An American Life with “I Am”

By Herbert Frye

This book is about of a very challenging life. A story of growth and triumph out of a troubled start. It shows how GOD guides our lives and prepares us to achieve his plan. It boldly talks about America’s present difficulties, our need for integrity, and to get back to GOD. It reviews rights GOD and our founding fathers gave to us in the creation of America, and demonstrates some ways they benefit us. It tells the true causes of climate change. It prompts us to be aware of growing serious dangers to America. This book also tells great sporting stories about the author’s falconry and bass fishing experiences; including stories of intriguing trips to Communist Cuba and details of major bass tournament wins. The book reveals how Leukemia devastates the author’s life, GOD saves him, and launches this book. Money from the book will be donated to fight this terrible disease. You will find this book interesting, challenging, and informative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665571951

Herbert Frye

Herbert Frye was born in Waterloo, IA late 1940s and lived there until age 40. From the age of 40 to present he has primarily lived in Oklahoma, but also lived some in Texas. He attended k-6th at Waterloo’s Hawthorn Grade School, 7-9th at McKinstry Junior High, and graduated from East Waterloo High. He received a BA in Business Education and an MBA with honors from The University of Northern Iowa. His story is one of triumph; rags to riches. He is or has been: child entrepreneur, Eagle Scout, bakery, meat packing, & factory worker, planetarium lecturer, body builder, falconer, tournament bass fishing champion, (Bid & Negotiations Manager, ERP implementation & Quality Systems leader, Government Compliance Leader, Company Financial Leader & CFO) in multiple companies. Most important he is a husband, father, and Christian.

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© 2022 Herbert Frye. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  12/16/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7199-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7285-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7195-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917898

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version

(Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic

Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

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this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1     Life was Great, Then It Changed

Chapter 2     Life is Scary, Uncertain, and Always a Challenge

Chapter 3     Some Achievement, Lingering Fear of Failure, GOD

Chapter 4     I Never had a Grandfather

Chapter 5     Young Thoughts about Life and GOD

Chapter 6     GOD Says I AM

Chapter 7     High School and My First Met New Love

Chapter 8     The Second Met Love of My Life

Chapter 9     The College Years

Chapter 10   The War in Viet Nam

Chapter 11   How My Wife and I Made Ourselves Better Off Financially

Chapter 12   The Third Met Love of My Life

Chapter 13   A Return to Tournaments After 16 Years Off

Chapter 14   The Truth About the 2nd Amendment Right

Chapter 15   Why Did I Write this Book

Chapter 16   Leukemia Treatment

Chapter 17   Bad news

Chapter 18   Bone Marrow Transplant Number Two

Chapter 19   Outpatient Treatment in Houston

Chapter 20   The Cosmos is Causing Climate Change Not Cow Farts

Chapter 21   Then Came the Virus

Chapter 22   Truth I Learned in My Life

Chapter 23   Be Wary About the World and Those Who Champion Ungodly Behavior

FOREWORD

This book is in part the author’s autobiography. The story is mostly about personal life, the non-work part of his life. Work is an important part of the author’s life, and is also a story of taking on bigger jobs and challenges. It is just an entire story in itself. This book tells a story of challenge and progress that many share, and all can share, if they embrace this story. It is a story of faith, hope, and subtle guidance we too often ignore. The reader will find the author’s story interesting and encouraging. It is the story of a typical American, but yet, a non-typical American, much like your own story. I think you will find this book interesting, unusual, and challenging.

The author asks us to work for healing with our lives. The text is sometimes instructional, and demonstrates how small actions accumulate to something much bigger. Thus, it shows how we can all prosper in America with the correct knowledge and behavior.

It is a call to a rebirth of America to GOD and the wisdom of our founding fathers. A call to honesty and integrity. Honesty and integrity are lacking in America today like never before. Hopefully, the story and the encouragement, and insight provided in the text will expand the readers knowledge beyond the half-truths and out right lies frequently pushed by the media.

