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Speaker 1: I did a show Saturday night, singing duets with a

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tall woman, and was so fascinated by the perfect harmonies

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on the Everlys Let it be me that I forgot

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to take an intermission until almost two hours had passed,

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and I saw elderly people my age dashing in panic

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up the aisle to empty their bladders. A weird feeling

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to create something so wonderful that you wind up torturing people,

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like painting a mural so beautiful people gaze at it

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and don't notice the stairs and fall and break an arm.

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I was a writer for years, but I dreamed of

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being a singer, and now here I was singing good

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tenor to a fabulous soprano. Meanwhile, hundreds of people were

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hoping not to wet their pants. An out of body

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experience for me, a physical reality for them. It's a

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night I'll remember for the rest of my life. I'm

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eighty three, whereas vast acres of my middle and elder

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years are a complete blank to me, which worries my beloved.

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She says, you remember, that's September in Paris, the little

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cafe on the square with the fountain, the strolling gypsy

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guitarist but I don't. She says, sure that the nymph

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in the fountain, the pigeons on her shoulders. I'm sorry,

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I don't remember them either. I remember when I was

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a kid, our family driving home from Sunday night gospel

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meeting and stopping at a and W for root beer floats,

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how beautiful they were after an hour of contemplating eternal damnation.

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I remember being sent to Aunt Joe's house when my

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mother was having babies, a house with a wood burning

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stove and outhouse like in Little Home on the Prairie.

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I remember my first time on skis, skidding down a

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steep hill and thinking I will never do this again,

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a promise that I have kept all my life. The

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show with the Tall Woman Heather Massey was at the

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Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, where I had done hundreds

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of shows back in a former life, and people asked,

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doesn't it feel wonderful to be back here, And the

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answer was no way. Too much went on there for

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anybody to remember, clutter preventing nostalgia. But I remember doing

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shows at Radio City Music Hall with Don and Phil

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Everlely thirty some year years ago. The two of them

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in shiny green suits, rising on the stage elevator, strumming, singing,

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I bless the day I found you. I want to

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stay around you. The beautiful sigh of the crowd recognizing them.

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I grew up listening to the Everlas. They were my

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favorite pop stars. I come from polite, well behaved people,

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so the Rolling Stones the Grateful Dead were not really

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available to me. I liked Simon and Garfuncle. I liked

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Don and Phil Everly. Backstage, I noticed that the Everly

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brothers never kid at each other. They hardly ever looked

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each other in the eye. Thirty years of close harmony,

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singing the same hit songs night after night, year after year,

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handcuffed them in stardom created a brotherhood that threatened to

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devour them. So they were very formal around each other.

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Whereas Chad Atkins and Leo Kotke were on that show

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as well, along with My Shoe Band, and all of

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these musicians joking around continually trying to make everybody else laugh.

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Every guitarist's secret wish seemed to me was to put

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down the old Martin and pick up a microphone and

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do stand up comedy. After the show Saturday in bed

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at the hotel, lying next to my beloved reading Jane Eyre,

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I asked, how's that book you're reading? And she said

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it's great in other words, don't bother me. And I

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wondered if she'd read some of my books. I wrote

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quite a few of them. I mean, if you slept

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with an author, wouldn't you think you might read some

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of his stuff? Or maybe not? Maybe romance requires mystery.

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Intimacy is about intimations. Not many therapists marry their patients,

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I dare say. And perhaps my deletions of recall are

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a way of staying young. I had my regrets about

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the show last night, and now it's a new day

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and a fresh start. And believe it or not, I'm

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working on a musical about longevity. People dread getting old,

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but they don't want to die. That's that's my story.

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The secret is not a calm disposition. It isn't a

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deep inner strength. The secret of longevity is length. Dinner

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waited on the table, and missus Melville paced the floor

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as Hermann worked his little fable slowly into something more.

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Each hour, each day, each step you take creeps slowly

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like a crustacean, until the candles on your cake become

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a conflagration. Life is good people, especially if you use

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the delete key.