Crazy Street

By Barbara Ann O’Keefe

I found that place where heaven and earth meet. I found the place where angels dance and love is all around. This place stinks from a sewer drain running through it. The homes all look run-down, and these people look so poor. The paperwork says that they are all crazy. Mr. Michael Marshall goes out to investigate and find out, finally, what is really going on there. After only a brief time, Mr. Marshall was already referring to the place as Crazy Street. There were many strange things going on there. A dedicated man, he investigates, no matter how bad the conditions. It becomes a vendetta for him to discover the truth behind all the rumors of Crazy Street. It looked like an evil town full of devil worshippers, but after spending time there, Mr. Marshall was forever changed. He walked away from Crazy Street a new man.

What was the secret of Crazy Street? What kind of place is it that chews up an investigator like Michael Marshall? Why, of all places on earth, would angels want to reside there? Enter only if you are willing to experience the transformation that only a trip to Crazy Street can give you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781449788834

Barbara Ann O’Keefe

Barbara O’Keefe lives a quiet, peaceful life in the hills of Tennessee. From the moment she learned to read, her preferred book was always the Bible. After years of dedicated study, she learned about scriptural healing and the supreme power of God’s Word.

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Copyright © 2003, 2013 Barbara Ann O’Keefe.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-8884-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-8885-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-8883-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013904953

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/18/2013

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Mandy Can See!

For Daniel

PREFACE

T HAT old saying, You never really know someone until you walk a mile in his shoes. is very true. Through reading, we can walk that mile and find the understanding that can help us reach beyond the bubble of our own world and see clearly into another. Having stepped outside our comfort zone, reaching out, feeling the feelings of others, we can then take those same eyes and see our own lives more clearly. I have been blessed to know many great people in my life. I have known people, from rich, successful people to poor folks who hardly had a dime; but in all my life, I found that money does not make us any better at all. Money only amplifies who we already are. It is, instead, the amount of love (God) in our hearts that truly blesses us all. We have all made mistakes. But all any of us really want is to be happy. When we finally realize that happiness is a choice, not a destination, we can then relax and just enjoy the ride!

With time, healing comes and then one day we wake-up and realize the lessons we have learned. Remember, every time you suffer, you grow a little stronger. God did not put us here so that we could be lazy! God put us here so that we can grow! The sooner we realize that the only comfortable journey is the one that follows God and every other path gets us in trouble, then we can finally find God’s peace here on earth.

I have learned what it means to pray constantly. I pray that I keep myself crystal clear, through (more) prayer, meditation, music, inner peace and fasting, so that I may receive as beautifully as was sent. It is important to continually focus on God and his purpose in our lives… the love that our Lord wants shared with the world.

Thank you father God. Thank you for your extraordinary love. Please let your love be filled to overflowing and spill into the heart of every reader. God bless you all!

Mandy Can See!

Isaiah 55: 11-13 11) So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 12) For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13) Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Matthew 6: 21-22 21) For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22) The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

Matthew 6: 25-26 25) Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26) Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Matthew 7: 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you

Matthew 13: 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Matthew 5: 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Mandy whispered…There are angels living among us! You can no longer live your life completely oblivious to that fact. Open your eyes and see them! They are there! Everything… it is all a gift from God! We are all wrapped in his love!

What happens when heaven and earth meet? …When spirits expand beyond mere humanity? …When faith is stronger than fear and love has conquered all… God seems to pick the strangest places to show himself. I am reminded of the manger that he chose to lay his only begotten son, Jesus. Used to, I didn’t think all that stuff was real. But I found that place where heaven and earth meet. That place where miracles happen daily. And it was in the place I would have never expected. The most strange and most wonderful experiences of my life happened right here in the U.S.A. in a place I had referred to as

CRAZY STREET

T HERE was a party going on. Very sincere but bad singing filled the air. Ugh! It was dark. There was only one working streetlight on the entire street. Whew– and the smell! There was some kind of sewer problem going on there. I had just arrived and I was already miserable.

I was snooping around in the dark, peeking into windows, trying to see for myself what these people really did. It might seem like a bad thing to do, but I wanted to be sure. If I was going to turn down a claim, I wanted to make sure I had all the facts. That is what I do. I examine disability claims and decide whether to approve them or not. I had always been good about keeping a check on things but this was the first time I was actually able to do some real investigative work. I felt I had a grasp on things and was a natural at my job so doing some real legwork was so exciting!

It was Christmas time. The woman I was trying to watch –a Mandy Moore– seemed a little bit too weird.

