NOTE: The Louisiana law concerning INSTITUTIONAL TRESPASSING; on state school, college and university campuses; requires a person to interrupt the normal activities of the institution and some disruptive activities by the person before the authorities may asked the person not to use the facilities. Elijah's using computers does not interrupt the institution's nor lab's activities. The exception is closed institutions; Grambling State University is not a closed (meaning not open to the public) institution.

Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, September 6, 1996

Nomad visits Lincoln in dreadlocks, cutoffs

By BOB REEVES
Lincoln Journal Star

He looks like Tarzan the Rastafarian with silver dreadlocks, clad only in a couple of strings of beads and thigh-length blue jeans with the legs cut up to the belt loops on each side.

The near-naked look is part of my message, says Elijah Alfred "NatureBoy" Alexander, Jr., a self proclaimed "nomadic ontologist" who is passing through Lincoln this week.

Alexander, 51, quit his job 20 years ago as a lineman for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. in Dallas. He stripped down and hit the rod, his bedroll on his back, seeking to get back to nature.

"I had been a (part-time) preacher in a Baptist church," he said. "I felt like a hypocrite telling people to follow Jesus and not doing it myself."

Since then, he has traveled 44 U.S. states, 11 states of Mexico, the country of Belize and five Canadian provinces, preaching his version of the gospel.

His "ontology" —the philosophical term for the study of the nature of things—weaves biblical faith and layman's understanding of modern physics, with a bit of eastern religion thrown in.

To put it briefly, Alexander believes that "everything operates in cycles," from the birth-to-death pattern of each human life to the ultimate birth-to-death cycle of the universe. He believes the world will end in approximately 32 years and the United States will be destroyed by nuclear bombs before the year 2,000.

Despite those dire predictions, Alexander walks barefoot with a smile on his face and peace in his heart because, he says, he knows what it means to be in tune with the cycles of nature.

"I travel from city to city, town to town, talking to people one on one," he said. "Sometimes I just go out in the country by myself, to be closer to nature. That's just for my own rejuvenation."

He survives by the occasional hand outs of food or money that he receives from people along the way, much as the itinerant gurus in India and Southeast Asia do. "Oftentimes I find money as I'm walking along," he said. "You'd be surprised how much money people drop."

He walks along highways, but accepts rides. Alexander said drivers usually aren't afraid to pick him up. "People are curious," he said. "They want to know what I'm about."

Sometimes people put him up for the night, but most of the time he just sleeps "somewhere under a bush where nobody can see me." He didn't want to reveal where he's been sleeping in Lincoln.

Alexander said he has suffered few hardships in his years living on the roads and streets. He lived a year on the streets of New York City, wearing nothing but his cut-off jeans, even in Near-zero temperatures "I had icicles on my beard," he said.

He said he recently spent 33 months in a prison in Louisiana. According to Alexander, he was convicted of pubic indecency because of the way he dressed.

"A lot of people say it's borderline, and I agree it is," he said. "But if the law would allow it, I'd go completely naked."

He draws the inspiration for his lifestyle from the biblical story of the Garden of Eden. "By living this way, I'm actually returning to the garden of God in order to eat from the tree of life," he said.

Thursday, after dropping by the Journal Star office, he was off to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, where he was going to look up the philosophy department. "Philosophers are lovers of wisdom, so I'm hoping they'll want to talk to me," he said.

The New York Times
Sunday, June 23, 1996 Cy Section 13

The Prophet

At 7:40, a blurry sun rises over the trees. At the fountain, Trails sits next to a shirtless man with gray dreads. His long denim shorts, slit at the sides, look like a Loincloth. He is Elijah Alfred "NatureBoy" Alexander Jr., 51, and when a photographer asks to take his picture, he moves to sit cross-legged on the pedestal where Mr. Barbanel earlier mourned his aunt. The light seems to collect around him.

"In about four years," he prophesies upon request, "the U.S. will be destroyed by its own nuclear weapons. It's about 32 years* to the end of civilization. That will be followed by 1000 years of peace. Then there will be another civilization, where the women [girls] will rule and the boys," he says, teasing, "will stay around the house."

Trails nods. "It's in the Bible, in Nostradamus, in the Koran, in the Torah. And you know that book, The Celestine Prophecy?"

Elijah looks dubious. "Well, the story isn't true," he corrects her gently. "But the principles are."

"This park," he says, "is my New York office. People with rising consciousness come here. I carry this staff. A person who carries a rod or a staff is usually a person of great wisdom and understanding." Is he such a person? "You have to talk to me to decide,"; he says cheerily. He points to Mr. Caradonna. "He calls me Socrates. They call me Socrates, Moses, Jesus, Black Jesus."

Mr. Caradonna says, "Just don t call me late for dinner!"

"I was here in '81, 82, '83. I knew everybody," Elijah says. "I got back about a month ago." And In between? "Well I spent six years in Grambling, La, In the penitentiary. My parents' hometown doesn't like prophets."

How does he manage to eat? "Like a dog," he Says, eyes twinkling. "Sometimes you throw a dog a bone. Sometimes he finds his own. I like raw fruit, nuts, vegetables. My preferred diet is the foods that are in season in the place where I am." A parks worker, one of six who are raking and bagging the garbage Shella Leahy distributed, moves near. "Oh, no, that's mine," says Elijah, and the worker picks a plastic bag and hands it over with a smile.

By 8 A.M. it's just plain morning. The light isn't special anymore, the sky just a limp blue that will last all day long. Elijah the prophet, Eddie the chess hustler, Shella the can-kicker; they're still here, but they no longer stand out, overtaken by the rush-hour hour foot traffic. The magic time is over, but David Weeks knows it will be back. "We've got some of the most unique New Yorkers on the face of the earth down here," he said.

NOTE: * Psalms 90:10 indicates a 70 or 80 year lifespan for the passing away of a generation for Matthew 24:32-34's parable of THE FIG TREE, I use the 80 year lifespan.

The Vision