𝗚𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗢𝗨𝗖𝗛 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗙𝗘𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗠𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗬; 𝗚𝗘𝗢𝗥𝗚𝗘 𝗥𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗭, 𝗝𝗢𝗔𝗡 𝗕𝗔𝗘𝗭, 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗬 𝗕𝗜𝗕𝗟𝗘

                 

On my way to Walmart to pick up my meds, I tuned the radio in to George Ramirez's 105.1, the only local station I care anything about.  Within two guitar notes, I recognized Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust," a song for which I know all the lyrics, a song that brings back a lifetime's emotions.

No one had a voice like 1975 Baez and her Dylan quote, "my poetry was lousy you said," is not true either, if he actually said that.

Anyway, the melancholy of the song fit my mood after receiving a short note yesterday from my only remaining uncle, Joe from Oregon, likely the most influential person in my early teenage years:

"Jim, are you still in the land of the living? My peers are almost gone.  Hope you are doing well."

It'd been four years since our last communication.  His choice, not mine.  Uncle Joe, despite his intelligence, charisma and social nature, remains, at almost 90, in a belief system that views someone like me as a heretic, an apostate, for simply no longer believing.  While I responded immediately after seeing the message, repeated glances to my phone find no subsequent contact attempts.

As for the late George Ramirez, he stopped me on the street a few years ago, just outside his club, the Half Moon.

"I just wanted to make clear, Jim, that what you write is art," Mr. Ramirez told me.

"I could not do what you do, nor could most people," Ramirez added, after I protested a bit.

"Your writing gives people a vision they didn't see before, or, if they did see it, they didn't quite understand it until you spelled it out."