s a term people with mental illness and depression do to themselves when they start to cut on themselves brought on by feelings of hopelessness, and feeling they may want to die. I think the struggles we were going through as I was starting over may have contributed to her feeling that way. She once took a pin, and scratched “DIE” on her arm like a tattoo.


The final straw, her sister had been calling over a period of time, and telling her to divorce me, because of the struggles I was going through starting our life. One night that advice set off the depression to where she took a knife and tried to cut her wrist, and I had to physically restrain her to keep her from harming herself.

That was a very frightening moment because you never know what may happen when a person is in that state or what harm may come your way as you try to help. That advice upset her because she couldn’t understand why her family was not in support of the marriage. We were an interracial couple, and though I don’t like to play the race card as the saying goes, but whenever something out of the ordinary may happen, you have a Christian family that reacts this way, it makes you wonder. I’m a Christian myself so I’m not trying to dog on Christian people but sometimes Christian people can be known to behave in a way that might not be very Christ like. Perhaps this was the case, or perhaps her family was not comfortable with an interracial couple. You would be surprised how even in the church people may struggle with interracial couples, and it’s not just white people, black people tend to struggle with this too.

When JeannieMarie married me, she didn’t know there would be differences between black and white people as far as culture, music, heritage, and the ways black people may view or perceive life in American Western Culture.She once told me while we were married, that she thought black and white people were all the same, only difference was color of skin. I think her being married to me was a kind of a culture shock experience for her which may have contributed to her sometimes feelings of what have I got myself into being married to a person of color?.

One example being,JeannieMarie loved to eat popcorn. She would eat it in large bowls full at times. We had drove into a gas station one afternoon to put gas in our car. There was a sign at the cashier window that said “free popcorn”.While I was putting gas in the car she got a small bag of popcorn, and the manager became upset with her for having the popcorn and showed his protest in anger at her, stating to her she was eating all the popcorn from the other patrons at the station. I knew it wasn’t JeannieMarie or anything she had done wrong. Without saying it, I think this man was upset because he saw this beautiful white woman with this plain ordinary looking African American person. Jeannie Marie took her bag of popcorn, walked away from the manager, we got in our car and drove off to another gas station and never returned to that station.


My first reaction was to get in the face of that station manager, for his ridiculous actions over my wife getting a bag of popcorn. But that would not have solved anything, and by the grace of God I walked away.JeannieMarie and I did not always have experiences like that throughout our marriage, but on rare occasions, things out of the ordinary would happen like this popcorn incident.

I would try to teach her, or get her to see the world through African American eyes.

Throughout our marriage I would notice on rare small occasions some people did not seem to want us to be married.It was as if the institution of marriage didn’t matter. It was as if some people seemed upset that we were married. It didn’t seem to matter that we were a couple, or that were Husband and Wife. It was as if some people didn’t respect that we were married, or respect the boundaries of our relationship.

One example being,I was playing the Piano at the Hotel one night for an Art Gallery Exhibition. JeannieMarie was sitting in the lobby listening to the music. A middle aged man walked up to her and began to talk to her. She politely excused herself, and told the gentleman “I am listening to my Husband play the Piano”. This man didn’t seem to take No! for an answer as he began to persist in trying to have a conversation with her. He wanted her to go with him to look at the Art exhibits in the other room of the Hotel while I was playing. JeannieMarie got out of her seat and came and sat next to me on the Piano bench while I was playing.It didn’t look like this man was going to leave her alone even with her sitting next to me, as he was in the Lobby not far from the Piano looking in both our direction. I stopped playing in the middle of a song, walked up to this man in a serious but civil way extending a hand shake and said in a very clear way,“My name is Asaph, I am JeannieMarie,s Husband”.

This gentleman backed off, and left her alone. JeannieMarie sat next to me the rest of the performance.

The New Testament is very clear that people should not try to put apart what The Good Lord may have brought together, that proper boundaries should be respected, if you are aware that there are two people who are Husband, and Wife.


Getting back to the final straw, I had reached a point I would be afraid every time I left the house that I would come home and find that JeannieMarie had done something to herself, or killed herself.

I had reached a point I didn’t want that responsibility anymore, so when she said she wanted out of the marriage the last time, I went along with it, and I used it as an excuse to get out of the marriage so I wouldn’t have to bear the responsibility. If she had killed herself her family would have blamed me and that was a burden I didn’t want to carry anymore.

I didn’t want to end up being a story told, like on the C.B.S News 48 Hours when family members suspect a Husband has killed a loved one.I knew that her family, her world of Arizona would say I killed JeannieMarie, that I was responsible if she had done any harm to herself.

That was the reason I went along with the divorce when she wanted out the last time and I let her go. That’s no excuse. If I had honored my wedding vows I wouldn’t be alone, and I would not have lost this very beautiful woman.

JeannieMarie and I did not have a dysfunctional relationship. In fact we had a lot of happy moments. And I miss that.


I miss her baking me oatmeal cookies. I miss watching my favorite cartoon Underdog with her. She even bought me Underdog the movie for my birthday. I miss watching the Bob Newhart show with her and actress Suzanne Pleshette. That was a show JeannieMarie really enjoyed watching and she always wanted me to watch it with her. And

one of the favorite things I like to do with her was watch Mrs Piggle Wiggle with actress Jean Stapleton. We did not fight. I never once spoke out of her name. I never once raised my hand to her. I never once called her (and Lord forgive me),I never called her a bitch as so many men do to women. Maybe I didn’t have the best relationship with my birth Mother growing up, but one thing I learned, that was not to ever put your hands on a woman, or hit a lady. Maybe because my Father used to beat my Mother up and I was too small to stop him at the time, or the way he always treated her, that’s why she would say never put your hands on a woman. But my Mother never would do anything to get out of the relationship with him and I could never understand why. Now I know why. I don’t believe in that, and I think that is a very cowardly thing for a man to do. Hit a Woman. There is no excuse for it. I promised JeannieMarie’s Father I would never hurt her, and I have honored that promise even if I found myself in a divorce court one day short of a year and four months of marriage. We were divorced January 29th, 2008. That was the very day I was leaving for Missoula. I was in a divorce court that morning, and that very night I headed for Missoula. As I said the marriage was not dysfunctional. And I think she felt she had to choose between me, and her family and I did not put her in that situation. There were no proper boundaries between us as a married couple, and her family. And when I would voice that to her in love, it was seen and taken in the eyes of her family, loved ones, friends, and familiar surroundings from her world she came from as me being controlling. That couldn’t be more false. In fact, I did everything I could to provide a roof over her head, and I think I did pretty good considering where I was at in my life starting over. I didn’t seem to get credit for that. We were living in a guest house I was renting through the section 8 program under present circumstances. We even had our own porch. That to me was a blessing instead of living in an apartment. I always knew that was not going to be forever being on the section 8 program to help me while I was starting my life over. 9.

Supermarket Pianist

Section 8

I think section 8 housing is viewed as a man not providing for his family in the eyes of many people. That is totally false.

Section 8 housing is a government assistant program that helps people who may have low income, or may be unemployed pay part of the cost of their rent where they live. In some cases it pays for all the rent if a family is unemployed. But because it is a government program it’s a type of a welfare program. People who may be getting this type of assistance tend to get judged by those who are able to pay their expenses, or cost of living without any help from a government program. They feel because they pay taxes, and are self sufficient, if they can do this themselves, others should be able to also. They don’t realize that people who may need assistance also pay taxes and they are entitled to that help if they need it. I think people who are self sufficient that judge those who aren’t tend not to acknowledge the reason a person may need help. Or maybe they have not walked in the shoes of a person that caused him to need help. I think this was the case with my brother in law. He never experienced a sudden job loss, or lost everything. And he’s not the only person. He once told me "He had no use for a person who does not provide for his family". I was on section 8 when I was married to JeannieMarie as taking care of her starting our life and preparing to move to Missoula. I did everything I could to try to make her happy, take care of her with where I was at in my life. I don’t think it was necessarily section 8. She had been becoming increasingly unhappy no matter how hard I tried to make her happy. She was away from her family, familiar surroundings, and no one in her world was in support of the marriage. Throughout the marriage she kept expressing that she wanted out, but then would change her mind, a very tormenting struggle for her. I think she was feeling torn between wanting to get out of the marriage, and go back home to her family, and staying with me. So the last time she wanted out, I went along with it. That’s why I take the responsibility going along with divorce, leaving her. But with depression issues, I think I would have lost her anyway even if I had not gone along with it. I’ve learned a lot about manic stages of depression, and when a person has high or low moments. And when a person is experiencing high moments, they feel like they can do anything, conquer the world, and they can go on for days. And then when they crash, they have no emotions, they lose energy.


Sometimes reality sets in whatever circumstance they may be in. They feel sad, and depression returns.

As I look back, I personally believe JeannieMarie may have been going through a high moment in her life, and with her depression struggles, from the time we first started calling each other, to the time we first met at the bus station, to marriage. There was no way for me to know about manic stages, high and low moments at the time we married. And after we married she started coming down, and reality set in. She found herself away from her family, living in Montana, and married to me. I think she was experiencing depression similar to when her family moved to the east coast. How I got in the situation where I had to start my life over, it wasn’t because of music, and the Piano. It had nothing to do with the Piano.

I had taken a job I should not have taken before we had met and married, and I wound up losing everything I had. I was living in a two bedroom, two bath Trailer Home, a very beautiful and comfortable home. I was asked to take care of a 91 year old man at the request of his daughter and her family. I was playing the Piano for the Billings Hotel at the time. I had been playing there for three years. I played a lot of the functions they had going on at the Hotel for various events. I was also playing background music in the lobby of the Hotel when there were no events going on. There was a beautiful fire place there, and people who were checking into the Hotel would hear the music. There was an open Restaurant on the other side of the lobby, and people could have lunch, or supper and hear the music.

I was also doing other performances playing at other places.


Always Pray FirstSeek The FaceOf

God I should have prayed about this decision to take care of this 91 year old man. I should have gone to the Throne of Grace. Failing to pray, and not seek God, I gave up my home. I was promised by the lady who asked me to take care of her Father that if anything went wrong I would not be left hanging since I had given up my home. Sure enough, when something went wrong the promise was not kept, and that’s how I got stuck and had to start my life over. Taking care of this man was an interesting experience. But as time went by, my music began to suffer, and I was unable to play at the hotel, and I was barely able to practice. During the five months I was there I would watch the Billy Graham crusades on TV. I don’t know if John had ever asked Jesus to be his Savior, but for five months, I tried to expose him to the gospel of Christ, and salvation. At times he would be playing solitaire on the computer, but hearing Mr Graham talk about how to have your sins forgiven, and go to Heaven when you die. And at the end of every crusade, an opportunity was given to ask Jesus to be your Savior, and forgive you of your sins. Perhaps in those five months, John may have asked Jesus to be his Savior. Sometimes I think his family was uncomfortable with my belief in Christ, and watching Billy Graham with their father. Sometimes I think they were uncomfortable with this able bodied man in the house practicing the Piano all day, instead of being out working at a traditional 9 to 5 job somewhere like everyone normally does. But in my defense, the job required, I had to be in the house a lot of hours to take care of him, and not leave him alone. So it was perfect to practice when I could. To me practice is a job. You just don’t get paid for practicing. I treat practice just like a job. When people are at work all day, I’m home practicing the Piano.

When people home school their children they are at home all day, and no one seems to say much anything about it. So what is the difference if I’m at home trying to practice, perfect the music of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, or work on new material.

12.

JeannieMarie The Greatest Gift People in Piano Bar settings like to hear the popular music like the music of Sinatra. I work just as hard at what I do as a Pianist, as a person who is working a job somewhere. My duties trying to help take care of this man were cooking his lunch, dinner, housework, I always did the dishes, I tried to cook for people who would come to visit. I tried to keep the bathrooms clean, I did some errands, and sometimes I would drive for him. I did not get paid for this job as far as monetary money. The payment was free room and board. Some people would think I was being taken advantage of. And maybe it was bad judgment on my part since this was a lady I knew who asked me to help her by taking care of her Father. That way she would have time to take care of her husband, and family. It was getting too much for her to take care of her family, and her Father, and God bless her for honoring her Father. Maybe this was chancy my doing this, but since this lady was a friend of mine I did it. Five months into the job with the 91 year old man, her brothers, and sister decided they didn’t need anyone to take care of their father. I didn’t really expect Mary to defend me against her brothers and sister for my being there. There is an old saying, blood is thicker than water, and when it comes to family, they usually put family above people. I think in a way, even if she didn’t ever acknowledge it to me, I think she felt bad, but went with her family. That’s Ok I understand. The job suddenly ended, I didn’t get any compensation for having gave up my home, or being put back to where I was when I had a home. That’s where forgiveness comes in.

13.

Supermarket Pianist

Liberace When I met JeannieMarie’s family, I was totally honest with them, and told them I had lost everything, and was starting my life over again. I didn’t pretend to be a Liberace with a million dollars. Even if I were a lot more successful at the time we were married then I was when I was starting over, I don’t think it would have made any difference. I think I would have lost her anyway, as she came down or crashed. She once showed signs of cutting herself, which is normal in depression when we were married due mostly to her family, and her world seemingly not being in support of the marriage as I said earlier in this chapter. I think that’s what made her depression show itself more. The Bible says to speak the truth in love, and saying this truth in the most loving way I can without damaging a reputation, it didn’t help, when a sister confidant who loved JeannieMarie kept giving council advice not realizing it would end up being very destructive and I would have to do the damage control. The confidant loved her sister, there’s no question about it, as did the rest of her family. Things were done in love, the best way they knew how. JeannieMarie had very dysfunctional relationships in the past, so naturally by time I came along I was seen in the same category as a person who causes dysfunction. It didn’t make any difference that I knew Christ as my Savior, that I had never been arrested, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs. Family wasn’t there when JeannieMarie would cry in the middle of the night, as I held her trying comfort her why no one was in support of the marriage. But now I know one reason. If you knew someone who had a child that died for example, and you said I know how you feel, and you don’t even have children, wouldn’t that be a bit out of place? That was the case with the confidant, even if things she did were in love for her sister. You cannot know how a person feels if you have not walked in their shoes, or experienced things that unfortunately happen to so many women. The threat of a man raising his hand to you, beating on you, speaking out of your name (and Lord forgive me), calling you a bitch, the threat of losing your home, being homeless, never going through losing everything and having to start over, welfare (and I have nothing against welfare, it helps a lot of people),

poverty, section 8, a man cheating on her, or being trapped in, or having a dysfunctional relationship. 14.

