August 24, 1980

Today was excellent. I got up extremely late. I sat around, then me, Greg and George doobied in the woods. I fell asleep at George’s house. I came home, ate and visited B at Reinaur’s. I cam home, Holly came over. We went to her house. We went and ate at Ramapo Diner. We came to my house and me, Holly, Greg and Matt Poole went down to the picnic table and drank and had a fire. Welp-the cops came. We took off—but came back (Holly forgot her purse and Greg’s car was there). We had to get in the car. Welp—we were arrested. It was pretty funny. We have to go to court. (Disorderly Conduct). Holly was so cool. The cops were fucks. So, anyway. Matt had to stay ‘cause he’s only 15 and his mom has to pick him up. Me, Greg and Holly went to Reinaur’s and left. Holly had to go home. I love her. It was so great. Right now me and Greg are watching T.V. Today was unreal. It was funny. Goodnight.



I wonder why I thought this day was excellent. I mean, I was arrested for goodness’ sake.
Holly was one of my best friends in high school. She was a fantastic musician, blonde, funny and always a good time. She lived across the street from John Pousette-Dart, an almost-was big time musician from the ‘70’s. Now, she teaches voice and piano and speech pathology and has two cute little girls. She lives in the house where she grew up on Route 202 in Suffern, New York, leafy kind of deck house sort of area.

My brother, Greg, and I and George and Matt Poole lived in the Westward of Suffern. Our neighborhood was sandwiched between train tracks and The Ramapo River. It was the kind of place where you made forts in corrugated metal castoffs and for summer fun, you’d steal an old bus tire inner tube and float down the polluted Ramapo.
The picnic table was a green village issued break table for the workers at the city works which was a couple blocks from my house. There was a water treatment plant and a huge shed filled with trucks for street cleaning, salting the roads, etc. The picnic table was right behind this building under a tree...so we used to hang out there at night and smoke, have fires, eat pudding. Obviously, we were not supposed to have a fire. So, we were arrested. What I most remember was the cop saying, “You’re lucky we’re not booking you for arson.” And I remember looking at the cop and thinking, “Yeah, right, someone’s going to think that we were trying to burn down this huge metal shed with our tiny fire surrounded by rocks. Asshole.”

Reinaur’s was the truck stop where I was a short order cook during most of my college breaks. B, my girlfriend, worked there. I got her the job. She wore a brown polyester waitress uniform. The truckstop had a Native American motif. The gift shop sold Indian headdresses and silly little leather change purses among the maps and cowboy boots. On the placemats for the restaurant was also the menu (hamburger 65 cents) and there was a reference to “The Lenape Gift and Curio Shop.” I had half an idea how absurd this place was. I loved working there.