Sad Things

Mrs. Hitchox, who I mentioned earlier, was bedridden and nearly blind and lived in her hotel room in Monterey. When I married in '78, we had the reception at the hotel where I worked (the price was right) and it ended early and we had a lot of cake left, so my wife and I called her and took her a piece of cake and some punch. She was embarrassed and wanted badly to give us something in return, so she gave us her cream and sugar set she was using. It wasn't fancy, but I kept them for years, long after she died and I got divorced. Some where along the way, with a new marriage and children, the set became part of the play tea party set and then part of the sand box toy set and then as the kids finally out grew all of that sort of stuff, I think they went into the trash.

There's a cup on my bookshelf that was given me by my second wife and I drank coffee out of it throughout twenty years of nights writing and finally it was broken and I tried gluing it back together, but it no longer holds liquid. I tried using it as a pencil cup and just put it up as a thing to take up space, like my son's stuffed Tigger and a water bottle from a Boy Scout Camp.

NOT SO SAD THINGS

Found a straw hat in the lost & found at the hotel in Monterey in 1977. It fit. I debated about taking it and finally I did just before I quit to go to San Francisco. I told everyone it was my Salinas hat. It had a red bandanna. I think I'm on my 15th hat now with the same red bandanna. I keep destroying them. I wear 'em backpacking and camping and any other time it seems right- like the yearly AIDs walk we have in LA.