GOD inspired this book. GOD wants us to help heal the disease, solve the problems in the world, and walk with HIM much as our founding fathers did. At a minimum, 50% of the money made by the author from this book, will be donated to non-profit organizations to fight leukemia.

We have many challenges in our time, including disease, population growth, serious drug problems, real pollution, and dishonest socialist politicians, dishonest mainstream media, and China bribing its way to control of our elites and our politicians. We are told many lies about what is important and who did what every day. By destroying the foundation of America and abandoning GOD, solving fake problems, and fueling real ones, outspoken extremists are wasting our focus and our resources. They are also moving us all away from GOD.

Our new president even told us, Government spending doesn’t cost us a penny. I say: It just costs a mountain of inflation. The president will not admit that either, but it is a fact whether he admits it or not.

Reckless actions by many are making the real problems in America worse, not better. Many politicians do not really care about the often very small groups they claim to defend, or they would take different actions. They care far more about their own power and wealth, than they care about typical American’s. Those in power in America today spent the last year and a half working to gain power and profit from controlling us, whether we wanted to be controlled or not. At the same time, they relinquished control over real criminals and crime.

This book provides information hidden by those selling radical solutions that do not work, but do give them increased power. They take power from us, and their profit comes at our expense also. The book challenges the reader to think through what is going on in the world today, and see GOD’s good. It challenges the reader to seek real truth, work for good in the world, and hold our media and leaders to honesty and integrity. We must accept nothing less than honesty, integrity, and godly behavior in America. We must act now to keep the rights given to us by GOD and incorporated in the US Constitution, before it is too late.

CHAPTER ONE

Life was Great, Then It Changed

T he beginning was the best of times, but times change. I remember when life seemed wonderful, relaxed and it was just great being alive. My older sister and I often played in the yard. We had very few toys, we had hand me down clothes, but we had fun, and we knew we were loved. Our Mother would often make us cinnamon spins, and or apple crisp. We had fudge, and popcorn many evenings, and would listen to the radio or watch TV, once we got a TV. We would often wrestle around with my father. I just have to say, I felt good about life. I felt secure and not apprehensive about anything. I would certainly say I felt safe, but since I had never felt in danger, I didn’t really know what it felt like to feel unsafe. My sister and I went to Sunday School every Sunday with our parents or our Aunt Laura. We understood that Jesus loved us. We did not comprehend exactly what that meant, we just knew we heard about it all the time. It added to the peaceful feeling that surrounded our lives.

At roughly the age of 7, it all changed suddenly. Then it took me much of my life to figure out just when and where things went wrong. Why my life seemed constantly stressful, and I felt so afraid of every challenge. So afraid in fact, that I literally began running everywhere I went. I ran to school most of the time. Ran back home. Ran to a friend’s house to play, and ran back again. I just thought I was in a hurry to get to the next place, as if I just couldn’t wait to get wherever I was going.

At seven I used to walk to school with one of my best friends, Jack Ford. Jack and I played together some, and we would walk to school and back home together almost every day. I guess we had as much fun as my sister and I used to have in the yard. I recall that Jack received an allowance of a quarter each week. My memory tells me with lessor clarity that he received it on Fridays. However, on his allowance day, we would stop at the neighborhood store (I believe it was named Crammers) and Jack would buy two or three small bags of cheese puffs with part of his allowance, he would give me every third cheese puff he dipped from the first, second, and yes, even his third bag when he bought one. They were absolutely delicious, scrumptious, and whatever else a wee person who delighted in such a treat, might say. Buying the treat at the store all by ourselves, no parents around or supervising in any way was great!

Then one day I knocked on Jack’s door, and no one answered. He was just gone. Maybe he had to go to the doctor and didn’t remember to tell me, maybe it was all of a sudden. I couldn’t remember him telling me he was moving. His family just wasn’t there anymore. I knocked on their door many more days, but no one ever answered. My first best friend was suddenly gone.

My friend and our special treat, cheese puffs, were both suddenly gone. I especially missed my friend, and the time we spent walking, talking, and playing together. The cheese puffs where just a small celebration we had together. I began to realize life was not always as full of joy as I once thought. Important things could be gone in a flash, people, whole families, could just disappear without a trace. I wondered if the world was not as secure as I had come to believe.

