CALLS FROM BEYOND

On the autumn day of September 12, 2008, at 4:22 p.m. in California's San Fernando Valley, a commuter train carrying 225 passengers collided with an oncoming freight train at the combine speeds of 83 mph. 

It was known as the Chatsworth crash and was the deadliest incident in Metrolink's history. 135 people were injured and of those 87 were taken to hospitals, 46 were in critical condition, and another 25 passengers died. It was a vivid and shocking scene to those who rendered emergency services.

One of the deceased was Charles E. Peck, a 49 year old customer service agent for Delta Airline's Salt Lake City International Airport. Peck had come to Los Angeles for a job interview and was hoping to transfer there to be nearer to his fiancee, Andrea Katz of Westlake Village. 

While on the way to the station to get Charles, Andrea heard about the accident on her car radio! Riding with her in the car on that day were his grown sons from a previous marriage, his father and his step mother. Everyone was devastated by the tragic news and mourned the loss of their beloved Charles. Later that day, they were notified that his body had not yet been found and the rest of the wreckage was mangled beyond description. 

Charles Pecks body was recovered among the debris almost 12 hours after the collision, yet for the first seven hours his cellphone placed 35 calls to his loved ones. The calls came in, one call after another and were placed to his brother, his step mother, his son and his fiancee repeatedly throughout the night. When the family members answered the calls, there was nothing but static on the other end of the line. When they called the number back, it went straight to his voice mail! The calls gave them hope that the man they loved was somehow still alive. 

The phone calls prompted a crew to trace the whereabouts of the signal and to search again thoroughly through the wreckage. About an hour after the phone calls stopped, the rescue team found the general location where the calls were coming from and located Charles Peck's body. All evidence indicated that he was killed instantly.

The autopsy was conclusive that Charles had died on impact, yet hours after his death his cell phone continued to reach out to those he loved the most. Although his cellphone signals were responsible in leading the rescue team to Peck's remains, the cellphone itself was never found among the debris. 

The mysterious calls were puzzling to the authorities. The 35 calls were indeed placed from Peck's cellphone. They were received intermittently by four family members on that September night, but who made the calls? The static on the other end of the line is indicative of a damaged cellphone, but who dialed the numbers? Is it possible that Charles Peck could have been reaching out to his loved ones from beyond - as a final goodbye?  Perhaps we will never know the answers to these questions and this story will continue to remain a mystery, at least in this lifetime! Written by Linda Sumner Urza, One fine day 

THE GRIPPING HAND OF FATE

TRUE IRISH GHOST STORY: This happened a while ago in Dublin, Ireland and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock story, it's a true experience. John Bradford, a young Dublin University student, was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a very dark night and in the midst of a storm. Not many cars were traveling on the highway that night. The storm was so strong he couldn't see more than a foot ahead of him. Suddenly, he saw a car slowly coming towards him and stop. John was desperate for shelter and without thinking, he got into the car and closed the door behind him. Immediately he realized there was nobody behind the wheel and the engine was off! 

The car started moving slowly. John looked at the road ahead and saw a curve approaching. Scared, he started to pray, begging for his life. Then, just before the car rounded the curve, a hand appeared through the window and turned the wheel. John, paralyzed with terror, watched as this hand repeatedly came through the window on the drivers side and gripped the wheel, but never made an attempt to harm the young man. 

John saw the lights of a pub appear down the road. Gathering his strength, he jumped out of the car and ran to the pub. Wet and out of breath, he rushed inside and started telling everybody about the horrifying experience he had just had. He told them about the car driving down the road without a driver and the erie hand that came through the window and tried to take control of the wheel... The silence enveloped the room when everyone realized the young lad was trembling with fear. 

Suddenly, the door opened and two other people rushed in from the stormy night. They, like John, were also soaking wet and seemed to be out of breath. Looking around the room, they saw John Bradford's frightened face and one said to the other, "Look Owen, there's that moron that got in the car while we were pushin' it! Does anyone have a spare can of gasoline... we ran out a mile up the road!" By Linda Sumner Urza, One fine day

IT JUST GHOSTS TO SHOW YOU...

