As a matter of fact it's all dark

Minneapolis, 1973: I had this on an 8-track tape that ran continuously in at least two Pioneer tape decks. We had to drive to Hudson, Wisconsin to buy liquor but could get 3.2% Hauenstein or Buckhorn at $2.50/case in returnable bottles just up the street; besides, the draft ended that year and I had a high number anyway. I could drive to San Diego and buy pressed weed in butcher paper for $150/kilo: those were the daze.

The $3.55 an hour I was making at Dayton Rogers Mfg with union benefits felt like a king's wage. In those days they were just off Lake Street; we sometimes walked along the tracks we shared when it wasn't -40, the mosquitoes weren't so bad, or we were doing acid and couldn't drive to work. One morning as a passenger in a VW we were T-boned during rush hour; a 1971 Maverick came through my door and I walked away then went to work the next day with a sore leg.

It was only after the junkie couple living in the house stole 3 kilos from me that I conceded defeat, skulked to Brookings and enrolled in a hometown college. About a year later, I watched and cheered a teevee at Lola's Last Step (because those under 21 could buy beer in a pre-Janklow utopia) as Richard Nixon left the Presidency in disgrace.

My older, more crotchety sister has been instructed to play the entire album at my funeral...if she outlives me. If she doesn't, Madeline, Claire: it will be up to you to make it so.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun