Saturday, November 21, 2015

The Elegiac Bitterness of Orange Peels (Remastered)

The Elegiac Bitterness of Orange Peels 


was it 4th grade?

no, wait ...

(counts on fingers)

6, 7, 8, illinois, florida

6th grade

it was 6th grade!

has it really been twen-ty sev-en years?

(whistles)

the memories come
in flashes

fragmented - dis - jointed
but vibrant
full of tastes
& smells
& weather


she was my first true love
father dismissed it
as "puppy love"

it wasn't

it was ...

if i stood in the
dead center
of america
threw my head back
and reached out the tips
of my fingers
i could never
touch the ocean


like that ...

it felt like that


she had dark hair
- dark eyes
she was shorter
than I was

I was all gangly
arms back then
like a puppet with
tangled strings
constantly tripping
over my shoelaces
yearning for grace

(whisper) those eyes

i was at the
mogollon rim once


- on a family
camping trip
staring down at the
city lights at night
the valley lit like
a celestial sea


dumbstruck


like that ...

her eyes were like that


her hair was dark brown
with streaks of
natural highlights
that reminded me
of heather
floating lazily across
a warm summer
afternoon


the amber sadness
of late day
descending


like that ...


she had a boyfriend
at the time

he said something
awful to her

i stood up - pushed him
against the wall
said something about
how i didn't
understand why
girls chose "jerks"
like him

slowly became aware
i had an audience

she looked at me
for the first time
that day

- her head tilted
slightly

i stomped off
across the grass
to the backstop
at the edge
of the field
and sat down
upon the bench
my heart pounding
in my chest

trying to steady
my hands

i had been
watching her
all year

her cherry lip gloss
her glitter eyeliner

the way her eyes narrowed
when she smiled

the way the sunshine
shined in her hair ...

and now she knew
who i was

no mistaking that

and then i saw
her envoy of friends
coming towards me

(smiled to myself)

and that was it
- we were
boyfriend/girlfriend
after that

when i think
back upon it now
i wince at my
awkwardness

i may have said
three paragraphs
aloud the entire
time we went out


dumbstruck

we communicated
mainly through notes

her handwriting was all
loops and soft curves
with hearts over her i's

the paper smelled like
cherry lip gloss

i was still living
deep inside my
heart back then
and could only
respond by copying
Duran Duran lyrics


 took me forever

i had to keep
rewinding
and pausing
the tape


holding her hand
was so
in-des-cribable

(warm shiver)

i could breathe
free and clear

- a respite
from the
suffocating
darkness
when we were
apart

her small hand
fit so well in
mine

as if made
expressly
for that purpose

one day during lunch,
as we held hands,
i looked at her

and she looked
at me

and everything
else - the noise of
the cafeteria - the
upheavals of early
childhood - the
awkwardness
of adolescence

all just faded
away like blurry
monotonous landscape

and in that second

i felt as if we were
the only two people
that existed

and that somehow

if i could freeze time
and exist in that
temporal moment
forever

our love would
never end ...

then we had to
let go to wipe
our sweaty palms



our separate home rooms
merged for movies
from time to time
and we would sit in the
back - in the darkness

holding hands

with the clackety-clack
of the projector
and me looking
up and wishing
the reel would
never end


she was in the school
choir and so naturally
i - being tone deaf
and cripplingly shy
- joined as well

but i didn't need
much convincing,
maybe a little
cherry lip gloss smile
or an errant
piece of glitter
on her face

it was christmastime
and to this day
i cannot hear
Rockin Around the Christmas Tree
or
Jingle Bell Rock
without thinking about
that time

(skipped heartbeat)

i'm left with a permanent
nostalgia for christmas
one not diminished
by age or the passage
of time


we were supposed
to go carolling
on a hay ride
that night

it was late december
and there was frost
on the palm fronds

my father drove
and picked her
and her friend
up at her house
in litchfield park

so it was my father -
me - her - and her friend
crammed in the front
seat of mt father's
pick-up truck

my father blasted
his stale music
trying to embarass
me - i think it was
Herman's Hermits
or something like that

and he sang
- loudly and badly

and i was mortified

but they just laughed
and i relaxed

... a little

her friend grabbed
my arm and put
it around my
girlfriend's shoulders

and after a bit
she pushed my hand
down the front
of my girlfriend's shirt

i pulled my hand
out immediately

and everybody
laughed

... except me

she just looked at
me and shrugged
her shoulders

and then we arrived ...

