The Muskie Motel in Muscatine: 2012

I did not stay at the Muskie Motel in Muscatine, Iowa. I stayed at the Super 8. It wasn't until the next morning, when I got up and drove into town, ready to cross the bridge over the Mississippi into Illinois, that I saw the Muskie Motel and had my regrets.

I'd been out to see my mother in Des Moines, once again. It was spring, I think, and one of the early warm days that let you know that summer really, actually, truthfully, was going to arrive. Of course, my mother was in the nursing home and I was driving back by myself.

For whatever reason, I decided to take the smaller roads back to Illinois instead of I-80. I decided to take Highway 163. I went through Prairie City and made a short stop in Pella. Pella is a pretty enough town and full of tulips in the spring--though there were no tulips when I visited. So either it was too early, or I'm mistaken about the time of year I made this drive. Who knows . . .

I kept going, taking in Oskaloosa.

Oskaloosa, with its funny-ish name, was a town well known to people my age and older who spent part or all of their childhood in Des Moines. Oskaloosa was the answer to jokes and riddles by Floppy, a dog puppet, on the Duane and Floppy Show, which was a kid's cartoon show out of Des Moines. Anyway, I think I knew one person from Oskaloosa, a guy I met in Iowa City who lived on my dorm floor with Mike Policicchio. He smoked a lot of dope. Then again--like the time of year--perhaps I'm mistaken. Maybe he was from Keokuk.

From there I kept driving. Now on a smaller road, Route 92. It was a very pleasant day and I had the windows down. Was in no hurry. Just enjoying the countryside and wind and fields and the little towns. It was so much nicer than the rush of the Interstate. I wasn't sure where I'd stop for the night, only that I would stop and not try to drive all the way back in the day.

Rose Hill. Sigourney (which I think Iowans have a strange pronunciation of, though I don't recall it at the moment)--a nice-looking town. Signs for What Cheer (I have never been to What Cheer). West Chester. Then at the connection with Highway One there was evidence of a bad car accident--lights and ambulance, cars rolled and crunched, backed up traffic. I was patient. Made the jog south and continued east.

Washington--a big town for the area. I knew a young man from Washington who worked at the University. I met him when I worked at Iowa during the summers, at Burge Hall, stripping and waxing floors and housekeeping and goofing off. He was a good kid--country, a little wild. Maybe his name was Jeff. Not sure. He taught me how to make a squirrel-call using three quarters and your hands. And there was Norbert from Kalona, just north of Washington. Norbert was married, had a kid. He was killed in a car accident, coming home at night from Iowa City, a friend driving ran off the road. I think they were drunk.

Columbus Junction surprised me. I'd never heard of it. It had a river and a big shift in the land--almost like a bluff. Hills. It was just odd to me was all.

Then I got on highway 61 and drove into Muscatine and it was late enough that I figured I may as well stop. I'd never been to Muscatine before. My dad called all cantaloupes "Muscatine Melons"; I guess there are Muscatine melons but most are cantaloupes . . . I made my way up past some fast food places and other chain stores, chain restaurants, chain gas stations, a car dealership, then some chain motels, settling on that Super 8.

I walked up an embankment to some restaurant/fast food joint. Arby's? Wendy's? Once again, I don't recall, other than it was pretty uninspiring. I think I took my food to my room. Maybe it was Burger King. Watched some bad TV. Felt bad in return. My mother. My leaving Ft. Lauderdale. Not moving to New Orleans like I was supposed to. Back in a place I did not ever want to be back in. And now in a Super 8 in Muscatine, Iowa . . .

One of my first roommates at Iowa on the 2000 floor of Burge Hall was from Muscatine. Now, his name was Jeff, for sure. My other roommate was Chuck (from a Chicago suburb). This was freshman year and I knew hardly anyone in Iowa City--though it all turned out very well. Jeff was a little odd--a smart guy, music major, actually a bassoon major at that time. Yes, he played the bassoon. Chuck became a closer friend than Jeff ended up being, but we got along. He was a good enough guy.

So, it was the next day as I used my brand new iPhone (I'd had flip phones until then) to plot my route into and out of Muscatine and over the river into Illinois that I drove past the Muskie Motel in Muscatine.

Man. The Muskie was exactly the kind of place I'd wanted to stay at: cheap, small-roomed with their own doors that opened out to a parking lot. Not ratty, but nonetheless a place with its own suspect distinction.

Maybe. Who knows? Perhaps it would have been a lousy place: spongey bed, no reception for the TV, thin walls and noisy neighbors, bedbugs. It could have been an even lousier night, for all I know.

Then again, maybe if I'd stayed at the Muskie Motel in Muscatine, maybe I'd be a happier man to this day. Maybe my mother would have gotten better or lived longer or--well, no. But possibly it could have altered some small smidgen of things. Possibly.

But it didn't.

Capturing Red the Cat: Des Moines 2012

My mother had fallen ill, then was placed in a nursing home facility because it was determined that she just wasn't quite ill enough yet to be put in a hospice. So, her apartment on Grand Avenue in Des Moines was empty of her, if not empty of her things or her cat, Red.

I, along with me second oldest brother (who lived in Des Moines) arranged to have her possessions boxed up and moved out (to his basement) because it was evident my mother would no longer have use for them. The cat, however, was another issues. Luckily, there was a woman--the Widow Simmons, I called her as Simons was her name and she was a widow and lived in the same assisted living complex--who was willing to take the cat.

Red the cat was a handsome male. Long-haired, large, reddish-orange, tabby-like markings in some areas. he was also an ornery animal. He pretty much only liked my mother, but even her he would sometimes bite and scowl and growl at. He ruled the two room place, did as he pleased, and disliked anyone who got in his way. My mother had gotten him, along with a second Cat she named Little Bird, as kittens. Little bird was friendly and sweet but two cats were evidently too many and for whatever reason, my mother decided to keep Red. No doubt Little Bird was put to rest, something my mother--who grew up in a small South Dakota town among farms and The Great Depression--was not disturbed about.

Anyway--it became my job to capture Red and get him to a vet before I took him to the Widow Simmons to live another of his nine lives.

This proved to be difficult.

Most things were boxed up but the furniture was still in the apartment at that time. I first tried to box Red up--using an actual box that I lured him into, but he burst out of that quite redly after I'd closed him in. My mother had not taken Red to the vet--had not enclosed him in anything--in many years. He was big and strong and wild and had claws. So, I went and got a cat carrier, one made of strong hard plastic and that had an opening on the top as well as a caged door. That was fine. It would hold him. getting him inside it was another matter.

Once he realized what I was trying to do, it became a chase. This was not a big apartment: one bedroom, one living room, one kitchen, one bathroom. You could not just grab him and hold him and place him in the carrier. He was, essentially, a feral house cat. So, I donned gloves and long sleeves--and I am not a small or timid man--and had hell of a time trying to corral him. He hissed, growled, showed his fangs, took swipes at me, ran and ran and jumped, made the sounds you hear from cougars and panthers and jaguars that you've seen/heard on television. I was surprised no one came running and knocked on the door. It was crazy! Loud! Vicious to the ears and eyes! I grabbed a broom to try herding him.

Finally I got him confined to the bedroom. Of course he went under the bed, so I tipped the mattress and box springs on their sides to expose him. Still, I could not catch him. We had become mortal enemies. He hated me and I had begun to hate him.

I don't know.

At one point I had him cornered. He was hissing, growling, crouching, staring at me with giant lightning-bolt-eyes. I returned the same anger with my own eyes. And that's when it changed:

I suddenly felt so sorry for him, for his situation, for his fear, for the confusion of living alone in the apartment for over a month as my mother lay in her helpless long-term state of a slow death. So, as we dagger-eyed at each other, mine suddenly softened.

Seriously. I softened my eyes and my facial expression and looked on as--just as suddenly--his eyes and expression softened as well.

I only wanted to help him. To do what needed to be done.

It was still a struggle, but finally I got him in the carrier and inside, defeated, he became docile.

I took him to the vet. Took him from the vet to the Widow Simmons' apartment--a nice place on the second floor on the corner with lots of windows--and presented Red to her. I brought food and food bowls, a water bowl, a cleaned-up cat box and litter. The Widow Simmons was pleased. We chatted a bit. I explained that Red could be difficult. We opened the carrier and let him sit there until he was ready.

After a while he did venture out to look around. he seemed like a different cat--a little cautious if not quite intimidated. he would be fine. I later got a few of updates: he was doing well, he had sat in her lap, he appeared content, no problems so far.

I told my mother, who was cognizant though ultimately terminal, and she said: "I don't know. Maybe he never really liked me."

