My name is Saul. Saul Overtown. My mother named me after my uncle, Waylon (Way) Overtown, a notorious womanizer. He had a woman, way over every town, who was good to him. Oh yeah!

I was born in the thirties, out West, and lived until I was eighteen in a small town with the same name as the river, which runs through it. At eighteen I moved to a small city in the same state, which also has the same name as the river which runs through it. I only mention this because it is one of the many coincidences, which I have noticed during my life. I went through 12 years of school in the same small town.

When I was really young my Grandmother told me of the time Mrs. Hogg came to pay a visit. Mrs. Hogg said, "Oh good, you're making bread. I always enjoy making bread because it gets my hands so clean!" Mrs. Hogg was fat because when she came to dinner she never left the table until the last morsel of food had been eaten, usually by her.

My Grandmother also told about the farmer's wife who always gave the farmhands a large pitcher of cold water at lunchtime. She had heard that cold water shrinks the stomach. Since the midday meal was considered part of the wages, she was trying to skimp on food. One of the workers suspected what she was doing. The next time she did it, he said, "Oh boy, cold water. It always whets my appetite." Never again did she give them water before lunch.

My oldest uncle was the famous XXX Shopsall Overtown I'm sure you have heard of if you're over 55 years old. Everyone just called him "Trip." He was a root beer magnet, meaning he couldn't seem to get enough of it.

My father was Pflags Fly Overtown. He was a carpenter and painter and I loved him very much. Dad died at the young age of 63. He was a very honest man and he taught me to be honest, like himself. Many a time I have heard him say to a store clerk, "Look here, you have given me ten (or twenty) dollars too much." I have done it myself a time or two.

I'll never forget the time when I was a young man trading off a car, on which I owed money, for a new car, on which I would owe even more. The bank I was borrowing from had called my previous creditor to find out how much the payoff was on the existing loan. I went to the new bank and picked up the certified check, which was made out in the exact amount of the payoff, and hand-carried it to the old bank.

When I arrived at my old bank, I was ushered into an inner area and given a paper to sign. As I was signing the paper, I noticed that the amount of the payoff, which the bank had receipted for as paid in full, was one hundred dollars less than the check I had brought in. I mentioned to the lady who had given me the paper to sign that there must be some mistake. She quickly stopped a passing bank officer, apparently the one who had signed as representative for the bank, and said, "Mr. Overtown says there seems to be a mistake." The bank officer quickly snapped, "Well he signed it, didn't he?" You can't imagine how mild and courteous he became when he realized that the error was $100 in my favor. The paper was quickly retyped, with the correct amount shown, and I was politely asked to sign again.

Another of my uncles was Virgil Swindahl Overtown. Virgil loved popcorn, beans, peanuts and beer. He liked to join a conversation in progress. By the time you sensed his presence, he, like the Cheshire Cat, was already gone. Only his trademark remained. Virgil was the first computer programmer I ever met. He worked with a computer that I heard was dubbed MANIAC. His job involved organizing connections of cords and jacks. The cords were about the size of fire hoses and the jacks were approximately the size of coffee mugs. The whole computer was disguised as the Infantry Armory near my home. If Virgil had anything to do with it, MANIAC should have stood for Morons And Nincompoops Involved in Avoiding Combat. Ah, the forties. What a time to be a kid, with WW II going on -- no firecrackers, no candy, no ice cream, no balloons, no anything that kids care about. I'll never forget the song "Remember Pearl Harbor." I'm probably the only person in the U.S. who remembers it. Everyone else is preoccupied with buying Japanese cars, motorcycles and electronics.

My grandfather was Pickens Goodall Overtown, the pool hustler. He was no relation to Jane Goodall, although they both hung around with hairy apes a lot. Gramps was a lot like his son, Virgil. When he played Eight Ball you never knew whether he would clear the table, or the room.

My late cousin, Custiss Fallon Overtown, had the largest fireworks stand in three counties. After he blew himself up it became known as Custiss' last stand. His competitors, on the Indian reservations, felt it served him right for trying to massacre them at the Little Bighorn.

One of my distant relations is Felonius Mayer Overtown. He is a lawyer and politician. I wouldn't say he is dishonest, but I expect him to be canonized as the patron saint of shepherds. His wife is the famous Spanish Flea (F. Lea Bailiwick), another lawyer. Flea was part of the famous orange juice trial, a while back. Thanks to her efforts, her client is now free. If someone had accused me of doing something that I hadn't done, I think I would have at least been interested in finding out who the real culprit was.

When I was eighteen, I traded a worn-out 1939 Ford car for a 1942 Army Model shaft-drive Indian motorcycle, complete with blackout light. The bike was in very good condition and, fortunately, I have kept it for many years. Without this machine, completely restored, I might never have had the experiences related in this story.