that night lives
on so vividly
in my memory

it was so cold

and she was so pretty

and the white lights
in the palm trees
and the horse drawn
wagon clip-clopping
through the streets



it's the kind
of memory
so beautiful
it makes your
heart ache to
think of it

we were like two
birds whose wing tips
touch for one fine
moment - swirling
in the clear blue
sky that stretches
out to infinity

it was
in a word

per-fect

my father picked
us up and drove
us back to her house

i got out with her

it was so cold
that night

the air so crisp

we kissed against
a fence post

under the blue
glow of a winter's
moon

my first kiss

and right then
i felt as if
i could die


my father and i
drove home

me in a daze

filled with

electricity

everything
changed after
that - swept
along mighty
streams never
to see the same
shores again


i don't know
how it ended

or why

when i try
to remember
my heart
closes the door
and will not
let me see

the next school year
began and she was
in my homeroom
and i said something
awful to her

something i wished
a thousand times
over i could take back

but life isn't
always like that

not everything
wraps up so
neatly with a bow

we're meant to carry
some things in our
hearts - some
memories

some regrets


i didn't date
anyone else
for about
seven years

all the way through high school

when we broke up
i sat alone in the
cafeteria eating
orange peels


she's married now

as am i

and she has a daughter

we've never spoken

i hope that she is
happy and that we
didn't hurt each
other too badly

sometimes on nights
i cannot sleep
i think about
how we cannot
truly know love
without first
knowing heartache

how we carry
both the scars
and memories
of days long past

and how we're
never really complete

always in a state
of becoming

always reaching for those
times when our hearts

were wild and free

undaunted

by the fury of storms

and the cruelty

of weather


1/23/2012

Saturday, November 7, 2015

October in Jack Kerouac's St. Petersburg

October in Jack Kerouac’s St. Petersburg


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This is the site of the former Cactus Bar on 1844 18th Ave South St. Petersburg, FL 33712 where Jack Kerouac was severely beaten. He was discovered crawling along the road, taken to jail to sober up, and released on $25 bail. Two weeks later, he died from massive internal hemorrhaging brought about by the beating and years of heavy drinking. There is a Boost Mobile kiosk and a convenience store there now.


He died at St. Anthony’s Hospital on October 21, 1969.


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I was born on October 21, 1973.


I suppose I first heard about Jack Kerouac this way…




Then I began to notice his books on the bookshelves. You know, the ones that have the ubiquitous Penguin orange spines?


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Seeing them along the shelves, with their neat uniformity spoke to my desire to find order in a chaotic universe. Besides, being a child of the 70’s, orange was my favorite color. I even designed the cover of my poetry book as an homage to how much I love those Penguin books.


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I suppose that is something we have to discuss. The pull of Jack Kerouac goes beyond just his literary achievements. There is a fashionably hip sense of cool in dropping the name Kerouac.




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The Gap used his image to sell pants that have now become the standard uniform of retail wage slaves everywhere. Before that, Khakis were cool, because Jack wore them.


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He was a handsome fella, there is no doubt about it. He was cool without looking like he was trying to be. With his dark and stormy good looks, he was referred to as the “James Dean” of the typewriter. Perhaps that is part of his appeal, a sort of aspirational wish fulfillment for all the terminally unhip writers out there, thinking they might catch a bit of his je ne sais quoi by association... or osmosis…


It is an illusion though, the cool confidence that exudes from his photographs. He was painfully and awkwardly introverted. Not the Dean Moriarty character, but the Sal Paradise, hero of his own inner landscape. Always on the outside, observing. Readers made that mistake for decades, reading his character study of Neal Cassady as a biography of himself. His desire to not let them down probably contributed to his decline as much as anything. He overindulged in substances as a means of escaping his shell and became a caricature of the person that people expected him to be. It was a costume. A mask. A personae similar to the one that most of us have to don in order to get through our workday.  At the end of the day you have to disrobe and stare at yourself in the mirror, wondering who is the genuine person and who is the sideshow. If you do this too often, the blurred lines between the mask and reality become harder and harder to partition.


For my initial foray into “On The Road” I was obsessed with trying to figure out who were the real life counterparts to the characters. By doing so, I missed passages of such spiritual beauty and enlightenment.


I, too, did Jack a disservice.


When I read the “Original Scroll” edition I was able to do so less distracted, because the actual names had been restored. I have mixed feelings about this.