Not true, of course, and I assured her of that, but she had no desire to see him again.

Or so she said.

Small Memory in Idaho #6

This was in 2012. My family and I had made a trip out west--the first in many year for my wife and I, the first ever for my two daughters. We went to Seattle, the Oregon coast, Bend, Missoula, and a stop in Riggins, Idaho. Riggins' original town name was Gouge Eye.

In Riggens, we ate at The Seven Devils Steak House and Saloon. We stayed--I believe--at the Best Western, where the Little Salmon River meets the Salmon River.

It was sunny, hot, pretty: the large and bald serrated hills caught sharp light and shadow, the rivers ran noisily and spritely in their rocky beds.

When we first pulled up, two deer were feeding in the grass next to the hotel--my oldest daughter (the photographer) immediately got out to take their picture.

She succeeded. It is a fine photograph.

Later, my younger daughter wanted to go down the embankment behind the hotel and see the rivers. At first I was reluctant but then I was not. So, down we went. Evening was coming, but we goofed around down there. There was a large gravel bar that was really more of a rock bar. Many fist-sized stones and many larger and some smaller had been deposited there where the two rivers met. Eventually she and I picked out two rocks to take back to the room, to take home with us a souvenirs.

I still have them both.

In The Car At The Pay-N-Take-It: Vancouver 1964

Of course I'm guessing at what year this was, because no doubt it was over a few years when we were all kids and we lived in Washington, in Vancouver. I was probably six or seven or eight, or nine or ten. These were the days when we had but one car and my father worked at the Veterans Hospital and my mother took care of us all, all five kids.

Taking care of us also meant carting us around wherever she had to go, which meant taking us along in the summers (when we were not in school) when she went grocery shopping. No doubt it must have been hard having all of us in tow as she went down the aisles buying food, which is why at times she let us all stay in the car and wait for her.

We shopped at a store called the Pay-N-Take-It. She would also buy milk separately at what we called, simply, The Milk Store. But The Milk Store was like a little drive through place and we kids would always beg her to buy chocolate milk, which she, at times, certainly did . . . Anyway, the Pay-N-Take-It: we would sit in the car, which was a station wagon. Five kids--three boys and one girls--ranging in ages from maybe ten to three or so. maybe she took my younger brother in with her, but I recall the car being full of us.

I doubt these days people would leave their brood in a car while they went in shopping. It would be frowned upon, if not viewed as exactly criminal. But there we were, sitting in the car, all windows down, five of us (or maybe four) and, kids being kids, we saw it as a great adventure. Well, maybe not adventure exactly but certainly an opportunity to laugh and talk and yell at people . . . I believe the main instigator of this was my oldest brother. Anyway, we would joke around and watch people come and go, comment on them and then, at times yell at them, or make strange and deliberate noises or even--if I recall right--yell for help in a mocking way. Well, not mocking but shrilly and ridiculously. It was great fun. I'm sure my mother would have been greatly embarrassed.

But them one time, as we were yelling and hooting and calling for assistance, one oldish man looked at us and began to approach us. This caused great alarm and consternation and twittering among us. And sure enough, this guy came right up to our open windows. We thought we were to be scolded and certainly had no true fear beyond that.

But he did not scold us. He only had a question about something--some decal or license plate matter about some place (probably something to do with South Dakota, I'd guess). I don't remember what it was, but he was friendly and humorous, as it turned out. Harmless. More harmless than us.

This is of course nothing important. Just a memory when we, when I was, were kids, when the family was the world and my mother and father were the great arbitrators of that world. We had no sense of how vulnerable life could be--which was just as well, which I would hope for all children, all childhoods. I doubt very much the Pay-N-Take-It exists--no, it could not. No doubt there's a Walmart or some such there now, or nothing at all.

Buffalo

I've always liked buffalo. That is, American Bison. I don't know . . . I was born in South Dakota--Sioux Falls--and before the age of five (when we moved to Vancouver, Washington), we used to go out to the Black Hills for vacations. There, in the Black Hills, there were pines and hills and squirrels, rabbits, black bears, burros and there were bison. Buffalo. And even now I can recall them and remember that, yes, I liked them.

Big fuzzy black-brown beasts.

But I liked them later in life, as well. Have always been glad to see one--see them--whether just on the TV, or in a preserve, maybe a zoo.

Maybe I like them because I bought my father a pipe.

This was in Vancouver and it was his birthday and I was maybe eight years old. Not sure. Actually it was in Portland, Oregon, at Lloyds Center (the first indoor mall in America (the world?)). And it was at some store--maybe as simple as a Walgreens/CVS type store of its day (the mid 60's)--and they had pipes behind a counter and my father smoked a pipe at that time. Some of the pipes had animal heads. I don't recall all of them except, as you may guess, the buffalo. I liked buffalo and I wanted to buy him that pipe and I did.

I don't know if my mother had to help me to purchase a pipe as an eight year old--or nine, perhaps ten--but to the best of my recollection, she did not. They sold a kid a tobacco pipe . . . Things were different back then. And I gave him the pipe as a gift and he thanked me and I don't think he ever used it. He did not throw it away, either, because I checked. It was still around years later, after we moved to Johnson City, TN, even after we moved to Des Moines, IA. I would still see it and my father didn't smoke a pipe anymore.

My father called me Buffalo.

Maybe that's why I like them and still think of them. It was a nickname of sorts. I don't think he knew how much it meant to me to be called "Buffalo". Is that why I like them, or did I like them and he picked up on it and that's why he gave me the name.

I think it's because I liked them that he called me that. It meant more to me, I think I can say, than it did to him. Yet: who knows?

I bought the buffalo pipe because he called me "Buffalo" and because I loved the animals and I was from South Dakota and that's about all I have to say . . .

Camping In The Ocala National Forest

In the mid-2000's I camped in the Ocala National Forest a few times. I had not camped for years, not since Illinois and my trips down to the Shawnee. One of my younger daughter's friends had moved to the Melbourne area of Florida from Ft. Lauderdale and when she went to visit--about three years in a row, it seems during the 2000's--I'd drive her up there and continue on by myself and go camping.

The place I liked to camp the most was Hopkins Prairie. Oh, there are springs and more interesting areas in the forest, but Hopkins Prairie was a good fit for me--it was off a dirt road, not many people went there, it was semi-primative. It consisted of flat land with a scattering of pines and shallow lakes and lowlands that flooded part of the year. A lot of scrub and palmetto and big flat skies. I had a good time there.

What I liked best was, after living in the concrete and controlled nature of South Florida for so long, it was nice to be out in the woods. To be away from a population center. That alone made me happy. Another factor was that I was all by myself. No wife, kids, neighbors, pets, students, South Florida drivers, tourists and so on. Just me, my tent, my car, my bologna and mustard sandwiches, sardines and crackers, beer, sodas, waters, my camp fire and my whiskey. Alone in the woods, day and night.

One of the times I went, Hopkins Prairie was closed due to flooding and I had to find a new place.

I looked on the map and drove around--again, avoiding the popular places, the springs and creeks that held only developed campgrounds with flushing toilets and showers and running water and trailers and motor homes and families--until I cam across Farles Lake. Farles was a lot like Hopkins, only a little dustier and--to me--not as nice.

Alone, I would hike and search for firewood. I'd write in my journal and think and listen to the wind in the trees. Tend my fire. Walk in circles. Not say a word for the whole day or even more. Fight the ticks and flies and other bugs. Look for wildlife. Roam the woods and my mind. I'd stay up late, get up early.

I did meet some other people.

I wasn't totally alone, as there were always other semi-primative campers or even hikers who came through the woods, or locals just wandering around the area for a short visit.

I met a guy who said he was hiking the Florida Trail. He'd hiked the Appalachian Trail and was camping out in the woods for free. I saw him a few times and offered him some bananas, apples, a half jug of water. Maybe I've written about him before, but I half envied him, living day-to-day with only the concerns of the most basics of life: food, shelter, the trail and weather. But, really, what did I know of his situation.

I met a couple from Canada who were the campground hosts. Met a family down from Maryland--though the guy was Dutch or something--who had a hound dog with them, the dog getting loose and lost and howling in the woods most of the night. I had people walk right into my campsite--a drunk man and his girlfriend who kept going on about the Rainbow Gathering and hippies and such. A guy who sat at my table and discussed car parts and what they cost. Stuff like that.

I was there--the last time I was there--just before a big cold front came down. It was hot when I went to bed and the next morning it was clear, crispy-cold, wind blowing and getting colder. Nice. But a freeze coming . . . I struck camp and drove to the coast and stayed at the Whale Watch Motel in Flaglar.

