And that’s what it was, of course, an elegy. Not an obituary, recording every major step in Marilyn’s life, replete with discussions of parents and children and those left behind. Obituaries are best left to others. Elegies are sometimes mournful, but they are also allowed to be melancholic, nostalgic, wistful and merely sad. To me, an elegy should portray its subject in such a way that the reader can identify with and appreciate the sense of loss of the elegist, and I think we accomplished that with Marilyn’s story. Gracious readers replied, commenting on tears of their own, and that honors Marilyn. Three generous souls even used the word “perfect” for the piece, and if there is anything I have ever written that needed to be perfect, this was it, so thank you.
For me, writing is not difficult. And while I might have preferred the batting eye of Ted Williams or the fastball of Bob Feller, it turns out to be a handier talent than either. I have never been particularly sympathetic to the lot of writers who complain of the great psychological stress of plying their trade, that’s just part of the work. Baring one’s soul is not supposed to be a ride down the water slide, if you can’t handle it take up a career in masonry or hydroponic gardening. That said, this particular piece was emotionally draining to me, which was a surprise. I have written of my years with Marilyn in an earlier chapter of The Flying Pie without distress. Of course, she was alive then and now she is no more, so it’s one last chance to pay back part of the bill. As I reached the conclusion of the work, I felt like I was alone in a mine shaft and extremely troubled. I considered a future career in masonry or hydroponic gardening. But if you care about someone all that much, it shouldn’t be easy, and I cared about her all that much.
Someone asked me if I ever let Marilyn know how much I appreciated her love and companionship in our earlier lives. I did. I did it via the intercession of my great friend, Pat Brown, and also by way of a letter I once wrote to Marilyn. Her response was typical. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she wrote, dismissing any problems, “I was a wimp back then.” Marilyn was never a wimp, of course. She just typically placed everyone else’s interests before her own. “Anyway,” she continued, “I learned my lesson and it was a great help in the future.”
On the off chance that there actually is a St. Peter, I have held onto this letter of absolution and am prepared to present it at the appropriate time, assuming I ever get that far. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if the rest of my friends would kindly hold off on arriving at their respective demises. I would like to write something cheerful….maybe something about spring and hope and winning racehorses. After all, the azaleas are starting to bloom and the dogwoods will be next. Or, as my old friend, Irana, puts it—“You write the best elegies in the world. I hope you don’t have to write any more.” Amen to that, Irana.
Three Stories
These little anecdotes were first presented on the Austin Ghetto Line because, after all, that’s where most of Marilyn’s friends are. This is one of the very few times that something I have written appeared elsewhere before it was displayed here.
Marilyn Story No. 1: We moved from my Mother’s house into a cheap apartment and Marilyn was wrestling with the gas stove, which wouldn’t light. When she tried to light it a second time, the gas buildup exploded, setting her great mane of hair afire. She fled the kitchen toward me and I quickly put out the fire with my hands, barely a burn.
Marilyn stood looking at herself in the mirror and began crying, a rare occurrence. “Look at my EYEBROWS!” she wailed. There was not much left of them. I hugged her and tried to console.
“Hey,” I reassured, “we can just shave them off and get one of those crayons and paint on some new ones. You can have any color.”
The muffled tears turned to muffled laughter. Then hysterical laughter. Marilyn was laughing so hard she had to sit down.
“Well, Bill,” she said, gasping, “I think you just reached a new plateau in adding insult to injury.”
Gee, I dunnow. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Marilyn Story No. 2: Marilyn and I got crappy jobs at a food assembly-line place in one of the old converted textile mills in Lawrence. It was Winter and we had no car so we had to walk to and fro in the horrendous weather. After a couple of weeks, they moved me up to a fabulous position assembling cardboard boxes. A couple of days later, I got into a dustup with the box foreman and was canned. The very next day, a horrible blizzard swept in and blanketed the town. Marilyn went to work anyway, ensconced in ten layers of clothing. When quitting time approached, I decided to go out and meet her on her way home.
Eventually, here she came, slogging in the distance, snow piled up on her little ski hat, almost locking her eyelids together. The wind howled. Nothing but white was visible anywhere. I walked up to her and moved her scarf away from her mouth as it was obvious she was trying to say something. She looked pained and impatient.