Consider this quote from the man himself:


My work comprises one vast book like Proust's except that my remembrances are written on the run instead of afterwards in a sick bed. Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work. On the Road, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, Doctor Sax, Maggie Cassidy, Tristessa, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody and the others including this book Big Sur are just chapters in the whole work which I call The Duluoz Legend. In my old age I intend to collect all my work and re-insert my pantheon of uniform names, leave the long shelf full of books there, and die happy. The whole thing forms one enormous comedy, seen through the eyes of poor Ti Jean (me), otherwise known as Jack Duluoz, the world of raging action and folly and also gentle sweetness seen through the keyhole of his eye.
Jack Kerouac

Kerouac wanted uniformity of names throughout, but his publishers objected. Whether or not he wanted to use real names or their character equivalents is left to interpretation.




The last line of On The Road is: “...I think of Dean Moriarty.”


The last line of The Original Scroll version is “...I think of Neal Cassady.”


Moriarty has 4 syllables whereas Cassady has 3. Subtle difference to anyone who hasn’t written song lyrics or poetry, but 1 syllable in those forms can make worlds of difference. Listen to how convincing the line is when delivered by Jack on the Steve Allen Show in 1959.




The two had worked together previously in 1957. As an aside, Kerouac is reading from Visions of Cody as well as On the Road.




This coming year (2016) I plan to read Jack Kerouac’s The Duluoz Legend which consists of the following books. I plan on skipping The Town and The City in favor of The Sea Is My Brother. I will also be adding Lonesome Traveler and Book of Dreams.


BOOK TITLE
TIME COVERED
WRITTEN
PUBLISHED
Atop an Underwood
Various
1936–1943
1999
Visions of Gerard
1922–1926
1956
1963
Doctor Sax
1930–1936
1952
1959
The Town and the City
1935–1946
1946–1949
1950
Maggie Cassidy
1938–1939
1953
1959
Vanity of Duluoz
1935–1946
1968
1968
On The Road
1946–1950
1948–1956
1957
Visions of Cody
1946–1952
1951–1952
1959 & 1973
The Subterraneans
1953
1953
1958
Tristessa
1955–1956
1955–1956
1960
The Dharma Bums
1955–1956
1957
1958
Desolation Angels
1956–1961
1956–1957
1965
Big Sur
1960
1961
1962
Satori in Paris
1965
1965
1966


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Going to fill in the dates as I finish each one.


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My Jack Kerouac reference books.


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18 books in 1 year shouldn’t be a problem.


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Jack Kerouac A/V materials.


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Jack Kerouac Timeline


1922:
Born Jean Louis Lebris de Kerouac in Lowell, MA on March 12; third child of Gabrielle and Leo Kerouac, French-Canadian immigrants to New England.
1939:
Graduates from Lowell High School.
1939-
1940:

Attends Horace Mann Preparatory School, New York City.
1940-
1941:
Attends Columbia College, NY.
1942:
Sails to Greenland as merchant marine on S.S. Dorchester.

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1943:
Enlists in U.S. Navy, discharged on psychiatric grounds. Sails to Liverpool as merchant seaman on S.S. George Weems.



1944:
Meets Lucien Carr who introduces him to Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Jailed as accessory and material witness in David Kammerer murder case (killed by Lucien Carr). Marries Edie Parker so that her family will pay his bail.



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1945:
Begins writing The Town and the City. Meets Neal Cassady in New York.

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1946:
Marriage with Edie Parker annulled. Collaborates with William Burroughs on an unpublished novel, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, an account of the events surrounding the Kammerer murder.

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1947:
Travels to Denver, California, and back to New York.
1948:
Meets John Clellon Holmes and invents the term beat generation.
1948:
Begins working on earliest version of On the Road.

