THINKING BACK

My first memory of you is listening to Tim Hardin in your room at Prin. Canned Heat and Brian Auger and The Trinity with Judy Driscoll. I think you were with the group of us that snuck off campus to see The Grateful Dead at the St. Louis Armory. All I remember is they were playing "Good Morning Little School Girl" when we first walked in and the bass was so loud the floor was shaking and you could feel it in your bones. Next memory is you playing a chained together, silvery-grey trap set downstairs, probably Pearl or Ludwig, jamming with a pickup band and you were doing repetitive sequential single stroke rolls from snare to mounted tom to floor tom at a breakneck pace to the point where I just stood and watched, amazed at the physical effort required, and incredulous that you were maintaining the beat for the duration of the song.

Then there was the walking race, which took place for half a lap around the track, or around 110 yards, in which I used the upright quick step heel and toe style and you the low down long gaited stride with swinging arm movements. You won as I recall, but not by much. It must have presented a pretty comical picture to the other track occupants. What I would give to have a video of that!

And let's not forget our performance as the chorus with Parks and Neumann, with Machon as the beloved Nanki-Poo. We were also part of a Pirate skit that was the brain child of Lee Ames. I think you played the blind lookout in the crows nest. I think my character may have been a first mate called Sneed. I think Machon was part of that scurvy crew as well. I also have a memory of you having me take some senior class pictures with your Pentax for the 1968 yearbook. Evidently we also took a trip to the St. Louis Zoo that year 'cuz I found a picture of you and Joanne Cobb under the Bear Pits sign.

Next time I remember getting together with you was after a Biennial meeting at our beloved Mother Church in Boston. I think Machon was around and probably several other Prin-ites. Anyway, I think I drove home with you to Leominster and stayed for the weekend. I remember you were working on mobiles made out of your own photographs cut into cubes that hung in the balance. You made them and then exhibited and sold them at a street fair of some kind that was going on locally. I remember your house was a two story affair and I stayed downstairs and that you had a shaggy sheepdog that nearly killed me ( due to the fact that I was highly allergic to dogs but being raised a Christian Scientist did nothing about it!)

Then you came to visit me when I was going to Hiram and we went to some local bar juke joint kinda place in a nearby town at night and we were drinking and you were playing some country western Hank Williams kinda thing on the juke box. I have a vague memory of visiting you in Syracuse around the time that James Taylor's Fire&Rain album came out. I remember thinking that you looked alot like J.T. and finding out while talking about our lives that we both lost our virginity in the same week!

I'm sure we exchanged letters through those years, many of which I have saved, but I remember one that you wrote in a somewhat inebriated state somewhere in Colorado, Durango maybe, describing the blackness and the rain outside and taking what comfort you could in the cigarettes, booze, and honky-tonk surroundings.

In New Mexico you showed up at the house I was living in with a green or maroon VW bug that had tennis shoes on the bumper guards, and you had a repair manual entitled "Volkswagon repair for the complete idiot". I had a single room that I had painted in day-glo colors and a waterbed I had found and repaired with bubblegum. Next thing you know it's you and I and D. Lee, riding up to the Jemez wilderness for an off trail trek in the mountains. Seems to me we strained some drinking water through a sock or some such cloth and we all heard things in the night that we were way too scared to investigate. We had to split up on the way out searching for the car. I finally found it after flushing a band of wild turkeys on the way. I can't remember exactly when you gave me the picture of the Canadian Rockies, I just remember you telling me about hitch-hiking across Canada and how beautiful they were. I still love lookng at it. I believe you took up residence in Colorado shortly after that and I drove up with Randi and we stayed with you for one weeekend and went to see the Grateful Dead. As I recall Garcia had shaved his beard but the music was great.

Speaking of great music, I seem to remember a Paul Butterfield / Jethro Tull concert that we went to, I think Swindler was there and you guys going back stage to try and meet the band. This must have been while we were still in high school but I can't place exactly when or where.

Now where are we? Oh yes, the San Francisco chapter. It was at this point that you gave me Heather's phone number and told me I should look her up when I get to San Francisco, making you responsible for enabling me to get to know Jamie and Heather. At least two visits I remember, one in which I bought a bottle of Irish whiskey and we went clubbing in Marin — and another where I think you came up with Rhonda. Buying hats on Clement street, eating Chinese food, slumming in North Beach. Then I went back east to work for my Dad as a dump truck driver for a year. When I flew out to California to bring Rhonda back with me, we stopped at your parents house in Arlington, Texas. I remember your Dad had a '69 Camero. Blue as I recall. A year later, on our way back out to California, we got to Seattle on your birthday and I made the mistake of trying to match you drink for drink and ended up as drunk as I've ever been gyrating and gesticulating wildly underneath and in front of the lead singer( probably trying to sing along as well). I think the band was "The Jitters" or something like that. After I finally sobered up ( which I think took the better part of a day) I think we took a hike up Mt. Ranier. I remember D. Lee being part of the group and we were hiking up to some hot springs and at one point we went right through a stand of huge wonderfully ripe blueberries that I had to stop and eat. I didn't care about losing my way or getting separated from the group 'cuz there was no way I was going to pass the opportunity up!

Then at some point there was your wedding in San Diego, where I had the honor of being your best man. A landmark event by any standards. Now I have to switch to a stream of consciousness mode just so I can bring this to a conclusion so that you'll get it on time.

Long stretch of not seeing you, marriages, children, careers, Christmas pictures from you were always a treat. I would see you or Delilah sporadically, performances, a night at "Specs" in North Beach at 12 AdlerPlace, a water color that Delilah did of us sitting in the bar. Finally after many years, a visit from Virginia and I to Seattle. Long overdue, needing to connect and compare. Not enough time really, what's one weekend in 10 years? But never feeling less close in a basic rooted way. There was a Monterey birthday party gig. right around the time Dylan's album "Infidels" came out. I drove down to see the show. And getting together at Heather's if you were in town for a show. We'd go and watch you play the nee at a Zikar. Watching you play in bands has always held a vicarious thrill for me, and I think it always will. The Vancouver Fishing trip into Canada was a real high point and we even caught a fish!

So we come to the present, knowing we will always see each other again, not knowing exactly when or what the circumstances will be and secure and content with that knowledge. Our lives move on in separate but overlapping circles. A truer friend I could not ask for. A better man I've never known. A musician whose gift I have been allowed to enjoy throughout the years in various settings. It is my priviledge to have shared some of the last 34 years with you and I see no sign of it stopping. To have seen you become a husband, a father, a homeowner, a tree house builder, and a businessman doesn't surprize me in the least. You're the guy who played music AND took physics. Hollywood hansome and multi-talented and faceted. How can you not love a guy like that?

Love, Daniel