JeannieMarie The Greatest Gift All these things, the confidant never experienced. And God bless her for that. I wish every person could not have to experience these things, but the reality is these things happen to so many women. So if you have never experienced these things, you are not qualified to give advice. I once said that not only to JeannieMarie but to her sister herself, the confidant, which didn’t sit well with her in my relationship as a brother in law in the family. She was known as the family confidant, advisor, and someone like me comes along, sees she is not qualified, never suffered, gone through or experienced any of the things that happen to so many people in life, or women, or that JeannieMarie went through, even if it was done in love, because you love someone. I totally understand and get it. In my judgment council was responsible for destroying, and ending my marriage. I didn’t grow up in Mayberry, like that TV show with actor Andy Griffith, as the saying goes, and I think the confidant couldn’t understand me, or relate. I grew up in the streets as they say, where you have to be street smart. That is why I live in Missoula Montana. And I think that’s why the confidant may have been uncomfortable with me being married to her sister. In my judgment misunderstood or inexperienced council was also responsible for ending and destroying my marriage and my family. But I still take responsibility. Sometimes I ask, could I have found some way to make this marriage work? But there were too many things against me, (against us as a family and as a couple), and I could not compete with influence’s in JeannieMarie’s life. And with depression struggles, no wonder she left. It was a doomed relationship. I wish the family would have given me the opportunity to love their loved one. I’ve been asking God everyday for three years that we would reconcile, that God would restore the relationship between JeannieMarie and me, that He would bring us back together, that we would remarry. Another thing that was painful, JeannieMarie’s best friend was not in support of the marriage. And no matter how hard I tried to reach out to this lady nothing worked. And like JeannieMarie’s family, she kept giving opinion, and it would cause strife in our family. What’s interesting after JeannieMarie left, this lady got married. Now if I had done to her what she did to me, I would be in the wrong.

15.

Supermarket Pianist As I look back at the reasons why she left, when The Holy Spirit brings comfort to your heart, it’s easy to look past yourself, past your own pain, past what happened to you, to the view point of the person you love, in this case JeannieMarie. And that’s where compassion comes in. When a person leaves you, it’s natural to become angry, or enraged at the person, or at the circumstances why they left. And if you are not careful, it can lead you to becoming a very bitter person on the inside. It can even lead you to becoming angry at God. Compassion looks at the weaknesses of JeannieMarie, to an understanding why she left.

Over a year has gone by from the time I last communicated with JeannieMarie. I did not think I would ever hear from her again. In a recent communication I told her I love her, that my feeling’s have not changed.

God is in the business of restoration. He is a God of second and third chances. I cannot say that JeannieMarie will ever come back.

But at least she knows that I love her.

16.

My Britney SpearsExperience

Chapter 2 “Wow” what a very beautiful woman this Singer Britney Spears. I had seen this young woman

on television but I had never heard her sing. I first saw Britney on a video when she was about 15, or 16 years of age. Maybe she was just getting to the start of her popularity as a singer. After seeing, and hearing her sing, I thought “I see why this young woman made it in the singing world”. Maybe if I were about 20, maybe 30 years younger I could be a member of a Britney fan club. How very shocking, sad to see some few years later this young woman had married, only to find herself some 5,or 6 hours later divorced and single again. That was my Britney Spears experience. How humbling it must have been for Britney, and her family to marry, and then be single again and have to explain to her family, and everyone why she is single again. It was tough enough yours truly losing JeannieMarie to divorce.


My Britney My Britney Spears experience came seven years earlier. I had married a girl named Susan. Susan and I were married February 20th, 2000. Four (4) days later she changed her mind and decided she didn’t want to be married. I wasn’t angry at her. I forgive her. I was so embarrassed. I just wanted to go hide under a rock. You go through all the trouble to meet someone and eventually marry, and then four days later you find yourself back at ground zero, single again and have to explain to everyone why you are single again.

I had to explain to my family, her family, and my friends. Her Mother took it very personal, and she became angry at me, and blamed me for the divorce. I did not see this coming. Susan didn’t show any signs that she was going to leave.

I barely touched her as a husband and wife may do in tender intimate moments. I figured I had plenty of time for that. We had our whole life together.

The roles had been reversed in the relationship. I did the Mr Mom thing like in that movie with actor Michael Keaton since I was new in the area we lived in. I did the cooking, the cleaning, the domestic housekeeping, and I had dinner waiting for her when she came home from work every night. I did all the things a wife normally would do by tradition in our culture of taking care of a family and home. I didn’t have a Piano at our home but Susan had a tiny little Casio keyboard so I was able to try to get some kind of practice. It’s very difficult to try to practice real Piano music like the music of Beethoven on a keyboard. Susan had bought me a Liberace cassette tape as a wedding gift.

We had married at city hall in Las Vegas. We didn’t have a traditional wedding where she could walk down the aisle in a church. The rings were bought in a Pawn shop. It was a way to save money. So many people put so much emphasis on where the ring is bought or how much the wedding cost, it’s like they prepare for the wedding and not for the marriage. Susan was a very nice looking blonde. I admit I liked her, but as I look back, I’m not sure I can say I was in love with her as I was with JeannieMarie or as a husband should be. I think I may have married her for all the wrong reasons. I was 41 years old. I was tired of always wishing I could be with someone. And it didn’t help when the human drives that God has given people would find themselves at work in my life "with no beach to walk on" as the character of Capt James T Kirk on that TV show Star Trek once said in a moment of being lonely

18.My Britney Spears Experience

Asaph had no wife to share tender intimate moments.

I was raised old school as the saying goes and you didn’t have tender intimate moments until you were married. That might seem to be archaic by the standards in our culture today, with so many men and woman living together as husband and wife, perhaps even sharing the same bed, and not be married to each other. I was determined to wait till I was married. I wanted to keep myself tender intimate moment’s pure.

I didn’t say it was always easy. When I made the decision to wait till marriage, I didn’t think I would have to wait till I was in my 40’s. I thought I would have been married by the time I was in my 20’s like so many of my friends were married.Technically I did have one opportunity to be with someone when I was in my 20,s. Her name was Yvonne.

Yvonne was a very beautiful, and very attractive lady. I was 24, and she was 19. But as pretty, and lovely as she was, I was not attracted to her. I knew I was not the right person for her. My Mother and a lot of my friends could not understand why I did not want to go out with this young lady, or pursue a relationship with her. I saw this episode of that TV show Alice with actress Linda Lavin. The character of Alice was working at the Diner, and there was this very handsome young man that was attracted to her, and wanted to take her out on a date and get to know her. Like Asaph, Linda was not attracted to this young man. All the other waitresses were swooning over this man, and one of Alice’s best friends, Flo tried to get her to just go after him.On their date, if he paid for the dinner, she would have a relationship with him, and start going out with him on a regular basis. If they paid separate checks, it meant she would not be going out with him on a regular basis, and that he would not be the one for her. Alice decided to pay separate checks, and she said goodbye to the handsome young man.

When I saw that, it was like looking in a mirror, because I went through the same thing with Yvonne. I knew I was not the right person for her. In the most kind, and loving way I could, I told her “one day she would find the right person who would be able to love her, and return the love she wanted to give me”.“She would find someone who would make her happy, and she would forget all about me”.

19.

Supermarket Pianist

One of my friends Daren who was white said, “If you don’t take her, I will” “I will go out with her”.Everyone was taken by how beautiful she was, Myself included, but I was not attracted to her. I did not want to take advantage of her as so many men might do, acting like boyfriend, girlfriend, Maybe even share love’s Kisses, while they are looking for the person they want to be with, or knowing that’s not the person they will be with.

Yvonne cried while I was saying goodbye. I felt like I wanted to hide under a rock. My Mother could not understand.

There is an old saying, “To thine own self be true”. It may not be a biblical saying, but it is an honest one.

20.

My Britney Spears Experience

I was 41 years old the first time I shared husband and wife tender intimate moments. I went through relentless teasing when I was in my teens and early 20’s. "Even the Vulcan’s on that Star Trek TV Show and the character of Mr Spock have tender intimate moments every 7 years"," And you are going to wait Asaph"? "You don’t know what you are missing". Perhaps, but I could say "You don’t know what you are missing".

I once met an Asian woman and when she discovered I was waiting, she believed the secret places were broken and not working. She believed the reason I didn’t want to have tender intimate moments, the secret places were infected with tender intimate moment’s diseases.My response,“Marry Me” and you will find out if the secret places are broken”.

She looked at me like I was from Alpha Centauri, Lost in Space like that TV show from the 1960’s with actress June Lockhart.

I knew I didn’t want to have tender intimate moment’s outside of marriage, so marrying Susan I thought she would be there to help me during the moments of the fountains being dispersed as the Song of Solomon describes it. I think I would have learned to love her over a period of time. She was very pleasant to look at. I could have gotten used to her. I could have got used to being her husband, being married to her and having her as my wife.

I was interested in a lady named Dare when I was getting acquainted with Susan, and I knew I was going to like her. She was a Pianist for the Salvation Army. But if I had pursued a relationship with her, I’m not sure I would have been able to win her heart, or that she would have been interested in me, and I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to be with someone and have to battle God given drives if I had failed with Dare, and the door closed with Susan. Susan was paying attention to me, and she was the one who initiated a relationship with me, and pursued after me.

Susan was a few years older than me, and she had three children. Her children did not live with her. They may stay at the house overnight but then leave to go with their Father at his home.

21.

Supermarket Pianist

Susan and I lived in a very beautiful efficiency apartment home. Our plan to start our life off together was for me to move to Nevada where she lived and I would get a job, and eventually start playing the Piano in Las Vegas and help her with where she was at in her life economically and financially. She worked for the Las Vegas Police Department as a secretary, and also worked at the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino. I don’t think it helped that my car broke down on the way from Montana to Nevada. And now we were a one car family. I had to take the rest of the trip to Nevada on Greyhound Bus and my things were packed and Greyhound had them sent to me. Upon meeting Susan’s family, her children, Susan’s youngest child said to me "I’m going to do everything I can to break you and my Mom up" I knew I was in trouble, and I said to myself, “what have I gotten myself into”? This was a nine year old child, and you can’t expect to be able to reason with him as you would an older person. I didn’t expect him to be able to understand why I was with his Mother. Susan was married to an African American person once before. According to her he had not been in her life for over six years, and she had not been dating or seeing anyone those six years. So by the time I came into her life and we married it was as if her ex husband had never left her life.

Somehow he had found out we had married, and that I was a part of her life.

22.

My Britney Experience

A Self Fullfilling Prophecy

I think Bob Lepine of Family Life Ministry got it right when he said, "When a husband and wife come together to form a blended family, there are some extended family members that they have to take into consideration". It’s too bad every new blended family or new divorced family can’t have a family, or relationship like that TV show The Brady Bunch with Actress Maureen Mc Cormick.

But the reality is, as Mr Lepine said, "If you’re a stepdad, or you remarry, your wife’s ex husband, in a sense is your ex husband in law, part of your life especially if you have children, part of your family, an extended family member whether you like it or not. If he is loving, has accepted the divorce with his ex wife, and that they are not going to ever get back together again, you may have a smooth new family life. The other side is, “if that ex husband, is unreasonable, or is unhappy his ex wife has remarried,He can use that divorce against you with his ex wife, and your new family may pay the price for that".I think that was the case with Susan and my new family. It was as if I were married to Susan’s ex Husband, and he would repeatedly call the house asking to speak to her, or if she were home, as if I were not the Husband of the family, or if I were not there.There were no proper boundaries between this ex Husband, and Susan and I as a family. Susan’s ex Husband’s actions were one of all of a sudden he was missing her or wanted her back as a wife. It’s like a child who has a toy he has not been playing with for a while. As soon as another child begins to pay attention to that toy, the first child begins to want to play with that toy and begins to act like he was missing that toy. It’s not that the first child wants to play with that toy or has missed that toy, he just doesn’t want anyone else to play with it. I think that was the case with Susan’s ex husband. I don’t think he wanted to be with her, he just didn’t want anyone else to be with her.

That kind of behavior seems to be very typical in relationships with people that have divorced and I knew what was going to happen when I left Susan’s life.He would go back to what his actions were before I came in her life, not being with her.

As with JeannieMarie, Susan and I did not have a dysfunctional marriage, and we did not fight. I think Susan’s ex husband may have encouraged this child that he also would do his part to break Susan and I up.


I think the young child’s determination to break Susan and I apart may have been a self fulfilling prophecy. I don’t think Susan and I were in agreement with how to discipline her children when properly needed. There was an incident where she took her children to a hamburger restaurant, and because this youngest child didn’t have ketchup on his burger, he wanted his Mom to drive all the way back to the restaurant to get him another burger. He could have taken that burger home and put ketchup on it. If it had been me I would have told that young child he either eat the burger he had been bought, or go to bed hungry. Now I adore children. I used to work in Children’s Television. I think in rare exceptional cases Children should maybe experience moments of being told in a firm but loving way "NO".That he can’t always have his way, or have everything he wants at the moment he wants it.

That tells me every family is different in how they raise their children. I think some parents struggle with, or have a hard time saying "NO" to their children.And there I was, helpless to help Susan with this child as he was screaming at his Mother, and insisting on having his way to get another burger.

My first thought was what an ungrateful child. But this is a child who was used to having a Watch that would cost $50.00 s, and there was nothing I could do to help her. This was a family who was not used to getting things cheap, or inexpensive like when family’s buy clothes second hand at a thrift store, or at the Salvation Army.Family’s not used to living by meager means tend to view you as a cheapskate not realizing the money you can save.

I once found that out with my Father. My Father had a very comfortable income in the Air Force. We were not a wealthy family, but my Father was a man of means, and lived a very comfortable life. My Father would go to the second hand store to buy clothes, even if he could afford to go to a Nordstrom Store, or buy things brand new. He had accumulated a whole wardrobe of clothes without anyone noticing. One day my Mom looked in the closet and saw all these clothes, and made fun of him because he bought them at a thrift store. By brother and my sister also made fun of him, and I admit I did too at first.

But after I looked in the closet, I realized he had an entire wardrobe of clothes. He had suit jackets, and ties, and shirts, almost next to nothing in cost, and when I started doing performances in the earlier years on my concerts,I would find myself using his clothes.

24.My Britney Spears Experience

That taught me a lot about the value of saving money, and being frugal with how you spend money even if you have a lot of it, and that it is Ok to shop in second hand thrift stores. I think we tend to live in a spoiled culture where if you don’t buy something brand new there is something wrong with that, or with the things you buy used.

And I think that was the case with my relationship with Susan’s children, and maybe even with Susan herself. I’m all for blended family’s, and people getting together who may have divorced if they have children, but I think they should really talk about how they are going to discipline a child. Usually in a blended family, that husband takes a back seat second place in the eyes of that wife all of a sudden if discipline may be needed, as if that husband was not even the wife’s husband. She may generally turn on that husband, and children have a way of using that knowledge against a new Parent.

