The Sierras All Around

A man in a snowy parking lot. The Sierras All around him. Early morning. 8:35AM The car packed. The engine running. Snow underfoot. The Sierras all around him

He turns around and looks at the building. His mother in one of the apartments. Three years of his life Stashed there In a lockdown Taking care of her. Every day the same. Not watching the clock But feeling his life die. Tick tock tick tock.

Guilt for going, yes. Relief for leaving, yes. His mother didn't want him to go But she didn't want him to stay.

"I'll be fine."

She doesn't to come along. She kissed him good-bye.

"Go."

He wipes the snow off the car. Snow from last night. Snow coming tonight. Tomorrow too.

The sun, the clouds, the high altitude, skiing, hiking, his mother. The Sierras all around him. Tomorrow not him

Three years. The room. His room. The four walls. The one window. Day after day after day. His life slipping away by. Tick tock tick tock.

He gets in the car. And drives down the mountain. Away from Mount Rose To Lake Tahoe South Heading to Tucson. Thirteen hours away.

ETA Tonight Tonight Dinner with Francesca. Her hand warm in his.

Life again. Life again. And the snow blew off the car. Heading down from the mountains. The Sierras behind him. Not forever But never more forever

The Beat Lives On

Beat icon Neal Cassady died on February 4, 1968.

Walking home from at party in San Miguel de Allende Cassady fell asleep by train tracks. The night was cold and wet. The next morning his 3D body was discovered in a coma. This death from exposure launched the outlaw traveler from this 2D world into 4D eternity.

Time has been cruel to the memory of Kerouac's road legend. Critics have called him a fool. Milleniums see his antics as the act of an addict. Having recently read ON THE ROAD I was enthralled to accompany Neal across the country. Cassady had been reared by a wino father on Denver's skid row.

“Among the hundreds of isolated creatures who haunted the streets of lower downtown Denver there was not one so young as myself. Of these dreary men who had committed themselves, each for his own good reason, to the task of finishing their days as penniless drunkards, I alone, as the sharer of their way of life, presented a replica of childhood to which their vision could daily turn, and in being thus grafted onto them, I became the unnatural son of a few score beaten men.”

Neal Cassady lives in the minds of wanderers.

And all straights consider us 'fools', because they know nothing of the road and even less of friendship.

To hear PULL MY DAISY by Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and Neal Cassady please go to the following URL

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3BxcGz_4ns

Work by Maynard G Krebs

From 1959 to 1963 THE LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS was one of America's favorite TV shows featuring Dwayne Hickman in the lead role along with Bob Denver as his friend.

Maynard G Krebs believed life was for living and he mere mention of the word 'work' made him quiver.

He was the most famous beatnik of his time.

Almost a huge Jack Kerouac, the author of ON THE ROAD.

Maynard G Krebs became an idol to teens of the 60s rebelling against authority and there was plenty of authority in those years.

Same as now.

To view Maynard G Krebs reaction to the word 'work'. please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgecgpCfAYo