Recollections

With Overture by Barry Bliss

Dust Cover

Traveling as a pulp writer from July 2018 thru February 2026, the author began various memoirs concerning the lives of his hosts and their neighbors. That work is here, sorrowfully wrapped up short and placed together along with the fragments of the abandoned autobiography, Work.

By the Author Of: One Soul Under God, Son of A Lesser God, Let The World Fend For Itself, My Younger Self, My Dad Had No Legs, and Jimmy, Recollections marks the end of an attempt to chart the plight of fellow travelers by one of their own weary lights.

Author’s Notes

The bundling of these accounts of the lives of dear friends is a shameful act of quitting. This is the only job I have quit, which has not imbued me with a joyless sense of freedom. The feeling is rather of sinking. I will, in the dying days of this month of March, dedicate a day each to writing a front piece for each subject. This will “clear the writing decks” for the completion of four long-nagging history books and hopefully a few fun novels, before year’s end.

1.)

Vanilla Gorilla

The Education of Postmodern Texan: As Told To An Old Tramp

2.)

Daddy

One Man’s Path to Harmony: Appalachia to Los Angeles

3.)

From a Heavy Gravity Planet

A Boy-To-Man Memoir of Electric Dan

4.)

I Could Not Kiss Ass!

The Working Life of Bob Johnson

5.)

I Miss Them So

One Man’s Inquiry Into His Departed Family

As Discussed at His Table with a Tramp Biographer

This is here an incomplete attempt to help my cousin. It will be given to him as a separate document and I will continue to sit with him and type as I may, and add to this on the occasions that find me in Baltimore.

6.)

In These Parts

Recollections of Big Kelley, As Told to James LaFond

This work has also been given out to publish as a stand alone biography to House Glass.

7.)

Work

An Under Man Memoir

I have a profound lack of interest in relating my own working life, mostly inspired by fear as it was. I will spend a day this week recollecting what I can of my parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles in regards to what they did for a living and hat the taught me.

Overture

I have asked Barry Bliss, a song writer, who has worked his share of low jobs, and who I hope to soon meet, for song lyrics to kick off our journey into the life of the working American. I’m sending this to Barry to put into paperback print and to my Hobo Historian producer for hardback release. This will be bundled into the Graphomaniac Archive #3 as an ebook.

Emails with Barry are helpful for this writer. He is almost my age and worked in a more grinding city. In the passage below he walks into the Pool of Narcissus:

“I went to a recreation center gym while visiting Frederick. Everywhere I turned I could see myself in large mirrors. My ideal gym would have no mirrors.”

Communicating with Barry, is like being contacted by a fellow extraterrestrial zoologist marooned on a similar planet of the apes.

“You said you'd be interested in reading some of my lyrics. I am going to type them out for one song. I don't have them in digital form. The lyrics below were written 16 years ago, when I was 44:

I'm 44

working in a grocery store.

I'm not rich or poor.

I don't want to be alive anymore.

I've written for the future

my whole life.

I'm writing these lyrics on the clock

divorced from the woman that was once upon a time my wife.

It takes so long

to understand.

It feels so wrong

to be an honest man.

I owe nothing

to the machine.

That's a lie they've attempted to con me with

and it's no longer working.

It gets cold in New York City.

The wind hits my face.

I indulged in self pity.

My pride was gone without a trace, but I don’t have it in me

to surrender.

I'm a working class hero,

of the cool cat club I'm the founding member.

One more song

One more day

Got to get through

this someway

Can't give up

can't give in

In this world I will never

win.

I'm 44

I'm working in a grocery store.

There's going to come a time when I'm

not going to belong here anymore.

One day I'm going to be finished.

I'm not procrastinating and I'm not in a hurry.

It doesn't matter what your parents say kids, the truth is

there's never any need to worry.

One more song

One more day

got to get through

this someway

I can't quit

and I can't give in

in this world I will never

win

but at least I won't have to

come back again

In this world I will never

win

In this world the good guy

just can't win.

Take care.