Tag Archives: Gordon Wilkins

Bill Northern THE Horse Whisperer

Bill explains energy flow

“I didn’t get my apple.” Bill Northern, rookie dowser, stops in his tracks. He is on his way to the house to have a morning chat with a good friend. Her horse has something for Bill to tell her. Bill looks at the horse who repeats, not TV star Mr Ed style, but direct mind to mind communication style. “I didn’t get my apple today.” Bill nods, heads into the house to report. His friend assures Bill that she has given out the daily apple. And then she pauses, “Wait, no I haven’t.”

And with that Bill Northern becomes an official horse whisper. It’s his first real breakthrough. He goes on to make a career out of talking to horses and reporting their needs and concerns to owners. He and his wife travel to New Zealand first class paid by clients he is in such demand. He works in Hawaii and Florida.

Bill only starts out to be a sometimes dowser and takes a class out of curiosity. He isn’t very good at it and decides that maybe dowsing isn’t his thing. He practices at home but with little success until the day the horse speaks to him. Crystal clear, it is animals, horses in particular, that he is supposed to work with.

I read about Bill in a full page feature write up in The Daily Break of the Virginian Pilot. It is fascinating. I am delighted to see that he lives in Warsaw on the Northern Neck of Virginia which is the neck of the woods where my family hails from. I don’t know him but we are already bonded.

This is in the early nineties. A decade plus later I am seeking counsel with a long time lawyer friend, Gordon Wilkins, for help with my mom’s paperwork. He and his wife (dorm mate from college) live in Warsaw. The three of us are having lunch at a local popular always crowded eat and run place when in walks this person casually dressed wearing a dapper gentleman farmer hat. I notice him because he’s noticeable in a quiet but dynamic way. Gordon looks up just then and says, “Hey, there’s Bill Northern!”

Bill teaching dowsing

I cannot believe this. “You know Bill Northern? I’ve always wanted to meet him!” Gordon hails Bill over to the table and invites him to lunch with us. Bill is happy to do so. He gets his lunch. We all chat. I explain how much I am intrigued by his work. He says that he is getting ready to drive to Florida for some sessions and would I like to go. It’s an honest invitation, not at all a come on. I truly consider it for a moment but home responsibilities, although to their credit Donny & Lewis will support any decision I make, tug me to say not this time but ask me again.

Bill and I connect later when I discover through his webpage that he teaches dowsing classes. Donny & I want to take one. I check in with Bill. He explains that the way it works is if he feels like folks are ready for the experience he will add their name to his list. When the timing is right he will arrange a class of four and alert you. If your calendar is clear you will spend a day learning all about dowsing in the comfort of Bill’s home and he even includes lunch and gives you basic dowsing take home tools. Donny & I are accepted together into a class. Even though I’ve taken several cranial sacral workshops and so know a bit about energy fields, Donny does the best. He’s a natural.

Cathie Morrison & Bill. Cathie has tremendous light energy.
Bill explains a point to Lynda Wood

Months later I take a group of girl friends for a class. Bill is elated over my energy field exclaiming that it is so big. Mom brings her dog Molly for a reading. Bill has helped mom with a dog she fostered telling her that the dog needs to be in a one dog family that will fawn over her. Mom is a little skeptical but finds the right home for Ginger and of course Bill is right.

Bill only accepts people with the right energy flow. Once I suggested a friend that actually lives near Bill and he said that she wasn’t ready. Currently two friends have been accepted for Bill’s next class. I cannot wait to hear about it. They are definitely ready and in for an awesome day with the infamous Bill Northern.

POSTSCRIPT: When I ask Bill about Mom bringing Molly to our class for him to assess her, he cordially agrees. As we continue our conversation about whispering with animals in general, I ask Bill if he ever works with cats explaining that we have many adoptees. He shakes his head and says, “Cats lie. They are impossible to work with. If they are very sick, they will tell the truth but that’s about it.”

Bill Northern, horse whipsperer

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How I FLUNKED Student Teaching

“You got an F,” my advisor, Mrs Hyland, tells me as I sit in her office one fine, until that point, spring day. Oh shit. I stare at her speechless. I don’t even want to be in Art Education and here I am flunking my main class. I want to be a Fashion Design major. But when I can’t find the department head in her domain at the apex of a set of tight winding stairs on the top floor of the library, I set out for the Art Education Department.

carriage house

Richmond Professional Insitute Art Education Department

Mrs Hyland is easier to locate. She holds court above a carriage house in the alley behind the library. “You don’t want to go into Fashion Design,” she tells me. “All they do is cheat and copy each other’s designs.” Mrs H advises me that Art Education (which is what mom wants me to pursue anyway, always a job she reasons) covers a broader range of art. She tells me to take a few fashion illustration courses as electives instead. Her reasons sell me.