1949:
Travels with Cassady to Louisiana and San Francisco. Moves briefly to Colorado with mother (Memere). Visits San Francisco. Returns with Cassady to New York.
1950:
The Town and The City published. Travels to Denver, then with Cassady to Mexico. Marries Joan Haverty in New York.
1951:
Reads manuscripts of Burroughs' Junkie and Holmes' Go in February/March. Writes On The Road, the third version, on a single roll of paper in three weeks during April and May. Separates from Joan Haverty. Discovers compositional method of "sketching" or "spontaneous prose" and begins to rewrite On The Road as the experimental book Visions of Cody; continues work into 1952 at Neal Cassady's home in San Francisco. Hospitalized with thrombophlebitis as a result of heavy Benzedrine use. Travels to California.
1952:
Writes Dr. Sax in Burroughs' apartment in Mexico City. Travels to North Carolina to visit sister Caroline in Rocky Mount, back to California where he works as a student brakeman and writes "The Railroad Earth" in California and Mexico before returning to New York. Daughter Jan Kerouac born in Albany, New York.
1953:
Writes Maggie Cassidy while in New York. Travels to California; works on railroad; takes job on S.S. William Carruth; leaves Carruth in New Orleans. Writes The Subterraneans in New York.
1954:
Visits Cassady in San Jose. Studies Buddhism in New York and California. Writes "San Francisco Blues" in San Francisco Some of the Dharma in New York and North Carolina.
1955:
Travels to Mexico City where he writes Mexico City Blues and begins Tristessa. Meets Gary Snyder and attends "Six Poets at the Six Gallery" reading in San Francisco on Oct. 13 where Ginsberg first reads "Howl."
1956:
Writes Visions of Gerard in North Carolina. Travels to California; stays in Marin County. Writes The Scripture of the Golden Eternity and "Old Angel Midnight." Works as fire lookout in Mr. Baker National Forest, Washington, where he writes the journals that would become Book One of Desolation Angels. Finishes Tristessa in Mexico City where he prepares Book One of Desolation Angels. Returns to New York. Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems published by City Lights in San Francisco.

1957:
Travels to Tangier, Morocco where he types and edits Burroughs' Naked Lunch with Ginsberg, then on to Paris and London. After returning to New York where he meets and lives with Joyce Johnson; moves to Berkeley with his mother. Visits Mexico City briefly; moves to Orlando, FL. with mother. Travels to New York. During this time On the Road is published and Kerouac gives readings at the Village Vanguard. Writes The Dharma Bums in Orlando.
1958:
Buys home in Northport, Long Island. The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums are published. Neal Cassady sentenced to five years in San Quentin for possession of marijuana. Begins writing sketches for Lonesome Traveler.
1959:
Narrates film Pull My Daisy in New York which is based on his play, The Beat Generation. Begins writing column for Escapade. Dr. Sax, Mexico City Blues, and Maggie Cassidy published. Travels to Los Angeles for Steve Allen Show appearance.
1960:
Travels to California, stays at Bixby Canyon (Big Sur); suffers alcohol withdrawal and nervous breakdown. Returns to New York. Tristessa and Lonesome Traveler published.
1961:
Book of Dreams published. Moves to Orlando with mother. Travels to Mexico City, where he writes Book Two ("Passing Through") of Desolation Angels. Returns to Florida, where he writes Big Sur.
1962:
Moves back to Northport with mother. Big Sur published.

1963:
Visions of Gerard published.
1964:
Moves with mother to St. Petersburg, Florida. Sister Caroline dies. Meets Ken Kesey in New York with the Merry Pranksters. Neal Cassady is the driver. It is the first time they have seen each other in years.
1965:
Travels to France. Writes Satori In Paris and Pic in Florida. Desolation Angels published.
1966:
Satori In Paris published. Moves to Hyannis, MA, with mother who suffer a stroke. Marries Stella Sampas, sister of childhood friend Sebastian Sampas.
1967:
Moves to Lowell with mother and wife. Writes Vanity of Duluoz.
1968:
Neal Cassady dies in Mexico. Vanity of Duluoz published. Travels to Europe with friends. Appears on Firing Line hosted by William F. Buckley. Moves with mother and wife to St. Petersburg.
1969:
Dies in St. Petersburg, Oct. 21, of abdominal hemorrhage due to complications associated with alcohol abuse.


There is an abundance of literary destinations associated with Jack Kerouac.


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Jack Kerouac's birthplace at 9 Lupine Road, 2nd floor, in the West Centralville section of Lowell, Massachusetts. He was born on March 12, 1922.


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His third home in the West Centralville section of Lowell.




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Kerouac Park located at 75 Bridge St Lowell, MA 01852.


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Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac’s grave in Edson Cemetery located at 1375 Gorham Street in Lowell, Massachusetts - Lot 76, Range 96, Grave 1.




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133-01 Cross Bay Blvd, Queens, NY 11417


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Jack Kerouac in Tompkins Square Park Manhattan in the Fall of 1953.




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The William S. Burroughs House at 509 Wagner St, New Orleans, LA 70114.




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Jack Kerouac and Al Hinkle (aka Ed Dunkel’ in “On The Road’) in San Francisco 1952


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Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in San Francisco 1956.