That may have been that case with that nine year old child and his Father. Susan and I were not in agreement with being frugal. She always worried about fear of not having enough to meet the family needs, but I could never get her to see being frugal was Ok. I never did find out why Susan left me. The night that she left, her youngest child called me and said "I told you I was going to break you and my Mom up”. I didn’t get angry. My response was "Does that make you happy"?

There was a silence on the phone. Maybe the child was thinking about it. He didn’t give me an answer, and I said "have a nice life" I hung up the phone, and as Susan left, I knew there was not going to be anything I was going to be able to do to save this marriage, so I said Goodbye in my heart, and I let her go.

Two days later, I landed the job I would have used to help her and start our life off together. I didn’t see any reason to keep the job. Susan was gone. I worked the job for two weeks to prepare to go home. It was very humbling to tell Dare what was going on in my life, that I had married Susan, and she had left, and I was waiting for a divorce. Dare became disappointed in me as I was pouring out my heart explaining the predicament I was in. She may have become interested in me if I had pursed after her. She made the decision to escape out of my life and not associate with me any longer.

I had not only lost Susan, I had also lost Dare, a lady I may have loved if I had been given the opportunity.

Defeated I headed back to Montana. 25.

To Error Is Human

Chapter 3 "I forgive you for your faults or mine. To Error is Human. To forgive divine”.

That was a quote from Underdog my favorite Cartoon Super Hero when I was a boy, when everyone thought Underdog had turning to a life a crime. It was an imposter pretending to be Underdog and Underdog was able to clear his name.

What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is releasing a person from the obligation that resulted when they injured you. Let me repeat that again. Forgiveness is releasing a person from the obligation that resulted when they injured you.

When Susan left, upon returning to Montana she called me to see how I was doing and to see if I got home Ok. I think she called me out of a guilty conscience. Maybe she felt bad because she had left, or felt bad because of what happened.


She did marry me, and then divorce me four days later. When I came home we were still married. She made the comment that "I didn’t fight for her". There was nothing to fight for. My response "You chose to leave". I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do anything to get her to change her mind or come back. She asked me to pay for half of the divorce. I told her in good conscience "I could not help her. She was free to go, and if she wanted out she was going to have to pay for the divorce herself". I would not give her any trouble. In anger she protested but paid for the divorce. She had the financial means.

Susan did not keep my last name, she took her maiden name back. She signed away her rights and did not want any kind of support. I suppose she did that not to have anything in her life that would remind her she was married to me. I don’t think Susan did this to be cruel or nasty. I just think she wanted out of the marriage.

A week later I got an official letter from the Las Vegas Municipal Court stating that she filed for divorce and all I had to do was sign the papers. I signed them, and a week later I got an official letter stating I was legally divorced and officially single again.

It was still painful to lose this woman in a divorce even if I would have learned to love her. I never did hear from Susan again.

Sometimes I wonder whatever became of her. Her nine year old child is probably in his 20’s, now, a Parent himself now.

I will never know why she divorced me. Maybe she wasn’t willing to wait for how long it would have taken for us to build our life together. Maybe she realized how much she loved her ex Husband, and may have lost him forever if she had continued to be married to me.

All these things I will never know simply because the word Love was not written in her book for this marriage. I forgave Susan before she left. I never got the opportunity to tell her. She may never know. Susan is forgiven.

I may never see her again. I wish her the best.

27.To Error Is Human

To Forgive Is Divine

What was painful about losing JeannieMarie wasn’t the divorce. It was the way in which I lost her. If it had been people who were not in the church that were responsible for ending the marriage I would not have given that second thought. You would expect that from people not in the church.

But to have that happen with people in the church, and when she went home no one ever said "Asaph were sorry this happened". No one ever said or did anything to encourage bring us back together. Not even a prayer.

Everyone just went on with their lives serving in the church, playing their instruments, teaching Bible studies. I got stuck with the memories. The memory’s of the beautiful form God had given JeannieMarie. The memory’s of our life together of what we had and now was the memory of how she was taken.No wonder God hates divorce. It destroys lives, families, children in the families of divorce. God loves divorced people and is a God of grace to the divorced. It was amazing how JeannieMarie was able to so quickly turn off her feelings as if she never were in love with me. I don’t think it was JeannieMarie the person who did that, but maybe fear, or maybe influences.

Sometimes a family can have such an influence in the life of a person that if that person does not live, or maybe do what that family thinks that person should do, they can dismiss that person from the family. That dismissal can cause fear in the life of that person to a life of being alone with no loved one’s to share.

I experienced that once before when I once dated a girl from Vietnam before I had married Susan.After meeting her family, her Parent’s threatened to disown the young woman and separate her from the family if she did not end the relationship with me. It had nothing to do with being an interracial couple. I was an American and her family did not want their daughter to date an American. That is very common in most Asian cultures.

28.

Supermarket Pianist

Perhaps JeannieMarie would have faced separation from her family if she had continued to be with me. That’s a burden most people cannot carry.

So compassion comes in for a person facing that separation from family.

I forgave JeannieMarie when she left. I never got the opportunity to tell her. She may never know. I forgive JeannieMarie.

I forgive the mental illness. I forgive the depression. I forgive the influences that took her away from me.

When JeannieMarie first left, we talked about her coming to Montana to visit me. We talked about maybe one day getting back together. Fear turned into fear of her coming, fear of talking to me on the phone, to wanting to communicate only by email.

My final communication, I sent her a card, and sent her some money, and I told her I still loved her.Final council, she sent the card, the money back.

I knew it was time to say Goodbye.

29.

Supermarket Pianist

Chapter 4 A man walks into a Supermarket. Yours truly. It was a week ago today I came in the store to get some toilet paper. And Debbie Mc Donald (I’m going to draft her) a woman with flour on her apron, she was working in the bakery. She knew I was a Pianist and she said there was a Piano in the corner, and asked me if I would play a song?

I did, and one thing lead to another. Somebody called Jim Edwards the owner of the store and he came, and gave me the invitation to start playing here all the time.

That’s how I became the Supermarket Pianist. I normally play the Piano at hotels, weddings, community events, art galleries. This is the first time I have ever played in a Supermarket. You can find me in the baked goods aisle. I started playing at the Pattee Creek Supermarket September 26th 2010 and shoppers and management loved it. They invited me back. You’ll find me most days in the bakery aisle serving up Liberace style ambiance complete with my trademark Candelabra.


It just took off. I think the reason for that it’s not because I’m a really great Pianist per say. It’s the concept of having live Piano music in a Supermarket just like you would in a hotel. You’re in a hotel and you see couple’s dancing that’s rewarding. But to see it in a Supermarket

setting that just really seems to stand out. I may not be the first person to ever do something like this, play music in a Supermarket. I once saw actor Dick Van Dyke in a news story shopping in a Supermarket and the checker was a singer, and she sang a song for him, and for the shoppers at the store. I was twelve years old when I got into music. An amusing story how an instrument came to my family. My Father was in the United States Air Force. We had lived overseas in Taipei Taiwan. We had just come back to the United States and we moved to Langley Air Force Base in Hampton Virginia. I was ready to start the 5th grade. My Father had a habit of drinking Vodka. That clear colored stuff that looks like water. I don’t endorse that, I don’t see how anybody can drink that stuff.

I admit, I once called myself trying to take a taste of it. I was curious, young and dumb. I took one swallow, and it burned my throat so bad with that burning sensation when you take a drink of Alcohol, and I knew then I wasn’t going to drink that stuff anymore.

My Father would drink that stuff, and every time he would get to drinking that stuff, he would leave the house, and come home with something he had bought. On this one day he got to feeling good as the saying goes when you have been drinking, he left the house, and come home with a brand new Piano.

My Mother just about had a fit, and cried and as she yelled at him, and must have called him a lot of names I can’t put in this book."What are we going to do with a Piano"? ”Nobody even knows how to play it”.It was a beautiful black upright Yamaha Piano, very shiny.

My Mother was too poor to have had the Piano taken back, and she would not have been able to take it back, so she had to accept it, that there was a Piano in our home. Over time she started dusting off the Piano, and started taking care of it. The Piano became part of the furniture in our home. It didn’t seem to phase my Father.He didn’t seem to think about what he had done. I wonder if he even remembered he had bought it after the Vodka had worn off ?

I don’t know. There was a brand new Piano at home, and part of the family. 31.

Supermarket Pianist

The Next Gabriel

When I was in High School there was a sign in the band room that said, "Due to the shortage of trained Trumpeter’s the end of the world will be postponed for three months".

That was an affectionate reference to the Angel Gabriel, and the second Coming of Christ.I think the band teacher may have been trying to tell us something of how bad we may have played when we were learning how to play an instrument, and the importance of practice. My family had moved to Sacramento, and I was about to start the eighth grade. David Roberts was this kid who lived across the street from us, and he was an accomplished Pianist who had taken formal Piano lessons when he was very little. He could play the music of Beethoven, to Singer Tom Jones. He was the Schroder of the neighborhood, the kid who could play anything on the Piano like Schroder on the Charlie Brown cartoons. And he would always play for the kids in the neighborhood. He had showed me how to play some songs, and I would memorize how to play, still not having taken formal lessons.

Two years later when I started the eighth grade we had moved to the north side of town, Boy that military life.I got off to a late start, an eighth grader in a seventh grade class taking a beginning band class, and taking formal music lessons. I don’t know why I didn’t take Piano lessons but I chose a Trumpet and that’s how my life as Gabriel started. By my senior year of High School I was the first chair Trumpeter. It must have been that sign in the band room.It stuck with me, and I would spend a lot of time practicing the Trumpet. When the other kids were out playing I was in the garage practicing the Trumpet.

By graduation I had worked up compositions like Flight of the Bumble Bee, and Carnival of Venice.

I was given an $1800 dollar Scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory Music.


A Crushed Dream

There’s an old saying "If you want to make The Good Lord have a chuckle or a laugh, tell Him what your plans are".

My career in music started at Loyola Marymount University in California. It’s amazing how a young person can have a tremendous opportunity, and if there is no support in the family that dream can go unfulfilled. I was watching that TV show House with actor Hugh Laurie, and there was a scene where there was this young man who came from a family of Amish people, and he was very skilled in medicine, and had a promising career as a surgeon. The Character Dr Foreman was going to teach him everything he knew about being a surgeon, and train him personally.His family came to the hospital, and it didn’t make any difference that the Amish son was skilled and had this opportunity to be a surgeon, his family wanted him to come home and work with the family.

When I saw that it was like looking in the mirror. For whatever reason my Father didn’t seem to be in support of my going to the Conservatory. I think he may have had a plan for my life, which is common that most Parents seem to have for the lives of their children. Parents seem to want their children to do in life, or have the career the Parent thinks the child should have.I often wonder why Parents tend to do that. I often wondered if it’s to make that Parent feel good about themselves, or look good in the eyes of their friend’s?

I think I may have experienced that with my Parents. I think Parent’s at times tend to forget that that child might grow up, and have an interest that may be different than theirs. My Father was in the military and I think he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. I never wanted to be in the military.I was always afraid what it would do to me, and that it would change me, and change my personality, and the person I am.I think if people get in the Military, they better do it for all the right reasons.

I didn’t meet my Father’s expectations of what he wanted me to do with my life, and it caused friction between me and him.I resisted him, and fought against what he wanted me to do.


I think that may be why a lot of people struggle with when God may want them to do something.Myself included.

I think people have to realize if God may want you to do something it is totally different then if your Parents may want you to do something.

I decided to go to the Conservatory anyway. I took classes there and I was able to go there long enough to take the classes that may have helped prepared me for a life in music. It was clear I wasn’t going to get any help from my Parents, and if I was going to do this I was on my own.I did everything I could to make that school work considering there was no support from my family in an effort to go to school. My Eight Grade Band Teacher Mr Monte Edison paid for the application fee so I could have this opportunity to go to this school.

I was a Teacher’s Aide at my old Junior High School where I started taking Trumpet Lessons. Mr Edison was still teaching music there after all these years. He remembered me, and I worked with him 5 days a week, and I worked with 5 band classes a day trying to help, and teach young students about music, the Trumpet, and practice.

I lived in Daly City which was quite a commute from San Francisco, and the buses that went from San Francisco to Daly City stopped running about 5 pm, so I was unable to get to the school at night when I needed to be there for classes.I was also beginning to miss classes in the day time. I had a roommate named Marty. Marty was an accomplished Violinist. He was taking classes at the San Francisco State University. Marty and I went to high school together. It didn’t help that his Father was paying for my and Marty’s living expenses, and share of the rent where we were living, which included food.My Father didn’t seem interested in helping Marty’s Father, or me to go to this school, and it began to put a strain on my friendship with Marty as he watched his Father pay for both of us. Marty’s Father told me he once got to see the famed Trumpet Soloist Harry James play the intricate Trumpet composition written especially for him, "Concerto for Trumpet" which was featured in the 1941 film Private Buckaroo.

I took a part time job at the Stones Town Mall near where we lived, but it didn’t make any difference. I physically did not make enough money to pay for everything that Marty’s Father was paying. There was no way I could work at that Mall and go to classes.


Holly Robertson was this really cute Christian girl, that worked at the Hickory Farms, and I really adored her, and her commitment to Christ.

I worked at the Mall, and neglected my classes.

Before leaving for Los Angeles to pursue the Trumpet and began my musical career, one thing that troubled me at times, despite a distinct lack of family support from my family members, after dropping out of school, my Father would tell his friends in the Air Force or anyone who would listen, “I sent the boy to the Conservatory, and he dropped out”.

That would annoy me because I knew it wasn’t true. It would not have done any good to try to defend myself or say how untrue my Father’s words were. I knew trying to defend myself in this instance would only have made me look like I did drop out of school in the eyes of anyone my Father would tell.

So whenever my Father would tell anyone he sent me to school, I would remain silent.

Failing to complete my studies at the Conservatory, I dropped out of school and headed to Los Angeles to become the Trumpet Soloist.


The Soloist

One Man Band Trumpeter

Every Good Boy Does Fine. If you take the first letter of each one of these words, that is the names of the notes in Music. This Every Good Boy Does Fine Asaph Adonai was to begin a life in music.

My career in music started at Loyola Marymount University. I got a scholarship for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and after going to that school for a short period of time, I decided to pursue my career as a Trumpet Player at that time. I went to Loyola Marymount University, and I stayed with my best friend in high school who was a student there. I originally was going to get a job at Disneyland as a walk around entertainer with my Horn, and I failed to get the audition.Failing to get a job as a walk around entertainer, I went to a basketball game at Loyola the very next night to regroup, and figure out what I was going to do and I realized that they didn’t have any music going on at this basketball game. No Pep Bands, there were no bands, no music, nothing. Not even the National Anthem. The idea came to me to take the Trumpet and play the National Anthem for the games. The very next night, I got permission to play the National Anthem for the Loyola Marymount University Basketball game, and that’s how I got started in Show Business. That’s how my career in music got started, and that’s how I became the One Man Band Trumpeter.