The fall October weather seemed unusually cold and it was freezing when I walked home from the library. The leaves of red, gold, and brown swept over the hillside. I remember a crest of frost lay on the ground and the cold wind blew tiny shards of ice crystals across my face. The warm breath from my lungs instantly turned into a ghostlike trail when it hit the air and I was amused with the magical transformation. 

It was only 6:30 p.m. and already dusk was pushing into darkness. There was a creepy silence in the air and my imagination was running wild. I didn’t like walking home alone in the evenings and I was easily spooked! (That’s what happens to the mind of a little sister when terrorized by her older brother.) I was the typical teenager in believing that I could take care of myself, but in reality, I was afraid of my own shadow. 

A flickering street light caught my attention and I noticed several bats flying near the light post. Great, I thought, now I had vampires to worry about! Then an old pickup truck came from around the corner and clanged all the way down the street. My heart was pounding through my chest as the truck passed by and revved on down the road. 

The yards were filled with Halloween decorations. There was a silhouette of a dummy hanging from the end of a rope in someone's tree and it terrified me! What kind of neighbors are these, I wondered, I'll never get that image out of my head!  A dog started howling in the distance and caused my nerves to spark! I immediately imagined that there was a vicious creature afoot and it had alarmed the canine (not realizing that it was probably barking at me)! 

Suddenly, something came sailing through the air and landed ten feet away from my path. I was so frightened that I felt my socks roll up and down, until I saw the paper boy speed past on his bicycle. I'm sure it was one of his newspapers that had zipped past my nose and landed in the yard nearby.

I could see my house now and it too was pitch black. Shish, someone could have left a light on, I thought!  I ran inside, locked the door behind me and turned on every light in the house. There was an arrogant sense of power in knowing that I’d survived the walk home and I was certain that I had locked the boogieman out.

I opened the door to the closet, attempting to hang up my coat when my brother came lunging out from within. “Raaaaaaaarrrrr,” he screamed! I fell backward onto the floor. I was so frightened that even my screams lacked human characteristics. Then came the anger and when I tried to talk, it was as if I was speaking in tongues... I can still hear his laughter echoing in my head. 

It has been over 40 years since this experience and I still grimace when I come home to a dark house! My brother and I eventually became best friends. We grew up to be responsible individuals, but little did I know that I would have four boys who inherited the same tendencies for scare tactics (must be a guy thing). My boys were always hiding in the dryer, jumping out of closets, lurking around the corners and popping out from behind trees. They have grabbed my feet from underneath the bed, froze spiders in the freezer and stuffed grasshoppers in the mailbox. On one occasion I found fake bloody fingers in the silverware drawer. It just "ghosts to show you" that some family traditions never change. (A special thanks to my brother Denny and my sons Brian, Jared, David and Gabriel for making this blog possible...)By Linda Sumner Urza, One fine day.

  

WITH GREAT PATIENCE COMES WISDOM

I was reluctant to write this blog, but I am confident in the love of family and friends who know me well.  My daughter said, "Mom, it's refreshing to know that not everyone's perfect." Hahahahahaha, I laughed hard!  "This will certainly set the record straight!"

Did you ever have one of those days? A day that was so bad that if you could get your hands on a giant magic eraser, you wouldn't leave a speck of evidence that it ever existed. 

Well, welcome to my nightmare. Last Monday was so difficult for me that I should have been arrested for impersonating a human being. My mother would always say,"with great patience comes wisdom,"but on that day I had neither patience nor wisdom. 

The day began at 5:00 a.m. by taking my husband to the airport. He left on a flight that morning, but had forgotten his cell phone sitting on a shelf in the closet. Usually life goes on without a hitch, but for some reason this day was different and it spiraled downward from the moment I opened my eyes. Anyone who knows me well, understands that I am always juggling ten thing in the air at one time and occasionally something will come crashing down. 

I got dressed around 9:00 a.m. and went into the kitchen. I had two pills in one hand and a set of pearl earrings in the other. I got a glass of water and chugged down the pills. A few minutes later, I started to put my earrings in my ears and realized that the pills where still in my hand. I had swallowed my earrings! Panic stricken, I called my doctor and in a voice barely audible above a whisper I said, "I swallowed my earrings - do you think I'll be okay?'   

"You what! You swallowed an earwig?"   

