Your Father

I'm happy you said hello
You've done a great job of keeping yourself off the internet
Your daughter's great she looks like so much fun
a lot of family resemblances
I've seen her dancing YouTube, et al
so talented smart fun PracticalHippy Brilliant
I was looking for a picture of you actually
[see second sentence]
She's got this picture of [if I'm interpreting this right] its her putting on stuff to prove to you not to throw it out?  I'm probably wrong And I wasn't convinced that that's not YOU in the picture but I can't come up with a plot line for that
Everybody in my family is fine
Your brother I remember was theatre bound and I think that's him I see that has worked on all those films I'm happy for him
I've become a fortune 500 drone since our last hello
Hopefully I'll be retired suddenly any day now They love to do that to people
Have always been a practicing musician
Everybody likes my music but
an awful poet an even worse writer
and unfortunate in collaborating
It's fine
I'm looking forward to the much heralded golden years
I've got a ton of ideas and stuff to do blah blah blah

As there's that saying hello is on the same schedule as the U.S. census
let me ask after your father and mother
and any else you care to share
You can tell him I saw him in my dream recently
Nothing special Just seeing him Unmistakably him You know how dreams are
That's only the second time
The first being 37 years ago I told him He said "It wasn't me." He was right
I figure he's in his mid low eighties
Hope they're well

Best wishes
Bobby



all the while anonymous

I'm still vegetarian
I could have married lots of times. They weren't you.
I broke a lot of women's heart.
I'm single now
Your father was in my dream some months ago
for the second time
The first was 37 years ago
I told him and he said, "it wasn't me"
I have lots of memories of him
he's one of my great men I have known
It doesn't feel right not to ask after him
and your mother
I did get over you
Maybe after 20 years or so
I was lighter
But an occasional dream
One or two a decade
Always the same kind of dream
seeing you
just seeing you

Speaking of Crazy

Might as well tell that story
Yes
I went absolutely bonkers in '77
I was smoking a lot of pot
 and I got caught up in delusions
I guess I went looking for help
I called at your house
Thankfully no one was home
Wound up at campus to speak to one of my professors
at night
Acted crazy enough with the campus cops that they called the real cops
who drove me to the house of a psychiatrist (signature one)
and then to Kings Park (signature two)
I was admitted
Committed I guess
They gave me a horse tranquilizer and I was knocked out
When I woke up I was back to my normal self
I get taken to the day room and there is my mother, sister and aunt
and a day or so after that
in the day room was your father
my mother had called him and he got me out of there
which was good
that place was like the place in "One Flies Over the Cuckoo Nest"
There was a condition though
I had to check myself in to a different place
Turns out there was a slip-up and because of a technicality of some kind
I didn't really have to do that
But I did
Your father had told the Kings Park doc who let me out that I would
so I did
I felt fine
but none the less I spent a few weeks in the psych ward of St. Johns
until I found out that I could sign myself out
and so I did
I was fine
except for the pills a psychiatrist had me on
till the psychologist I was seeing told me I could stop taking them
so I did
He also gave me a piece of advice that turned out to be true
not just for what was going on then
but has proven true and useful since
and that is that "it will pass"

I figured I couldn't get elected President
which bothered me and still does
I'm okay with not owning a gun
 never wanted any

Why not

Why shouldn't I tell you
 that I haven't stopped loving you
I can't think of a good enough reason

I can't say I don't have regrets in life
I do
I regret breaking the hearts of so many women
 who made the mistake of loving me
I should have married the first one and be done with it
I'd have grandkids now
But I couldn't marry any of them
They weren't you
My excuse was that I was too new age
and anti establishment
but really the reason was
crazy actually
that they weren't you