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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 05:05PM

I resigned my membership in 2004, just over 18 years ago. If I could rewrite my history, I would’ve dropped out of TSSC as soon as I left home in 1974. I would’ve learned a second language in a study abroad program, not on a mission. I would NOT have attended any church schools in ID or UT. At 66, Mormonism would be so far in my rear view mirror, as to be nearly imperceptible – a mere blip of my childhood and teenage years.

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 05:47PM

My answers, or what I day-dreamed about, change every time I think about it.  Many of the imagined scenarios have me dying as I leap from a second-story window ... just like Joseph Smith!!

But there is one version I've thought about in which I rise to the role of the (total atheist) revered First Lamanite Apostle, yea, and then onto becoming the beloved Brown Prophet of ghawd, President Olddog; what a sweetheart of a guy!!  I nail it every time!

And in my foray into my alternate universe, I puke a lot at how much honor and respect is given me, despite who I really am: a total scum of the Earth.  Yeah, that's right, I'm as scum of the earth as any of you, goddammit!!

My true blue, ever faithful temple bride dies just after I become the prophet, but I never remarry ... even after I encounter my first love, my high school mormon royalty girlfriend, whose mom said I'd never amount to anything, even before reaching the topic of me being Brown!  

Hah! I guess I showed her (that's what dreams are for!).

But it's a tragic reunion, and everyone is sad, followed a few months later by the puzzling fact/question: why did the President of the Church speak at this one random lady's funeral?!?!

ooof!  I could go on and on!!

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 05:58PM

Oh! Oh!

Tell us about the alternative future in which you become the oft-incarcerated madam of the best brothel in Borneo. I love that story.

And don't forget the bit about the orangutans!

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:17PM

Talk to my bail bondsman; I'm busy right now!

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:08PM

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... even after I encounter my first love, my high
> school mormon royalty girlfriend, whose mom said
> I'd never amount to anything, even before reaching
> the topic of me being Brown!  
>

That’s just sad and wrong, EOD. I am sorry that your l first love’s mom was so unperceptive. TBMs can be so much like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

Cuz X

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:09PM

Well, my trunk was never the subject of inspection, so there's that...

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 05:58PM

I would have been a very successful song writer and musician, bring joy and happiness to others through my music, with no religious affiliation, and later in life, a philanthropist with my accrued wealth.

Kind of a cross between Paul McCartney and Warren Buffet.

Other than that, I probably wouldn't change a thing.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:03PM

Paul McCartney and Warren Buffet?

I would have thought more a combination of Adele and Suze Orman.

No? Too hip?

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:35PM

>> I would have thought more a combination of Adele and Suze Orman. <<

Well, if the outfit pairs with my red pumps....sure!.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:49PM

Adele would wear red pumps. I'm less sure about Suze, if you know what I mean.

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:56PM

>> I'm less sure about Suze, if you know what I mean. <<

You mean like combat boots, flat top crew cut, and a "wife beater" tank top with no bra? Yeah, I think I know what you mean.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:57PM

Hahah.

For a moment there I thought you were describing Roy.

Wait--

Oops!

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 11:32AM

Almost describing Roy...I recently went back to my 1/2 inch buzz cut after not cutting my hair for over 2 years and I do wear wife beater tank tops with no bra in the summer. But alas, I have no combat boots.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 04:12PM

That's okay. You can borrow mine.

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 05:05PM

Cool....can I borrow your tat sleeves too? Wait, that could prove difficult.

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:09PM

Roy G Biv Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kind of a cross between Paul McCartney and Warren
> Buffet.
>
> Other than that, I probably wouldn't change a
> thing.

Love that, Roy G Biv.

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:18PM

Furthermore, I would never be Elder V or new name E. I would choose, however, to keep SGT V and señor V (or maybe just 박병장). Yes,Sir, that would have suited me fine.

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:46PM

I learned about Roy G Biv in college...BYU no less!

You can call me Roy :)

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:15PM

I'd have asked you to come out of retirement to play at that imagined funeral, something from the 60s...  "Be True to Your School" would have been innocently fitting.

Especially this version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-7UcrW8Du8

You do have a ukulele, right?