Now, this is a man that I revere and I believed up until this point in time, he had thought highly of me. "No, not an earwig, I swallowed my earrings, my pierced earrings! I had them in my hand - I thought they were my pills and I took them with a glass of water." (Well, that statement sounded even less intelligent than the others!) 

"How in the WORLD did you swallow your earrings?" He questioned. I tried to make the story short, but it was long and drawn out. I stuttered on every salable and sounded a little like a pre schooler who'd lost their lunch money. 

His wisdom and professionalism eventually calmed the tempest and he reassured me that everything would be all right. "Do you want your earrings back?" He inquired. "Yeah... well, they are real pearls with diamond studs, I hate to think they're gone forever." Then he proceeded to tell me what I needed to do if I ever wanted to see those earrings again. "Ah no, I won't be doing that!" I said. "I will just kiss those earrings goodbye!"

It's my nature to stay positive and I was determined to shake it off, until I stepped on a bug trap that was in the hallway. The icky sticky trap stuck to the sole of my shoe like nothing I had ever seen before and worst of all, it had a spider on it. It's very difficult to get a sticky trap off a rubber sole! (I'm convinced that if these large traps were strategically placed, we could apprehend terrorists without lifting a firearm.) It took me twenty-five minutes of blood, sweat, and tears to remove a 3 by 6 inch strip from the bottom of my sandal. Okay, okay - I was able to make it out the door, but I was a little apprehensive about what might be lurking around the corner, and with good reason.

I drove away that morning a little flustered, to say the least. Twenty minutes later my phone rang and it was Christa, my daughter. By this time I was parked outside the post office and we chatted for a while in the car. It wasn't long before she sensed that I was preoccupied and asked what I was doing. I told her I was looking for my cell phone and that I couldn't find it anywhere in my purse. She immediate replied, "Mom, you're talking on it!" (I felt like a character out of Beetlejuice and I began to wonder if I should even be operating a moving vehicle.) 

Once inside the post office, I handed the postal worker the box with my husband's cell phone inside. "I would like to mail this second day air please." When the lady began preparing the information on the package, she got a puzzled look on her face. "Do you realize the address for the sender and the receiver are the same, is this an oversight?" "What!" I replied and quickly retrieved the box. She was one smart cooky! If she hadn't noticed this blunder, I would have mailed my husband's cell phone back to myself at the house, just a mile up the street! Trying to look dignified, I quickly made the changes and left the building. 

Three months ago I had taken the challenge to eliminate sugar from my diet, which ultimately meant that I hadn't had chocolate for 90 days - WHAT WAS I THINKING! Obviously I was suffering repercussions of enormous proportions and perhaps even slipping into a state of unconsciousness. 

I had to think fast, for time was of the essence! I drove to the nearest convenient store and bought myself two Hershey's chocolate bars (the ones with the almonds surrounded by dark chocolate) and I couldn't unwrap the bar fast enough!  Chocolate fever, I thought to myself and just how serious was it, I wasn't exactly sure. As I savored the delicious chocolate morsels, the wrapper slid out of my fingers and onto the floor, but I responding immediately to the treatment. I regained my mental acuity and accompanied by a slight chocolate high. 

Thank you Hershey's, for creating a simple and satisfying solution. My mother was right, with patience comes wisdom, but when you throw in a little chocolate - life is extra sweeeeeet! By Linda Sumner Urza, One fine day. 

STEVE JOBS: TRIALS TO TRIUMPH

(This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005. This blog is in honor of a man who triumphed over the opposition with great courage and speed. ) Steve Jobs 1955-2011
 

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal, just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

(I posted this inspiring address for my children and grandchildren. I would like them to know that from great adversity comes perfect wisdom, undaunted courage and insurmountable strengths. May you never give up in the line of fire, never quite because someone says, "You can't do that" and never doubt your own worth! It is YOU that will make a difference in this world.)

WORDS DON'T CHANGE, BUT PEOPLE CAN!

This is a speech given by Charlie Chaplin in the 1940 film 'The Great Dictator.' The words are haunting and will ring true throughout all generations of time.  " ... I don't want to be an Emperor, that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity; more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair". The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.  The hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish. . . Soldiers: don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers: don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty. In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written: "The kingdom of God is within man." Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men; in you, the people. You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite! Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting, the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope, into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."