“When the hell did you say we were moving to Florida?” she wanted to know. We left three days later.
Final Marilyn Story: We were selling Charlatan magazines across the street from Florida State University in Tallahassee, she on one end of the campus, me on the other. the cops came and arrested me, as they were wont to do. A couple of students went running up to Marilyn and warned her to leave.
“Are you kidding?” she asked them. “Business on this side is going to be terrific now!”
Soft as a kitten, tough as a dockworker. Never be another one like her.
Internet Hero Eats!
Well, Bill, we did it. Diane was even more excited than I was, insisting on taking a picture of the Norwegian mackeral plate. All was perfection.
We had a four-course “tasting,” which was—well—tasty. There were so many subtle flavors at right angles to each that the small portions actually filled us up. Who’d have thought it? Our enjoyment was complete and once again I thank you. For your generosity. For your choice of restaurant (Uchiko, in Austin). And, most of all, for The Flying Pie.
Onward, through the frogs,
Harry
Marty Jourard Gives Up Music For The Farm Life
It was bound to happen. After all, how ya gonna keep ‘em down in Paree after they’ve seen the farm? Marty Jourard, North Florida expatriate, returned to his roots a couple weeks back and decided a lifestyle change was in order. He would give up his glamorous Seattle existence and retreat to rustic, rural Alachua County for the rest of his days.
“Well, I always was a yokel at heart,” says Marty. “Tote that barge. Lift that bale. Get a little drunk. Land in jail. It’s all good. Although I do hate to give up the big money they pay piano teachers in Seattle.” Say what you will about piano teachers, but Marty met his current inamorata, Natalie, that way. He says Natalie is a “badass,” but how many badass piano players do you know? Except Liberace, of course. Anyway, Marty and Natalie live out there in Washington with her two kids, who might take some convincing when they hear about moving to the sticks. Probably all they need to hear is, “It’s sunny all the time.” And, “It’s an hour and a half from Disney World.,” or “They have beaches with water over 60 degrees.” That would do it for me. Marty also has two kids of his own, Jack, 21, and Sydney, 24, named for her famous grandfather. Sydney just had a kid. She named him Indra Cedar Moon, so he’s pissed off already. Sydney sounds like a hippie to us. Anyway, all this makes Marty a grandfather, time to reassess his priorities and get back to the earth. When he was here, we taught him to drive a tractor, so he’s working on it—even though he was disappointed to discover you couldn’t get the thing past 40 miles an hour.
As a mere youth, Marty hung around the Subterranean Circus a lot. After we finally threw him out, he got together with his brother, Jeff, and formed a band called The Motels. Other members were Michael Goodroe on bass and Brian Glasscock on drums, with Martha Davis handling vocals and guitar. Marty played keyboard and saxophone, brother Jeff was a guitarist. Marty says he can sing pretty good but we’re not sure. The band later added Guy Perry and Scott Thurston, who now plays with Tom Petty. The Motels were good, even though you never heard of them. They formed in 1978, were signed by Capitol Records in 1979 and held together until 1986, producing five albums, two of them gold records (500,000 sold) and two top ten singles.
The Motels opened for the Cars in the summer of 1980 and later for J. Geils Band and Rick Springfield. They also performed on Saturday Night Live, American Bandstand and Midnight Special. All of this qualifies Marty to write a rock book and he’s doing just that. The name of this tome is Getting’ Down in Gatortown: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Roots of Gainesville, Florida. Who else is going to do it? “I wanted to explain and document a time,” Marty says, “that allowed musical talent to be revealed, nurtured and sustained, something that doesn’t happen in every small city, and show that Tom Petty was not a fluke, that Gatortown had everything a musician would want, at least between ‘64 and ‘76 or so. To show the larger music scene in a small southern town. To add Gainesville to the history of rock ‘n’ roll with a little more depth.” Marty swears the book will appear THIS year and we’re holding him to it.
Funny Motels Story: "In November of 1980, we were doing an Australian tour during a nationwide airline strike. We had to take small commuter planes from city to city, Beechcraft Bonanza-sized planes, for about four legs. At one of the airports, a fellow-passenger turned out to be Patrick Macnee, an English actor known for his role in The Avengers. As we waited in the gate area to board the plane, I started singing That’ll Be The Day, by Buddy Holly, who you’ll remember was offed in a terrible plane crash. No sense of humor, those Englishmen. McNee got up and walked off. Despite my tempting the Fates, everybody arrived on schedule. We never saw Patrick again. Somehow, I think he wanted it that way.”