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:20PM


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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 06:44PM

I have 2 ukuleles. And I have a song I wrote, played on the uke, sung in Spanish or maybe Mexican, I forget. It's all about love and mushy stuff! It's called "Yo Quero Su Amor" and its been very well received when played to an audience.

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 07:09PM

Ach du Lieber!!!  Please consider changing it to "Yo Quiero Tu amor"...

Not even a Mexican would use "Su", in place of "Tu" in that context.  It's hard for me to get across just how wrong it is.  

...Unless you were serenading the now-deceased, very lovely and well-respected woman, Barbara Bush...  Then "Yo Quiero Su Amor" would have been okay.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 07:12PM

Who performed "Yo Quiero Tu amor?"

I can't remember whether it was Roberta Flack or George Benson.

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 07:33PM

Per a quick glance at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20lxrk345r4

I've never heard of the song or the singer/performers, Santos y Leves...  I couldn't find any other YT's involving them.
But, man, a group with a distaff drummer and bass...!  Maybe they all OD'd, as suggested by the video?


I did find an old Santos & Johnny cut that I bet Roy G Biv knows by heart!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPNA6L2baJ4

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 04:17PM

I remember Santos & Johnny! Who would have thought Santos would end up in Congress?

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 04:27PM

Well, who didn't know he needed to dump that loser, Johnny!  After that, the sky was the limit!

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 11:37AM

OK, I'll change it. I only know a little Spanish, mostly from many business trips to San Carlos and Empalme in Sonora. When I wrote it, I used what I knew, ran the rest through a translator and then had it adjusted by a lovely Mexican woman I used to work with., so that's how it ended up like it is.

I will listen to your words oh wise one!

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Posted by: Tevai ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 07:31PM

My VERY deeply loved by me, paternal, grandparents had two offspring, both of them sons.

I don't know most of the specifics, but my biological father is the son who was NOT married to my mother when I was conceived.

It was fairly early WWII back then and Americans (males most especially) were suddenly coming and going to distant places in ways confusing to understand, certainly now--but also very much back then as well.

When my Mom realized she was pregnant, she enlisted the help of her OB-GYN, who came up with the idea that she would give birth to me "six weeks late." As her biological due date approached, major drama began to play out in my extended family, as family members would play cards EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, throughout the entire night, until dawn the next day appeared, waiting (ostensibly) for her to feel the first contractions. They did this for SIX WEEKS!!!

I grew up hearing the seemingly endless stories from each of my family members who were (unwittingly, for the most part) part of the charade, and how contrary a human being I was obviously going to be since "I" had chosen to stay inside my Mom for six additional weeks past her ostensible "due date"--"keeping" all of THEM up all night EVERY night, waiting for her to feel her first birth pains, after which I would be born at Good Samaritan Hospital.

I grew up hearing endless stories from my relatives [*] for the decades of my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood--about how they ALL had stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!, playing cards--waiting for contrary me to make my living and breathing debut--which, evidently to them, I just stubbornly refused to do, and instead "kept them" playing cards all night long, EVERY night.

[*] I am referring to my maternal relatives, NOT my paternal grandparents, who never, ever, not even a single time, blamed me for being "born six weeks late."

Ultimately this charade cost me quite a bit, in many different ways.

Eventually I mostly overcame the bad parts (like being promised college all my growing up, but realizing--in my mid-teens--that if I held them to this promise, without question my parents would have divorced).

When my Mom unexpectedly died the same night my aunt died of pancreatic cancer, as my Mom was being wheeled on the gurney into the hospital so she could die under a doctor's supervision which was intensely important at that moment (otherwise my father would have been charged in her death), she looked over to me and said: "Thank you for saving my marriage."

Those are the most important six words anyone has ever said to me in all of my life.

She KNEW. She knew what I had done (by "making the decision," as a 17-year-old, to NOT go to any of the colleges I had been admitted to; instead, I literally married "the boy next door").

She KNEW.

If I could rewrite my biography, I would characterize my parents as adults who, as I was in my senior year of high school, could have accepted the biological facts of my existence, and matured enough emotionally for them to accept those realities--and not blame ME for putting THEM in that difficult place...a place and a situation that *I* had nothing at all to do with.