My tent was leaky and one trip I got no sleep. Well, I slept some. The first night it rained and my tent leaked enough that I went to my car to try and sleep and got very little. The next night I stayed up and drank too much whiskey. Finally I fell asleep in my tent. I slept so deep that I dreamt/thought I was back in my bedroom in Fort Lauderdale and when I woke suddenly in the middle of the night--in my tent, in total blackness, drunk and dead-tired--I had no idea where I was or why and it scared the crap out of me. It took minutes for me to place myself and piece together what I was doing and where and why and it was disturbing enough to me that I could not get back to sleep. I think that was at Farles . . . Ah. But overall, Hopkins Prairie was good to me. Ocala National Forest was good.

And then I went no more. The forest was far enough away--north of Orlando--that making the trip was bothersome if I had no excuse. So, I quit going.

And, really, I haven't been camping since.

I need to go.

Best Friends

I've always had friends. Sometimes too many, sometimes not enough. Best friends are creatures of another stripe, I think. These are the people you confide in and who confess to you, the one's who share their lives but also are con-conspirators in the mundane-profound-absurd game of life.

I suppose because I moved around so much as a kid that I make friends easily and also have little trouble finding good, often best, friends. However, I do not have a best friends or even good friends from childhood and my best friends have shifted over the years, even in periods of adulthood. My oldest friends date back to high school, middle school, but of those I'm not really in touch with any of them (except perhaps one) other than through once a decade phone calls or sightings or casual social media sites.

So, I will indulge myself here in going through the years (and places) and try to recall who my best friends were. certainly not all my friends, but who stands out in memory.

Sioux Falls: There was Myron, who lived down the street in our Hilltop neighborhood. But about the only thing I can recall of him was that we fought a lot. There were the Bosslers, but I can't really single one of them out as a best friend. When we moved to the second house, I don't recall any specific friends. This was when I was 1 to 5 years old. I guess my brothers and sister were maybe my best friends.

Vancouver: Jeff was my first best friend, when I started first grade. But by the second year there in Washington, Joey Hanes became my best pal. He lived down the street. He was originally from Albuquerque. It was at Joey's place that I had my first sleepover and we both were in love with the same girl in second grade: Kathy McKay. Joey and I were close friends and I even wrote to him for a while after we moved to Tennessee when I was 10 or 11.

Jonesborough: We rented a house almost outside of town for about a year before moving to Johnson City (where we also lived just outside of town). In Jonesborough--which was small and country and quite the culture shock for me and about everyone else in the family--I had a few friends. There was one kid who lived down the road (and it was a road we lived on, not a street) but I can't even recall his name anymore. He was a little mischievous. I made friends with Rocky, who lived a few houses down. Rocky had a younger brother named Stoney (I kid you not). Rocky was, essentially, a nerd who got picked on in school (he would actually brush his teeth after lunch in the boys room) and I stood up for him a few times and we became friends, in some ways, by default. I guess he was my best pal for that brief time until we moved to Johnson City and I went to Cherokee Elementary--a county school.

Johnson City: I had a number of good friends. In the neighborhood, which was only a smattering of houses outside of the town set among woods and pastures and tobacco fields, I knew Kurt and hung out with Kent. Kent and I were close but I think he was one year ahead of me in school and did not go to Cherokee and we eventually became less close. No, I'd have to say Curt Wadawick was my best friend in Johnson City. We went to school together. He was an odd guy in many ways--again, nerdy, in today's parlance--and I'd go to his house for sleepovers now and then or to just hang out. he used to bring whole green peppers for lunch at school and eat them raw with salt. His family made big piles of scrambled eggs for breakfast and ate the eggs with grape jelly on top. He had a creek running in front of his house that we dammed up with rocks. We played a lot of Stratego. I believe our friendship waned or ended when I started 7th grade in the city at East High. I was only in that school for about three or four months, where I had a friend named Dana. But, we moved again, this time to Iowa--Des Moines (though we bought a house in the suburb of Urbandale).

