Chapter 8
	The bus pulled into the station.  I boarded and took an aisle seat near the front next to a young light brown African American man.  It wasn't long before we were swapping stories.  I was still in shock from the fire and really needed someone to talk to about it.  His story was equal to mine for misfortune.  He had played basketball in high school but was too short for the pros.  After graduating, he discovered dancing and became a professional dancer.  He was doing okay but blew out his knee one night during a performance and had been unable to work since then.  He was going home to Oakland to live with his parents and continue to try and recover.  He was slim with an athletic build and certainly looked the part.  We both needed someone to talk to and hit it off immediately.
	Being around music and musicians it turned out he liked to smoke pot and was delighted when I told him I had a small stash.  At each stop we would find a quiet hidden spot and take a few tokes.  It was great medicine for both of us and made the sad trip much more pleasant and bearable.  Somehow, with careful rationing, we made the minuscule amount of pot last from Iowa to California.  I got off in San Jose; he went on to Oakland.  That's the last time I ever saw him.  I hope he is still alive and did alright.
	I called my parents from the bus station and they came right out and picked me up.  Dad had bought property on Stevens Creek Road across the street from where Sears was building a new store in San Jose's first shopping mall.  Dad had always been in the furniture business.  He started out working for his father in a furniture store in Fargo, North Dakota.  Then he worked for Sears furniture department in Chicago.  When Mom became pregnant with me, they moved to South Bend, Indiana where Dad went into business for himself, buying used furniture, fixing it, refinishing, and selling off the front porch.  Then they rented a narrow storefront on the wrong side of the tracks, where we lived in a small apartment above the store. Finally he rented a four-story building, quite large, uptown a few blocks from the first store which he kept.  So, for awhile, he had two stores, one for new furniture and one for used.  We started living in a series of rented houses, mostly duplexes in residential neighborhoods on the tree lined streets of South Bend.
	Now Dad was building his own store on his own land.  He was very enthused about a new building technique called tilt-up walls.  These reinforced cement walls were poured in forms on the ground and when hardened stood up and joined at each corner.  Then they were roofed over, windows and doors added, finished on the inside and painted inside and outside.
	I joined my Dad and my Uncle to paint and finish the inside.  We put up handrails for the stairway up to the balcony and built an office and a playpen for children of our future customers.  In repayment for my services Dad got me a used but good condition small light blue Chevy station wagon.  It turned out to be a perky little car.  It was so light I could throw it into a skid with my rear end, by shifting my weight from one side to the other.  It didn't take much, just a little nudge.  I called it "asshole English."
	After the store was finished I drove back to Iowa to pick up my stuff and my cat.  I called the farm and let them know I was on my way.  When I got there I found all my paintings, the bass, my other stuff, clothes, drawings, tapes, records--everything in good shape except my cat.  Lady, it seems, had refused to eat and starved herself to death.  I had failed to understand how dependent she was on me, and how attached and how spoiled.  I felt pretty bad but there wasn't anything to do about it.  The farmer and his family were apologetic, very nice, caring people.  They kept my stuff in good condition and they kept their word.  I loaded up and drove back to California.
	When I got back to San Jose the fun part of putting the store together was over.  It was time to open and start selling furniture.  Selling was something I had always hated and I decided to take advantage of an invitation to live on a houseboat across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County.  It was the home of an old friend, Dick Conti, a good swinging piano player and a well known disk jockey on Pat Henry's KJAZ, the only full-time jazz FM radio station in San Francisco.
	The houseboat was moored on the back side of the bay in a cluster of houseboats accessed by a network of long boardwalks and docks leading over swampy terrain from a nearby parking area to each houseboat.  The houseboats floated on the shallow water at the edge of the bay.  Dick's houseboat was a comfortable one-story, two-bedroom, one-bath and kitchen, living-room affair, with a great stereo system and a piano.  I had my bass and we did a lot of jamming together.  I did the cooking for us.  We had a few great sessions there.
	I'll always remember one afternoon and evening we spent with Bill Evans (the world famous jazz pianist) and his wife playing and talking with a few other players on the boat.  There was a lot of talking.  Bill and his wife were recovering addicts.  We talked about that and everything else; society, the war, books, movies, art, music, and the musicians we loved.  I was amazed at how modest, humble, and self-aware Bill was.  For the jazz master that he was it was incredible how unaffected and naturally nice he was.  He also seemed vulnerable, tender, and interested in those around him.  I was impressed by his intellect and humanity.
	Bill's wife was small and slender and more nervous and high strung.  I could tell she was suffering from the "being married to a jazz star musician" syndrome.  It's exciting, but it's always playing second fiddle.  After the perfunctory greetings, jazz star wives are paid very little attention, especially from other musicians.  Bill tried valiantly to avoid this pitfall and she joined in the conversation eagerly and often.  She was definitely a bright, intense young woman, but I must confess I can't remember her name.  I do, however, remember her dark curls and smoldering eyes.
	It was during this period that my mother befriended the young wife of a professor who taught at U.C. Santa Cruz.  Their paths crossed at the San Jose Peace Center.  They hit it off and soon became close.  Mom loved bragging about her son.  After politics, this was her main entry into social contacts with strangers and conversation with friends.  So it seems that Sharon was moved by Mom's glowing descriptions of her only child.  She was interested.
	We met at my parents' home in San Jose.  Sharon also lived in San Jose with her husband and only child, a son.  Sharon was very bright, a college graduate with a teaching degree, but stayed at home to raise her infant son.  We got along very well; we both liked to laugh a lot and saw things with a similar sharp, ironic sense of humor.  Her husband, a strikingly handsome young professor, was having an affair and urged Sharon to do the same.  She talked about this little by little but not until after we'd gotten together on the houseboat.
	It was our first date.  I cooked dinner.  We lolled about on the deck in the sun.  The weather shielded bay was just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was warm all day in the sun.  We simultaneously realized we were very much attracted to each other.  We were both bouncing up from lost love.  It was inevitable that we would fall in love, thanks to Mom, the merry matchmaker.