I played the National Anthem at every game, played all the songs thoughout the game, played all the charges, the fanfares, Bugle calls, all by myself. And playing by myself, I was able to play impromptu spur of the moment songs, like TV Theme Songs that you may normally not hear in a game.And it became comical, and I became like a Mascot at the Loyola Games.

I played at every function the school had for five months. Father Donald Merrifield was Chancellor of the school at that time, and after getting acquainted with me and my playing for the games, and my because of my services playing for the University, he gave me free room and board on behalf of the University, and I lived on the Campus of Loyola.


Miss Detra Cannon, (now known as Dique Cannon Finley) a professional Singer, one of my best friends, a dear friend, and quite good at her craft and what she did, who was a student at the University introduced me to R.A “Bumps” Blackwell.

I owe my entire career to Dique.She made the introduction that would “set everything in motion”. Bumps was an rather interesting personality. He was an Artist Manager, and had represented or worked with artist like Herb Alpert,Sonny Bono, Lou Rawls, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Little Richard,But I think he was best known for representing Sam Cooke, and he wrote the song "You send me".

It was hard to believe that someone who had worked with so many people would want to work with me.Yet The Lord opened the door, and I got the opportunity to study with him for three years. It made up for missing the opportunity to study at the Conservatory. Bumps was very skilled in the art of teaching, writing, and composing of music, and he was preparing me for a career in performing, and show business,He was going to represent me as my agent.He passed away before I got the opportunity to sign a contract with him, but I had learned so much from him, a few years later I eventually got the opportunity to play in Las Vegas with Pat Guidry and the High Rollers.

Pat Guidry was a professional singer. He has retired but he was such a fantastic singer. He could sing anything Rock, Pop, Country Gospel. He was best known for playing the music of Otis Redding.

Pat had headlined in Las Vegas at many of the Hotels on the main strip for many years, singing at Hotels like the Riviera.He was singing at the Marina Hotel when he gave me the opportunity to play the Trumpet with his group. During my time playing with Pat, He and the High Rollers once went on a weekend tour in Monterey California, for a suicide prevention concert, on the same program with The Beach Boys, and Dinah Shore. I wound up getting to meet Dinah, and play in the background as she sang a song.I have to thank Pat for giving me those experiences in those early years.


Years earlier I got the opportunity to play with a group called The Dreed Scott Review.

There name was taken from the famous slave Dreed Scott, the African American slave of the United States during the 18th century. These people were professional singers, and the group was similar to the Motown’s Temptations, or Four Tops. Sam (Doc) Wingo, and Dave (Dada) Dikita were the leader’s of the group, quite skilled in singing and dancing, with dancing move’s that could rival any group on a concert stage. Sam had a niece named Roland who was a professional model, and one of the most beautiful African American women.

But the most interesting personality in the group to me was Johnny Jameson. Johnny was a skilled song writer,And because of he, and the group, I was given the opportunity to co write the first composition I ever wrote called “Funk Rag”

Funk Rag was a jazz pop composition with violin strings that gave the song a classical symphony flavor.

Doc was married to a lady named Brenda.I really adored Brenda. She was one of the best friends I ever had. She genuinely cared about me as a person, and believed in my playing the Trumpet. She always felt I was going to make it as a Trumpeter.Dave, Doc, Kenzi (known as the Famed Kenzereli) Austin, and Johnnie Jameson, the entire group, I know that they all cared about me. I wasn’t the most street wise person at that time, or experienced in life’s experiences then. Perhaps I was a bit naive then.

I was the baby of the group, only 22 with all these people in their 40’s, or 50’s, and it’s amazing they put up with me being so young, perhaps being even naive in experiences in life, but they protected both me both in the field of music, and life in general.

I think they respected the skills I was able to offer the group having studied with Bumps, and I was able to serve as a Music Director, and I got to play the Trumpet and the Piano.

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The Brown Hornet I think the pinnacle of my Trumpet years was when I started playing for the Salvation Army. I had just finished playing in Las Vegas. When Pat Guidry’s contract expired at the hotel,

I wenthome. When I first started playing in Las Vegas I felt like I had arrived in the entertainment world. I was 26 years old the first time I played in Las Vegas. As time went by, I found myself becoming increasingly unhappy living there. It was like nothing was real to me. If you were to try to meet someone as a potential partner, the hotel may not be the place, probably not likely. Whenever I would go to a hotel, I would always look the part, and I made sure I had a suit on to keep security from following me around the hotel. I liked the work playing and performing at the hotel, but I didn’t like the life style. One of the things I found I like doing was visiting the Liberace Museum.I also liked eating some of the foods at the hotels, and visiting some of stores on the Las Vegas Strip.

The dresses the cocktail waitresses wore were so short around the waist, that if they were to bend over, there would be no imagination of what The Lord may have given in marriage.

I did have a dear friend named Jenny.Jenny was H I V positive and suffering with AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. There was a professional entertainer there named Captain Streetwise, Laurence T. He was a Superhero who would go to school’s to tell children how dangerous it was to live in the streets of the big cities, and how dangerous it was to live the street way of life often associated with the inner cities.

Jenny and I got an invitation to go with Captain Streetwise, and I went as The Brown Hornet. When I was a boy The Green Hornet was a Superhero. Actor Bill Cosby created the cartoon Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. And since it was an African American cartoon, Fat Albert’s hero was The Brown Hornet.

My version of the Brown Hornet, since I was a Trumpet player, with cape and mask, The Brown Hornet carried a Trumpet, and played it to entertain the crowd’s with the Bumble Bee on his chest. Jenny was only 26 years old, and dying of the AIDS virus. Physically on the outside she was stunning. If you looked at her, you would never know she was suffering with AIDS, but the insides of her body were destroyed by the virus.

39.

Supermarket Pianist She with Captain Streetwise was going around warning kids about the danger of promiscuous tender intimate moments. I admired Jenny’s commitment to help children, and she wanted to help with whatever time she had left.

Jenny often called me “The Brown Hornet” an affectionate nickname, and I think she liked my costume, and the character that I had created.

The insect, the Bumble Bee somehow seemed to always be connected with me, probably because Rimsky Korsakov’s classical composition The Flight of the Bumble Bee has always been one of my favorite classical pieces.It could be too that I used to play that song a lot on the Trumpet, and it was always fun to hear that song on one of my favorite superhero TV shows, The Green Hornet and Kato.

I lost contact with Jenny when I went back to California, and Christ The Lord may have taken her to Heaven.

I will miss her.

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The Taipei Years

Chapter 5 This part of the Autobiography will be the hardest part to write, the darkest part of the book, from when I was in the third grade, to the sixth grade. As I look back, I always wondered why my Parents ever married. It’s true I wouldn’t be here if

they didn’t. Though my Mother is not the only woman, No one in my personal opinion has ever suffered abuse as much as my Mother, as evident when you look back at the family pictures when I was very young.

It was always very difficult to share with my family on my Father’s side what the relationship really was like between my Mother, and Father, and how he treated her, as a husband, and as a wife.They always saw him a different way. That was their brother. Maybe they were remembering

the memories when they were growing up. Maybe it was because he got into the military.

There’s an old saying you never know what goes on behind closed doors. It was very difficult to share what it was really like growing up in the William’s home under the leadership of my Father.

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They were not there all the years my Father would beat up my Mother. When you tried to share there was trouble accepting truth. My earliest memories of my Parents were one of them always physically, and literally fighting one another. Another early memory was when my family lived in Washington DC, before I was in the first grade. I remember my Father would threaten my Mother every morning before he went to work not to let anything happen to me, or she would answer to him. I remember my Mother would watch after me, but it was like she was going through the motions watching me, as if her heart was not in it.

It wasn’t till years later that I began to understand why.

When I was in the sixth (6) grade my Mother used to always say to me, "you are the reasons for my problems" I didn’t understand that then, but as I got older I know why she felt that way. Asaph Adonai yours truly was born to Charles Hodges Williams Sr, and his wife Primrose Loretta Lee October 26th, 1958. Born Charles Hodges Williams Jr, and I hated that name. I cringed and even hated being called Junior. I disliked that even more. I used to get a lot of jokes, because my middle name was Hodges, ”Hodge take the car out of the garage” when I was a kid growing up. I went to a Catholic school when we lived in Taipei, where we had the Teacher’s like Nun’s with the Habit Nuns Veil Hat’s with the gowns, and the Cross, and they were taking roll call one day, and they called Charles, and nobody answered. And I told my teacher my name was Tommy.

Asaph is the oldest and first one born of three Children, Asaph, Ted, and Kim. My Father was in the United States Air Force. I see why my Mother married my Father. My Aunt Doris once showed me pictures of my Father as a young man. My Father was a very handsome man. My Father had a very intimidating, but professional look with that Air Force uniform. If I had to describe my Father, he was not Gomer Pyle like that TV show, and he could not sing like actor Jim Nabors. My Father had a look like actor Louis Gossett Jr in that movie Officer and a Gentleman only with a full head of hair.

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The Taipei Years

My Father was the third child born of four children. He had three sisters. My Mother was the ninth child born of eleven children. My Father never got the opportunity to be raised by his Mother. He was raised by his grandmother which would have been my Great Grandmother. So he may have never got to know his mother in the sense of a mother and child relationship. I believe he never recovered from that, not having the opportunity to be raised by his Mother.So by the time he got of age, and they didn’t have the self helps they have today, and counseling probably in his time that we do today, and I think by the time he grew up it might have affected him.He battled Alcohol too, which didn’t help matters. That’s unfortunate what alcohol does to so many people, that’s why I chose not to drink.

My Mother comes from a Native American Indian family, born on a Indian Reservation in Arizona. Reservations can be known for their extreme conditions of poverty, and lack of opportunities for employment, or career opportunities for the wonderful Indian People.

Mom came from a very strict religious family where everything was seen by her Parents, my Grandparents as wrong like going to a movie theatre, listening to certain kinds of music like Blues or Jazz. This belief that early American music was considered wrong in the eyes of some African American people of the past stems from the belief of certain artist of the past like Ray Charles or James Brown who sang gospel music in the church, and then would perform non gospel music in the musical performing world. Some artist of that time would mix their gospel style of playing with the non gospel music to create a type of a soulful mix of gospel and secular music. This kind of art form was sometimes considered a form of blasphemy in the church.

To my Grandparents it was even wrong for a woman to wear pants, and I think these strict beliefs may have helped push my Mother, perhaps even some of her siblings to want to leave that strict world.In Mom’s case, I think she may have jumped from one trap to another in the marriage to my father.

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The House I Live In Mom used to sing this song “The House I live in” written by Earl Robinson and Lewis Allen. It was her favorite song so whenever I would play it on the Piano, or see someone sing it on TV it would remind me of her. When I was in high school I began to study music theory, composition, the structure of how music is put together, and the history of music. I even studied the era’s of music of the past like the Baroque period, or the classical period.I studied the history of Rock and Roll and Popular music. I guess in a way you might say I had to know what was truth as far as some of the belief’s that my grandparents had about music and the belief’s that were in some of the African American world of the past.

I would listen to Sinatra when I was growing up. I would listen to big band music like the music of Harry James, or Jazz, like Ella Fitzgerald. I listened to popular music like Roger Williams playing the Piano, and I admit I could deal with Elvis but I preferred a more romantic baritone voice like Nat King Cole.But my personal favorite music was classical music. I loved to listen to the violins, or a song like Rossini’s Barber of Seville

I think it may have been harder for my grandparents when I, or others in the family would listen to the African American Artist’s of the past like B.B. King singing the blues for example.

I loved my Grandfather, but he used to say “Boy you go-on go to Hell for listening to that”. I used to look at him with a smile on my face and say “Oh Brother”, and he would say “Oh Sister”.I knew he loved me but I also knew after years, and years of the study of music that he had no basis for that belief.I was not going to be in eternal torment for listening to Louie “Satchmo” Armstrong, “Hello Dolly”.

The New Testament talks about God’s Son taking the judgment of God for our sins. But this was the house I lived in.

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The Taipei Years

I liked music’s from other cultures like Chinese music. Even Maria Callas singing the Opera Madame Butterfly. But it was a very lonely experience growing up, because some of the artist’s I like to listen to were not black. If the artist was not black, people in my family, friends I grew up with, or relatives would not show much interest in wanting to hear an artist if I wanted to share their music with them. It’s a shame because growing up, people couldn’t seem to look past color to see the talent, and how good some of these artist’s really were. And it didn’t help when you were considered eccentric, or not African American enough because you didn’t listen to only black artist’s.

It was like my family, relatives, and some black people growing up were so into theirBlackness culturally as I call it, that they were missing out on all the other forms of music that God created.

But this was the house I lived in.

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Supermarket Pianist

My father being born in North Carolina, the relationship between the African American people and White people in those years in the Southern States were strained. My Aunt Jackie once told me She and my Father, and their siblings used to literally hide under their beds for protection when they were children when the Ku Klux Klan organization used to break into homes of African American people in the south.

That may have had an effect on my Father’s young life as a child growing up, to wanting to one day escape that form of life. Perhaps it may have had an effect on what kind of Husband he would become, but it didn’t seem to effect his relationship with associating with White people as was evident when he was in the Air Force.

In modern times, African American people, persons of color, even White people won’t tolerate or put up with racial prejudices, or Klan activities like during the 1960’s, the civil rights movement, perhaps even before that period of American history. My brother sister and I may have been sheltered from certain prejudice experiences when we were growing up being in a Military family and living overseas during the heart of most of the civil rights movement.My family caught the tail end of the civil rights movement when we returned to the United States, and by that time racial acceptance was starting to become a reality.

The book of the Revelation in the New Testament talks about all nations kindred’s and tongues accepted by The Almighty.

My Father had received new orders to go to Taiwan, the city of Taipei, the Country Taiwan. My Father was to work there for the next few years of his life. He took his wife and family, and on the North West Airlines we headed for Taiwan.

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The Taipei Years

Keiko Day Care Keiko was not a Day Care facility that took care of Children in a Day Care Center. Keiko was our Baby Sitter. Keiko was this nice Chinese woman who used to take care of me, my brother, and my sister. Whenever my Parents went out for an evening, my Mother would have Keiko come to our home, to watch over us. Perhaps Keiko didn’t have the luxury of having a bathtub in her home where she could enjoy sitting in warm water as she cleansed the body with bubbling soaps, and the fragrance she could smell as she was relaxing signifying she was clean after she would put us to bed. Like clockwork when she would leave for the evening after my Parents would return, she would leave a ring around the bathtub that once filled her body, and my Mother would be left to have to clean the ring around the bathtub.