How I missed my first friend, and our cheese puffs. I sometimes missed the cheese puffs to the extreme. The cheese puffs seemed to represent my lost friend. The cheese puffs were still there in the store, they hadn’t disappeared, like Jack did, suddenly gone without a trace, no warning, for no known reason. They were right in front of me. Right in front of me, not suddenly gone, yet I could not have them, or could I.

Late one Friday afternoon, I decided I should buy some cheese puffs of my own. That day went quickly from one of the best days, to one of the worst days of my life. I saw the coins my dad always left on his dresser, and decided it was a good time for me to buy my own cheese puffs and celebrate the friend I used to have. I had not taken any of my dad’s change before, never received an allowance, and had little faith that he would give me any money, even if I asked for it. I always saw it as his money. My parents gave us good food, shelter, and clothes, even some toys to play with. My Dad did not keep money just for himself, or waste it, as far as I knew. We did not have much money, and the subject of me being given money just never came up. So, I took a quarter. I was a little worried about my dad missing the quarter, but it seemed to me he had so much change that he shouldn’t miss it, or even care that I used such a small bit of his money, or our money, to buy some cheese puffs. So even if he noticed it, it should be ok, right. I needed an allowance like Jack had for at least one week. Just part of what he had; the part used to buy cheese puffs. I would even have change to bring back.

I took the quarter and went out the back door. Then I ran all the way to the store. Almost instantly, I was standing in front of the cheese puffs, part of what had gone missing from my life. Two bags or three was all I could think of, except for, will my dad be upset. I had seen him get upset with my Mon over money, and it was not good. He was really mad and yelling. But I really wanted the cheese puffs. I pulled two bags from the stand, and ran to the checkout. Two would mean I paid no tax, thus, no pennies in the change. That seemed better somehow. I would return the fifteen cents change to my parent’s dresser, and no one would even notice. I ate the cheese puffs fast, they were so good, but I knew I needed to hurry back home before anyone missed me. I ate them as fast as a rat steeling cheese from a trap. I ate my cheese bait fast so I wouldn’t get caught in the trap of my own making. It was simply not anything like the slow pleasure Jack and I had experienced. No one was there to share the experience with. Man!! The pleasure ended quickly, and it was time to get back home. Now only the guilt of my crime was left. Surely all would be well, but I was scared about my new life of crime.

As I came through the small back porch and two back doors of our house, I was instantly surprised. It was an ambush!!!

The inside back door slammed behind me and I felt pain, it seemed, before the door latch clicked shut. I already had the fifteen cents change in my hand ready to put it back on the dresser. I dropped the change when the second belt swing hit my back and arm like a whip. It smarted so badly, I screamed out with pain. My father was on the other end of the belt. Slinging it like a bullwhip he hit me again and told me to take my clothes off down to my underpants. He shouted that he would kill me, if that is what it took, to keep me from ever stealing again. Whatever it took, he would stop me from stealing.

I begged him, please don’t hit me again, please. I quickly removed my shoes, pants, and my shirt. He hit me again and again insisting he would stop me from ever stealing again. I pleaded over and over, begging him to please stop hitting me, crying as I pleaded. He just said are you going to steal anymore? Are you going to steal again? I said no, never, and begged him to stop. He must have hit me nearly a dozen times with his belt. I had welts all over my back, butt, legs, and some on my arms. He finally stopped beating me, and said, get your clothes back on. He left me in the bedroom covered in welts, crying my eyes out. Man, the world can change so fast. I should have been punished, but what was done to me for taking ten cents seemed way out of bounds. As the pain subsided, I began to get angry. I felt hatred for my father, while a few minutes before, I only felt love for him. I knew he loved me. I was not sure what hatred was, but I knew I was feeling it. I knew it was not right for me to feel so angry, but what he did was wrong, wasn’t it? Is this what getting older was like, GOD help me. How could someone who loved you, hurt you so bad.