That did not happen.

In its place, my Mom said (as she was being wheeled into the hospital so she could "legally" die), "Thank you for saving my marriage."

It was all she could do, but she did it.

It was an apology, but mostly it was a request, and a plea for forgiveness for her messing up my subsequent adult life.

It was enough.

Thank you, Mom.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 09, 2023 07:34PM

My heavens that's disturbing and touching at the same time.

Thank you for sharing it.

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Posted by: Tevai ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 11:19PM

Thank you, Lot's Wife :), and...

Thank you, Done Done :).

Your caring, and your affirmative words, are very muchly appreciated by me.

:)

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Posted by: Elder Berry ( )
Date: February 13, 2023 01:48PM

Family, isn't it about (six weeks) time?

You had the sin of being born over your head. I had the sin of not dying like my mother wanted over mine.

What's there to rewrite? Different parents?

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Posted by: Done Done ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 11:43AM

I had to read it twice. I am speechless, Tevai. Lump in my throat. You are love.

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Posted by: Tevai ( )
Date: February 10, 2023 11:20PM

I put my reply to you in the wrong place!

See the post which I THINK will be above.

:D

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Posted by: I ( )
Date: February 11, 2023 04:25AM

Rewrite?

I'm still righting it?

But, to answer your question...

From back to front!

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 13, 2023 11:07PM

I Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rewrite?
>
> I'm still righting it?
>
> But, to answer your question...
>
> From back to front!

Nice!!

I would definitely like to “right” my biography from back to front as well.

Cuz X

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Posted by: I ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 01:28AM

Thanks cuzx,

I figure when my book of life is rewritten I won't be able to proofread it... However

It will be just perfect! A fine read on such a great life. 8 can't wait!

...

200 years of nonMormon life

How Beautiful

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Posted by: I ( )
Date: February 12, 2023 05:29PM

He never made it to Utah... Only through it!

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Posted by: tensolator ( )
Date: February 13, 2023 08:47PM

I believe it would read that I attended Catechism just to experience something different. Like grandma wanted me to.

It would read I married the same woman, and had the exact same children. With their exact husbands and and grandchildren. Just a few years later. We were just kids when we married.

It would read that I listened to my children when they wanted to have nothing to do with church. And it would read that not only would I listen, I would not angry.

I would have kept at the piano lessons. When you are 12 though you still think you could play baseball for your favorite team. Mine? The Athletics.

Law school? Teaching high school? I will stick to the teaching.
Though I wish I had pursued that doctorate in history.

I would have looked into other colleges. I received a good education at BYU. But my girls have gone on their educational voyages. Universities that I have visited and thought, "I would dig this."

No big changes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2023 08:58PM by tensolator.

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 13, 2023 11:25PM

tensolator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just a few years
> later. We were just kids when we married.

Me too. Six months after my mission was just too soon!!

> I would have looked into other colleges. I
> received a good education at BYU.
>
> No big changes.

Most of my Spanish and all of my Italian classes, especially the latter, were great; however, I realized that my language studies post BYU were equally amazing at DLI (Defense Language Institute) for Korean and Cal State Long Beach for my teaching credential in Spanish.

If I had a do over in language experiences, I would definitely have done a study abroad in Spain as an undergraduate, and checked out Middlebury College for advanced courses in Italian in the 70s.

As for DLI, I would like to have gone back for Intermediate Korean or another language that the Army needed in the 80s: German, Russian, Arabic, or Chinese …

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 13, 2023 11:45PM

DLI: is that the Monterey Institute?

Great place. Middlebury too.

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 12:40AM

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> DLI: is that the Monterey Institute?

Yes, DLIPOM (Defense Language Institute, Presidio of Monterey) is a great school. My SIL also attended there for Arabic.

> Great place. Middlebury too.

My favorite Italian professor at BYU had attended Middlebury. He was one of the best foreign language instructors I ever saw as college student or as a career world language teacher myself.

After one semester with him, I passed the test for third semester, Italian 201. I took three additional classes in his department and, after an oral interview at the MTC, I was told my Italian would be perfect to instruct there, if I had a few months in country (of course).

