For The Book!

Life couldn’t be better right now. ------------------------------------- And then it seemed like it was going to... To get better. Then not. Then... And then it got weird. ------ The first weird thing that happened on this new road (Kansas state highway 160) was that I got a ride like... Like, right away. I mean... I [...]

Nineteen years old and I was on the road for the first time. My first road… for real. With no one to answer to. No one to wait for, and no one expecting me.  -------------------------------------------- I throw my battered old suitcase into the back of the pickup truck and move to the front to get [...]

No thing can compare Not who, what or where Direction given Dreamed and driven Walking without wonder Without qualm Without care -------------------------------- Walking. And then... Sitting, watching, waiting. Not waiting. Taking in, all that was on that road. And beyond. And then... Walking again. This was much different from the travel bug I'd gotten (and [...]

But I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to go back to Norfolk and join up with cool Fred Berdine and his cool rock band. ------------------------------------- In 1978 Oklahoma was experiencing an oil boom, mostly out on “the pan handle” so Enid was the perfect good place for George’s little army of predators and [...]

And what happened when George and Guy got back from jail grabbed me by the collar and shook me into the harsh light of what I’d gotten myself into like an angry schoolmarm catching me asleep in class. ---------------------------------------------- But George didn’t kill Fred. Fred wasn’t a threat. He was a nuisance and so the [...]

It’s odd to me now to think that I just accepted leaving Rochester so quickly, getting into a car not knowing where I was going until I was so far from home. ----------------------------------- After orientation George and his minions made damn sure all us new recruits got even farther away from home, and quickly. I [...]

Although the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to — Bob Dylan —————————————– A year on East Center St. was obviously enough for me. After leaving 6D East and losing my job at Tinkler's and the mess Melvin left of our cool apartment [...]