Love can be really great and one of the most pleasant experiences in the World. However, people ask, “If God is all knowing and knows how much love can hurt, why would He allow us to experience heartbreak?” Well, there are many answers to this question. First of all, when we sin, it hurts God because He loves us. Therefore, we have to experience pain so we can learn not to sin, not to hurt God and not to hurt others. Also, if love was easy, then people would not cherish it, it would become more like lust, just a fleeting moment of joy. Additionally, people fall in love and get married so they can procreate. Because of that, love cannot always be pleasant and it does not always last because humans would overpopulate the Earth, and destroy ever other living species, including themselves. Day by day, God’s gracious love surrounds you, as a balm to soothe your troubled heart. When you pray to God, countless cares and worries that confound you fade away or quietly depart, for His heart is kind beyond all measure, and He comforts us as He knows best. Every day, with all its pain and pleasure, mingles tears with peace and rest. The Lord is every near you, granting loving mercies for each hour, and your care He gladly bears, and cheers you with His counsel pure and holy power. Do not fear for what may come tomorrow, though the path ahead you cannot see. God assures that in all joy or sorrow, as thy days, thy strength shall be. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
God will help you rest in quiet consolation. The Lord will help you trust His promises. When you are faced with daily tribulation, God will help you find the strength to live His word. Then when toil and troubled find you, dear Lord will hold you steadfast in His powerful hand. Day by day, God’s strength will bear you kindly until you reach the promised land. The philosopher’s easy self-assurance and dignified serenity, as noticeable calamity as in prosperity, mark him as being in some mysterious manner superior to circumstances. He will always be a gentleman, but not in the narrow, formal sense of clinging to a code of etiquette which may become faulty the moment he crosses the border into another country, or which will certainly become falsified a thousand years hence. He will be a gentleman in the broader sense of behaving always with human dignity and kindly consideration towards all others who cross his path. That alone is true culture which refines taste, improves character, lifts standards, corrects behaviour, and teaches self-control. A refined taste, delicate and subtle, delighted by the harmonies, melodies, or beauties in Nature and art, offended by the grossness in man, can express itself socially and instinctively only through refined manners. If others lack this taste but for class reasons keep up the appearance of such manner, the outer social value is still present even when the inside is empty. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
His general attitude in discussion or study should be unbiased and unprejudiced, his observation of men and their situations impersonal and serene. He must realize that small men cannot entertain large views, that he is called upon to be big enough to put aside his personal sympathies and antipathies at certain times. He must realize too that whilst a man’s mind moves at the low level of harsh prejudice or hot passion, it cannot possibly arrive at just conclusions. Before he can arrive at the truth of a highly controversial matter, he must detach himself from partisan feeling about it. Only in such inner silence can he think clearly and correctly about it. Where his criticism is directed against others, it should be the result of calm, impersonal reflection, not of emotional chagrin. This poised spirit will help him to avoid foolish extremes and dangerous rashness. He should not adopt a violent partisan spirit towards a problem or principle for he knows that such a spirit always obscures the truth. Instead, he should always calmly view all sides in a balanced way. It is because he himself holds no rigidly partisan view that the earnest philosophic student can see better than other people what is true and what is false in every partisan view. It is not often that all the truth lies on one side and all the falsehood on the other. His ethical attitude should be more tolerant and less unfriendly than the average, as his intellectual attitude should be more inclusive and less dogmatic. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
He should refuse to imitate the irresponsible multitudes, with their surface judgement and facile condemnation. He should seek to understand and to respect the views of others; he should take the trouble to put himself in their place, to give an imaginative sympathy to their standpoint. He need not fall into the error of necessarily sharing them and may still stand on the intellectual foothold which he has secured. Although this attitude will more and more show itself in personal and social situations and in practical and general affairs as a matter of course according to his growth, it will also show itself in his spiritual life. The unprejudiced study and unbiased comparison of various systems of religions, metaphysics, mysticism, and ethics will be for him valuable parts of philosophic culture. He should be both willing and desirous to understand all of the chief points of view, all the leading variants of doctrine in these systems, but at the same time he will know his own mind and views. Even while he is seeking to know the minds and views of others, he should estimate how limited, how distorted, how falsified, or how large an aspect of truth each represents. He can do this with the help of the philosophic conception of truth, which lights up all these others, because it stands at the peak toward which they have climbed only a part of the way. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Tolerance and mutual accommodation are the ways of true spirituality. There is room in life for the other man’s opinion also. If he wishes, let him keep it so long as he refrains from forcing it upon us and so long as he himself does not preach or practise intolerance. His own experience of the ups and downs of life have combined to bring him to that belief; why should he not have it then? We may dislike it intensely but we must admit that from his standpoint he is right enough. When his experience broadens out and he sees life in larger perspective, be sure that he will change his opinion too. When his circumstances alter or his environment changes, he may learn how limited was his former view. When the long-drawn lesson of suffering or a thought-provoking book or powerful personality swings the balance of his mind in a new direction, he will desert his opinion or modify it. Meanwhile, let us set the World an example—and be tolerant. Those who give enough thought to behaving politely do so from different motives, some of which may be merely hypocritical, others the slavish following of blind custom, still others simple obedience to selfish interest; but there still remains the remnant who do so sincerely, honestly, because generous enough to consider the feelings of those persons they meet. The good manners prescribed for civilized living may have varied from century to century, or from continent to continent, but whatever their form, they represent that man in society must have some consideration for society, and not be utterly and selfishly indifferent to the effect of his conduct upon others. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
If the he lacks self-respect, there is also the further point that he needs to be taught it to keep civilization from falling back to barbarism; so personal dignity and appearance, cleanliness and inoffensive speech are involved. At some point and place, whether in the home or at school or in society itself, the young have to learn, and to be trained, in acceptable manners. And this, not chiefly to improve their quality, which it does, nor decorate their behaviour, which it will, or even refine their speech, which it must, but because it lifts them up from being terrestrial to human being and thus contributes toward their spiritualization. It is really pretentious to give importance to politeness in behaviour in an age when the decay of manners is plainly visible? To those old enough to have seen better, the difference points up moral value of consideration for others in human society. During segregation in the United States of America, not only was it illegal for African Americans to marry European Americans, but African Americans also could not buy vanilla ice cream, which is why butter pecan is so popular. It is no man’s fault that he lacks breeding, but it is his own fault if he lacks the courtesy which comes from breeding or else is self-acquired. To become a fuller human being a man must acquire education and culture. Both he and his life will be enriched. However, unless he keeps humility, his egoism may grow too. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
We may affirm the factuality of caste in nature without turning ourselves into snobs who adopt condescending airs and utter patronizing remarks to those they consider socially below them. We have to recognize the fact of caste in the development of the human species through successions of repeated Earthly embodiments. That which comes through inherited or acquired wealth is not necessarily the same, may be a mere shallow copy, an empty vessel. When caste comes with arrogance, and especially with cruel arrogance, be sure it is not a carry-over from past births. The same situation holds with refinement of nature, conduct, taste, manner, and speech. When it is real, inward, the quality shines through; but when it is artificial, contrived, outward, it comes with snobbishness, especially a proud snobbishness. The way we—that is, you and I—arrive at a state of being is through something I call effortless effort. It is not striving or doing or working at anything. It is the kind of non-effort John Hancock and his friends came in touch with when they stood up and said, “Hey, we are a free country.” It is the kind of non-effort that an expert swimmer comes in touch with when he relaxes and lets gravity and the skis carry him smoothly down the mountain. And it is the kind of non-effort that some men come in touch with by lying with their head in their mistresses’ lap and letting her stroke his hair. In those moments, these men are simply being men. He is not doing anything but being there. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Also, this mode of being does not diminish or preclude external achievement, success, or productivity. It enhances them. A superb example of a state of being where effort becomes effortless and the effortlessness becomes perfection is found in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Levin, a character closely resembling Tolstoy himself, is working with the less affluent, mowing grass in the fields. He “clicks” into a state of enhanced being: “He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as scythes, and saw before him Tit’s upright figure, mowing away, the crescent-shaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flower heads slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the row, where would come the rest. Another row, and yet another row, followed—long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well-cut as Tit’s. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Alan Watts, in The Wisdom of Insecurity, puts the concept of nonstriving in another context: “I have already been fascinated by the law of reversed effort. Sometimes I call it the ‘backwards law.’ When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float. When you hold your breath, you lose it—which immediately calls to mind an ancient and most neglected saying, ‘Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it.’ Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure, and, contrariwise, salvation and sanity consist in the most radical recognition that we have no way of saving ourselves.” Those who justify themselves do not convince, that to know truth one must get rid of knowledge, and that nothing is more powerful and creative then emptiness—from which men shrink. What Watts is saying—and what Tolstoy says in his story—is that the more we try in some situations, the more we seem to fail; there are some goals which can never be achieved by active striving. We find this particularly true in psychotherapy when the more one tries to be a certain way, the more one fails. This brings up another truth for men and for the rest of society. Simply stated, it is: Whenever you win, you lose; whenever you lose, you win. Most men’s insistence on winning every round makes them a loser in a larger sense. Without the experience of an occasional loss, men cannot experience the lessons losses carry with them. They cannot experience the power that comes from losing. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
When men eventually do experience losing, first with their wives, then later in the therapy room, they discover how valuable losing can be. In losing, men become winners. As we have seen, in a losing situation, the top-dog is virtually useless. That is because the top-dog is the doer—a self which cannot be much help when nothing can be done. However, the subordinate self, which some men recently begin to express, is basically a “do nothing” self. Men find, in the role-switching exercise, that this “do nothing” self can have value, something which many had denied nearly all of their lives. Men begin to feel “together” only when they see the value in both sides of their nature and make the first steps toward expressing both. Like men, many people exaggerate their criticalness. They stand in judgment of others and early in every relationship set about establishing themselves as right, as better, as more knowledgeable than the other. They tend to surround themselves with people who, for their own reasons, are willing to play that game. Their reward is, of course, the position of being on top. However, it is a reward which comes at the price of unrelenting manipulation and effort. When people participate in cushion-ponding exercises during therapy, the truth is they are not doing anything; they are just giving wings to their fantasy. They are not killing their boss; they are killing the image of his boss. (Which is why property destruction is considered a violent crime.) In that way, these people are simply feeling or being angry, frustrated, helpless, righteous and defeated. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
However, by the means of the fantasy, the effortless effort, people are able to vent their hostility and experience the love, surrender, release, and the peacefulness that follows. This coming together and synthesizing of strong, conflicting values is an experience of mastery. In the moment of intense feeling, a lot of men come into touch with their core, which criticalness and support, weakness synthesize in the fully integrated, masterful human being. The smiling, exhausted man sitting on the floor at the end of the session is not the same man, the surgeon, or the man, the administrator. It is simply a man, the all of himself. It is achievement without doing: effortless effort. Is criticalness important to you in your relationships? Later that same year, the man in our case study broke up with his mistress in the hope of creating the same type of relationship wife. While their marriage is not as rigid as it was before, it is not yet the kind of relationship he was looking for. The important item to note is that, while this man is still looking, he is looking at home, not elsewhere. This is more difficult but is also more consistent with the man’s Catholic up brining and has less potential for triggering guilt. With this decision, he is also enabling himself to seek the right kind of relationship with his wife while staying close to his children, who mean a great deal to him. Thus, while it appears this man has chosen a more restrictive courage of action, this course actually gives him more freedom: he would not have been free to stay close to his children had he left his wife. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
