In 1974 President Nixon resigned the U.S. presidency in a reverberating cloud of scandal. Embarrassingly unknown-to-me-writer, Harry Martinson, won 1/2 the Nobel Prize in Literature “for writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos”; I’ll have to check him out. On April 3rd-4th, 148 tornadoes touched down in 13 states killing 330 people, and injuring 5,484 others, creating the most catastrophic super-tornado episode in recorded history. Jefferson Starship, in a brilliant marketing scheme, rose from the still-warm corpse of Jefferson Airplane. Gillette invented the disposable plastic razor, setting a new bar for anti-razor burn technology. Tiffany Brissette, of Small Wonder fame?/Infamy?/Legend? was born. And, though not as yet notable, David Kleeman was brought perhaps kicking, but unlikely screaming in St. Louis, Missouri. David Kleeman saved his screaming for later in life.

I bet you didn’t know that, that I was born in St. Louis, Missouri; or, in fact, that I was born at all, or why you should care. But I was. And now you know. And knowing is half the battle. But that’s the beginning of the story. The part where soon after the requisite details were filled in. The ones with Play-Doh stories you could identify with, school cafeteria fights, simplistic views on my simplistic, limited existence that extended almost, but not quite to the 4th house down the block in either direction. Memories and events that ended, almost without exception with:

“Yeah… race you!” And then the laughing.

The truly interesting stuff, the laughs, the loves, the tears and the broken hearts that you can perhaps identify with in that you recognize them, but that you nevertheless can never truly claim to have experienced, happened towards the end. As in towards “today”. “Today” being any day you choose in my or your existence as long as it’s the present. You see? It is possible for someone to write a novel for the Ages other than God and his 40 Mighty Ghost Writers. Granted, mine will have less sodomy.

So the good stuff happened at the end, just in time for me to miss it the most.

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