1977

 

        In the summer of 1977, between high school graduation and starting college on the East Coast in the fall, I had a summer job as a waitress in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I met a man there who was a writer.  He lived in California full time, but was temporarily in the Black Hills, staying in a cabin on family property near Hill City, and  writing a novel.

        I was introduced to him in the cabin's kitchen where he was seated at a table, turning out pages on a classic manual typewriter, and smoking cigarettes.

He put out his current cigarette and talked with my friends and me.

Playing those Neil Diamond songs recently made me think of him, because one time he was driving me back to where I lived and he turned on some music in the car, and it was Neil Diamond.

He said something like, "I enjoy music like this, it inspires you and gives you energy."

        We were on one of those roads in the hills that curves this way and then that way, you're looping back and forth, getting where you're going, but not in a straight line.

The sun was shining; the sky was blue - which song was it?

"Cracklin' Rosie"?

"Cherry, Cherry"? - - She got the way to move me... we got things we gotta catch up on... you, you you know what I'm sayin'...

His car was a sort of light gold color.

-30-