Freque Factory - The Start of a Spiritual Journey

Freque Factory

The Start of a Spiritual Journey

   I was back in Southern California from Alabama.  Mom let me stay with her.  Mom had a good job and was stable, so that was ok.  She had a solid circle of friends as well.  I thought they drank too much, but they cared about her.  And she was happy.  My dad was living with her floozy and her criminal son.   I didn't talk to him much.

   I started looking for a job.  It was a slow process, especially since I didn't have a car.  But then, a small miracle, my phone rang and the toy company I had worked for before was asking if I wanted to return.  I assumed it would be factory line work again, and they'd lay me off again, once the orders were out, but it was a job.  To my surprise, they sent me with two other girls to the metal shop/shed.  I didn't even know that place existed.  My job for the next few months was to clean the metal bows that the guys were creating.  I couldn't talk about it at the time, but the guys were making parts for two sizes of real crossbows.  Those crossbows were to be distributed to the Hmong warriors by the CIA.  Secret allies getting secret weapons.

   It was a cool job.  I spent the day checking and cleaning metal bows.  The crew was nice people.  I wasn't working the assembly line.  We didn't have air conditioning, but we didn't need it.  One day we got to watch company higher ups demonstrating how the completed  cross bows worked.  Those things were wicked! 

   Mostly I got rides from my co-workers.  It was kind of surreal though.  Suddenly there was an oil crisis and there was gas rationing for cars.  Having to remember what day you could get gas and making sure you didn't run out of gas on the off day was strange.

   Monique had come home while I was back East.  The two of them had filed for divorce back there and it was done.  Monique was doing a lot of partying.  Freddie was spending a lot of time and money on her.  And drugs.  I didn't hear from her a lot.  We were both busy getting our lives back together in our own way.  

   Much later on Monique told me the story of the end of her wild days.  Her parents were worried about her.  She was spending more and more time out at Freddy's place.  One day she woke up at his place and realized that she didn't remember when she had last been home.  Freddy wasn't there and as Monique sobered up she wanted to go home.  She didn't even know where she was.  Eventually she found a working phone and called home.  Her parents were able to figure out her general neighborhood and eventually her dad found the house.  Freddie had locked Monique in, but she was small enough to get through a window and escaped.  Monique never spent time with Freddie again.

   I stuck to my plan to increase my Christianity.  I started out with what I knew.  I went back to the Catholic church I was raised with.  It was good, but somehow not enough.  One day I found out that the church was now hosting a Christian coffee house in the high school basement on Saturday nights.  I don't drink coffee, but they advertised live Christian music and Bible study.  So I went.  It became my Saturday night home for many months.

   The people running the coffee house weren't really Catholics.  One of the guys on the team had grown up in the church and his family was still active, so that's how they got to rent the site.  The music was a revelation to me-contemporary Christian music!  They played the current artists when the band wasn't playing live.  Rock and roll that was Christian.  I found out where the local Christian book store was and started spending money.  The sales people there were really nice.  Bought my first Bible too, since the people at the coffee house used them during the Bible studies.  Another new thing for me.

   I got to know the people at the Coffee house.  The leadership were cool people, but not wanting to be close to us new Christians/Catholics.  I got along better with the band members.  The bass player, besides being cute was a nice guy and fun to talk to.  I made a new good female friend, B.  She was about a year younger, but we started hanging out when we weren't at work.

   Eventually the Catholic church figured out that the coffee shop wasn't really Catholic and the lease was cancelled.  Made me sad.  B and I hung out, but she had started dating someone, so wasn't around as much.  Her parents were not happy about it.  But then they were pretty strict with her.  I thought it was C, one of the guys that had been hanging out with us.  Eventually she admitted that she was seriously dating the bass player.  She knew I liked him, but they were in love.  They actually got married within a few months.  We drifted apart.

   As I had expected, my job ended too.  I guess I couldn't help make crossbows forever.  I was planning on job hunting again, but a phone call from my dad changed that.  He was expanding his printing business and needed someone to take over the offset photography side.  So he offered me the job.  The pay was good and close to home, so I said yes.  I think my dad wanted a chance to reconnect with me.  It worked, but we also argued a lot.

   The coffee house was gone and just attending mass on Sundays just wasn't enough anymore.  Then one day when I was at the local Christian book store I found out about a Christian House called Kings Mansion.  The sales girls had been there and recommended it.