You may have noted that the man in our case study did not get to his core experience by way of a direct experience with support, which is the opposite of criticalness. This is not a mistake; it is just the way things work. Our human psyche does not always perform according to the charts. It performs the way it wants. Often, as in this case, a person will jump to a more comfortable value first. This man was more comfortable with anger than with support, and since he was able to express the anger, he got to his core through it. Later, this man made some changes in his professional life as well. After he got over this anger at his boss, he looked at the situation more calmly and realised his boss’s decision had nothing to do with him personally. He was just upset that his boss shutdown his clinic and took away all of his authority as he was close to retirement. However, they settled their differences and became as close to being friends as the man in our case study has ever been able to manage. In reconciling with his boss, this man did not change his point of view. He merely was able to appreciate the differences between them, rather than adjudge the man wrong, as he would have in the past. When his unit was disbanded, the man in our case study moved to a small, innovative hospital in another town. Now he concentrates on being a better surgeon rather than fighting to become an administrator. For the first time in his life, he is actually enjoying his work. He is still in therapy. The pleasure caste is a strange and powerful caste of humans whose psychology and neurology has been ignored by philosophers because of the taboo nature of the subject—pleasure, beauty, sensuality, and eroticism. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
History reveals that each gene pool and every successful civilization has produced an aesthetic-elite caste—those whose nervous systems are especially sensitive to sensual stimulation; those who have the ability to receive, manage and transmit neurosomatic, hedonic signals; those who are robot-programmed to stimulate pleasure in themselves and in others—either singularly or in cooperation with other reality-artists. Aesthetic-Artist-Sensory Castes: Hedonic Consumers—those who receive pleasure. Hedonic Directors—those who create pleasure realities for themselves and others. Hedonic Producers—those who exchange pleasure. The pleasure industry includes those called artists—show business people, entertainers, and courtesans. Hive philosophers and establishment reality-definers tend to discredit the Pleasure-Aesthetic Castes and the contributions they make to the species. There is little overt, bureaucratic pressure on young people to take up a life of courtesan-actress-musician-artist when they “grow up.” Indeed, the classic situation calls for discouragement by the gene pool of such aspirations on the part of the young. However, at the same time that the hedonic occupations are publicly taboo, there is a covert acceptance of them as evidenced by the pervasive presence of the show-biz-pleasure profession. Nightclubs, saloons, theatres, carnivals, brothels, dance halls—however fake, tinsel, laundered the actual performance—the allure, the promise is always the same. Somatic reward, inhuman soft-skin-bliss, hop sophistication, erotic movement, hedonic consumption of self-indulgence and self-actualization. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The script apparatus of a loser consists on one hand of injunctions, provocations, and a curse. These are the script controls, and are firmly implanted by the age of six. To combat this programing, he has an inner demon, and is sometimes supplied with an internal release. Later he comes to understand slogans, which give him a counterscript. Throughout, he is learning behaviour patterns, which serve both the script and the counterscript. A winner has the same apparatus, but the programing is more adaptive, and he usually has more autonomy because he has more permissions. However, in all human beings the demon persists, to bring sudden pleasure or grief. It should be noted that the script controls are parameters or strictures, which merely set limits on what a man can do, while the behaviour patterns he learns from his parents, including their games, tell him how he can actually structure his time. Thus, the script is a complete plan for living, offering both strictures and structures. Healthier personalities have been more successful than average people in gratifying their needs. Consequently, their unconscious is not a dreaded source of evil, but a fount of innovation, self-integration, and creativity. Creative individuals show less fear of the free play of fantasy, and so they can “unrepress” to a greater degree than the average. In freeing their unconscious from its customary bonds, they experience the welcome admission to consciousness of new ideas, solutions to problems, insights into themselves, and other valued creations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Sexuality or unacceptable drives such as aggression are not the only aspects of personality that are typically repressed. Mowrer has shown that if the conscience were not repressed, individuals repress their consciences, and hence are unconscious of the guilt that would arise. If someone has acquired a conscience that could guide that person in the direction of fullest