One time when I was growing up a kid stole a bulldozer in the woods. He was too naïve to realize that such a machine leaves a track that the police could follow straight to the evidence. The lesson is that it never pays to get unrealistic ideas in life.

In the early fifties I went to a school for railroad telegraphers. Upon completion of this training, I became a railroad telegraph operator and spent a number of years in this line of work. In the late fifties I obtained an Amateur Radio Operator's License, so I knew two different versions of Morse code. Later, I obtained a First Class Commercial Radiotelephone Operator's License.

Once, a railroader told about a time when a passenger train hit a car that was stopped in its path at a grade crossing. It seems that the crewman walked up to where the car had been knocked completely into a farmer's field, to find the driver, apparently unhurt, sitting dazed in the car. The railroad man said to the occupant, "You would have known you were on the tracks if you hadn't had that coon-skin cap down over your eyes." "What coon-skin cap?" murmured the man. Then the crewman realized that what he saw was the fellow's scalp. Eventually a passing motorist took the chap to a hospital and the train went on its way.

Another time, a railroad operator told me of the time, long ago, when a telegrapher copied a report from a Building Maintenance Foreman, which read: "Raised south end of depot platform and found a lion." The operator called the distant station and requested a repeat. The message was received the second time still reading the same. Finally, in desperation, the operator called the distant station on the, then unreliable, long-distance telephone and received the information that the message read: "…foundation" rather than "…found a lion." A slightly elongated dash and a little variation of the spaces in the code, as devised by Samuel F. B. Morse, had resulted in a great discrepancy of meaning.

Back in about 1955, the Chief Dispatcher sent me to what we called "The Tower" to work as a student operator for one week. The object was to learn interlocking operations. I would be working with old Ray, the day-shift operator. Ray had a speech impediment that only showed up when he was upset. By the way, the old-timer was a little on the short side, about five foot five. My mentor always kept the office ship-shape. About the second morning that I was there, the Superintendent showed up for a quick inspection. Ray welcomed him respectfully. The first thing the Supt. said was, "What's all this dirt on top of the indicator cases?" The official was about six foot two, seeing dirt that Ray had never been aware of. Poor old Ray could only say, "Duh-duh-duh-dirt?" He felt about two feet tall. That was the low point of the visit, for sure.

One night in a lonely depot I heard a Western Union telegrapher calling a station on one of the telegraph circuits. I felt saddened to realize that someone was to receive a message of bereavement. That is the way it goes in the field of communications. Many different needs are met. It seems my whole life has been spent, one way or another, in communications.

I was working in a Junction office where several rail lines come together. Coincidentally, several rivers come together in the same area. One brakeman came into the office for a cup of coffee, about four in the morning. During the ensuing conversation, he mentioned that nothing had seemed to go right since they "killed that nurse up on the valley branch." When asked about the incident, he told the story. The train had been coming down the valley, sounding the crossing signal every mile. The county roads in the area follow the section lines of the farmland, thus they are at one-mile intervals. The locomotive crew had noticed a car on their left, ahead of them, paralleling the train for several miles. They were certain that the driver had heard the warning whistle a number of times. The driver, whose mind was obviously somewhere else, eventually reached a turnoff and turned right, directly into the path of the train. The nurse was apparently on her way to help someone in distress. I remembered having been told that if one hears a warning often enough, it loses its meaning.

Also, back in my railroading days, I once saw a Passenger Conductor's delay report, which included, among other entries, the following:

Wampum Jct. 10 mins, man caught in zipper.

An old-time railroad operator, whom I knew, worked for the same employer for 53 years. That certainly goes way back into the all-steam locomotive era. I wish I had had an opportunity to hear his stories of the old days, but I never did. Personally, I would have 42 years seniority if I had stayed with the railroad, however, we all suspected, back then, that our jobs would not last a lifetime.

I have been a licensed radio operator as well as a computer programmer for many years. I love to find unique ways of accomplishing things. Once I find one, I keep it in my memory, knowing that it will come in handy eventually. One example of things that come in handy occurred when I was working at a radio station where an old truck was parked behind the building. My boss asked me to come with him to try to get some gasoline from the truck. When we reached it, he looked around for something to siphon gasoline with. He tossed me a piece of garden hose, which he had found, with the assumption that it was of no value for the purpose. I proceeded to siphon a sufficient amount of gasoline for him while he was still looking for a small hose. He was astonished when he returned empty-handed to find the desired task completed. I never revealed the secret of my accomplishment. I just let him think that it had been risky, which in fact it had not been. I'll never forget the look of disbelief he gave me.

