Wayward Landlubber

     Gary Richardson was reaching the climax of his guitar solo. The fingers of his left hand moved rapidly over the frets; a piece of chromed steel on his little finger to make those special harmonic notes. His right hand strummed across the 12 strings of his Gibson guitar, a bead of sweat ran down his nose. It was a performance I had seen dozens of times since we rented the main floor of an old house with 4 bedrooms on 16th and Flanders street in Portland, right across from Radio Cab. It was 1979. In a few more years we would be able to fill up our gas tanks at Radio Cab during the gas embargo brought on by the OPEC countries during the Arab-Israeli War.       Gary's face was showing the strain as his strumming approached those final notes. I had seen this as many times as I had heard his playing. This time was different. I was wondering who I was and whether my return from this particular chemical high would see me coming back as the same person i had been when i had drunk the i

     Recently I was given a task by Professor Wen at Willamette University . She is conducting a study on generations with her class. Since I am of an older generation,  i represent my demographic. My task was to make a presentation of my writing to a small group of students from the class she is teaching. I knew immediately what I would present to her Generations group.      Some years ago in my mid 20's I hitch-hiked to Southern California. On a typical sunny California day I found myself sitting in the well-heeled comfort of Marina Del Rey.  An old man struck up a conversation with me. He was then, around my age now.     He was clearly Jewish, that distinctive nose and the Eastern European accent. He told me a story of escaping Holland in a sailboat regatta of these odd little sabot sailboats. I said little except to draw him out when the story began to lag. He used a phrase when referring to how people dealt with the insult of being occupied by a hostile nation, "small dis