John Prine, you wrote my life - day 4

Years ago, I had a themeless website where I collected and recorded things that interested me. I don't know what became of most of the stuff, but one thing I managed to save was a series of posts I wrote that I titled: "John Prine, You Wrote My Life."

In honor of John and in hopes that he recovers fully from covid-19 and is released from the hospital soon, I'm going to post here one chapter a day from that writing, along with a YouTube clip of John singing the song that inspired it (as long as a YouTube clip exists of it).

I have no doubt John's songs have written millions of folks' experiences. These are mine.

John Prine, You Wrote My Life

a life unstuck in time (to borrow a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr),

so this story can go on and on in dis-order, added to at any time the whim (or need) arises

Chapter 4 

Donald & Lydia©

----John Prine

There were spaces between Donald and whatever he said
Strangers had forced him to live in his head

But dreaming just comes natural
Like the first breath from a baby
Like sunshine feeding daisies
Like the love hidden deep in your heart

"Stand in line to get a ticket! Stand in line to ride the ride! Stand in line to get a beer! I'll probably have to stand in line to get kicked out of this f#@king park!"

My friend Randy didn't much enjoy crowds. In fact, he didn't much enjoy any group of people numbering more than five. I don't know what made him go along with us in the first place on that trip to the amusement park. He wasn't very amused. The whole way there, he kept grousing about how I made him go, and kept referring to me as the group's "Social Enforcer".

Our group was a crew of railroad flat neighbors from North Beach in San Francisco. We were all in our late 20's, all single, and all pretty much living by a great deal of grace and very few wits. Normally, Randy wasn't so vitriolic in his discourse. In fact, he rarely spoke in the presence of more than one other person. He told me one time that he just felt so unlike everyone else, and that every time he said something, people looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language - one from another planet. So he just quit talking. I know now what he meant - I feel that way in the presence of most people.

In Randy's case, part of the problem may have been the 18 hits of acid his high school "buddies" slipped into his drink one night. They had to deliver him to his grandmother's where he stayed for two weeks - incoherent. When he came back to "normal", nothing else ever was. It seems like a person's mind can only go so far out before the whole of reality assumes new precepts. A friend of mine said one time that going "outside the box" should make it a little easier to live within the box, once you came back. I don't think that's true at all. It makes it harder. But at least then you know why you're unhappy - you see the smallness of the box.

Before we went to the amusement park, two of the other guys had promised to help move some heavy furniture for another friend of theirs. Randy and I were to go pick them up in a downtown San Francisco neighborhood. Randy didn't have a car, which makes sense in San Francisco, where parking is virtually non-existent and the bus system is fair. I did have one, however - a car I had gotten essentially free from my mother in rural Missouri and driven back to S.F. Not exactly a "city car" - it was a 1974 Ford Thunderbird - the year they made them as big as a tanker (in fact, the folks back in S.F. began to refer to it as "The Tuna Boat" - my boss one time suggested I park it on the street in front of my apartment and rent it out as an extra room). Maneuvering crowded, hilly streets was only half of the problem - the rest was trying to find a place to park the darned thing.

When I pulled up to the apartment where we were to pick up the other guys, there was (typically) no available parking, so we had to just double park on the side of the street and wait. Randy looked over at me and said, "Let me drive around the block to pick up the guys. It'll really surprise Paul." I didn't know why such a simple event should be so surprising, but I agreed, and changed seats with him.

The why became apparent at the first right turn. Handling that big Tuna Boat in downtown San Francisco made Randy's eyes as big as saucers. We rather lurched and halted so much that I finally wise-cracked, "Ranj, how long since your license expired?" His hands were gripping the wheel for all he was worth, and his face showed a kind of exhilarated terror, as he chuckled, "I've never driven before."