But there was one thing Keiko could not protect me from. She could not protect us from our Parent’s fighting each other as me, my Brother, and sister would stand watching, and crying. She could not keep us safe from tables being turned over in our home, as my Parents were literally throwing pounces at each other. She could not keep us safe from object’s being thrown across the room in an attempt to hurt the other party. I bare a scare on my right leg to this day where a bug spray can intended for my Father missed the target, and Asaph suffered a small cut under the knee. Another thing Keiko could not protect me from, inappropriate tender intimate moment’s indiscretion. My Parents would go to football games that were being held every Monday night. It may have been Chinese teams that were playing, or maybe American teams, perhaps Military Air Force teams. I’m not sure. I wasn’t into football at that time, and I didn’t watch the games. I would go out to the field to play or explore. When I was a boy I used to enjoy exploring, looking around to see what I could find, to see what’s out there, even if my explorations were very short in distance.

The Chinese used to say a chant during the game while watching.

"Boo How for Lincoln, Boo How for Lincoln, Boo How For Lincoln a horses ass"

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I’m not sure what that meant. Maybe the Chinese didn’t like the opposing teams that were playing each other. One night my Parents had a friend of my Father, an Air Force officer come to the games for an evening of company. As a boy in the third grade, as most children, it was always fun when someone would throw a football and you would try to catch it. I was out in the field exploring, and my Father’s friend came to the field with a football to play catch. As he threw the football, I tried to run past this officer. Of course he did not tackle me to the ground as he would have in a military game. I was an extremely small little boy so it wasn’t hard for him to pick me up, and as he laid me on the ground in a tackle, I sensed something was wrong like a red alert when the Star Ship Enterprise is in danger preparing for battle. This officer stayed in an inappropriate position over my body. I was too young to reason something was not quite right when he would not excuse himself from the tackle.

I think he wanted to kiss me like a man would kiss a woman, like a Rattle Snake about to sink his fang’s into his victim. I heard my Mother call my name “Junior” and this officer excused himself from me. I never did talk to my Parents about this incident. Perhaps my Mother saw the danger I may have been in. Perhaps Christ The Lord sent an Angel to protect me from harm. This is the first time I nearly experienced a child molestation. Perhaps my Mother told my Father, because I never saw that man again. Perhaps my Father threatened this man’s career in the Military, or any pension’s he may have been entitled to if he came near me again. Perhaps my Father had administered some form of discipline in the life of this officer. Perhaps even hand to hand combat. I will never know. Keiko was unable to protect me from this man. One of the most frightening moments in those years, was to walk into our bathroom after an evening of my Parents fighting each other, to find my Mother had taken a razor blade and cut her entire body, her wrists, her arms, her legs, and blood was spilled all over the walls, and tub, with thick colored blood all over the bathroom in an effort to end the suffering at the hands of my Father.

48.

The Taipei Years Mrs Gloria Whitsett and her husband were a military family that lived near by, and she took care of me, my brother and my sister for two months, while my Father had my Mother flown off the Island of Taipei to a Military Medical Facility to save the life of my Mother and give her the care she needed. Gloria and her family sponsored my Parents and family when we went overseas to Taiwan.

How refreshing years later to see Mrs Whitsett at one of my concert performances I was giving at the County Club Plaza Mall in California.A small world. I think she may have been surprised to see the performer I became. I think she never knew in those dark years that she would see me grow up to be blessed with the talents I had been given by The Lord.

I think she was very proud of me, to see the child she once took care of. I think Keiko would have been proud of me if she could have seen the Pianist I became. My Parents had a tutor that used to come to our home to teach me Math and English. She was a lady from the Philippines, and though it didn’t hurt, she would always hit me in the back of the head to get me to learn my studies, like that was going to help me to learn. Maybe that was a culture with the Philippine people to get children to do their studies.

I think she would have been proud of me if she could have seen the Pianist I became.

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Dominican School If I had my life to live over again I would have gone to this school all 12 grades. Dominican School was the school I went to when I was in the third grade.This was a Catholic School, and the Teachers were Sister Nuns with the black hats that folded

like a pair of ears, and had the long dresses with the cross, like Actress Sally Fields on that TV show The Flying Nun.

This was a beautiful campus with a mountain behind it, and there was a road paved on the hills for cross country and track, and it took a whole hour, the entire Physical Education P.E class to run across that mountain.

If I had to describe that campus, it was like an Oral Roberts University. It had the Kinder Garden grades, to the Seniors, all on the same campus, but it was sectioned off so that you never saw the Seniors with the Kinder Garden students.

The school had a dress code. The boys wore white shirts with blue pants, and the girls wore a blue dress with a white shirt.You never saw students with an Ozzie Osborn, or Metallica T shirt, or a skull and cross bones.

I ran cross country at Dominican School, and by time I graduated High School, my friends in the neighborhood I grew up called me Steve Austin like that TV show The Six Million Dollar Man with actor Lee Majors.

There was this girl named Kelly Cross, and when we had lunch, she always had the thickest Tuna Fish Sandwich.My Mother made me and my brother, Tuna Fish sandwiches every Friday, and it was a

“Wish Sandwich” Two pieces of bread and you wish there was meat in the middle.

Every Morning the school made the students stand in front of the school, and we would have to listen to the school theme song which sounded like that music you hear on a Godzilla movie, or Ultraman, where you would see the action, and the lips didn’t match. It was always very amusing, very

funny watching those kung fu movies.

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The Taipei Years

But what I appreciated about the school was the education. I think there was a higher standard of education that was taught then in our western culture.

An amusing story about my so called trying to get a girl to like me when I was a boy. There was a girl in my class named Patricia Green. She was a cute blond. I used to chase her every day before classes start.

One day when I went after her, I think she was prepared because when I ran around the corner to chase her, she had taken her sandwich apart, and with thick Mayonnaise on the bread, she smashed the piece of bread in my face in front of the whole class.

There was Mayonnaise all over my face. All the student’s started laughing, and even the Sister Nun started to chuckle.

I decided to leave the girl alone. I didn’t chase after her any more. That was my first taste of Humble Pie.

Humble Pie never tasted so good.

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A Visit From Saint N ick

One of the most delightful things that happened in the Taipei years was when Santa Claus came to our home for a visit on Christmas Eve. Children are usually told to go to bed early on Christmas Eve, and be asleep before midnight because Santa would be coming to our home to bring toys, and if you were not sleep, you would not be getting any toys for Christmas. Usually when kids are told that, they don’t think Santa’s really going to come to their home. They just go to sleep, and when they wake up the next day, toys are under the Christmas Tree.

My brother Ted and I decided we were going to be awake when Santa came. Ted and I slept in the same room, and my sister had her own room. In our room you could see down the hall, and the Christmas Tree was lit with lights. My Parents were decorating the Tree.

When midnight came there was a knock at the door, and Santa actually came to our house. Ted and I were watching down the hall, and Santa began walking toward our room. Ted and I could see him coming, so we pretended we were asleep.

Santa actually came into our room, turned the lights on and said,

“HO HO HO”, Merry Christmas.

“Are you children asleep”? Ted and I made snoring noises as we pretended to be asleep. A moment later he left the room.

52. The Taipei Years

Weeping May Endure

Weeping may Endure The abuse between my Parent’s continued over the years. When we got back to the United States and were living in Virginia, the fighting between my Parents continued to the point one night my Mother lit my Father’s pillow on fire as he was sleeping to try to burn him in his sleep. My Father awoke to beat my Mother up more severely than he normally would beat her up. I was too young, and helpless to help my Mother. There was a song on the Phonograph record my Mother would repeatedly play by Blues Singer Bobby (Blue) Bland called "I’ll take care of you" It was as if she was trying to find comfort in a situation that never seemed to change as she was

beaten up.Like my Mother playing this song would change my Father’s behavior and make him stop

beating her up.

The darkest most frightening part of those years was when my family left Virginia to California a year later. My Mother had gone into such a deep depression probably brought on by years of abuse, and in those days they didn’t have the self help’s, or Dr Phil in the sense of how the world knows him today. It got to the point my Mother would get up at night, and turn the gas on from the gas stove we had in our home, and try to kill everybody in the house. After turning on the gas, she would get in the bed with my Father, gas would fill the house, my Father would turn the gas off, open the windows, and beat her up. This activity would go on and off for a period of a year. And when we moved to the other side of town a year later, I was so afraid to go to sleep, I would literally sleep next to my window, with the window open and it would get very cold in the house, and my room.

I could not sleep because of the cold, and I would end up getting in trouble by my Mother as she yell or scream at me and say "I’m not going to turn the gas on, close that window”.

I kept the window cracked open every night, and learned to sleep with the window open.

53.

Supermarket Pianist

When I was in the 6th grade, my Father had some rather interesting, colorful friends in the Air Force. One of them was a guy named Herman Clairiett. One time He and my family went to a Der Weinersnitzel Hotdog Restaurant. Herman ordered a Kraut Dog, SourKraut with mustard, and a pickle, and seasoning black pepper. I remember thinking that was the most disgusting thing you could eat.I would always get a Mustard Dog. It wasn’t nothing but a plain Hot Dog with mustard. A small

small world, because years later I would grow to love Kraut Dogs.

My Brother Ted and I used to ride our bicycles at the Elementary School near our house. In those days, the school had wooden ramps with in front of the classrooms, and there were three steps you walked up, on either side to get to the classrooms.My Brother and I rode our bikes up the ramps, and I made a U Turn, and rode down the steps

safely.When Ted tried to make a U Turn, he flipped over the edge to the ground, and broke his jaw.

After being treated at the Hospital, whenever Herman would come to the house to visit, he would

call my brother, “No Jaw”.

What a villain Ted would have made “No Jaw” with that nickname like, “ The Henchmen Jaws” with the steel teeth, in that James Bond movie The Spy who loved me. Actor Richard Kiel made James Bond’s life miserable.On a note I think Roger Moore was at his best when he was a young man in that TV show The

Saint. I think he was so smooth as Simon Templer.But that’s for another story.

Another story, one Thanksgiving Holiday my Father had beaten up my Mother as she was preparing the Thanksgiving Dinner. We had company that day, and the guest who came were friends of my Parents. They knew my Father had beaten up my Mother, and that something was wrong, because my Mother was wearing darks sun glasses like a prize fighter after a fight.

But they didn’t seem to be concerned about the welfare of my Mother, they were trying to figure out a way to get my Mother to take the sun glasses off.

54.The Taipei Years

Another story, there is a scene in the movie A Wonderful Life with actor Jimmy Stewart where the character George Bailey had reached a breaking point, and in a moment of anger he overturned the tables in the living room in front of his wife and children. I can relate to that, because later that same year for Christmas my Parents were fighting in the living room, and in a moment of anger like George Bailey, my Father grabbed the Christmas Tree and threw it down to the ground.

My Father was 24 years old, and my Mother was 17 when they got married. My Mother was pregnant with me before she married my Father. And in those days in the 1950’s, if a woman got pregnant before she married, she was always usually forced to marry that man she got pregnant by. My Father was showing early signs of abusing her at that time before they married, before I was born, as my Grandmother once told me the story of how my Father had kicked her in the stomach before I was born when he was stationed in Alaska and my Mother desperately calling long distance to California for help from her family.

I have always believed this to this day, that my Mother was forced to marry my Father before she was ready, and may have felt trapped in a relationship with a man who was abusing her, or may have perhaps not wanted and by time I was born, my Mother did not see me, she saw the cause of her problems meaning having a life with my Father.

Whenever I would try to share this belief with a member of the family, or a relative of how my Mother viewed me, it was like they would either seem to go into denial like that wasn’t true, or I didn’t know what I was talking about, or they would have trouble accepting my concerns and thoughts. As hard as it was for me, the relationship I had between me and my Father, as I was growing up, it was always harder for me with my Mother. It was like when you try to put two magnets together, and they repel apart from each other.

I always questioned if my Mother ever loved me. I once tried to share this with an Aunt in the family and again she went in denial, it was if she didn’t hear a word I said.


Perhaps she didn’t want to hear, or accept what I was trying to say because this was her sister I was talking about.

I’m not out to make my birth Mother to be a monster’ess. She has had her share of emotional struggles, perhaps depression problems throughout her life.There were so many things about my Mother I never understood.

I have forgiven the past and all the terrible things she used to do to me.

One example being,Before I had moved to Montana as an adult year’s later for good, there was an incident where my Mother had disappeared for weeks and No one from her job or area she lived in had seen her. Everyone wondered where she was. She was living with a boyfriend then, so I drove to his house to see if she was Ok and see if I could find her. After knocking on the front door she had peeked out the window.Her hair was not combed and she was wearing a night gown and somehow she had gotten blood and urine all over her body. When I persisted I wasn’t going to leave, she had opened the front door and with her boyfriend’s 357 magnum gun she shot at me. By the grace of God I didn’t get hit, and I drove home and reported the incident to the police.

A few hours later Mom was taken to a Psychiatric Ward. She was in a state of eyes open, but no one home, similar a scene in that movie, The Joy Luck Club with actress France Nuyen and the character of Ying Ying when she had killed her infant baby because of abuse by the man she had married. An aura of anger was around my Mother, and the Psychiatrist’s asked me to write in a letter what I believe caused the meltdown. After comparing my note’s to the Doctor’s that I had never met, it was a match, and it was determined the anger was directed towards me.

To this day I have always believed that if Mom would go back to 1957, face what happened to her, getting pregnant before marriage, and having to have a life of abuse that she would get well emotionally, and physically as a person.

She has never done that, and now she has gotten older and forgotten most of what happened to her, and the thing’s she used to do to me, and now she is trapped in a kind of an emotional prison.

When I got of age, compassion came in as I understood the relationship between me and my Mother, and I knew it would never change.

56.The Taipei Years

In the conclusion of this incident with the gun, what was amusing to me was how my Brother became an instant Perry Mason Attorney like the TV show with actor Raymond Burr.

I had been subpoenaed to appear in court by a Judge to testify against my Mother in the incident of the gun against my wishes. The prosecutor was considering attempted murder charges against Mom and that if I didn’t appear, a warrant would be issued for my arrest and I would have to go to Jail. My brother Mr Mason himself was kind of on my case trying to tell me the prosecutor and the courts can’t make me testify if I don’t want to.I knew he was wrong, and it didn’t make any difference to him I was facing Jail. If I had gone to Jail would my brother had paid me a visit? Probably not!