My last semester senior year student teaching assignment is at Westhampton Junior High School. An easy car trip from school. But I don’t have a car. Luckily friend Gordon, who is dating dorm mate Frances and has his own apartment near our school, drives to his classes at the University of Richmond TC Williams School of Law daily. He offers to take me and then I catch the no transfer needed city bus back to school. Some of the student teaching assignments will have taken me far afield causing me to spend a great portion of my day getting there and back. I feel really lucky.

westhampton

Front door of Westhampton Junior High School

I am at home at Westhampton. I started my school career in these very halls. I love the two buildings with huge class rooms and high ceilings. They are joined by a broad window lined hallway. The art room is in the English basement of the smaller building. My meeting with Mr Phil, as I will call my nemesis, is stiff. He advises me to sit beside his desk and observe. He encourages no conversation. This goes on for a week or two. I am to note his style of teaching and means of handling the classes. It is very formal for every grade, kindergarten through eighth. No talking. Everyone draws or paints the same thing. At the end of class all tools such as scissors and pencils must be put away in a very precise manner. During clean up when there is painting, all brushes must be very thoroughly washed and lined up by side by side.

I finally get so bored watching the same routine that I start sketching in my note pad to pass the time. The students are intrigued and look over my shoulder every chance they get. Exchanging smiles is the closest to talking we dare try. Finally the day comes when Mr Phil says that I am to take over and he leaves the room. He never comes back. Later I hear that he sat in the boiler room down the hall taking notes.

The front lawn of Westhampton Junior Primary School

The front lawn of Westhampton Junior High School

I am elated. And terrified. I know nothing about teaching art. But I do know a lot about kids. And art. I gather my wits quickly and we begin. Slowly at first. Simple free hand drawings. Then fill the paper paintings. Who cares if some gets on the desks, they clean up well. The weeks add up. We create papier-mâché masks using balloons for a base. It’s a glorious mess. The finished masks are stunning. I take everyone outside on sunny days for class on the massive front lawn with its huge shade trees. The upper grades make detailed dioramas. The little people write and illustrate simple stories.

We are in love. My students and I. One of my older students talks about me so much that her parents invite me over for dinner. They tell me how she goes on and on about how wonderful I am. The end of my tenure arrives. When the teen boys ask what they can get me as a gift I say a beer. I am teasing. I really don’t want them to get me anything. They meet me at the bus stop on that last day brown bag in hand. I am contributing to juvenile delinquency. We hug goodbye.

Mrs Hyland sighs as I unsuccessfully try to avoid her stern look. “It was a bad pairing. I thought you would be good for him.” I start to rise from my chair of doom, another semester of student teaching hard on my brain. What will my parents say?

And then these words float across the abyss, “I changed your grade to a C. I know you are better than that.”

 

 

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Miss Jett Take Those Greeks Down

greek godsIn a previous post I told you the beginning of the story about landing on the front page of the Richmond newspaper.

Here’s Page 2 (love me some Paul Harvey.) Let’s begin with the follow up letter home.

Hi Family,

Well, everything was wonderful but am I glad it’s over. I am exhausted. We worked for 3 nights straight on our decorations and then put them up Thursday night in the freezing cold and finished putting up the rest Friday morning in even more cold – at 7 o’clock no less. But they looked so good. And I was so proud of all my girls. Everyone but 2 or 3 worked like Trojans on the things and really put forth an effort. Also every woman’s dorm (the men were too lazy) put up decorations – every last one!

Sharon & I went with the judges Friday afternoon & then had to sit there on pins and needles while they tore them all to pieces & not allowed to say a word. But finally after about 1/2 hour they picked us as best & Founders Hall as honorable mention!!

founders hall

Founder’s Hall

Pause in the narrative here to add that I left out of the letters home the fact that I figured a club sponsorship of the project would better impress dorm leaders as well as Dean Gladding and sold the idea to our Cotillion Club President Sharon Gates. And the club decided to award trophies to the winners. Sharon lived in Founders but honestly our two dorms did have the best decorations.

nash and me 909

909 leaders. Sandy Nash, my roommate, is center. I’m top right. I found this when looking for a photo of 909. I could only see Nash’s head in one of the clips I found about the house. That doesn’t look like Elisabeth Bocock I thought, it looks like Nash. The things you find on the internet.

