HOME | DD

Description
One of my favorite musicians was Joni Mitchell. I idolized her and dreamed of someday playing in her band. A version of her song Woodstock that I'd spent at lot of time on made a huge impression at the coffeehouse and they scheduled me for my own night. I started to get chummy with the other musicians. One named Fred, a very cool looking and acting Viet Nam vet, worked up accompanying guitar and vocals to several of my songs and we recorded them at the studio of the student radio station. Then there was Mitch, a super talented younger guy who played a hot flute as well as guitar and vocals, and Walt, an ultra handsome refugee from another big city who played a mean acoustic blues along with a crooning voice like a combination of Johnny Mathis and Jimi Hendrix. The four of us began to spend a lot of time together playing music, getting buzzed and partying.

Jill and I had a few more dates for pizza, a movie and bed, but that same morning malaise kept creeping in. I was beginning to really care for and have a natural happiness being with her but those weird mornings always squashed everything down.

For Thanksgiving I decided to hitchhike a few hundred miles and spend the holiday with my older brother Ed. The trip down with my beloved twelve-string in tow went fairly well in spite of a light wet snow. It finished up with a long ride from a very fat ex-nun who dropped me off at the bus station where I waited a couple hours until Ed got off work driving cab and took me back to his apartment.

The place was a filthy wreck, with books piled everywhere in and out of boxes. At bedtime he turned off the heat and it got cold as a witch's tit for me on the couch with minimal blankets. The next day he cooked a very nice Thanksgiving chicken and then we copped a buzz and tooled around town in his VW bug although I was nervous about the rough neighborhoods we traversed. He took me under the on ramp of a big bridge to listen to the cars whoosh and after that we went and played air-hockey and had a hamburg and a beer at a bar full of the town's prime male nerd and dork population.

After another frigid night Ed dropped me off at the interstate and after one very suspicious ride which I opted out of before the driver "took a short cut," I headed back north. The plan was to continue on to meet Jill at her parents' in an upscale suburb on the other side of the state. I didn't get there until well after dark but Jill and a younger sister came and picked me up at a gas station.

Back at her house I met the parents and four more sisters and I got into the swing of things with food, TV and friendly conversation with everyone except the white-haired, ultra-conservative father who exuded silent hostility at the long-haired vagabond who was surely intent on deflowering his daughter. There was a late TV marathon between me and Dad until Jill whispered that he wouldn't go to bed until I did. The next day I was only briefly able to get Jill away for a walk across the frigid snowy landscape and a begrudging kiss or two under cold gray November skies.

The next day we headed back to Y with her best friend as a chauffeur, another girl sitting shotgun and us in the back seat. By this time I was really aching for some affection from Jill but she denied it to me out of her natural uptightness. When we arrived I stomped off, exacting revenge by not calling her for a week.

The rooms that the Masons and the health department let the coffeehouse use kept changing and getting funkier and less well heated as winter approached. Sometimes the whole affair had to be clandestinely arranged to skirt the inspectors. Once all we had for heat on a cold night was a space heater on stage which melted a big splotch on the finish of one guy's beautiful Gibson guitar. The days of the coffeehouse were numbered. Luckily I'd made many solid friendships that would far outlast it.

Jill and I had a few more dates before her classes broke for Christmas vacation. There was one final, happy night spent together in her bed at the dorm. Our lovemaking was bitter sweet since she was planning to transfer to another school fifty miles away and it was unlikely we'd be seeing each other much after that. In our oblivious, carefree, live-for-the-moment consciousness, we enjoyed our last hours together without concern for the loss we would both suffer.

Description
One of my favorite musicians was Joni Mitchell. I idolized her and dreamed of someday playing in her band. A version of her song Woodstock that I'd spent at lot of time on made a huge impression at the coffeehouse and they scheduled me for my own night. I started to get chummy with the other musicians. One named Fred, a very cool looking and acting Viet Nam vet, worked up accompanying guitar and vocals to several of my songs and we recorded them at the studio of the student radio station. Then there was Mitch, a super talented younger guy who played a hot flute as well as guitar and vocals, and Walt, an ultra handsome refugee from another big city who played a mean acoustic blues along with a crooning voice like a combination of Johnny Mathis and Jimi Hendrix. The four of us began to spend a lot of time together playing music, getting buzzed and partying.

Jill and I had a few more dates for pizza, a movie and bed, but that same morning malaise kept creeping in. I was beginning to really care for and have a natural happiness being with her but those weird mornings always squashed everything down.

For Thanksgiving I decided to hitchhike a few hundred miles and spend the holiday with my older brother Ed. The trip down with my beloved twelve-string in tow went fairly well in spite of a light wet snow. It finished up with a long ride from a very fat ex-nun who dropped me off at the bus station where I waited a couple hours until Ed got off work driving cab and took me back to his apartment.

The place was a filthy wreck, with books piled everywhere in and out of boxes. At bedtime he turned off the heat and it got cold as a witch's tit for me on the couch with minimal blankets. The next day he cooked a very nice Thanksgiving chicken and then we copped a buzz and tooled around town in his VW bug although I was nervous about the rough neighborhoods we traversed. He took me under the on ramp of a big bridge to listen to the cars whoosh and after that we went and played air-hockey and had a hamburg and a beer at a bar full of the town's prime male nerd and dork population.

After another frigid night Ed dropped me off at the interstate and after one very suspicious ride which I opted out of before the driver "took a short cut," I headed back north. The plan was to continue on to meet Jill at her parents' in an upscale suburb on the other side of the state. I didn't get there until well after dark but Jill and a younger sister came and picked me up at a gas station.

Back at her house I met the parents and four more sisters and I got into the swing of things with food, TV and friendly conversation with everyone except the white-haired, ultra-conservative father who exuded silent hostility at the long-haired vagabond who was surely intent on deflowering his daughter. There was a late TV marathon between me and Dad until Jill whispered that he wouldn't go to bed until I did. The next day I was only briefly able to get Jill away for a walk across the frigid snowy landscape and a begrudging kiss or two under cold gray November skies.

The next day we headed back to Y with her best friend as a chauffeur, another girl sitting shotgun and us in the back seat. By this time I was really aching for some affection from Jill but she denied it to me out of her natural uptightness. When we arrived I stomped off, exacting revenge by not calling her for a week.

The rooms that the Masons and the health department let the coffeehouse use kept changing and getting funkier and less well heated as winter approached. Sometimes the whole affair had to be clandestinely arranged to skirt the inspectors. Once all we had for heat on a cold night was a space heater on stage which melted a big splotch on the finish of one guy's beautiful Gibson guitar. The days of the coffeehouse were numbered. Luckily I'd made many solid friendships that would far outlast it.

Jill and I had a few more dates before her classes broke for Christmas vacation. There was one final, happy night spent together in her bed at the dorm. Our lovemaking was bitter sweet since she was planning to transfer to another school fifty miles away and it was unlikely we'd be seeing each other much after that. In our oblivious, carefree, live-for-the-moment consciousness, we enjoyed our last hours together without concern for the loss we would both suffer.