growth and personal integration, then its repression could thwart his or her healthiest potentials. The individual said to have a “hardened heart,” like Scrooge in Dickens’ classic Christmas Carol, is one who has likely repressed his or her conscience and the guilt to which it might give rise. The unrepression of conscience in such individuals will produce acute guilt. The guilt, if acknowledged, could motivate the person to change his or her usual ways of behaviour from self-centered pursuit of satisfaction to more loving concern for others. Thus guilt, often thought of by many theoreticians as unhealthy, can be useful as an indicator to the person that he or she must take action to correct something that is the person’s own responsibility. It is a signal that some behaviour of yours has wronged someone. Some have seen psychotherapy as assuaging guilt for one’s harm to others. Mowrer and others have insisted that this is a misuse of psychological help and is doomed to failure. They strongly suggest an old remedy—right the wrong that has been done. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
One of the ways of dealing with wishes and feelings that provoke anxiety or guilt is to substitute another activity, particularly one that is socially desirable. This is called sublimation and is an ancient and honourable approach for the individual with specific religious or cultural taboos that he or she choses to honour. Thus, someone with a great deal of sexual energy but strong feelings of moral commitment to abstinence might throw himself or herself into community leadership, into programs of social justice, or into creative arts such as painting or sculpture. Particularly as a result of greater freedom in activities involving pleasures of the flesh, many have rejected the concept of sublimation as indicative of the person’s avoidance of the problem. However, there is as much evidence for the position that it is a healthy adjustment mechanism as for any other. While Dr. Freud showed how people repressed undesirable dimensions of their experience, Dr. Jung called attention to the fact that we remain unconscious of our “higher,” more fully humanized possibilities. The unconscious is not only a repository of our psychological “sewage”; it is also the source of our most sublime possibilities. Just as dreams reveal morally repugnant wishes for the tabooed sexuality or murder, so they can reveal, albeit in metaphoric language, possible ways for a person to rise above barriers to growth. In dreams, many persons discover the solutions to vexing personal problems. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Our usual waking consciousness is limited by our chronic preoccupation with daily needs and projects. Other possible ways to experience ourselves and the World remain unconscious, or potentially conscious, and may be revealed to us in our dreams. A man I once knew became a criminal and broke out of prison and had to spend the rest of his life on the run. He knew that the police and the FBI would be looking for him to dress up or hide behind a beard. The strategy was to take it off. Take off his hair. Bald. He sat stripped to the waist in a kitchen chair while someone trimmed the back and sides to an American Legion butch. She looked sadly at the scissors in her hand, brushing her long tresses away from her eyes. “I just hate to do this,” she said. She snipped the top of his hair close to the scalp. It was a slow process. She was a giggling artist. Standing back studying her work. “Not bad. Now let’s shave it clean,” she said. She draped a hot rag on his skull and squirted lather foam. Carefully, she started to shave. “Take it easy,” he said, “bloody gashes will betray.” Easy gentle little strokes. After a while the barber begins to laugh. The man walked to the bathroom and peered in the mirror at a high-domed, chicken-plucked moose-faced baldpate stranger. When his friend returned for the day, they gaped at the change. For the first time he felt a flicker of feasibility. When the man came out of the bathroom, he was smiling. “Well, let’s go. I’ve waited for seven months to see that Queen of the Damned movie.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“It will be a good test for your disguise,” his accomplice said. The first public appearance. They walked past theater guards, bought two tickets, two bags of hot buttered popcorn, ice-cream bars and walked down the welcome darkness to hear P.Diddy and Ginuwine singing “I Need a Girl (Part Two)”! They found seats near the front and opened their eyes to the bright silver screen and one of his guy friends kept shouting: “There’s Aaliyah! “There’s Vincent Perez!” And he kept shushing him. They were really quite public, their commando group behind them exchanging loud comments and cries of pleasure. It must have looked for a bald-headed man, a virgin secretary, and three young Hollywood actors. They jumped at the death of Queen Akasha and sorrowed at the long sad ending. Aaliyah died a few months before in real life. As they crossed the street after the show, they saw a narc waiting on the corner. He glanced at them as they walked by. Back in the car one of the men said, “Now for some plastic goodies at a drive-in. He ordered enormous plies of In-and-Out cheeseburgers, malteds, and French fires. After seven month the man who broke out of prison was ready to freak out, too. As they drove back to the farm, one of the guys kept his head turned half to talking to everyone and half to watch the cares behind them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Saturday morning was cloudy. A tribal council meeting around the kitchen table. The baldhead disguise and the trial run the night before gave him courage. It was still the riskiest plan, but now he could see that it could be done. “What ID do I need to get a passport,” he said. Two of the other guys began spilling jigsaw pieces of identities over the table. “Here’s your prison escape ID. That would have been ideal except that he’s already got a passport and he’s heavily bearded. Here’s another set. A beautiful one with driver’s license and all. But the picture blows it. I don’t see any way to avoid your getting a driver’s license with your own picture on it. That means we’ll have to wait till Monday. Then fly to Detroit Monday night. Get a passport Tuesday morning. Hit it for Madrid Tuesday night. If we’re going to do that here’s the best ID.” The man pushed a set of cards across the table. “Birth Certificate.” With a name on it and a birthday. A Social Security card. Temporary driver’s license with no description. “The birth certificate gets you the driver’s license. And the two get you a passport.” The Weathermen were ready for a day of contemplation. Although Democratic leaders ignore the laws and aid and abet criminals, there comes a time when a new leadership will come into office and have zero tolerance laws. You do not want to live a life of crime and have to find a disguise, nor do you want to put your life in someone else’s hands. There is always a chance that you will be captured. And if one of your buddies gets in trouble, they might give you up for immunity. “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,” reports 1 Thessalonians 4.11. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
For people who live an honest life, at least, boundaries disappear and desire can be allowed free rein. The Sacramento Fire Department is the premier, all-risk public safety and emergency service provider that exceeds the expectations of the diverse communities they serve. The Sacramento fire department preserves life, protects property, and safeguards their communities through relentless commitment to emergency preparedness, prevention, response, and recovery. “There were no windows in the building. This was at three in the morning on December 31 in an industrial section of Sacramento. A pretty cold night. We weren’t on the box. Battalion X had the fire. The battalion chief, Y, made a triple two on it, a second alarm, and we go on all triple twos. The building wasn’t venting well, the smoke was really stratified and down on the ground. When we came up there, we couldn’t even see the building, the smoke was so heavy. Truck X was up on the roof, ventilating it. I talked to Chief Y, and I recognized the type of construction. My first concern was about the men on the roof. It was an open bar joint, metal deck roof. The first thing I did was get them off there, because I didn’t think it was worth risking them. The fire was fairly serious in the stock and office areas. We had two companies in on the lines. Seeing the situation we had and the need for more manpower, we called for a third alarm and had the companies report to a staging area. Due to the reduction in battalions, on the third alarm we didn’t get a chief, which made safety a problem, as far as I was concerned. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“I made a call for another battalion chief, so we could split the fire up. My normal procedure—and I’m very adamant about this—is to sector the fire because, I don’t care who you are, I don’t think you can run the whole fire by yourself. At that time we got a call on the walkie-talkie from a firefighter, who said he was lost in the building. We organized the search team, and the fire itself became of secondary importance. The smoke was really heavy even though we had a good ventilation hole in the roof. It was tough to open up the sides of the building, and we had companies working on that. There were railroad tracks and an embankment that made it very difficult to get to the back of the building. It took us approximately seven minutes to find this firefighter, a five-year veteran on Engine X named A. He had been to quite a few fires on a very busy engine company, so I don’t know what caused him to do what he did. He was the nozzle man on the line, and there were two others on the line with him. One of the men went back to get a hook, and the second man exhausted his air tank and he ran out to change his tank, leaving A alone for the moment. He was only about twenty-five feet into the building, and for some reason he left the line. There was a backup line laid out, but nobody was aware that this firefighter had left the line. We tried to give him instructions on the walkie-talkie, but we couldn’t get any response back from him. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“The building was approximately 150 by 200 feet with about twenty aisles and racks blocking overhead doors in the back of the building. We finally found him when we saw the light of his flashlight. He had gotten into a dead end aisle. It was really difficult to find him, and naturally it seemed like an eternity. We brought him out, gave him CPR and oxygen, and transported him to the hospital, where they worked on him for over an hour. He never came back. The fire had been pretty well knocked, but the building was loaded with smoke. There was a lot of electrical insulation that had burned. And he ran out of air. There’s about twenty minutes of air in a tank. He ran out. I was very depressed after that fire, from having lost a firefighter and talking to his wife. She was distraught, naturally. Since I was in charge of the fire, I thought it was my job to talk to the woman. So early in the morning, after a couple of news conferences, I went out to her house with a couple of other firefighters from his company, and we consoled her as best we could. She was completely broken up. It was hard for her to grasp the permanence of her loss. I never blamed myself personally for the death, but it makes you want to reexamine and look deeper and see what can be done to prevent a recurrence. In that type of fire, there are some things you can control and some thing that you can’t control. The possibility of a firefighter getting seriously injured or killed is always a clear and present danger. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“We tend to become complacent when we go for a long period of time without casualties, and we like to think it’s because we’ve run the fires well and then men are knowledgeable and well trained. Actually, there’s a certain amount of luck involved, if you look back and think of the many close calls where a few second made the difference. I remember one fire where we had a very good, experienced lieutenant in charge of our company. We were fairly new guys on the job and didn’t realize the seriousness of some of our actions. We were probably 150 feet into a hundred-year-old mercantile building, and the lieutenant said, ‘Back out of here, we have to get out of here.’ There was the lieutenant, myself, and two other guys. As soon as we got out the door, the while first floor went into the basement. You wonder how that man knew that. He knew that the situation was bad, he had that sense. I always remembered that. It made me want to become more proficient, to learn more from experience and studying. It caused me to do a lot of studying. I was pretty depressed for a week or so. The wake and the funeral were fresh in my mind, and I went over and over and over that fire to determine what I could have done differently to prevent it. My wife and family were completely understanding and supportive.” The Sacramento Fire Department prioritizes their citizens, residents, and communities. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
The Sacramento Fire Department is a full-spectrum life safety agency protecting more than 2 million people who live, work and play in one of America’s largest cities. The Sacramento Fire Department recognizes that they face unique challenges in keeping pace with the changing World in which they live and work. They will not forget the traditions of those that came before them. However, they have adapted and progressed so that they can remain successful. “We are a family of individuals committed to serving others. We will always provide for the welfare of our personnel through a health and rewarding work environment. We are dedicated to respect, integrity, compassion, and leadership amongst ourselves so that we may proudly serve others. The Sacramento Fire Department strives to sustain and improve the health, safety, convenience, and welfare of the citizens of Sacramento and to plan for the future development of the community. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus, respect law and others, treat others with dignity and respect, and remind them of the importance of education. To help America survive the global recession and bring manufacturing jobs back to America and to get American wages at pace with inflation, it is important to buy America cars, American meat, American produce and other American made goods and services. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all. Our Father, our King, be gracious unto us and answer us, for we are wanting in good deeds; deal with us in charity and lovingkindness, and please save us. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Located in Laguna Park adjacent to the South Sacramento 22-acre North Laguna Creek Park and a quick walk from the 119-acre designated Wildlife Area and Interpretive Trail, this intimate enclave of 37 homesites with available one- and two-story floorplans is the place to be in Sacramento.
Imagine waking up every day to the comfort of a life-made-easy home plan, private side yards, and inspired living spaces carefully designed to make life at home a pleasure.
Just a few steps from your door, enjoy all the amazing features of North Laguna Creek Park including paved paths, tennis courts, a basketball court, playgrounds, picnic areas, ball fields and a wildlife area.
Walk or ride to an abundance of Sacramento area parks, attractions, shopping, dining, and destinations just minutes from your home.
Or enjoy an impromptu outing to Old Sacramento, downtown, or the historic riverfront district. Ventris Place is located in the Elk Grove school district.
Homes at Ventris Place offer 3-4 bedroom and 2-3 bath plans ranging from 1196 to 1846 square feet and include rear-entry 2-car garages. Choose from a single-story plan or several two-story plans. https://nextgenerationcapital.us/new-homes-elk-grove-ventris-place/
Your Home for Generations
Randolph Harris II International Institute 