I’d be locked up in a Jail and no one would be coming to visit or say, Asaph ”I’m so sorry this happened”.Human Nature, they would be just going on with their lives like nothing happened, with no thought of me being locked up, And still exhibiting the same dysfunctional behavior.

I think my brother was more concerned with me not telling any story, which is very typical when people tend to want to sweep truth under the rug.

I wasn’t going to go to Jail for my brother, so I appeared in court and told the Prosecutor what happened.He decided to drop the charge of attempted murder, and because of my testimony the court decided to take the gun away from Mom and destroy it, to prevent her from shooting at any other person in the future thinking it might be me.

It did bother me that this boyfriend was more concerned with trying to keep his gun, than the events that happened to both me and Mom.

It took Mom years to be able to face me, and even if it never changed her heart, I gave her a kiss on the forehead and forgave her.


Epilogue Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother that thy days may be long. I’m not expecting long days necessarily, And I’m not out to make my Father to be a monster. My Father struggled with alcoholism and was an alcoholic.

As bad as it was growing up with my Father, one way I can honor him is by understanding his struggles. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, but compassion comes in, and forgiveness.

Before my Father died, because of all the years of drinking, he had reached a point where his mind was starting to leave him. It was like a person who struggles with Alzheimer’s disease.You could look him right in the eye, and a few minutes later he would forget he had ever saw you.

It was very sad to see this once great Military man became like a child, who could not take care of himself. One of the most tragic moments, It was raining one night, I was coming home from a performance and as I was walking home, I saw a body lying on the ground face up. I was curious and when I went to see it, it was my Father. He was lying on the ground drunk,and when he looked up he said “that’s my Son Asaph”

He was lying in a pool of muddy water in front of the 7 Eleven store near the house. Rain was pouring over his body. I was so embarrassed. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t want the store to know he was my Father. I went in the store, pretended I didn’t know him and reported a body lying in front of the store.

They called the police, and the Detox Providence Center Mental Health. In sadness I walked away as the Providence Center was taking my Father away.

Unable to help him, I went home.

58. The Taipei Years

How my Father got to this point, the beginning of his downfall, when I was a sophomore in High School the abuse between my Parent’s was so much, my Mother told me she was going to go home to her Parent’s and family. She left me Me, my Brother, and my Sister, and three weeks later when she returned, it was as if she was a different person.

Maybe in those three weeks she had time to regroup. She had reached a point she was not going to take this abuse any more.

She contacted Mc Clellan Air Force Base where my Father worked, reported the abuse she had been enduring. My Father was ordered by a Military Judge to appear in a Military Court. The Judge took my Father’s house from him, and awarded it to my Mother. The Judge issued a restraining order, and ordered my Father not to go near the house, and he was ordered to sleep in the Barrack’s on base.My Father went from sleeping in a 4 bedroom house to bunks on the base.

I think he never recovered from the ruling of the Judge, and I think he never recovered from the shock of losing a home he worked for most of his life.My Mother now became owner of her own home. She was free from the years of abuse at the

hands of my Father.

The biggest mistake my Mother made was letting him come back home. I pleaded with my Mother not to do that, and that she would be making the biggest mistake of her life.Usually in abuse cases when a husband says he will change he’s not saying it because he will

change,He just wants out of a particular circumstance he may be in.

It reminds me of an episode I saw on that TV show Law and Order Special Victims Unit (SVU), with actress Mariska Hargitay where there was this woman who’s husband was abusing her. She reported it, and when she let him come home, he wound up stabbing her in the chest with a butcher knife, and she died.

I think that was the case with my Father. He just didn’t want to sleep in the bunks. And sure enough my Mother dropped the charges against my Father with the Judge at the base, and let him come home,And when he did, the abuse started all over again.


Fortunately my Mother didn’t wind up with a Knife in her chest. But she was owner of her home. Eventually my Father left the house for good and he never returned.

Years later after another suicide attempt, My Mother had left the house for a year, and left me in charge of it. I lived in that house by myself for three years. Ted was gone, and so was Kim. When my Mother recovered, she stayed at the house of a new gentleman friend. At least he

wasn’t married like the first gentleman friend.

My Father had been gone for years, and before he died, he was suffering so much from the effects of alcohol, roaming the streets of Sacramento, and he would get lost and not know where he was at. With my Aunt Doris in New York, and my cousin Star, in a last ditch effort to help him, I concocted a plan where my Aunt Doris was going to wire me $1000.00 dollars, and with some friends of mine I grew up with,We were going to rent a car, buy some alcohol, find my Father, and pretend it was a new car I bought, take him for a ride, and highjack him, and take him straight to New York. Then my Aunt Doris would have made arrangement’s through the Veteran’s Administration to be executer of his money, and she and my Father’s family would have taken care of him.

My Father past away two weeks before I had a chance to pull that off.

The night my Father died, I got a call from my Mother. She said “Asaph your Father died”. My response “How do you feel”?She said, “He will never hurt me again”

There was a silence on the phone and I hung up. I was not going to lecture my Mother. I understood her feelings. She had been away from my Father for years, and the effects of how he treated her still effected her.

My mother didn’t want to have anything to do with making arrangements for his funeral. She gave my Aunt Doris permission to handle it, and my Father’s body was flown from the Coroners Office to New York. My Father was still paying for the effect’s of my Mother.

He never even got to lay in a Funeral Home. No one got to see him, or pay their respects. My Aunt Doris sent me pictures of his funeral.

Grieving, I said goodbye.

60.

Exodus To Montana

Chapter 6 "I think singer Pat Boone got it right when he wrote the song "Theme to Exodus" The Children of Israel were in bondage to slavery in Egypt for some 400 years, and The Good Lord is Faithful and He delivered His people.

My Exodus came.

If somebody had told me one day I would end up in Montana that never even entered

my radar imagination. When I first told my family in New York I was going to move to Montana I used to get comments like "What’s in Montana"? "Do they even have cars in Montana"?

My response was "Don’t be silly of course they must have cars in Montana"? If you are from where I came from, the big cities, the thought of living in a place like Montana, you would think of the Wild Wild West like that TV show with actor Robert Conrad and the character of Artemus Gordon.Horses and Buggies, and Cowboys. People riding horses. I guess if you are an African

American, you could think" do they even have black people in Montana"?


There is a saying, “you can take the person from the street, or the big city, out of the city, But you can’t take the street, or the big city out of the person”. If a person has lived in a certain environment all his life, he can get so accustomed to that way of life, and think the whole world is like the world that he lives in.

That was the case with my cousin Thomas when he was 16 years of age. Having had the opportunity to travel when I was a boy because of being an Air Force brat to a Father in the military life, I once told Thomas, "the world is different”. “Not everybody lives like how you live in the world you have grown accustomed to". How surprising to see Thomas has joined the Military, and now he gets to see the world the way I once told him.

I think my cousin Nevelle became accustomed to that way of life to. When he was blessed to marry, he once told me, he would complain about the conditions of raising a daughter where he lived, But didn’t seem to want to change it, after I moved to Montana, and told him this could be a place he could raise his daughter.

Before I left for Montana, he told me he would probably never call me because I was moving there. I was preparing to go to Montana. I was living with my Aunt Doris and her family during my visit to New York. On the day I was to leave for Montana My Aunt said “here is $10.00 that’s all I have” My thought was how am I going to make this $10.00 s last for the trip to Montana.

It was going to take me 3 days to get there.

62.Exodus To Montana

When You Can’t God Can

The idea to move to Montana, I saw actor Phillip Carey, on a show called Laramie when he was a young man. He is probably best known for playing Asa Buchannon, the patriarch of the Buchannon family on that TV show One Life to Live. So I decided I was going to move to Wyoming. I think The Good Lord may have seen the oppression I was going through, maybe all the oppressions I may have gone through throughout my life, and now He was coming down to rescue me, and give me a brand new life.

I think my exodus was about to begin. And Wyoming may not have been the place The Good Lord may have had in mind. They say The Good Lord takes care of babies and fools. And since I’m no baby!

It was probably a very foolish thing for me to do to leave California the way I did. I left with the very clothes on my back. Sometimes a person can get so desperate in a circumstance that can happen in a person’s life they can go to an extreme to get help, or a way to escape from troubling situations that may be happening.

I found that to be the case with me. My Mother had found a new gentleman friend in her life. She was not married to my Father anymore, but they were still living in the same house and sharing the same bed, even if it was not in a romantic sense of a husband and

wife. It was like two roommates sharing the same room. Sounds a little twisted but that’s what can happen when a couple can be in an unhealthy relationship. The problem I had with this gentleman friend of my Moms, he was married and had two children yet he was seeing my Mother, dating her as if they were boyfriend, girlfriend behind my Father’s back, even if my Parents were not together.

It’s amazing how people can have a spouse and get into a relationship with someone , share their bodies, emotions, finances, even their bed, but they are not going to give up their spouse. This gentleman friend was a male nurse at the hospital and he didn’t think much of me, so I knew if I were to ever get sick and end up in the hospital and he was to treat me, I would have a problem.


The climax of the gentleman friend and my Mother came to a crashing holt the night my Father went out with a friend of his from the Air Force, and on his way home he noticed his car that was parked at a motel parking lot, and saw my Mother and the gentleman talking. This man had taken my Father’s car to take my Mom out. Perhaps they had spent some intimate tender moments. This sent my Father into a rage. In a fit of rage, he came home and started to destroy the house, overturning tables and throwing things in the house on the ground. I was in my bedroom watching TV and ran in the kitchen to see my father had taken my Moms clothes out of the closet to the front yard and had shredded them with a butcher knife. He then poured gasoline on her clothes, intending to burn her clothes.

My Father told me he had seen my Mom with the gentleman and if I knew who he was? At first I pretended I didn’t know, and that made him even more angry to the point he had taken a gun he had in the house, and with his Air Force friend he was going to try to find her with the intent to kill her. I thought about that while my Father was gone, I didn’t want any harm to come to my Mother even if we didn’t have a relationship.

So to protect my Mother I made the decision I was going to tell my Father everything about the relationship with the gentleman. Upon telling my Father, a calmness came over him. It was the not knowing that was causing my Father to bring fatal harm like an itch that needed to be scratched.

My telling my Father was seen as a betrayal of my Mother by my family, and relatives on my Mother s side. I knew by telling my Father no harm was going to come to her. If I had it to do over again, I would have done it again, I would not have changed a thing to protect my Mother. My family and relatives did not speak to me for over a year. It was my Aunt Ina, who was the only relative who felt I did the right thing, and that I should not have been put in that situation.

My Father suspected my Mother was seeing someone and needed to know, to get a type of closure. It’s not that he wanted closure to get back together. He needed it so he could put to

rest the relationship was over between he and my Mother. He packed his clothes left the house and never returned.


It’s Not Over Till Christ

Says Its Over The name Exodus means departure, going out or going forth. Telling my Father about the Gentleman and my Mother was seen as a betrayal of my Mother by my family, and relatives in my Mother’s side of the family. Upon telling my Father, he turned on me, as my Mother had asked me to leave the house not to return, and he did not do anything to defend me being at home. I watched as my Parents held each other as if they were a happy couple, as I was leaving the house.

Not one family member invited me to stay with them in their home during my hour of need to have a place to stay. I didn’t have a chance to prepare myself after getting home from Las Vegas. I didn’t get a chance to get a job, and I wasn’t home I think a week before that happened. That’s how I got stuck, and found myself having to go to the Salvation Army for help.

The Salvation Army had a program called the Aid and Kind program .If you were eligible to be in this program, you would be able to stay there for 4 months, to give you time to prepare for what you were going to do with your life, and you would not have to leave the property after breakfast, around 8 am, like the homeless people who would be there over night.

Christmas holiday was coming, and the idea came to me about playing with a Salvation Army Band for the Red Kettle program. There were no Salvation Army Bands, and that was almost an archaic art form.

Having got permission to play by myself, I became like a one man band Trumpeter similar to my work at Loyola. That first year I set the all time record for raising money for the Kettles. Instead of ringing a bell,I was playing songs on my Trumpet. It was like being a street musician, only I was trying to raise money to help people in need.


I got the invitation to play for them again next year. By my fifth year of playing for the Army, K.X.T.V News Channel 10 sent a reporter Debra Pacina to cover the story about my work playing for the Salvation Army, and Beth Ruyak, and Alan Frio reported the story on the 6 o clock evening news.

It was also that same year, I got nominated for the California Jefferson Award for community service with my work with the Salvation Army.

This took a turn when the very next day I got fired from the Salvation Army.

It’s not that they were being critical, they felt the story had put the attention on me instead of the Army,So I had to wait till next year to play again.

My sixth year was to be my last year playing for the Army in California.


I was in New York preparing to go to Montana. While I was still in California, the state was giving me financial support to help me support myself. I had just got back to California from playing in Las Vegas. My Parents were still fighting each other, and the dysfunction in the relationship was still going on I was barely surviving, because of rejection of my family. I was living with a friend named Bernadette who reached out to me during my struggles, and opened her home to try to help me get my life back intact.

My family and relatives had stopped associating with me.

I was in my sixth year playing for the Salvation Army. I was preparing to go to Reno for an audition to play in a big band. I took my name off the program for the financial assistance, and the director kept my name on the program for 6 months to make sure I would be able to support myself, and make a living again.

The director had an assistant who protested my having my name on the list for 6 months. The job feel through, and the director put me back on the program, and when she

retired, the assistant took over, and she took my name off the program. Not only was I unable to get any further financial assistance, she set it up so I was ineligible for any food stamps or any other assistances.

Being on the verge of losing everything, like Job in the Bible, and with no family, not even the state to help, in an act of desperation, I went to the Envoy of the Salvation Army, and because of the years I had put in playing for the Army, he made arrangements for me to get a bus ticket of out California, and I headed for New York to stay with my Aunt as I prepared to go to Montana.

I was having so much family dysfunction going on in my life between the relationship with my Parents and family, and emotionally I had reached my breaking point. I felt like I was going to have to get myself committed to a Hospital because the dysfunction was so bad in the family with the fighting, the constant rejections, and all this other dysfunctional stuff that was very unhealthy.If I had not have detached, got away from my family, I’d be in a strait jacket, they would

still be doing the same stupid things, and I’m in a mental institution.


Like the children of Israel leaving Egypt, I think the Lord was leading me. The Lord parted the red seas, by my getting on the Greyhound Bus at the Port authority in New York. With ten dollars to last me for three days. I bought a liter coke, and would take little sips, and was nibbling on chips to try to hold me over for the trip, but I was still hungry, and I knew if I bought a regular meal then I would have no money, and I would have a problem for three days.

Manna from Heaven came by meeting a Pastor half way on the trip. We had a lay over, and he invited me to have supper with him. When I told him I only had ten dollar’s, and that I had to try to make it last three days, he bought me dinner. Being satisfied with the dinner, I knew it would hold me over till the next day.