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Lawrence Ferlinghetti standing outside his cabin located by Bixby Creek in Big Sur, below the Bixby Creek Bridge on California State Route 1. In the summer of 1961, Ferlinghetti persuaded an alcoholic and troubled Jack Kerouac to take a solitary retreat to the cabin, and attempt to get his head together. Kerouac wrote the novel Big Sur about his impressions of the time he spent there.




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The house at 1418 Clouser Ave, Orlando, FL 32804 where Kerouac lived from 1957 to 1958. On the Road was published on September 5, 1957 while he resided here busily  typing up the manuscript for The Dharma Bums.




Which leads us to his final destination, St. Petersburg, Florida.


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Located at 5169 10th Avenue North St. Petersburg, Florida 33710.

Kerouac was clearly on the decline as evidenced by his 1968 appearance on the William F. Buckley show.


Such a striking difference from the 1959 appearance on the Steve Allen show. This was only 10 years later.


I have been to the St. Petersburg house twice. The second time was October 2015.


To get there from our home in Sarasota, we have to cross the dreaded Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Not the first one. The first one had an unfortunate (ahem) incident…




No, we had to cross the more vertiginous replacement bridge.


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Everytime I reach the apex, I begin to hyperventilate and (possibly) pee myself a little. It doesn’t help to look down and see massive cruise ships passing underneath with plenty of room to spare.


After reading an article in which others had done the same, I had decided that I wanted to type up a letter and drop it off at his last house.


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I was so intrigued and desperate to see what lay inside that house. So many possibilities swirled around in my head. When I got home, I found out someone had actually gone inside. Ben Montgomery, a staff writer for the St. Petersburg Times had gained access by contacting Pat Barmore who has been trying to raise money through a non profit called The Friends of Jack Kerouac to purchase and renovate the house. The house is owned by Kerouac’s brother in law John Sampas. Sampas gave the key to Barmore after a window was broken.


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The house has been empty since the early to mid 1970’s. There is still a television antenna sticking up out of the roof.


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If you look in the garage window, you can see a ‘72 Chevy Caprice up on blocks.


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This is Jack Kerouac’s desk inside the house, and what I presume to be his typewriter on the right hand side of the photograph.


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That sure looks like a type of Hat that Kerouac liked to wear as in the photograph below.


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Kerouac had a few hangouts in the Tampa/St. Pete area. One was the Beaux Arts Gallery located at 7711 60th Street North Pinellas Park, Florida 33781. Jim Morrison read poetry there in 1962 while he was a student at St. Petersburg Junior College. The building unfortunately burned down in 1992.


He supposedly had his last drink at the Flamingo Sports Bar in St. Pete.




He is supposed to haunt the halls of Haslam’s bookstore




One thing that Reporter Ben Montgomery did not photograph was the bathroom. There are 3 in the house. On Monday October 20, 1969, around 11 in the morning, Kerouac was sitting in his favorite chair, drinking whiskey and malt liquor, trying to scribble notes for a book about his father's print shop in Lowell, Mass.


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While eating a can of tuna fish, he suddenly felt sick to his stomach and went to the bathroom. He began to vomit up large amounts of blood. He yelled to his wife, “Stella, I’m bleeding!” At St. Anthony’s Hospital he was given transfusions amounting to 15 liters (about 15 quarts) of blood. During the evening of the 20th, he underwent a desperate 3 hour surgery to tie off the burst blood vessels, but his liver which was damaged by cirrhosis prevented his blood from clotting.


I wonder if he dreamt of his life as he lay there dying. Perhaps he thought of this incident that happened 26 years earlier.


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The USS Dorchester was sunk by German submarine U-223 on February 3, 1943. Jack Kerouac had previously sailed on this ship and would have been on board that night had he not received a telegram from Coach Lou Little, asking him to return to Columbia University to play football. This tragedy was also notable for the heroism of the Four Chaplains who gave up their life jackets and went down with the ship.


He did so much during those 26 years.


So much.


He died on October 21, 1969 at about 5:45 in the morning having never regained consciousness from the surgery.  


It was a Tuesday.


He was 47 years old.




CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite announced on the evening news that, “Jack Kerouac, the novelist who wrote On The Road reached the end of it today.”


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I would like to think that he would be pleased to know that he is still in print and being read in 2015.


One of the letters stuffed into his mailbox read, “Stopped by to say hello. Sorry to have missed you.”


For further reading see…