At the end of DLI, I took the DLPT (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) or proficiency tests in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Korean, scoring 4, 3, 2, and 2 respectively.

I can’t say enough about how amazing the learning experience was in Monterey. If they’d sent me to Korea for a year, I would have learned so much more but, as luck would have it, the Army assigned me instead to a tactical unit in Hawaii, which was mostly great for my little family, although it didn’t further my skills as a newly graduated 98G (voice intercept operator) in signals intelligence.

When it came time to re-up, my wife gave me an ultimatum: if you re-up, you’ll have to do it on your own. She didn’t realize that my battalion commander had offered to write me a recommendation for OCS. In any case, I knew I could teach as I’d been a former graduate assistant in Spanish. So I separated from the service and became a secondary language teacher from 1986-2016, with a short stint as an instructional aide in a bilingual elementary classroom and as an ESL aide in high school while working on my teaching credential.

Cuz X

Had to edit a couple of typos; fat finger issues on my smart phone keyboard ;)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2023 12:45AM by cuzx.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 01:40AM

Lot has a friend who learned Korean in the armed forces. They sent him to East Asia to intercept and decode NK transmissions. He apparently has great Korean in a very limited range of linguistic situations. He doesn't do Korean anymore and is presently living in Japan.

I always wanted to study in Monterey. I did a ton of intensive language training in a few countries, including at a couple of places that had been spun out of State Department schools; and spent one summer at Middlebury, where the immersion courses are quite good--not the level that you are describing, but assuredly solid--and romantic flings are almost de rigueur. And what's better on a long weekend than a trip to Toronto?

I wasn't married during those years, which freed me to partake of the cultures and communities more than was possible for married people. But yeah, the experiences were life-changing.

As you know!

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 02:31AM

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And what's better on
> a long weekend than a trip to Toronto?

That sounds lovely. Did you ever partake of a weekend in Montreal or Quebec, due their proximity? I would have been tempted.

At DLI, there was so much beauty around Monterey itself, in nearby Carmel-By-The-Sea, and northward to Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Our instructors wisely told us to take a break from studying on the weekends. Excellent advice, given the rigors of the coursework.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 02:57AM

> That sounds lovely. Did you ever partake of a
> weekend in Montreal or Quebec, due their
> proximity? I would have been tempted.

Yes, more than once. The culture in Montreal and Toronto is much more cosmopolitan than even NYC; the different communities are distinct yet integrated. And the combination of French, African, and Southeast Asian cultures and cuisines is wonderful.


-----------------
> At DLI, there was so much beauty around Monterey
> itself, in nearby Carmel-By-The-Sea, and northward
> to Santa Cruz and San Francisco.

My work has taken me to that area many times. I have favorite hotels in, for instance, Carmel, places where we take the children whenever possible. And you can go from there down Highway 1 to Big Sur to celebrate the Beat Generation and then to Hearst Castle to experience the art-cum-egocentric-monument erected by the great, and greatly troubled, man.


---------------------
> Our instructors
> wisely told us to take a break from studying on
> the weekends. Excellent advice, given the rigors
> of the coursework.

I tended to work weekends when in intensive language programs, so I didn't take as many breaks as many people did.

But my heavens, did I ride that language/research train as far as was humanly possible. When studying overseas I always found friends who were happy to travel during our various vacations and while on the way to/from destinations. And living like students forced us to interact with people much more intimately than if you had a travel agency make the arrangements.

I learned more about the world and how it functions in those years than anytime before or after. Wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2023 02:57AM by Lot's Wife.

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Posted by: cuzx ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 07:23AM

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And the combination of French,
> African, and Southeast Asian cultures and cuisines
> is wonderful.

You’ve really piqued my interest here!

> I learned more about the world and how it
> functions in those years than anytime before or
> after. Wouldn't trade those experiences for
> anything.

As I get older, I’ve pared my international bucket list down to 2-3 places max, with “slow travel” in northeast Spain at the absolute top of my list…

I better renew my visa pronto ;)

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Posted by: blackcoatsdaughter ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 09:04AM

I don't know if I would rewrite or go back to change anything.