Day two, I was still nibbling, but not as hungry. After the Pastor and I parted ways, a group of people came on the bus. These were Christian People, and they happen to be going to Montana. There was a young lady on the trip, and when she knew I was trying to make the ten dollars last, she carried me the rest of the way on the trip. When we got to Montana, we parted ways as they continued west. Having arrived in the promised land, I called Rocky Mountain College.

When I was in new York, I knew if I were going to go to Montana I was going to have to have a place to live. I had never been to Montana, I didn’t know anyone who lived there, and there was no way I could stay with anyone while starting my life over. It would have been very unrealistic to go to a place you have never been to, and go to a Mission to try to start your life over.I didn’t want to take a chance on getting stranded, and stuck in a place you have never been. There would have been no one there to help me if something would have gone wrong, and I get stranded in Montana.I would have been trapped there with no hope.

So to have a place to live, I contacted the admissions office at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, and I registering for classes for fall semester before I left New York. I knew my grades were good enough, and I knew was going to get accepted. That’s how I got started on my Exodus To Montana


When I got to Montana, The admissions counselor drove down to the Greyhound Bus Station and took me to the college.

The college gave me a temporary room. Classes were not going to start for another 30 days, and there was no way I could go back to New York, and wait and then come back.

The school gave me an advanced so I could have money to live on. In exchange, I took a job at the Physical Plant Dept, and for 30 days I mowed lawns on that campus. I got up at 7 am, and by 8am I was out on that tractor in that football field.

It wasn’t till Summer Fair that things began to change. Summer Fair was a community event that took place every summer, and this year it was held at Rock Mountain College. I went to this event as one of my characters, Charlie The Trumpeteer from the What if TV Show. I think I may have been the costume, because it stood out, and I became remembered.

I started playing for the school functions, and the next summer, I made the front page of the entertainment section advertizing for Summer Fair as Charlie The Trumpeteer.


The Elijah Incident The Old Testament tells of the story of the Prophet Elijah, and how when there

was a draught in the land, no dew, or rain, for three years, The Lord told him to go to brooke Cherith, where he could drink water from the brook, and the ravens would bring him bread and meat to eat in the morning, and in the evening.

This part of my Autobiography I kid you not, this actually happened. I was in my 10th year playing for the Salvation Army. Army invited me to Las Vegas to play for them during the Red Kettle Program for the Christmas Holiday. They sent me to a Target Store.

Year’s earlier, when I first moved to Montana, a friend Sam suggested I take my Trumpet, and play on the street corners like the Street Musicians in the big cities. It sounded like a good idea, and when I first did it, I figured there would be a lot of people playing everywhere on corners.

Like my days at Loyola, there was no music, or people playing on street corners in Billings where I was living.

I got permission from the Billings Police Department, Police Chief Dave Ward, Parks and Recreation, and they gave me an official license to play on the corner, and that’s how I became the first licensed street musician, and the first person to ever play on the street corner in Billings. That led to an article being written in the Billings Gazette.

Later that year when I played for the Salvation Army, K.T.V.Q. Channel 2 sent a reporter to cover the story. K.U.L.R. Channel 8 sent a reporter to cover the story. And The Billings Gazette sent a reporter, to cover the story.

I think the Lord has a good sense of humor, and years later when I played for the Army in Las Vegas, An armored truck came to the Target store where I was playing to make the security bank deposit’s for the day.

70.Exodus to Montana

The next time the armored truck came, a lone hand came out from the side of the small security window with an Egg Mc Muffin Sandwich from the Mc Donald’s Restaurant. I could not see inside the truck, but the hand motioned for me to come to the truck to take the sandwich.

That truck came two to three times a week, and every time it came, for two months, that lone hand gave me an Egg Mc Muffin Sandwich. Like the Prophet, The Lord was feeding me, and taking care of me.I’m probably the only person that has ever happened to.

I guess what happens in Vegas stay’s in Vegas.

71.Supermarket Pianist.

Love’s First Kiss The Lord has a way of opening doors. I created a lot of characters that I had performed over the years.Charlie the Reindeer Trumpteer. He was a spin off from Rudolph with antler horns, gloves, and Jeans.

Charlie The Trumpeteer from the What if Children’s TV Show. Mr Horn E. Cupid.

The way the name of this character Mr Horn E. Cupid came about, When I was a student at the University of Idaho, there was a young lady there named Angela Cardon. Angela had the prettiest red hair, like actress Lucille Ball. Angela had expressed interest in getting to know more about me, and one day during a visit I had told her about a new character I was wanted to create based on a Cupid.

It’s original name was The Fairy Canery.

Angela did not like that title, and in a moment of her drives for me talking, she blurted out, why don’t you name it horney cupid. The on switch came on, and said I can use that. Since I was a Trumpet player I changed the word horney, to Horn E. Cupid. A play of words.

But my most memorable character, my best character, The Brown Hornet. You can’t beat the Tights, the mask, the gloves, the cape, and the Bumble Bee on the chest. The Brown Hornet became a fixture, and mascot for the Las Vegas Minor league baseball team. The Brown Hornet once entered a contest and won for best costume, beating Gumby, and The Abominable Snow Woman.

I was 28 years old the very first time I ever kissed a girl. Angela invited me to a dance that was put on by her church. She was a devout Mormon, and she knew that I was a Christian, and that the Christian belief, and my belief’s were different than hers.

It was snowing that night, and at the end of the dance, we decided to go for a drive up in the mountains.


When we got out of the car to look at nature, the snow, and the beautiful mountains, she decided she wanted to dance right in the snow.The moon was shining, and we decided to slow dance in the snow like we had done at the dance. And in that beautiful moment, I shared love’s first kiss. I told her I never kissed a girl before, and that she was the first one.I think Angela will always have a smile and like being the first girl I ever kissed.

Because of our religious beliefs we did not go any further. I think she respected my belief to wait, something she lived her life by.

Angela will always go down in my history as the first girl I ever kissed.

73.

The Liberace Of Missoula

Chapter 7

"Grocery shoppers at one Missoula Supermarket have a new reason to slow down while their crossing off their list. Classical Concert Piano". That was from a news interview that was given to me by Channel 8, K.P.A.X News.One of the things I’ve always struggled with being a Pianist was that whenever I would meet a young lady, Or start dating someone, eventually the Piano would come up, and I would get to a point where I would have to choose between the Piano or the young lady.

There is a scene in the movie "The Great Caruso" with opera Tenor Mario Lanza, where he was singing on the street corner. He was dating this young lady, and she and her Father went to hear him sing. After the performance the Father was ashamed, and did not see that singing would be a stable form of employment by the standard of work we have today in our culture of working at a job for 8 hours a day.


The Father asked the character of Caruso to give up singing, and his desire of pursuing a career as a singer one day with the opera. Caruso takes a job working for the Father, and the family business. Caruso was starting to become unhappy tying to bury that desire to sing. It got to the point where Caruso had to choose between working for the family, and keeping his girl friend, or start singing again, and lose his girl friend.

When I saw that it was like looking in a mirror, as if they were telling my life story.

As a Pianist that was one area of my life I would always struggle with. I went through that when I was married to JeannieMarie, and when I was married to Susan.

As a child growing up, there was always an expectation that was required of me to try to meet by my Parents, family, or friends.

Unable to meet those requirements, I would be told "I would never amount to anything in life, and in a career field".

I went through that phase where to try to please people, and meet the expectations they wanted for me. I decided I was going to live my life exactly the way people thought I should live it, From my Mother, to friends, family, relatives, and people I knew growing up in California. I quit my music, and playing the Trumpet. I took a job as a Janitor at the Holiday Inn Hotel. I got up at 4 am, and had to be there by 5 am. I moped the floors, cleaned up the bar, and had to shine the brass bars in the bar.

There were no buses running that early in the morning. I noticed the very people who were telling me how I should live, and what to do, didn’t seem to want to get out the bed to drive me to the Hotel. Not Ted, not my Mom, no one.

I still thought I’d try to live the way other’s thought I should anyway. I wound up

walking all the way to the hotel every day.It was a two mile walk from the house, and it was dark and cold outside.

75.The Liberace of Missoula

At night my music would be calling me, and like Caruso, I would find myself miserable, and unhappy. Determined to live the way other’s thought, after a while, I started to notice comments that were coming my way. People were saying, “Asaph you are doing this, or you have this job, why don’t you do this or try to get this job”.

I started to notice people didn’t seem to be satisfied with what I was doing with my life the way they thought I should. No one seemed satisfied I was working at the Holiday Inn. No one seemed satisfied I wasn’t playing music. It was like I was expected to do what people wanted, but no one seemed interested in wanting to help me with the very things they were saying I should be doing.

After a while like Caruso, I thought “If no one’s going to be satisfied with me living the way they thought I should, and the comments were going to keep coming, I might as well get comments doing what I like to do.

I made the decision to go back to music. I’ll never forget the look on my Mother’s face when I decided to go back to music.

I have a friend who did a paper in college on the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, people worked for themselves like that TV show Little House on the Prairie with actor Michael Landon. Then when the invention of machinery came, and the building of the Railroad’s came, the system of the 9 to 5 came into existence where they would hire people to work for 8 hours a day. Over a period of time that system of work became the normal standard of work by our society, And anyone who made their living, or did their work outside of the 9 to 5 system was judged. You see that kind of thinking with people who are in the Arts, or Sports.

One of the biggest misconceptions about being a musician is that if you are not famous, you are not working. That’s totally false.

Some think being in music is not a real job. That’s totally false. 76.

Supermarket Pianist

When you watch the Jerry Lewis Telethon every year, you don’t know those people from Adam who are playing in that Orchestra. I assure you they are not on section 8, or welfare.

Coming to Montana was good for me because sometimes in the big city when you have a dream,or a plan for your life, you’re going to always hear, “You’re not going to make it”, or they’ll be some negative thing. Somebody will always try to say what’s wrong with your dream.Or they will try to tell you something that they think you should do with your life. And if

it does not fit their expectation there going to tear it down, or they’ll say something like “You need a real job”,Or whatever a real job is. I don’t know what that is. So coming to Montana was good

for me, and it worked.

I feel blessed every time I get to go to work knowing I get to sit behind a Piano. It’s a

gift from God.

77.The Liberace of Missoula

Mail Order Just once in my life, I would like to meet someone in my life who will not go away.I first got acquainted with Mail Order Brides when I saw a News program in California called P.M Magazine. They did an interview story of a company that would try to match you up with people from another state, or country.

I saw a scene on that TV show "The Rifleman" with actor Chuck Conners. John Jupiter came from Ohio to North Fork to marry a woman he had never seen, only had been corresponding with. The character Lucas McCain’s son Mark thought it was a funny way to order a husband, or a wife. The Rifleman explains to his Son, "There s a lot of people in this world who are lonely, who want very badly to love, and be loved. I don’t think we should call it funny no matter how they go about trying not to be lonely anymore".

When I saw that It made me think of the first time I saw JeannieMarie when she was coming out of the Bus Station to meet me for the first time. I remember how very excited I was seeing this very beautiful woman coming out to introduce herself to me. In 2002, I made the decision to become a fulltime Pianist. As the years went by, it was becoming harder to get work playing the Trumpet. There wasn’t much of a demand for Trumpet players anymore. The big band era had passed. Harry James, Louis Armstrong, and all the people from that era were gone. On a note, when the Trumpet Virtuoso Miles Davis was a young man, he was a force to be reckoned with. But that’s for another story. I barely played anymore. I didn’t play in public anymore.

When I made the decision to quit playing the Trumpet that was not an easy decision to make. I had spent my life trying to perfect that instrument.

I had to learn how to live without the Trumpet, or without being a Trumpet Player.I gave away the Horn, and lived my life as if I were never in music.


It was a whole year before I started playing the Piano. I was working for the Campbell family, as a Nanny and taking care of their Children. I used to get a lot of Fran Drescher jokes when I worked as a Nanny.

When the Campbell’s moved, I moved into a Trailer Home.

Marshall Caswell was Pianist for the Northern Hotel. At his invitation I went to hear him for over a year, watched what he did, and learned a lot from him.

When he retired, the Hotel hired me, and that’s how I became The Pianist.

79. The Liberace of Missoula

Who Will Love Me Singer JJ Heller has a song and the words go "who will love me for me? Not for what I have done, or for what I will become? Nobody has shown me what love really means".

I think in our culture people tend to judge your human value, and your human worth by what you have going for you. I never wanted to be that way, when I was growing up. If you have things going for you in your life, people want to be around you, and if you don’t have things going in your life, people don’t want to be around you. I never wanted to be that way or treat people that way.

If God treated people that way, we would all be in trouble.

There’s a scene in the movie The Flintstones with actor John Goodman where Fred Flintstone gets a promotion at his job, and the character Pearl Slaghoople, Elizabeth Taylor, all of a sudden wants to be around him, and he is her big handsome Son in Law. Christ Himself went through that when He feed 5000 people. The people wanted to be around Him, not because he was the Savior, but because he fed them, and did something for them. To whom much is given, much is required. I have been given grace and forgiveness from The Lord, so I want to extend that grace. As I look back and I think of my Father, there is an old saying, you can’t give what you don’t have. As bad as it was growing up in the Williams family, perhaps my father didn’t have love to give.

I can honor him by being forgiving, and having compassion for his life.

Maybe he was unable, or didn’t know how to give love. My Father was not raised by his Mother, and perhaps he never recovered from that.

80.

Supermarket Pianist As hard as it was with my Father, it was always harder for me with my Mother. That could be unusual because when you see famous sports figures on TV, or you see a championship game won, they always say Hi Mom. They never say Hi Dad.

Compassion for my Mom goes beyond trying to get her to remember all the terrible things she used to do to me, to having compassion for her life.

81.

How I Became A Pianist

Chapter 8 If someone had said to me one day I would grow up to become a Pianist I would have thought No Way. It never even entered my imagination I would become a Pianist. My Brother and I used to watch Liberace on TV when I was growing up. We used to make these Liberace jokes when we would see him on TV with the fancy clothes he used to wear. But you couldn’t joke about his Piano playing.

And here I am doing the same thing. Serving up Liberace style Ambience complete with my trademark Candelabra on the Piano.

It was always fun to watch him on TV. In his prime, I think Liberace was the best Pianist. I have seen film black and white footage of him when he was a young man, before the Candelabra, before the fancy clothes.

He was once referred to as the Chopin of TV.


He would play the music of Chopin, compositions like Clair De Lune, and of course Flight of the Bumble Bee, then turn around and play the popular song of his era in a classical style.

It’s hard to imagine Liberace without the Candelabra on the Piano. Liberace without the Candelabra is like the Lone Ranger without his mask.