A famous writer and philosopher once wrote that there is such a thing as useless knowledge. He stated categorically that it is of no value to know that 19,987 multiplied by 34,521 is equal to 689,971,227. I proved him wrong by memorizing it and have demonstrated it to my friends many times. This same writer erroneously said that a radio message is transmitted from A to B at the speed of light. He had obviously never tried to transmit a message. If he had, he would have been surprised at how long it takes. The bits of data that make up a message may travel at nearly the speed of light, but a message can only be transmitted from A to B at some rate, which is much slower than the speed of light.

One time I went to visit a woman who worked in a nursing home. She, a few other visitors and myself were in a room where a man lay in bed recovering from an accident. I wondered why he was so cheerful and exuberant since he obviously was badly hurt. Then, I noticed both of his legs were cut off mid-thigh. Someone said a tractor had overturned on him and crushed his legs, but fortunately his wife had found him almost immediately and saved his life. His demeanor was that of being thrilled to be alive.

A lady I used to work with mentioned that she once had a son who died. I asked about the circumstances. She said that her husband liked to take his son out in the woods hiking. Once, when they were out, a thunderstorm came up and lightning was striking. The father got under a big tree and shouted for the boy to join him. The boy cried and hesitated. Finally the boy's father insisted vehemently. Immediately after the boy did get under the tree, lightning struck the tree and killed him. She said her husband never forgave himself for not having more sense than to get under a tree in an electric storm.

Not to be overlooked is what I call the story of the great bear hunt. My brother, Wolf was going out on the first day of bear season, to a place known as Blueberry Mountain, not to be confused with Blueberry Hill, although it turned out to be a thrill. Wolf is short for Wolfman, a nickname which he got from a certain similarity we noticed when he grew a beard and mustache some years ago. Wolf was convinced that there would be few, if any, other hunters up there.

My brother had borrowed two hunting rifles and asked me to go with him, even though I had no bear hunting license. I went along, joking that I could always say that I was carrying a rifle for self-protection. The truth is that I didn't even know if my rifle was loaded, much less how to use it.

We left his car in a parking lot at the base of the mountain (really a hill), and decided to take a shortcut to the top by scrambling up a steep, brush-covered hillside. It was about 100 yards to the top. Immediately, as we reached the top, out of breath and off guard, a grizzly bear weighing 250-300 pounds appeared from out of nowhere right in front of me and disappeared off into the brush as fast as its legs could carry it. I have never seen an animal move so rapidly. It was definitely a grizzly, sort of a light tan color. There was no time to do anything except gasp in astonishment. Within five minutes, about 15 other hunters poked their heads out of the woods all asking, "Did you guys see a bear?" All we could say was, "Yes." We quickly decided to get the heck out of there. Neither of us had ever seen so many hunters in one place at the same time before. One could have fired a shot in any direction and probably would have hit someone. At least we did see a bear, for whatever that's worth.

I met an elderly, retired couple while waiting for my car to be repaired. They were waiting for their Ford pickup truck. They told me how he had been treated the last time that he had gone to buy a Chevrolet car. They always bought new Chevrolets every few years. The gentleman had already checked at the large Bob Peckerwood Chevrolet in Abbingdon Heights and knew that they had just what he wanted. The man never haggled over the price because he had plenty of money. Also, he happened to know Bob P. personally. One Saturday, after working in his garden and looking rather scruffy, he went on down to his friend's Chevrolet dealership to buy his car. After standing around in the showroom for quite a while, he finally got one salesman's attention. Upon asking the salesman a reasonable question, the man was told that what he really should do was go across the street to the bus stop and catch a bus. In other words, the salesman told him to go away with his checkbook, containing the purchase price amount, in his pocket. Our friend did go away and proceeded to buy his new car at another Chevrolet dealership. The next time he saw Bob he told him what had happened. Peckerwood was quite upset and asked, "Would you know the salesman if you saw him again?" The lost customer replied, "Yes, I would. He looks exactly like that fellow right over there."

I was first married to a woman I will call Sue. This is better than being a boy named Sioux. The marriage was destroyed by a manipulative group I call the G. Hoover's Witlessness, or the Witlesses for short. They all applauded the demise of our union.

My second wife was named Felicia. We had some good times but she eventually ran away with a Fuller Brush man. His mustache was bushier than mine, I assume. I raised our twin boys by myself. Their names are Bob and Nabob. Bob was born first. Nabob was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but unfortunately it was stolen at the hospital.

My third wife would have been 'Nita. After her parents finished brainwashing her, she lost interest in marrying any man, especially me.