My emotions were swinging like my dad’s belt; wildly back and forth between anguish and hate. It was an experience that would slow down my progress and growth for many years and leave me afraid of life itself. Something I could not understand, and thus, could not deal with. Perhaps it was part of how I grew to believe many things, and caused me to grow away from my father. He would later apologize to me for what he did, but our relationship was never the same. I now had a father who I knew loved me, and I loved, but also nervously feared. I became anxious about nearly all my interaction with authority, and began to become more and more of a clown that would bring out laughter and joy to others because I wanted the happiness I had lost, back again. I wanted to defuse the tension I felt in the world. At the time, I don’t think I had a clue what was going on, but my behavior changed all the same. I was just too young to make sense out of what happened. Though my strong inclination to use intuition and logic forced me to try. It became a contradiction I could not resolve. If you are loved you should be loved and led, not beaten into compliance, so why was I whipped and treated so cruelly? Why is life so mean?

I believe much of your youthful behavior is part of your birthright. Your disposition, how you approach problem resolution and temperament. A person’s early responses to the challenges of life comes from that temperament that seems mostly part of your genes. My temperament was aggressive, achiever. An A type personality, but also a perceiver that analyzed before acting. The problem was I could not make sense of what happened. It did not fit within my understanding of the world and what to expect. My immediate reaction to the beating was to get a knife out of the kitchen drawer, and wait in the hall for my chance to hurt or kill my dad. Sniffling, with my emotions reeling from anger to sorrow, I laid, an eight-year-old’s trap, in wait for him to come into my ambush. Waiting for my chance to do to him, what he had done to me. I was operating in the recessive part of my personality, the realm of feeling, and compulsion, where even as a child, I was not comfortable. Feelings were not my strength, observing and thinking things though was what I liked, but things did not make sense at that point in my short life. I suddenly remembered the movie where the man had his Achilles tendon cut and could not move his foot. Perhaps that was the answer. I would cut myself to create what happened to Achilles. Then my parents would know how the beating made me so angry I would cut myself like that. That would show them, wouldn’t it?

I was so young then, and of course, life only gives pieces of our youth to our memory to hang on to. Or perhaps we just never want to remember some of it. I remember vaguely deciding not to kill my dad and to behave better myself. After all, I loved my dad and he loved me.

Some time in my young life, that night or later. At a time, I cannot place exactly. I did get a severed Achilles tendon on my left heal. According to my mom and Dad, it was cut in the window next to my bed, while I was asleep at night. They said I apparently rolled over and kicked out the window, broke it, and cut my heel and tendon on the sharp glass that was still in the window. My Dad told me he woke up, heard me crying in the night and went upstairs to my room to see why. I was hanging from my heel in the window and down into my bed. The cut was nearly two inches long, on each side of my heel. It extended through my Achilles tendon, then along the inside of my tendon partially severing my heel off. Dad said I had lost a lot of blood.

I must have looked much like a rat with one foot in a trap, only with a lot more blood. I have sometimes wondered if I cut my Achilles tendon in a freak accident while sleeping. Or, did I actually cut it with that razor-sharp knife, and pass out in shock? A story no parent would want to tell a doctor. Did GOD give me a premonition that I would get a severed Achilles tendon, or what actually happened in all this, who knows?

However, I clearly remember what happened after my father found me; passed out and bleeding badly. I was 7 or 8 years of age. I was in my father’s arms. My parents wrapped a towel around my ankle. It was soaked in blood. When they opened it to look at my ankle, I could see my left heal was cut wide open. It was bleeding badly, but not spurting blood, a large amount of blood just kept coming out. I was fading in and out. I remember the call they made to the hospital, and how my dad insisted to the person on the other end of the line, that I had lost a lot of blood and they were coming to the hospital. The hospital had better be ready to take care of me. He insisted loudly, that our doctor or some other doctor had better be there to stop the bleeding, and put my cut tendon back together.