There were several people in Mandy’s house that night. They were gathered together in a home that was basically falling apart. The entire street consisted of old houses with some kind of siding on them, probably asbestos. They all had gutters sagging, filled to overflowing with tree branches and leaves. Her home was a dirty white with stains where the shutters once were. The windows in the house stretched from just above the floor to about a foot from the ceiling. They were old, wooden windows that had the aluminum storm windows covering them… although about half of the actual window part was missing from the storm window and some of the screens were missing or torn. There were bushes all around all the houses –overgrown, prickly monsters, but they provided good cover for hiding. Inside was an old brown carpet; plain, dingy, dirty white walls; and what looked like all the original lighting. Original, cheap, and yellowed with age, they gave a golden sort of light, as if they were barely able to penetrate the darkness.

As I said, it was Christmas, yet there were no gifts to be seen. The people inside were all singing, every one of them out of tune and enjoying their own voices like they actually thought they sounded good. Amazing. I wanted to cover my ears and scream; it was so terrible. But I had to laugh at that nutty dancing they were all doing! I laughed so hard I nearly fell. I must admit that most did seem to have some sort of physical impairment. It almost looked like a room full of dancing puppets!

As I peeked into the next window, I could see a young man with Down Syndrome wrapping a JC Penney catalog with a newspaper. He was smiling so big and had such an excited, proud look on his face. He carried it into the next room and a lady with dark hair opened it. He had just given someone a JC Penney catalog for Christmas!

When she opened it, she got all excited and she jumped up and hugged his neck as if she loved it! The woman pulled a small package, wrapped in a plastic grocery sack, out of her coat pocket and, with trembling hands, handed it to the boy. She had bought him a wolf-head statue. It was a tiny thing but it did look just like a wolf.

It was something I had looked forward to –investigating a claim– but I never would have guessed I would end up in a place where breathtaking sewer odor loomed all around, almost like the dreary fog in a swamp. These homes were all actually right next to a main sewage line! It was hard to believe! Obviously, when they built the sewer years earlier, they never thought the town would grow so much, and the angle of the line wasn’t actually steep enough so the poop would settle right there in the lines by their homes. Later, they did add a chemical so they could smell that as well. It was supposed to cover the odor, but not to those who lived there, it was just an added bonus. Suffering at its best.

The location was Stringville, Tennessee, a small town that had grown old in the center. And, as you would guess, the oldest part had the oldest residents of the town living there. This old, worn-out part of town was a daily reminder of the Depression from which they had all risen. It followed a small stretch of Highway 41 and small, old homes dotted both sides of the highway. These small, old, run-down homes branched outward into neighborhoods, with house after house so ugly, so unkempt, each house almost identical to the next.

These Depression-era homes had been built years ago to shelter poor families. They were built cheap intentionally so the people could afford them, and now they were all worn out. There was a small, old grocery store on the corner of the only traffic light in town. On down a ways, was another grocery store that had closed down. There was a post office, a gas station, and a bank, and that is about all that Stringville consisted of. When you passed the older part on the outskirts, however, there were new subdivisions that had been built recently. There, of course, lived mostly new, younger families with small children. You had to drive through town and to the next town, which was only about a fifteen-minute drive, to get a motel room, and that is where I stayed during my investigation.

This story takes place in the older part of town– the dead center, so to speak. It was the part of town that was mostly older folks who were mostly very poor and most had lived difficult, fairly simple lives… or so it seemed. But there was something strange going on there. There had been rumors of devil worship going on. But amazingly, there were several churches scattered throughout the town and the residents all seemed to be God-loving people.

Even so, there was something strange about this place and I had to know what it was. It just wasn’t normal. I had just gotten there and already felt as if I had entered the Twilight Zone.

So there I was, in Stringville, Tennessee, witnessing the strangest, most extraordinary thing I had ever seen in my life. When I first became suspicious of the goings-on there, I referred to that part of town as Crazy Street. And it was. According to our records, everyone on both sides of that street was nuts.

Crazy Street was in a very poor part of town. I still couldn’t get over how the main city sewer line ran through the neighborhood and I was shocked at how they lived every single day of their lives smelling the strong stench of human feces. Plain and simple– the place stunk like nothing I’ve ever encountered. The town’s garbage pick-up left trash trailing from their cans and it lay there in their yards just like another symbol of their poverty. Some work had been done on the sewer system and the mess from their half-finished work was left there, like another haunting reminder of the situation they were all in. When life decided to poop on these people, it went all out.

Still, I was suspicious that every single person on this street had mental problems. The last one on the street had just applied for disability, and really, she said that she sees angels! So I decided to come, check it out, and see what was really going on, on this Crazy Street.

