Home Sweet Home—For A Little While Anyway

Kingston, Massachusetts
June ‘77

The house was originally built in 1720. Comrade Richard, the guy who
let us stay in the house, told us to make ourselves at home. Inside,
the place was pretty much gutted, but it had a roof and best of all,
it had a fireplace. Actually it had eight rooms and seven fireplaces.
The floor was rough wood and there were only a couple 5-gallon cans to
sit on, but once we got the fire going, it was “home sweet home.”
After showing us the place, comrade Richard said we could spend the
night if we wanted to, and then he left. With that good news we hoofed
it back to where we had left our tents and bikes (hidden well off the
highway behind an abandoned house). Unfortunately, Richard had left
his bike lock key back at comrade Richard’s house. While Richard broke
camp, I rode my bike back to get the key. The six-mile excursion (two
walking, four on bicycle) was in the wettest rain and windiest wind I
had ever done time in. It would have been a lot worse, however, if
there wasn’t a warm fireplace at the end of the line.

I met Richard walking toward me upon my return. When we finally did
get back to the house, we restarted the fire and got out of our wet
clothes. Sitting by the fire, I even think we laughed as we reflected
on the hardships we had just encountered (the day before Richard’s
axle broke and in Plymouth, Plymouth Rock was not all
that spectacular.) That night we ate hamburgers cooked over an open
fire, and washed them down with cold beer—a real treat. In the
morning, it was hot coffee, toasted hamburger buns, and pretzels.
Comrade Richard also stopped by to see how things were going. It was
still raining, so he gave us permission to stay another night. That
made us extremely happy. We had our castle for another day and night.
We spent the day relaxing. Oh, by the way, yesterday I started smoking
cigarettes again.

Comfortable

Crackling fire,
popping sparks,
black charred wood,
warm happiness.

Bicycling In Massachusetts

Morning rain:
brown pine needles,
wet nylon,
raindrop eyebrows,
water trough tongue,
and my sticky,
earthen tent.

Afternoon rain:
chilled to the bone,
cloud burst streets,
open anxiety,
faith,
and spun water
bicycle tires.

Evening rain:
night shroud victim,
stiff and rigid,
cold, damp, cold,
drowned fantasies,
yet, time forgotten.

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