December 22, 2006: Open Lines - Worst Days
Callers deliver deeply personal accounts that range from heartbreaking to strange. A terminal cancer patient in Idaho describes finding peace through her answered novena prayers. A woman in California recounts discovering her Vietnam veteran husband dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, then years later experiencing a three-day spiritual transformation after standing up to her emotionally abusive father. A caller in Kansas claims his best day involved a late-night gas station encounter with someone he identified as Jim Morrison.
Other callers describe harrowing near-death experiences, including a woman whose brakes failed on a steep Arizona highway and who was guided to safety by a mysterious voice. Art also deals with a painful tongue injury throughout the broadcast, prompting a nurse to call in with treatment advice. The evening captures the full spectrum of human experience during the holiday season.
Key Moments
Caller's friend dies in a Hawaii landslide; the worst-day premonition question: A caller learns his friend Sarah died in a Hawaii landslide. Art uses the moment to ask the show's central question: did anyone feel a 'prickly, hair-standing-up' premonition before their worst day?
Caller blackmailed into prostitute encounter, then chain of near-fatal accidents: Nick from Ontario describes a coworker claiming NSA credentials pressuring him into a prostitute encounter while drunk, leading to a suicide attempt by car crash on Highway 401 and, a week later, narrowly avoiding being run down by a tractor-trailer.
Husband's suicide, then a three-day wave of warmth after she finally pushed back: A caller describes finding her husband dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, a Vietnam-vet heroin addict she didn't know was using, then years later quitting her abusive father's store and being filled with three days of inexplicable warmth and heat through her heart.
Art on his father's words and the tax-paid comeback he regrets: Prompted by the caller's abusive father, Art reflects on his own dad telling him he'd 'never be anything' without college, how it drove him in radio, and the year Art finally answered back: 'Dad, I paid more tax than you made last year.'
Art's gut-feeling rule: don't board the plane: Wrapping the worst-days theme, Art urges listeners to honor inborn premonitions, even at the gate of an airplane: 'if it feels horribly wrong, don't get on. Listen to yourself.'