Letter written in October of 1985, from "Doug, Teresa, and Jamie".

I do so want to know what happened to them. I want to know they are all right. There are ways I can find out. I am in touch with someone who would know, and someday I will ask. Right now, reading this letter, I'm afraid to. Teresa is happy. Jamie is about 5. Doug is, well...he's doing fine, but they were all shooting up coke not too long before this. Well, not Jamie. And Doug was a good father, when he could be. "Doug will be clean for 21 days Wednesday." Seems I did hear that he started taking college courses later on. Maybe he did clean up. They are fixing the porch and baking apple pies. Life was good. Maybe there was a happy ending. Jamie is 23 now. God, I hope they're all right. God, I'm afraid to ask.

Now this is a complete mystery. I have a matchbook cover (sans matches - I was a thrifty smoker), lavender, which reads "A Perfect Match, Chris and Ron, October 12, 1985." I know who Chris and Ron are. I think. But I was long gone before this event took place. So - is this a different Chris and Ron - no, can't be. Did someone send me the matches in a letter? Possible. I suppose.

If it's who I think it is, Ron was the "good" brother of my friend Tommy, who wasn't actually "bad" - he just acted that way. The only thing I remember of Ron is that he did play guitar and sing. He was the minstrel of the Hellbounders. I can almost hear him playïng "Hangman" now. I can see him, anyway. He looks like a bandito out of an old, old movie. Now I can see the rest of the guys hanging around, hoisting beers. They all look like they're in the same damn movie. It wasn't that bad a movie, come to think of it. I had a small part in it myownself.

6 years later - almost out of Green Bay. Letter from JR, dated 16 July '85. "Plans are for me to bug-out in mid August (now) - SF or Seattle. Where and when are your plans for now?"

Well, I left in September for Seattle, and met JR there. He took me to the Blue Moon Tavern that night, and my life in Seattle was officially under way. Fast forward to this afternoon, when I just had a conversation with the bartender who was working that night at the Moon. We tried being together twice, and are now just good friends. I'll go to visit him in eastern Washington in a couple of weeks. Also just got off the phone with a friend who is arranging a memorial party for two good friends of ours who died this past year. One thing I remember from my first night on the Moon, besides the long-haired bartender with a little more than a touch of gray, is someone behind me raising his voice to "Famous Irish toasts! Nom de plume! Nom de plume!" I've always suspected Pat, who was Irish with more than just a touch of the absurd. I didn't know him until later, of course. He did come up to me a few weeks later, looked me over very sternly, and announced that he had been having me watched very closely. "Oh," I said, with an air that was meant to be jaunty, "got all your best men on it, huh?" "Yup!" he said, with steely succinctness. Pause..... "And?" I finally asked. Very slowly a smile crept across his face. "You're all right."

I considered that my official welcome to Seattle, and specifically to the Blue Moon. There was a year or so when I stopped speaking to him, but that was much later and a story for another time. Pat died a year ago from lung cancer. His partner, Alexis, died this summer. They were unpublished writers and artists of life. They were more than a little crazy. They were always a celebration.

Letter from Elaine postmarked November 5, 1979. I have recently arrived in Seattle, having ridden out here on the back of a Harley Sportster. The letter concerns the great motorcycle shaft. How familiar does this sound? Elaine helps this guy buy a motorcycle, after promises of (a) paying her back, (b) taking her on one wild ass trip to Daytona, Sturgis, wherever, or (c) they'll be in love forever, so what's a little loan between friends? Substitute med school, a car, a cell phone (how else can I get work, babe?) - whatever. It's something we women fork over in return for - in return for what? I thought it was the promise - the payback, the trip, the love you forever - but I don't think it's the exact nature of the promise that's really important to us. I think we fork it over in return for something to believe in. For somebody to believe. That's why we don't haul their asses off to an attorney to sign a promissory note or something reasonable. We decide to believe them, because we need to believe in somebody.

Get this. The guy has already screwed her over ten times ten, and she's getting pissed (like it took that long), and she's deciding to sell the bike, since she needs the money desperately and the promises are not being kept. Then:

"...I had somebody interested in buying it. T.. and I were getting along so well that I suggested I might keep it until spring when either he could buy it or I'd sell it to somebody else. We threw around a few ideas and next thing I knew, K... is calling me, telling me that T... picked up the bike [from the shop] and was planning to ride it out west." Yeah. Well, T... told her he was just "riding it around for a couple of days" and she did get it back, but he did leave for Oregon soon after and was never seen again. But get this:

"I did feel bad about making him give up the bike but I stood to lose too much from a guy who can't even keep his act together. It ws kind of fun getting mad at him the other day, even though I was out of line. He's bullshitted with me so much it doesn't matter."

Even now, I want to call her up and bitch her out for even THINKING about feeling bad. But then I think about M... and the cell phone. And a dozen other times I've lived the same scenario. I want to call me up and bitch me out for even THINKING about feeling bad.

Just to give you some idea of the span of time that has passed since that Zeppelin Hindenberg. It is now 25 years since 1978, which seems to me like just a blink of the eye. For any of you who remember 1960, 25 years prior to that was 1935. So, to 17 year olds living now, 1978 is to them what 1935 was to us back in 1960. A time long long ago in a galaxy far far away.

Hungry? Broke? I'm both - not least because I'm back on weight watchers, but that's really no problem. I'm no blimp - but here's one for you. Zeppelin's sub sandwich shop, in Green Bay, WI. Circa the turn of the 70/80's. Their Hindenberg, composed of steak, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, genoa salami, and American cheese. A small one cost $2.50. A large one cost $3.15. I remember it well. .........