That’s all, folks….
For me, writing is not difficult. And while I might have preferred the batting eye of Ted Williams or the fastball of Bob Feller, it turns out to be a handier talent than either. I have never been particularly sympathetic to the lot of writers who complain of the great psychological stress of plying their trade, that’s just part of the work. Baring one’s soul is not supposed to be a ride down the water slide, if you can’t handle it take up a career in masonry or hydroponic gardening. That said, this particular piece was emotionally draining to me, which was a surprise. I have written of my years with Marilyn in an earlier chapter of The Flying Pie without distress. Of course, she was alive then and now she is no more, so it’s one last chance to pay back part of the bill. As I reached the conclusion of the work, I felt like I was alone in a mine shaft and extremely troubled. I considered a future career in masonry or hydroponic gardening. But if you care about someone all that much, it shouldn’t be easy, and I cared about her all that much.
Someone asked me if I ever let Marilyn know how much I appreciated her love and companionship in our earlier lives. I did. I did it via the intercession of my great friend, Pat Brown, and also by way of a letter I once wrote to Marilyn. Her response was typical. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she wrote, dismissing any problems, “I was a wimp back then.” Marilyn was never a wimp, of course. She just typically placed everyone else’s interests before her own. “Anyway,” she continued, “I learned my lesson and it was a great help in the future.”
On the off chance that there actually is a St. Peter, I have held onto this letter of absolution and am prepared to present it at the appropriate time, assuming I ever get that far. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if the rest of my friends would kindly hold off on arriving at their respective demises. I would like to write something cheerful….maybe something about spring and hope and winning racehorses. After all, the azaleas are starting to bloom and the dogwoods will be next. Or, as my old friend, Irana, puts it—“You write the best elegies in the world. I hope you don’t have to write any more.” Amen to that, Irana.
Three Stories
These little anecdotes were first presented on the Austin Ghetto Line because, after all, that’s where most of Marilyn’s friends are. This is one of the very few times that something I have written appeared elsewhere before it was displayed here.
Marilyn Story No. 1: We moved from my Mother’s house into a cheap apartment and Marilyn was wrestling with the gas stove, which wouldn’t light. When she tried to light it a second time, the gas buildup exploded, setting her great mane of hair afire. She fled the kitchen toward me and I quickly put out the fire with my hands, barely a burn.
Marilyn stood looking at herself in the mirror and began crying, a rare occurrence. “Look at my EYEBROWS!” she wailed. There was not much left of them. I hugged her and tried to console.
“Hey,” I reassured, “we can just shave them off and get one of those crayons and paint on some new ones. You can have any color.”
The muffled tears turned to muffled laughter. Then hysterical laughter. Marilyn was laughing so hard she had to sit down.
“Well, Bill,” she said, gasping, “I think you just reached a new plateau in adding insult to injury.”
Gee, I dunnow. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Marilyn Story No. 2: Marilyn and I got crappy jobs at a food assembly-line place in one of the old converted textile mills in Lawrence. It was Winter and we had no car so we had to walk to and fro in the horrendous weather. After a couple of weeks, they moved me up to a fabulous position assembling cardboard boxes. A couple of days later, I got into a dustup with the box foreman and was canned. The very next day, a horrible blizzard swept in and blanketed the town. Marilyn went to work anyway, ensconced in ten layers of clothing. When quitting time approached, I decided to go out and meet her on her way home.
Eventually, here she came, slogging in the distance, snow piled up on her little ski hat, almost locking her eyelids together. The wind howled. Nothing but white was visible anywhere. I walked up to her and moved her scarf away from her mouth as it was obvious she was trying to say something. She looked pained and impatient.
“When the hell did you say we were moving to Florida?” she wanted to know. We left three days later.
Final Marilyn Story: We were selling Charlatan magazines across the street from Florida State University in Tallahassee, she on one end of the campus, me on the other. the cops came and arrested me, as they were wont to do. A couple of students went running up to Marilyn and warned her to leave.