It all started one day when I was in my office talking with my co-worker, Sheila. She and I shared the same position and were good friends for two people who worked together forty hours a week.

She held up a stack of files and said, Everyone on the street is on disability. It looks like something may be going on here. And look at this application… another one on this same street. And look at how weird. She actually said that she could see angels–. How ridiculous.

I felt a sudden interest in this odd coincidence, like none I had ever seen before. I felt I had to check it out, so when they decided to send an investigator out to see what was going on, I volunteered. I always had a bit of investigator in me and now was my chance to shine! I was appalled at the new application and wanted to make sure that she was turned down flat.

They lived on what I called the tree streets Walnut Street, Oak Street, Maple Street, etc.

Mandy Moore, the woman I had volunteered to investigate, had applied for disability, and her answers to the questions were not your average answers. She said that she could see the angels. She said she had a child who had Down Syndrome and that he had an imagination, and it was hard for her to raise him without help any longer. Life is tough. It is tough for everyone. Everyone has their problems.

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Mr. Michael Marshall had taken on this task of investigating Crazy Street. Unknowingly, he was walking into way more than he ever could have possibly imagined.

As he drove into town, the next morning, he saw an old man pulling a wagon that held two small sacks of groceries. The old guy looked to be a hundred years old. He could hardly walk, but he drudged forward, one step at a time. Michael stared at him, at how slowly he walked. The old man was expressionless, just looking forward, awaiting that next step. He was pulling that old, faded red wagon with that little bit of food, trudging forward as patiently as the slowest of turtles, probably going home to nothing and no one. He had all day to get there.

He passed the old guy, shaking his head in wonder, trying not to think about what he would be doing at that ripe old age. Then he could not help but think about it, trying to console himself. I would probably be relaxing in the condominium in front of the TV. Probably married by then… It had to be better than that, his old age had to be better than that.

Once he had gone through town, he would turn to the left, and Crazy Street was back in that old cookie-cutter looking neighborhood. The whole neighborhood was so very run-down.

He pulled his car to the side of the road, pulled-out his paperwork from his briefcase and began reading aloud. O.K., so here we have Crazy Street" with the first one, on the right, Betty Thompson, divorced, her ex-husband has custody of their son. She is 51 years old and lives alone. She is said to be a Borderline.

Next, we have Tom and Jennifer. They are both in their 50’s. Jennifer works but Tom is home, suffering from a personality disorder. He is said to have grandiose illusions. That is strange. He seems normal but he does have a strange look to him.

Then next door to them is the new applicant, a Miss Mandy Moore. She is said to be bi-polar with schizophrenia leanings. A manic-depressive who sees angels… She is thirty-one years old and has a twelve-year-old son with Down Syndrome. She was very young to have a child with Downs; that usually occurs with older folks. Hmmm, they say she is remarkably beautiful but she doesn’t look like she has a connection to the spirit world.

Next door to her, we have a 63-year-old woman, so it says. They say she has beautiful dark hair, big blue eyes, and the face of an angel, with virtually no wrinkles. It says she has a problem with her birth certificate and is probably only in her forties. Hmmm.

On down in the bottom, down the hill over there… what? the wild bunch? Those people down in the hole, the Davidsons, Harley, Elaine, John, Bubba and Rose. All adults, all family and all definitely crazy.

And across the street, an older lady in her eighties— Mildred Sloan, definitely suffering from Alzheimer’s. She’s 85 years old and has aged every bit of it. O.K. then, let’s get started."

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It was a creepy street. The singing, the smell, the trash, the abandoned roadwork all made me feel sick. At this point I hated my job and I hated these people for making me have to come here. But it was at this awful place that I discovered my real inner self. It was here, where I learned the truth about life.

At first, I felt like the Grinch. It was Christmas and I wanted to scream and complain about all of that noise, noise, noise. Why couldn’t they shut-up already? They didn’t even have any real presents and still they acted so happy. All living on taxpayer’s money and acting this happy. They all needed to be working somewhere.

And this new applicant. I hate that her son is mentally retarded but that shouldn’t keep her from working. Look at her. She is so young and pretty… she needed to get out of the house. I planned to watch her for a while, and then turn her down flat. She was the only one in the room who could dance. Her voice was too soft to hear her singing. The other people’s loud screaming was all you could hear. No. She is definitely not in touch with the spirit world. Lies, all lies.

Later, finally, the party ended and everyone drudged home as if they were walking to their own funeral. It almost looked like a scene from