Urbandale: In Iowa my first best friend was Bob, who lived on the same block as I did on 65th Street. He was a close friend until about the last year of high school when we had a bit of a falling out. I lost touch with him but we are now nominal Facebook friends now. My other best friend, who I met in high school not junior high, was Kevin. he was in the class just above my own but we became very close pals. I've lost touch with him, though I did talk to him on the phone maybe five to ten years ago. He lives in Kansas now. I had lost of there friends, good solid close friends, in Des Moines/Urbandale. Friends from school, from work, other places. There was Larry--who is the one friend I still see now and then, who I text or call when I'm back in Des Moines, though I haven't seen him in about two years now. There was Bill and Jim and Randy and Dave. There was Craig and Jim and another Jim and Mark. Keith and Scott. And many many others . . . Good friends all, though my senior year I pretty much dropped off the map with my school chums and though I saw and hung out with most of them in the years after school, when I was essentially living in Iowa City, I've lost touch with most of them in the long years since.

Iowa City: My closest friends all went to Iowa State, in Ames. I don't know why. Their loss. I took a year off before entering college and went to Iowa, in Iowa City (hooray for me). In Iowa City I knew a couple of guys (Keith, Scott) from Urbandale but I made a whole new set of friends. And of that group I'd easily say Matt, Brock and Mike were my best friends. Oh, like most college people, I had a ton of close pals and relationships, some fleeting, some longer, but those three were my core . . . You may have noticed that I've mentioned no female friends. I had a few girls, women as friends but not best friends, but in college I had more female friendships for sure (and I'm not talking about romantic relationships). But Matt and Brock I lived with most often and we went to Alaska and back together in 1983. we stayed good friends, living together post-college in Florida and Seattle. Though even them I lost touch with for the most part. Mike I went to Los Angeles with and we stayed friends but also lost touch and I've only recently seen him again--in Chicago--within the last year.

Santa Fe: Joel was my best friend. I stayed with him. But I had a set of friends outside of his circle, guys mainly who worked at The Forge at the Inn of The Governors downtown. John, Alex, Haley (female!), Vince. Good guys I felt very comfortable with and spent a lot of time with.

Los Angeles: Mike, from Iowa City, was my best friend. But there was Bob and Brenda, Jeff Wages and others.

Grayton Beach: In the Florida panhandle Matt was there and then Brock came up from Key West. But I made very close friends and then best friends with Tommy and Doug. I lived off and on there for about four years. (I also lived off and on in Iowa City and Des Moines in these years.) So later there was Brad as best friend, then later still Mike and Jimmy.

Seattle: Matt and Brock.

New York: Jimmy

Champaign: In Illinois, I lived with the woman who would become and still is my wife. She is my best friend, was my best friend. But I worked concrete construction and Kurt Strube was my best friend. There were other pals: Doug, Mike, Margaret--Brock came to Champaign. We lived in Champaign then went to Montana and then came back to Champaign. But that pretty well sums up the people in town. I was still close to Matt and Brock and Mike (from L.A.) all the while and would see them now and then.

Missoula: Oh, a number of people from our years in Montana. John, Bruce, Corey, Jeff (?) (man, I can't think of his name and he was one of my closest friends from the U of Montana even though we had a falling out down the line and I haven't heard from him in decades). And there was Bill Brown. Bill Brown ended up being one of my closest friends--he was a good ten years older than me--for all these years until his death in Jacksonville, FL two and a half years ago. John was a close friend. I and friends from work as well as classes and other spots in town.

Ft. Lauderdale: Well. I had a wife and two kids and we lived in Fort Lauderdale for not quite twenty years. Many many friends, close friends, too many to name. Best friends? Bill, Billy, another Bill, Mike, Silvio. Francis. Francis,actually, I met in Mexico and he's from Montreal. I met him right after becoming friends with Bill Brown, in Montana, in early 1990. We've been friends since with Francis coming to visit and stay with my family in Champaign and Ft. Lauderdale and us going to see him a couple of times. Bill Brown moved to Florida and I'd see him every now and then--more so the last years before his death--anyway, this brings us to today.

Today: These days my beast friends are Mike (from Miami, Gulfport, New Orleans), Bill (from Hollywood, FL) and Francis (Montreal). None of them live where I live now. Bill Brown is also one of my best friends (Jacksonville), but he is gone. I'm still in touch and trying to get back in closer touch with a few of my old best friends, but the main core is now Francis Charest in Quebec, Mike Plummer in New Orleans, Bill Murphy in Hollywood, and I should say Billy Theil, my neighbor from across the street on SW 18 St. in Ft. Lauderdale.

That's it.