As much pain as the cult caused me, as much as I felt infantilized by it well into my 30's now, stunted emotionally and intellectually, I am in this moment, right here, very happy in my life and situation.

Things could be better? Could they? Compared to what? Happy right now is happiness. So, better in who's eyes?

Also the fact that no matter what I changed in my autobiography, I would still have ADHD and ASD which cripples me in a neurotypical world anyway. So I don't necessarily think I would have been better off realizing the truth any earlier. It wouldn't have slingshotted me to a life of professional success because my executive dysfunction and social misfiring would still be there. I could have saved myself from marrying my ex in the temple if I'd come out as a lesbian and left the church at 18... But would I have been able to meet my now girlfriend?

I don't believe in destiny or things NEEDING to happen. But I do believe that everything that did happen was a story that led me here. The choices I made led to consequences that I didn't intend, that led me to more choices, on and on. Not to mention the fact that I am not 2006 me. I am not 2010 me, 2013, 2016, 2019 me. I am not even 2021 me. Like the choices we make, the experiences we have shape and define us. It informs my choices now. It is part of my process of perception now. And my process of emotions and thoughts is my personality.

So, being happy now, hopeful for the future, free of the cult and working through my trauma, I couldn't guarantee I'd get here nor that I'd be the same person if I rewrote any part of it. Happy where I am at now and happy in a dream version where my life went as perfect as it could go without the cult, it's all relative. The me of February 14 2023 wants very specific things and values very specific things and it took the 2021 me, the 2019 me, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2006, etc. to build this current moment and thoughts and desires.

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Posted by: Done & Done ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 10:55AM

Everything I am now is because of what I did wrong which means it wasn't wrong because I like being me. So. I really don't regret my regrets. Besides I couldn't have been anything but me because turns out that my brain has a mind of it's own.

I didn't end up in jail so there is that. Was nice to go to the edge of the cliff and not jump off.

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Posted by: ~ufotofu~ ( )
Date: February 14, 2023 05:01PM

I'd use a pencil... and peak ahead!

Maybe even choose a NON-lds family
(Haven't quite yet decided)

I might have run away from home at 12
(Avoid pressure from male dominated LEASThood)

Never started lying (I'm finished now)

Wearing SUITS. Looking at or even considering LDS girls-women as potential life-partners as my clueless mother and misaligned (to me) TSCC PPs (pressuring people) who had NO REGARD that I marry my 'eternal-life-wife', only that she be boring, I mean Mormon, and limiting (rather that limitless), as a person, who is also limited (by her 'church', and me, also limited by tscc).

In effect, it is IMPOSSIBLE for a freedom seeker - and bringer - to find a Mormon spouse (who is unlimited, and unlimiting), a Natural Man (who is automatically an enemy of others LDS) or Woman, who believes IN SO MUCH MORE than the Limiting/ Limited Days Sinners (LDS).

I wouldn't have been MISERABLE as a child, tormented by Mormonism, my family (I tormented them too, I'm sure), and the fact that it brought destruction in the family, in the name of a separatist cult who is more concerned about itself than the individual member where you're simply a number.

It would have changed my childhood, and life trajectory.

My mother may not have given everything to TSCC and we could have eaten better. While we hungered TSCC got fat!

I would have changed all that!

At least have 8-16 - AND THE FAMILY - back

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Posted by: cludgie ( )
Date: February 17, 2023 10:19PM

After living a pretty skint life with a stumbledrunk father, and a hard-working mother who died early of cancer, and then being shoved into a Mormon foster hope, I was told all too often that I "wouldn't amount to much." I believed it. But I toed the line, went on a mission, married in the temple, and then had to walk away from university early because, again, skint, this time from making dumb choices. Vietnam had just ended, and the military was short of recruits, and they made lots of promises, so I joined the AF as Chinese and German linguist in the intelligence services. Then yada-yada-yada, things tricked into place, and holy shit, SERENDIPITY happened. Then my life went smoothly, as I skated through 21 years of AF, and 22 years of government service based on my Chinese and German. I retired in 2017 with a good income, and loooook at me now! But yeah, I didn't amount to TOO much, but was successful, after all.

There it is, my life in a tiny bowl.

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