simple formula for living

Someone special

The someone special is me! I have had a life full of so many great adventures and been showered with blessings, more than I even know about. I have also had loads of difficulties with the loss of family members, financial stress, physical and emotional abuse, plus many physical accidents. Everything together is what makes me a special person.

God knew my heart and he knew I was going to need a lot of protection through my lifetime. At an early age, I gave my heart to God and accepted Jesus as my savior. It was at this time two special saints from the church took me under their wings and committed to pray for me and asked God to place angles around me for the rest of my life. That's why I am a special person, through all my 77 years those angles are still watching out for me.

I think of the time in the paratroopers I was blown into the front windshield of a parked jeep, or when I was accused of murder and thrown into a german jail, or split my head open on a stovepipe, too many accidents to mention. I have also been counting the many blessings like receiving an unexpected check when my account was empty or receiving a free remodel in our basement so we could receive some extra rent money to avoid foreclosure or going down a highway at 80mph. and barely missing a semi who turned in front of me. It's not just the major events but the small things that most times I don't even think about. When I am walking and the sun breaks through the clouds to warm me up it's another blessing.
God is faithful and he honors the prayers of his prayer warriors. I remember so many people who have been put in my life to guide me in the right direction and help with difficult situations. Many of them have passed away or moved away and I am so thankful that they were a part of my journey and God's plan.
I am someone special because I am a child of God and he loves me.
Earl Baldwin

A summer drive in Europe

I had been working in a German-run warehouse in Mainz and was feeling very depressed about my marriage. It was payday and something inside me said I should just take the day off and go for a drive to relieve some stress.

 I hopped in my Volkswagen beetle and took off, I had nowhere in particular in my mind to go, just driving.to get away for a while. I would drive through any small towns I came to and stop at some of the cafes for coffee or a danish roll. Late in the afternoon, I realized I had no idea where I was and didn't have a map to find my way back to the apartment. My thought was then to just keep driving and see if I could find a youth hostel where I could spend the night. I came upon a group of youth making camp along the side of the road and stopped to ask if they knew where the youth hostel was they said no, but I could camp with them for the night, so I did. They were 6 college students traveling Europe on foot. We talked for several hours and became comfortable with each other. They did show me they carried a gun for protection so I wouldn't get any ideas. Early in the morning I got up and left.

I thought about trying to find my way back to Mainz and my wife and job  I left behind but I was still angry and so stressed out that I decided to just keep going and try to make my way back to America. Driving down the road  I didn't realize how close to France I was until I saw the border patrol up ahead. I could not speak any french and very little german but I showed them my passport and said I was just site seeing. They stamped it and passed me on through. I drove for a while and stopped at a seaport hoping to get a ride to the US on a ship as a crew member, but I needed sea papers which I didn't have. I tried to sell my VW so I could buy a ticket but I needed other additional papers. It seemed all my efforts to get back home to the US was being blocked. As I drove around aimlessly I was thinking this was my third day traveling and I hadn't told anyone where I was going, I am sure they are searching for me and I really don't want to be found.

Just then I came to another border crossing going into Switzerland I showed my passport and then passed on through. I thought I should get off the main highway and travel on some of the backroads through some small towns. As I was driving down this paved road it turned into a dirt road so I kept going to see where it went and then it was like a trail with grass in the middle and then an open field with cows around. Somehow I was in a grazing pasture and it was starting to rain. As I was turning around on a steep hillside I could feel my VW slipping sideways and I straightened the steering wheel to gradually make it back up to the trail and drive out.

 I crossed back into France and took a different route driving around all day and into the evening by this time it was getting very dark and I was running low on money so I decided to find a place to park and sleep in my car. I found an open area with bushes so I would be partially hidden from the road and fell asleep. I woke up with someone pounding on the window, it was two French policemen motioning me to get out. My first thought was that they had found me and I was going to jail, but they were just investigating to see if I was alive or in bad health.needing assistance. I said I was ok I just got tired and pulled off to sleep so they left and I drove on down the road.