“Are you kidding?” she asked them. “Business on this side is going to be terrific now!”
Soft as a kitten, tough as a dockworker. Never be another one like her.
Internet Hero Eats!
Well, Bill, we did it. Diane was even more excited than I was, insisting on taking a picture of the Norwegian mackeral plate. All was perfection.
We had a four-course “tasting,” which was—well—tasty. There were so many subtle flavors at right angles to each that the small portions actually filled us up. Who’d have thought it? Our enjoyment was complete and once again I thank you. For your generosity. For your choice of restaurant (Uchiko, in Austin). And, most of all, for The Flying Pie.
Onward, through the frogs,
Harry
Marty Jourard Gives Up Music For The Farm Life
It was bound to happen. After all, how ya gonna keep ‘em down in Paree after they’ve seen the farm? Marty Jourard, North Florida expatriate, returned to his roots a couple weeks back and decided a lifestyle change was in order. He would give up his glamorous Seattle existence and retreat to rustic, rural Alachua County for the rest of his days.
“Well, I always was a yokel at heart,” says Marty. “Tote that barge. Lift that bale. Get a little drunk. Land in jail. It’s all good. Although I do hate to give up the big money they pay piano teachers in Seattle.” Say what you will about piano teachers, but Marty met his current inamorata, Natalie, that way. He says Natalie is a “badass,” but how many badass piano players do you know? Except Liberace, of course. Anyway, Marty and Natalie live out there in Washington with her two kids, who might take some convincing when they hear about moving to the sticks. Probably all they need to hear is, “It’s sunny all the time.” And, “It’s an hour and a half from Disney World.,” or “They have beaches with water over 60 degrees.” That would do it for me. Marty also has two kids of his own, Jack, 21, and Sydney, 24, named for her famous grandfather. Sydney just had a kid. She named him Indra Cedar Moon, so he’s pissed off already. Sydney sounds like a hippie to us. Anyway, all this makes Marty a grandfather, time to reassess his priorities and get back to the earth. When he was here, we taught him to drive a tractor, so he’s working on it—even though he was disappointed to discover you couldn’t get the thing past 40 miles an hour.
As a mere youth, Marty hung around the Subterranean Circus a lot. After we finally threw him out, he got together with his brother, Jeff, and formed a band called The Motels. Other members were Michael Goodroe on bass and Brian Glasscock on drums, with Martha Davis handling vocals and guitar. Marty played keyboard and saxophone, brother Jeff was a guitarist. Marty says he can sing pretty good but we’re not sure. The band later added Guy Perry and Scott Thurston, who now plays with Tom Petty. The Motels were good, even though you never heard of them. They formed in 1978, were signed by Capitol Records in 1979 and held together until 1986, producing five albums, two of them gold records (500,000 sold) and two top ten singles.
The Motels opened for the Cars in the summer of 1980 and later for J. Geils Band and Rick Springfield. They also performed on Saturday Night Live, American Bandstand and Midnight Special. All of this qualifies Marty to write a rock book and he’s doing just that. The name of this tome is Getting’ Down in Gatortown: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Roots of Gainesville, Florida. Who else is going to do it? “I wanted to explain and document a time,” Marty says, “that allowed musical talent to be revealed, nurtured and sustained, something that doesn’t happen in every small city, and show that Tom Petty was not a fluke, that Gatortown had everything a musician would want, at least between ‘64 and ‘76 or so. To show the larger music scene in a small southern town. To add Gainesville to the history of rock ‘n’ roll with a little more depth.” Marty swears the book will appear THIS year and we’re holding him to it.
Funny Motels Story: "In November of 1980, we were doing an Australian tour during a nationwide airline strike. We had to take small commuter planes from city to city, Beechcraft Bonanza-sized planes, for about four legs. At one of the airports, a fellow-passenger turned out to be Patrick Macnee, an English actor known for his role in The Avengers. As we waited in the gate area to board the plane, I started singing That’ll Be The Day, by Buddy Holly, who you’ll remember was offed in a terrible plane crash. No sense of humor, those Englishmen. McNee got up and walked off. Despite my tempting the Fates, everybody arrived on schedule. We never saw Patrick again. Somehow, I think he wanted it that way.”
That’s all, folks….
