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.


Comments Welcome!

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Incident on Howard Street

 

July 13, 1976  (I was 31)

 

Incident on Howard Street

In Feldman’s Clothier where his mother had worked

a sales clerk asked me where I got my Dylan T-shirt

Certainly not in Hibbing I teased first

then smiled and told her Berkeley

She told me

she had been Bob’s next door neighbor

that she’d stored some of his stuff in her basement

I told her I grew up in Keewatin   

My wife graduated in Hibbing and knew his brother David

She said she was Mrs. Schneider

and one of her daughters graduated the same year

Bob removed his stuff some time ago

She served him coffee in her kitchen

and he gave her a signed copy of the album

with Blowin’ In The Wind on it

Later she saw a letter he wrote to his mother

Don’t believe all you read about me

I still brush my teeth everyday

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