Somehow I came to the Belgium border and crossed into the country with no problems. At a cafe, I met a girl from Dover England she was going home for the summer and said her father owned a business and that I could work for him until I made enough money for a trip home. I bought a ticket and boarded the fairy to sail across the channel to Dover. When we docked they checked my passport and asked how much money I had and how long I would be staying. I said I was staying with my girlfriend's parents but they wouldn't let me in because they said I was a vagrant. I was put back on the fairy and returned to Belgium.  At least I got to see the white cliffs of Dover.

 I was down to my last few dollars which I used for gas and drove back into France with no destination in mind but heading toward Spain. I always wanted to see the bullfights. Driving down a country highway I ran out of gas and no money left in my pockets. I just sat there for a while wondering what I was going to do. I got out and pushed the car off to the side checked to see if all the papers for the car were there I left the keys in the ignition closed the door and walked away hoping that someone who needed a car would find it.

Earl Baldwin

























i

After the summer drive in Europe

As I walked along the highway somewhere in France  I turned to have one last look at my Volkswagon that I walked away from. I could barely see it now so I waved goodbye and turned around and kept walking. Thinking to my self here I am in Europe, no money, no food, no vehicle, with only the clothes on my back and a thin blanket. My survival mode started to kick in and I thought I would be ok eating fruits and vegetables from people's gardens, and If I came across an unlocked vehicle I could take anything of use to me.  I was also thinking about hiding from any police vehicles I saw. Survival was not my biggest concern, finding a way to get back home to the U.S.A was.

I walked all day and into the night and didn't see any cars or trucks. I was getting so tired so I walked over to the ditch beside the roadway it was covered with grass so I laid down and went to sleep. I had covered up with a small blanket that a group of kids had given to me earlier, I must have covered my head and did not feel the lite rain that fell but when I woke up my whole side was damp and I was laying in some water. The weather was warm and with the sun up I dried off pretty fast. and on down the road, I went. I must have been pretty close to the ocean because a mile or so I came around a bend and saw some thick bushes and heard voices behind them. There was an opening between them and I walked up and started to go through then I saw people with no clothes on. I looked a little closer and saw the ocean an a nudist camp on the beach. I was so shocked that I turned around and kept walking, I was thinking if they saw me I could get hurt for spying on them.

The road followed the beach line and as I walked I noticed a lot of the girls were topless, it made me think this must be the French Rivera beach and I kept walking. I could see a lot farther down the beach a tower was standing. When I got closer to it my curiosity got the best of me so I walked over to investigate. It was starting to get dark and no one was around so I walked up closer and saw there was an opening in the back. The tower was round and made of concrete and blocks about 20' high. I walked inside and saw old pieces of steel and wood junk laying around and a metal ladder going up to the top. I climbed up and through the top portion and looked out into the ocean and beach. There was a waist-high wall around to keep me from falling off. I thought this was a perfect place to spend the night and I laid down and fell asleep. I heard voices in the morning below in the tower it sounded like there were two men checking things out. I laid there very quiet until I heard them leave and as I peeked over the wall I saw they were guards walking the beach. I climbed down and ran up to the road and walked away.

Down the road aways I stopped at a coffee shop on the roadside, I had found a few coins along the way and asked if I could have a coffee. It was the blackest and thickest coffee I have ever had, but it was what I needed and I took my time sipping it.  On another day going into the late afternoon I was close to a farmer's field with potatoes growing so I was pulling up a plant to get some potatoes when I heard a shotgun go off and a man shouting. I crouched down and started crawling on my knees and elbows as fast as I could out of his field and then ran till I was out of his sight. Whenever I saw a garden or a fruit tree I would help my self and not think about whether they cared or not. It was the only food I was able to get at the time. One day I came to a plum tree and they were ripe so I filled my stomach and carried as many as I could walking away down the road. About an hour later I had a really bad stomach ache and had to go to the bathroom bad. There were no houses or trees around just open fields and the road so I squatted and let it all come out. Plums on an empty stomach are not good. I found that in a lot of the smaller towns wagon trucks with canvas covers would carry beverages and produce down the roads and they traveled very slow so it was easy to keep pace with them as they went. A couple of times I was so thursty I picked a bottle from their wagon without them seeing it.