What a fantastic gift The Lord gave him. And it was always fun to watch what The Lord had given him.

83. How I became a Pianist

Krypto Up, Up,and away. Krypto was not faster than a speeding Bullet. He was not more powerful than a locomotive. He could not leap tall buildings in a single bound. Krypto was my Sheep Dog.

When I first brought him home his body could literally fit in the palm of my hand with his paws sticking out on the front and back of my hand. I got the idea to name him Krypto from The Adventures of Superboy and his dog Krypto.

My Brother Ted tried to name him Fresno Bob, but I prevailed.

When I was in the first grade, my first dog was Jippy. He was a boxer. My Father was stationed overseas in Pakistan, and the Military would not let me and my Mother go with him. So we lived with my Grandmother. The television would be on in the morning and you could see Jack LaLanne doing Jumping Jacks with the theme song “It’s time for Jack, Jack LaLane and the new Jack LaLanne show” I used to watch a cartoon called Fearless Fly. A fly swatter could not stop him. Insecticide could not stop him. What was funny about the cartoon, He wore a giant pair of glasses bigger than his body. Only when you took off his glasses he would lose his power.

And like clockwork the bad guys would reach over and take his glasses off. My Grandmother loved to read the Bible, and go to church. But Jippy had a habit that often annoyed my Grandmother. Every time she would wash clothes, she would hang them out on the line in the back yard, and like clockwork Jippy would jump up and pull the clothes to the ground.

There was a nick name that the family called my Grandmother, Big Mama. As I got older I didn’t like calling my Grandmother Big Mama. And why is it that African American family’s always call someone Big Mama. They could be 95 pounds soaking wet, and be called Big Mama. I used to believe her name was Big Mama. When I found out her name was Ina, Wow what a pretty name. Eventually over the years when I got older I called her Grandmother. She didn’t like that, she protested but accepted it.

My Grandmother finally made my Mom get rid of Jippy and my Mother took him to the dog pound. I can only hope Jippy found a new home. 84.

Supermarket Pianist

Other dogs I had Rascal, Butch, He was a Collie and he looked like Lassie only he had curly hair, and of course Krypto. We had one other dog and that was Snoopy the Cocker Spaniel. We only had Rascal only three weeks. He got hit by a car in front of our house and he died. I had never seen death before. I saw this episode on Star Trek The Next Generation where the young Klingon Boy Alexander had never seen death as his Mother lay dead. The character Mr Worf asked his Son, “You have never seen Death”?Alexander shakes his head No. His Father says “Then look and always remember”.

I remember my Mother wrapped Rascal in a blanket. I went to the blanket and uncovered it and looked at Rascal. Rigor had not set in, he looked like he was sleeping, but he didn’t wake up.

When God created People and Animals, People were not suppose to die. That was not God’s original plan. Many Theologians and I personally believe this, that when your cat Fluffy dies you will see him again in Heaven. It’s true animals don’t have a soul like people, but I believe God will recreate your Kitty and you will see Fluffy again.

I will see my dog Krypto again in Heaven.

An amusing story about Krypto. For the first 8 years of his life, my Mother would get up and make that dog bacon and eggs for breakfast every morning. That dog ate better than I did. He got to be spoiled and would not eat dog food. He even had a dish where he would drink Pepsi Soda. After 8 years when my Mother could not take care of him, my brother Ted started taking care of him at his home. Ted was determined he was not going to spoil that dog, and spend money on people food any longer when he could save money and get Krypo dog food. So for three days Ted would put the good fancy dog food that looked like people food. He would even put out the dry dog food, and change it every day to keep it fresh, and keep the ants from getting into the food. Every time Krypto would go near the food he would flick his lip up like a snob.

There’s an old saying, “You go hungry long enough, you’ll eat”. Three days later you hear this sound of something crunching, and sure enough Krypto got humbled, and learned how to eat dog food.His days of being a connoisseur were over.


How caring when Krypto got sick, my brother cancelled a trip to Europe to be with Krypto. Krypto was his buddy. I saw my dog at the veterinarian’s office with tubes in his body. The Lord was about to take my dog to Heaven.

It was always amazing how Krypto could see with all that hair over his face, and covering his eyes like that dog on that Wylie Coyote cartoon. We used to sneak up on Krypto and put our hand in front of his eyes, and you would hear this growl. He would also sit in one spot and stare at the walls. My sister would say, “What is he staring at”?

Perhaps he was on guard duty. My Mom once cut off all his hair in front of his eyes like Samson in the Bible. She meant no harm, but it made his eyes break out in a allergic reaction. Krypto developed bumps, and a rash around his eyes. It was meant for him to have the hair over his eyes.

That’s the way God created him.


Walk With Him By Faith

My divine appointment came. When I was twelve I went to a church called Hillsdale Boulevard Baptist Church in California.

Mrs Lois Stevens was there at the time but there was no way to know that one day she would become my second Mom.

Every person who has ever lived wants to go to Heaven when they die. Buddhism teaches that there is no personal God that exist. Hinduism teaches that God is formless, that he is abstract, and he take’s form in a trinity as well as millions of lesser gods.

The Bible teaches that God is a person who created man in His own image and loves us, and wants us to have a personal relationship with Him.

And then concerning Jesus Christ, Buddhist teach that Jesus Christ was a good Teacher but He was less important than Buddha. Hindus believe that Jesus was one of many incarnations, or sons of God, but Christ was not the Son of God. Muslim’s believe Jesus Christ was only a man a profit equal to Adam or Noah or Abraham all of whom are below Muhammad in importance to them. And they believe that Jesus did not die for mans sins.

The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. It teaches that He was God in human form. And of course as Jesus said, He’s the way, the truth, the life. And Jesus is standing at the door of your heart and your life right now and He’s knocking and He’s saying if you’ll hear my voice and open the door I will come in.


In His Own Time One of the most delightful things that happened as a Pianist was when I got a letter from the President of the United States. The Honorable George W Bush.

I had sent him a copy of my brand new Piano CD “Lean on Me JeannieMarie”. The letter said, “Dear Asaph, Thank you for sending me a copy of your Piano CD Lean on Me JeannieMarie. Laura and I really appreciate it, and send you our regards. God bless you and God bless the United States of America. George W Bush”.

How cool to see the Presidential seal on top of the letter. I have that letter framed in my living room. When I came to Montana all the things that had been tormenting me, the dysfunction, all the fighting that was going on in my family, the drinking, the drugs, the rejections, all of it stayed behind and did not follow me here. The Lord brought Pastor John Engavo into my life. John has a PH.D in Pastoral counseling. John and his lovely wife Linda taught me how to detach from my family and dysfunction that had been troubling me for years, and that it didn’t mean you didn’t love your family.

Somehow I got the idea that I was not being forgiving if I didn’t try to fix the problems I was having with my Parents. And the more I tried to fix it, the more emotionally hurt I would get hurt. I had to learn that it was Ok to detach from family and dysfunction, and that it doesn’t mean you don’t love your family because you detach. I had to learn it’s Ok not to put yourself in emotional harm’s way.

When I first moved to Montana it was nice to be able to live in a place where I could go for a walk in the middle of the night and not have to worry about being mugged or killed. It’s way cool to live in a place where you can see Deer or Fawn’s nibbling grass in someone’s front yard. You just won’t see that in a big city.


One of the things I always struggled with was fear of rejection, that God would turn me down if I were to ask Him to forgive me of my sins, and be my Savior, that He would not save me no matter how many times I would ask. They say that people tend to see God the way their Parent’s treat you. Somehow I got the idea in my life that God was just like how my parents treated me.

I also struggled for years with wondering if I was going to go to Heaven when I die.

I was practicing the Piano one Sunday afternoon when they announced Billy Graham would be preaching on the Hour of Decision program. The name of the sermon was,

“What must I do to be saved”?

My ears perked up. I stopped everything I was doing.

Mr Graham said that God invites us to come to Him just as we are .We don’t have to clean up anything, or clean up our lives first. He also said if you want to be sure you will go to Heaven when you die, you can be sure, if you turn from your sins, and ask Christ into your Heart by faith, you’ll go to Heaven when you die.

But what really got my attention was when he said how Mary Magdalene with 7 devils came just as she was, and didn’t get turned down. When I heard that, I thought if this woman can come to Christ with 7 devils and not get turned down, Then Christ won’t turn me down.

At the end of the program, Cliff Barrows gave an invitation to accept Christ as Savior, and I knelt down in front of the radio, and prayed the prayer to turn from my sins, and ask Christ to be my Savior.

That happened Sunday June 15th 2008 Father’s Day

89.

How I became a Pianist

If I were to be in a relationship, or get married, would I be able to give up the Piano? I am a fan of actor Dick Van Dyke. How refreshing to see him on that TV show the Golden Girls with actress Beatrice Arthur. There was a scene where the character of Dorothy was dating Van Dyke, but when he and

Dorothy had a talk about their relationship and where it was headed, and if they were ever going to get together, the question came, could she give up her life at her age to follow the dream of this man?

Could she give up living with her friends in that comfortable home they lived in, or the world she had become accustomed to.

The character of Van Dyke was a Professional Clown that entertained people. Could Van

Dyke give up being a clown to stay with Dorothy? When I saw that, it made me think sometimes I feel trapped.

You don’t want to have tender intimate moments until you are married. People my age have already married, raised their children, or are Grandparents. Some have a lot of issues, or baggage problems in their lives because of past relationships.

And if you marry someone young who has not been scarred by life, then I’m probably too old. I think Tyler Perry got it right in his movie Dairy of a mad Black Woman when he said “good

guys always have to pay for the actions of the bad”.

If I should ever get married again, I hope it will be for the rest of my life.

Maranatha

90.

An Invitation To Heaven

Chapter 9

Personal question now from my heart to yours. Has there been a time, a place in your life, when believing Christ died upon the cross for me, for you, you invited Him into your heart, trusted Him as your Savior, and God’s forgiveness became yours through the shed blood?.

Has there been such a time, has there been such an experience? Christ died for you. Christ died for me.

If you were to die right now, do you know that you know without any doubt whatsoever that you would go to Heaven? But you may say Asaph, how can you know, how can anyone know for sure they’re going to go to Heaven when they die.

I’m going to tell you how you can know once and for all that you will go to Heaven when you die.

91.

Supermarket Pianist Let’s go to the Bible for the answer.

First of all, you have probably heard the story of God’s love referred to as the "Gospel." The word Gospel simply means "Good News”. What is this good news the Bible talks about?

The Gospel is the good news that because of what Christ has done, we can be forgiven and can live forever.

But what did Christ do? The Bible says when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden they became sinners. When


they had children that sin spread to the entire human race. We inherited this sin from Adam and Eve, and we are all sinners, and all have sinned.

Just as criminals must pay the penalty for their crimes, sinners must pay the penalty for their sins. The penalty for sinners is separation from God in a place called Hell, forever and ever after physical death.

For the wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23. But the good news is that Christ has paid our penalty.

To answer the question earlier, what did Christ do, he paid the penalty for our sin. How? By dying on the cross. His death on the cross was the method God used to pay the penalty for our sins. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ the virgin born sinless Son of God, has paid the penalty for all of your sins and my sins that we deserve, by dying on the cross. He was buried and rose again three days later to grant you and me everlasting life.

Because of what Jesus did, God offers us forgiveness of sins and eternal life as a gift. Every sin you have ever committed can be forgiven right now.

92.Invitation to Heaven

Maybe you find yourself today in a position that makes you question your future. Perhaps you’re not really sure what will happen to you when you die, when you graduate from this earth.

Let me invite you to settle that most important question right now. Don’t put it off. Nail it down. Know, Know what the future holds for you.

If you would permit me, I’d invite you to pray with me this prayer. A prayer of Salvation, so you will know for sure, for dead sure that when you leave this life, you graduate, and go and be with your Heavenly Father in Heaven.

Pray this prayer after me, and God will answer it.

" Father in Heaven, I have sinned against God. I do not deserve your mercy or forgiveness. But I do believe Jesus died for me. I do believe he shed his blood to wash all my sins away. Come into my heart Lord Jesus, forgive my sin, and save my soul. I pray in Christ name Amen". Listen, if you prayed that prayer, you are in the family of God. If you prayed that prayer sincerely, God heard you. Romans Chapter 10:13: Whosoever shall call upon the name of The Lord shall be saved. This whosoever includes you. If you asked Him, if you called upon Him, He heard your prayer, He forgave your sins, He saved your soul, and you are a born again Christian. You’re a babe in Christ right now.

Remember, assurance of salvation is not dependent on how you feel. Because I have received Christ on the authority of his word, I have eternal life. Asaph Adonai is a Pianist and a Born Again Christian.

93.

Acknowledgements

For whosoever shall call upon the name of The Lord shall be saved.Romans 10 vs 13.

I would like to thank The Lord Jesus Christ for writing this book. It’s true I may have penned the words but the Lord Jesus Christ made this possible.

All honor, and glory, and credit, and praise go to Christ The Lord.

My Mom Lois Stevens.I love her very dearly.

Detra (Dique Cannon Finley). I owe my entire career to her. She introduced me to Robert Alexander R.A.”Bumps Blackwell” when she was a student at Loyola Marymount University, and made the introduction that would set everything in motion for the rest of my career as a Pianist.

Margie Steffes.I would like to take this opportunity to give my personal thanks to her for her work, and support of my Piano CD “Lean on Me JeannieMarie”, and for designing, and making the entire CD cover.

Margie is also my Personal Assistant / Secretary and helps in all the behind the scenes work related to music, the Piano, practice, design of business cards, phone calls for people coming at me for performances, interviews,And she helps me with my work as a Pianist, and my concerts.

I also consider Margie family and love her as a Sister.


About The Author

Asaph Adonai is a Christian and follower of Jesus Christ. He lives in Missoula Montana. Asaph lives alone with his Stuffed Animals affectionately called his critters and his family.

Asaph is a professional Pianist. His experiences range from playing at the Montana State Capital, hotels, art galleries, weddings, and community events. Asaph studied music at the San Francisco Conservatory Music. He also studied music with R.A."Bumps" Blackwell who was Little Richard’s manager.

He plays classical music, Beethoven, Chopin, music of the 40’s, 50’s, Sinatra, Dean Martin, ballards, and love songs. Asaph played for twelve consecutive years for the Salvation Army during the Christmas holiday season red kettle program and was nominated for the California Jefferson Award for community service with his work for the Salvation Army.

John 3:16.

In The Name of The Father,

The Son,and The Holy Ghost

For God so loved the world that He gave his only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3 vs 16.

SincerelyAsaph Adonai

PianistMaranatha


Documents

Life story supermarket pianist autobiography asaph adonai double sided edition may 23rd 2014