I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Friday, May 28, 2021

At the Dance At The Land

 

May 28, 1977  (I was 32)

 

At the Dance At The Land

We got lost getting here.

Can you believe wrong roads

Named Woodstock and Altamont Avenue?

Barn hall open-beams, plank floors

Map of The Land tacked to the wall.

This knowledgeable collection of hippies has survived

Without a change of clothes since 1968

And they were here to dance tonight.

After a wine and pistachio stop we wound

Up Moody past Foothill College and down again

A number of times; gas station maps were of no help.

Everybody danced all night long.

The band was hot and we were addicted to bliss.

We were lost until we resolved to keep driving up

Roads we couldn’t believe –narrow hairpins

Moonlight reflections off hills, tunnel through tree shadows.

“Chains,” brought on the floor stomping

And the bass and drums rebounded off the walls

Right through your chest to end the first set with “The Shape I’m In.”

The band left them screaming for more.

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