Hitchhiking was fairly easy during that time and I was able to catch a lot of rides to so many places that I can't remember and language was not a barrier we would just smile and use sign language and point to road signs. One man picked me up and spoke enough English to say he was going to Spain and I said that's where I wanted to go to. He drove a Citron car which is similar to a sports Cadillac and he had to drive through some rocky cliffs with deep drop-offs and lots of curves. That was the fastest and scariest ride I have ever had. He stopped short of the Spanish border and had me get out he said I had to walk across he didn't want to get stopped because of a stranger that he just picked up on the road. I passed through and caught another ride that took me to Barcelona. Looking for places to find some work I saw a coca-cola plant so I stopped and asked inside if I could get a job and was turned down because I needed work permit papers. They gave me two bottles of coke and wished me luck.

I walked most of the way out of Spain and caught rides into Italy, then through Germany and back into France. So many places I wish I would have journaled them. In one small town outside of Paris, I found a car unlocked and  I was going through the glove compartment when people came out of a building and was walking towards the car so I crouched down hoping they would walk by. As they opened the door I jumped out the other side and ran as fast as I could with a backpack full of stuff. I made it to Paris and didn't want to be seen with the backpack so I hid it behind some bushes and went site seeing. When I got back the backpack was gone someone else had stolen it from me.

I was in my fifth or sixth week of traveling aimlessly around Europe and trying to find work and getting nowhere. I was tired, hungry, dirty and I hadn't had a bath or shaved since I left. Walking along thinking I might be better off to go back to Wiesbaden and my wife and ask if we could start over again. So I decided to make my way back to Gustavsburg where her mom lived. I kept walking and when cars would stop I would say Frankfort Dauschland and most people knew which way that was so I gradually made my way back to her small town. 

  I stopped and had a moment of fear go through me before I went up to her mom's house. I rang the doorbell and Heidi my wife answered. She had a surprised look on her face as she said my name Buzz where have you been? I told her my story and asked her if she would go with me to America and start over. She asked me to come in and get cleaned up and talk about it. The bathwater was so dirty that I had to empty it and take another one to get clean. We came to an agreement and made plans to move to America. 

Earl Baldwin

Every morning walk

Every morning I wake up and have my devotions and coffee then go on my morning walk. I have been doing the same routine for three years and haven't missed more than fifteen days. Part of my route goes through our residential area and about a half-mile goes along a trail beside an irrigation ditch.
When I first started this routine I never smiled or talked to a sole for a couple of months. I was pretty much wrapped up in my own troubles and wasn't thinking of anyone else. I would pass at least five to ten people each morning and they acted the same as I was, not caring about anything but themselves at least that's what it seemed like to me.

I was reading a book at that time called "Attitude Is Everything" and it was talking about how important a smile and a simple greeting is and how it can affect a person. At the same time, I was noticing posts on social media to smile and make someone happy today. So I started smiling and saying good morning to those I passed. At first, I would get a quick smile and then after a couple of times, they would say good morning back to me with a smile. I had never realized how good that would make me feel until I started doing it and I am sure it helped brighten their day too.

Several mornings I would walk by this one house and see this old man sitting alone and soaking up the sun and sometimes he would be asleep. One of the mornings he was bent over and almost falling out of his seat so I walked up to him and said good morning I thought you were about to fall out of your chair. He looked up at me and said I must have dozed off for a while. Normally I would have walked right on by but I had a feeling that I should go and say hi to him. He told me he likes watching people walk by but nobody says hi or stops to talk anymore. I learned he was 95 years old and walks around the park every day when it is warm outside. We struck up a friendship and every day when I see him outside I stop and visit for a few minutes.

I used to use my walking time in the mornings for a quiet time and start my day talking to God about my problems and stressors which I still do but it's not just about me anymore. I am learning that when I think of others and I can give a little kindness, caring and some form of love I get a feeling of accomplishment and my troubles aren't as pressing as they were before. Just a little change in my attitude and a smile has been a good thing for me.
Earl Baldwin