Next, I knew, we were flying down the road, turning corners, running through stop signs. Under a railroad viaduct, on through the dark night in our car. I was fading in and out of whatever was happening. Then suddenly our family doctor was standing over me in a white gown and mask. He strangely asked me to blow up a balloon, I think I thought, ok, fun, I guess. It looks like a good-sized balloon. He said as you blow, count backwards from ten. Ten, Nine, Eight, S-e-v-e-n… Good night sweet prince.

Next, I vividly remember waking the following morning, when the nurse came into my hospital room. She told me not to get out of my hospital bed, and she would be back soon. That seemed a great reason to climb out, the instant she left the room. I certainly needed to know more about what was going on? I had to figure out where everything was; where were my mom and Dad? No hospital bed could hold me. I climbed out of bed and the instant the cast on my injured foot hit the floor, I vomited a bunch. I then climbed back over the rail into the child’s bed and told the nurse how I projectile vomited across the room, but I certainly did not get out of bed. She commented, You can vomit an awful long way. Are you sure you didn’t get out of bed? I assured her I was just leaning over the edge. I told her, Some kids can lean further than regular kids.

In time my ankle healed and I got back to a somewhat regular life. However, I do vividly remember three other events connected with my injury: 1. when my cousin kicked out the window in my room, 2. the broken steering wheel, and 3. one of my visits to the doctor. My cousin Rex came over with his family, to visit us. He wanted to go upstairs and see my room. He asked if that was the window where I cut my ankle in the window. Before I replied. With no further ado, Rex went over to a window and kicked it out with one kick. I just stared at him and then asked: Why did you do that?. He said, I wanted to see if my foot would get stuck. It did not get stuck or even cut". Wow, such strange behavior. All I could guess is that he had heard his parents doubting the whole cut tendon story, or something similar, and decided to test it out.

One day I asked my dad if I could get in the front seat of our brand new to us, twice previously owned, car from the back seat. He said yes, so over the seat I climbed. It did not turn out well. I fell from the back of the seat over into the front seat. Because my leg with the cast weighed far more than my other leg, my whole body went sort of sideways. My cast hit the steering wheel and broke the ring to the horn on the new car. It became unpleasant, and I had to get back in the back seat. The hardest thing about it was looking at the taped together horn for the next couple of years.

The third event was near the end of the whole process. It was when the doctor pulled what seemed like fifty staples from my ankle. There were actually about ten, or twelve. It seemed like it took forever, and it hurt a lot. Even then, I did not cry, well not much anyway.

The challenge of living with a wired together severed Achilles tendon and a leg in a cast was at least mostly during summer vacation from school. It wasn’t too tough and other than the few events just mentioned, I got through it easily. The ambush beating, however, affects me some even today.

Another thing that made me nervous as a child was the visits my dad made us take to see his mother, my Grandma Guttneck, at the state mental hospital. She seldom sat down, and always paced back and forth from one foot to the other. She talked very little, and she seemed unhappy and uneasy. It seemed to please her when we came to see her, but it was hard to tell. The mental hospital had other patients that scared me even more than my grandmother. I was very uncomfortable being there at eight or nine years old, but my father insisted we visit her as a family. So, the bad times began.

CHAPTER TWO

Life is Scary, Uncertain, and

Always a Challenge

I did not understand the cause of my confusion for many years, but I became confused just the same. I had a feeling that life was unfair. A belief deep down inside, that reality, could bite viciously at any moment. Life proved that true by playing on my fear, which resulted in poor decisions over and over again by me as a child. If the father that I knew loved me, could say he would kill me, and beat me mercilessly, then nothing was safe.

I have a finger that does not bend. Per my memory, the finger never bent. All my relatives told me the story of my finger. How is got cut when I was a year old. I was playing with a coffee can lid. My sister was playing with an iron frog paper weight. As they told me the story; my sister dropped the iron frog on the coffee can lid, and my finger was underneath. All the adults in my family, including my mom and dad, grandmas, and aunts and uncles, told me the doctor said I could use it if I just tried. No matter how I tried, the end of my finger would never bend or grip in any