Just to dig it all an' not to wonder

Last night I was dreaming of Athens, Ohio. I kept walking around and trying to find the right type of wood I needed for a project. Anxiety dreaming that revolves around my small biz I am sure. I kept asking folks to help me and then all of the sudden this strange man helped me find the forest and it was an old professor I knew. It was this guy. I had not thought of him or his avant garde art for years and years and here he is in my dream like he was my best friend.

Once at university he came into the coffeehouse where I worked and dropped a black sharpie marker and I kept it. I would sit under his massive mural over at the art college and eat my lunch and smoke cigarettes. Sometimes friends would meet up and sometimes not. There were no cell phones then remember? Well my mom had a car phone but she was very hip as an insurance agent and all and it was the size of a loaf of bread. But can you believe we once had to just hope to connect with others?

I digress.

Aethelred Eldridge was so strange and cool and one of the first people I knew in real life that was an artist and living his own authentic life. He just carved this life out and lived it. He started the Church of William Blake for God's sake. Many cool folks like the Grateful Dead and others hung out on his Mt. Nebo land. It always amazed me. Unconventional folk are so flipping cool.

Some of us would go out to this old swimming hole that I was told was his property. It was way cooler of a place than I was then. If you went during the day there were nudists and weed, but if you went at night with some friends you could see more stars than you ever thought possible as you stretched across the old wooden floating dock listening to Van Morrison's " Sweet Thing" fill up the darkness all around you.

The edges of the trees that surrounded the swimming hole were like perfect paper cuts.

Yes- so today I think about this
and race to find Van Morrison's greatest hits
bc have you listened to "Sweet Thing"
it will get inside of you..

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