Meanwhile the Senior Cits had been raising cain about the disgrace on their building. One old man even tried to take it down! Well Nash & I just traipsed right out there and tied it back down because the man was coming from the New Leader to take a pix which he did & it will be in the paper this afternoon. 

After that Sharon & I went to the Dean’s office to write our story for the paper. While we were there Deans Gladding & Johnson came in and asked me to go with them. It seems the Senior Cits had complained to Dr Oliver! So they came by the dorm to look, saw nothing wrong & left to see Dr Oliver. A little later Dean G came back & told me he said they had to come down. She said, “This is one time I don’t see eye to eye with Dr Oliver but I have no choice.” We were so mad! I was even madder because I knew we had won (no one else here knew). So then we decided we’d sorta leave it up til Saturday morning so we could at least get a pix of it.

Then Frances, Gordon & I went to the Press Club. When we got back Mrs Carter informed me that Dean G had called me & said we could not ignore the President’s request, so I marched upstair & cut the ropes. Then we took all the bedspreads (their togas) off of them and dropped them over the side of the porch.

Saturday morning:

I was rushing to get downtown to meet Buddy (8:30) when Thelma (maid) said that Mrs Bocock wanted to know what happened to the decorations. I was in a hurry so I told her to tell her that Dr Oliver had requested they be taken down & then I left.

mrs bocock houseMy dorm was such a unique place. Built in the early 1900’s  for Elisabeth & Frederic Scott it was patterned after Marble House (its style often compared to the White House) in Newport, Rhode Island which was modeled after the Petit Trianon in Versailles. Mrs. Bocock lived in the back upstairs and downstairs of the house but rented (not for money for community support) the front bedrooms to RPI for dorm rooms. I was one of the first thirteen girls to live there. The front downstairs parlour, sitting room and dining room were used during week days for a Senior Citizens outreach program. While they were there we were not allowed downstairs. We had to use the side entrance to come and go. But in the evening and on weekends all but the dining room were ours. This included the elegant stairs that split halfway up with a section continuing up on either side. I lived in the second floor balcony room, the one over the front door. It was a designed as a family sitting room. We had hand painted French wallpaper. Big red, white and blue plumes. The rooms on the third floor are hard to see in this photo. The one over the columns with the huge overlook was the family ballroom.

Well, when I got back (Buddy missed his bus & didn’t get in til 10:30 but I didn’t wait) Mrs Bocock asked me to please put the men back up!! If she only knew how hard they were to get up. It seems she had spent all morning talking to Dr O (and she was right in the process of cleaning house & had 1000 things to do) and he said to put them back up. (She loved them and wanted to get pix of them). So I woke everyone up & after a few groans they agreed to help. So once again we hoisted our men into place. Even after being dropped & mangled they were in good shape (in fact the pix I sent you was taken after they had been put back up again. Make sure Jett sees the pix).

We really caused a stir at dear ole RPI.

Also the picture was the only one on the front page of the Times-Dispatch Sunday! Front page! (The paper always had several editions. My copies probably did have just the one photo).

We were so glad because all those smarty senior cits will be bound to have seen it.

The dance was good. The boys looked so good in their tux. Frances had white gardenias & I had 8 yellow rose buds. 

We went to the Press Club before. A very plush place. Gordon is a member. All wall to wall carpeting, sofas, swivel chairs, soft music, etc. And they mix wonderful drinks. I love to go there.

I also had to give a speech at the dance about this decoration dealy. Fun. Frances accepted the trophy for our dorm & we woke up everyone when we came in to show it to them.

I’ll be glad when all gets back to normal even tho it was fun.

 

mrs bocock 2

My note from Mrs Bocock. I attached it to a book on her written by her granddaughter.

mrs bocock

Love the title of Mrs Bocock’s autobiography, Never Ask Permission. Perfect!

A few days later Mrs Bocock gave each of us living at 909 a copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. She included a card that had a personalized note about how much she appreciated and enjoyed what we had done. She never really interacted with us, probably because she was far too busy but also she was probably keeping boundaries. I mean we could actually open a door on our hall next to the stairs that lead to her apartment. It was rarely locked. But we respected her too much to compromise her trust. She was a classy lady, our Mrs Bocock. And a champion for Richmond history.

We both made our mark on the Richmond landscape.

 

 

 

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