One time a lady friend of mine agreed to meet me at a small hotel, in a New England town for lunch. I was there waiting as she walked about a block from the bus stop. When we were seated in the hotel bar she explained her downcast expression. She said she had lost the only key to her house. It was last seen as she was getting on the bus, paying the fare with her purse handles over her arm. The lady had looked everywhere on the bus, seat and floor, to no avail. I smiled at her and said "I wouldn't worry about it. Is this it?" As I spoke, I held out the key. It was in the only place it could have been, a pocket on the end of the purse, beneath where her hand had been.

I happened to be visiting a large office building back East. It being lunch time, I was walking toward the cafeteria when I noticed a group of three or four young ladies shunting passers-by around a space on the terrazzo floor with a warning to avoid it because one of them had lost a contact lens there. I got down on the floor and used the old oblique light trick to quickly locate the contact. I said to the one who lost it, "Don't move or you will step on it. It is about six inches ahead of your left toe." She quickly said, "I found it. Let's go to lunch," and rushed away with her friends. Not one word of thanks was said. It is so very easy to find something when you know where to look.

My brother and I once attended an antique car club meet at a park near his home. I predicted that I would win one of several door prizes. After I thought about it, I specified that I would win the last prize. When the lady said, "This is the last prize," and a little girl drew the winning ticket, I stepped forward with confidence to claim my prize. I was surprised to find that I did not win. After a brief pause, she announced, "Wait a minute, there is one more prize." I stepped forward again to claim my prize and this time, when the number was drawn, I won a can of car polish. This is one of several instances where it seems I have been able to predict events, however trivial.

Another time I was playing bingo and the game was for the letter "L" on your card. I predicted that I would win and, sure enough, from then on it seemed that nearly every number called was on my card. Somehow, I felt compelled to predict that I would win. The prize was worth ten or fifteen dollars.

While visiting a convalescent home, I sat down in a TV room near some of the patients' rooms. I was watching a boring, old movie when suddenly I had the sensation that something memorable was happening. While I watched, trying to anticipate what might happen, Mrs. Katz came out of her room about three doors away from the TV room. As she walked down the hall toward me, the movie was interrupted for a commercial break. Still feeling that something worth noting was going to happen, I watched intently as Mrs. Katz began crossing the room between myself and the TV, just as a pet food commercial came on. At the exact instant that Mrs. Katz passed in front of the TV, the commercial announcer said, "Your 'cats' will love it." This was one more of many coincidences I have noticed in my life.

Another coincidence happened at Dulles Airport, near Washington, D.C. I was standing on the top level near the escalators, when suddenly I had a premonition of something unusual about to happen. I noticed someone in a light yellow T-shirt coming toward me from the direction of one corner of the top level. Then, I realized that there was a person in the same color of garment coming toward me from each of the four directions at the same time. It looked as though they would all reach the area where I was standing at the same moment. Sure enough, all four of them passed in front of me at the same time. They all continued on their separate ways, no one noticing anything unusual except me.

I might mention another instance, which I remember, that took place at Dulles. I had gone there to apply for a refund on an unneeded airline ticket, which I had purchased. Taking my place at the end of a short queue, I waited for my turn at the counter. A tall man in a dark suit came by and gave me a big smile. I assumed he was an airport employee, being friendly to everyone. Then, a young couple went by, also giving me wide smiles as they passed. I wondered what on earth was going on. Everyone who came along gave me the same knowing look and smile. I couldn't imagine what the reason was until I happened to look behind me. There stood a little woman, about 8 and ½ months pregnant, that everyone was assuming to be my wife. It was a relief to finally understand everyone's reaction to me.

A few years ago, a very wealthy man had a checking account where I used to bank. One day he came in to consult with his stockbroker and parked in the bank-owned parking lot next to the building. When he had finished his business, he went to one of the tellers on the main floor and asked to have his parking ticket validated. Because they hadn't seen him conduct any business (the stockbroker was on another floor), they refused. The millionaire paid the $.25 parking fee and immediately went to another bank where he opened an account and proceeded to write and deposit a $1 Million check. Since I read this account in a local newspaper, it represented some bad PR for the bank.

On a warm spring day in 1996, I took Old Shafty (the Indian motorcycle) out of my driveway and proceeded east. I was feeling disappointed with my life and had started to think that maybe SAUL stood for "Set An Upward Limit" in my search for meaning in life. My quest for truth had left many questions unanswered. Then, just after I turned onto Damascus Drive, I saw a bright white light in the sky, bearing down on me like a locomotive. The impact, when it came, was like being inside a ringing bell. The last thing I remember is feeling that my whole body was turning into, or at least being plated with, pure gold. It was a very satisfying feeling, actually devastating.