San Francisco, 1975: For a year my life was really slow and relaxed. I was collecting unemployment, starting to get some bookkeeping clients, and reading about magic and meditation.

I lived cheaply, and grew a goatee. On Sundays, I’d ride my red Schwin 10-speed in the park with a girlfriend. We’d picnic. I have a photograph that shows the goatee. That day while slowing to a stop, I’d been unable to pull my foot free of the toe clip, and fell over, toward my front wheel. Not wanting to bend the spokes, I’d placed my hand onto the spindle of the axel, which, being pointed, had poked a hole in my hand. In the photo, I am dabbing at my hand with a kleenex and wearing a rueful expression. And, of course, my goatee.

I thought the goatee looked pretty good. I have some indian blood, and grow no whiskers elsewhere, so I cannot grow a full beard. My goatee was frizzy, and my cat Rosie used to bite it to show affection.

Some days I’d bus down to the San Francisco library and spend some hours there, looking things up, reading Consumers Reports. I cannot now imagine how I spent hours, but I did. This particular day I’d taken a picnic lunch consisting of a can of vienna sausages and a sourdough roll. I ate my picnic on the grass on the park across from City Hall, and in front of the Library.

That afternoon, riding home on the bus, I was daydreaming, when my eye was caught by a black-haired guy sitting a few rows up. He sat on the sideway bench behind the driver, so I could see his face. As my mind floated along, I kept coming back to this guy’s face and finally realized that he looked really stupid. He needed a haircut and he had a little goatee and somehow he looked like he thought he was really cool, and he looked like a jerk to me.

Then, with a sudden flash, I realized that he had a goatee just like my own!

When I got home, I shaved. That was the end of the goatee.

Wichita Falls, 1959: Before I had my driver’s license, the bus took me to Wichita Falls’ downtown for the Saturday movies. The Horror of Dracula, with Christopher Lee, was clearly the best, but wandering the streets downtown was also great.

Once I could drive, it was even better, because I had a place to drive to. In my two-toned green 1951 Chevrolet, very much a man of the world, I drove to spend an afternoon and my allowance.

There was a tiny store there.

It’s name was ‘Thomas Bookstore’, but it sold very few books. It was a hole in the wall, and pure magic from wall to wall. A portly middle-aged man ran it, probably Mr. Thomas. He was balding, taciturn, apparently wearing the same dark suit, sitting on a chair near the front, gazing out into the sunlight. I now wonder what he dreamed, sitting there.

In the middle of the store, from front to rear, was a glass-enclosed wooden cabinet, well lit, and moving slowly down one side and up the other, I gazed on marvels. Magic tricks, practical jokes, oddments and endments. Fake bandages, rubber worms, a fly inside a plastic ice cube, matches that sputter, eyeglasses with wierd-looking eyes. Everything from the Johnson-Smith Catalog and more. Science fiction and other magazines, including nudist magazines showing people doing ordinary things, but naked! Caveman masks, like Ernie Kovacs’ Nairobi Trio.

With one of these caveman masks, Eddy Frank and I took turns standing beside the road in a heavy coat, hitch-hiking. Eddy Frank swears that one motorist nearly hit the phonepole, swerving as he gawked. I missed it, because you can’t really see well from a caveman mask.

There was no end to the marvels at Thomas Bookstore. Every few weeks, I visited again. It required almost an hour to peruse once around the store, looking at the marvels. I bought now and then, a science-fiction magazine, a deck of shaved cards for magic tricks, a book about Hypnotism.

Then, lunch at Woolworth’s counter. See a movie, then home.

How wonderful such a time, when such things were wonders!

Near Hurnville, Texas, 1954: At my grandparents’ farm, I had firecrackers, because in town there was an old hardware and general store run by Grover Thaxton. An ancient holdover from the 1800’s, the store had a dirt floor, and glass-topped cases in a long, narrow U-shape running from the front into the dimness inside. Along the side walls, cabinets reached to the ceiling, and the goods were retrieved with a ladder.

Grover Thaxton’s store was already old when my mother’s generation was young. One Halloween long before I was born, my young mother and her pals Billie Jane and Sara Moyer sat with beers and friends in Grover’s kitchen, waiting for the annual attempt on Grover’s outhouse. “Here they come, Grover!” they whisper as they spied the hooligans creeping near.

They’d wait till the boys turned over the outhouse, and were running away, and then Grover would burst from the back door with his shotgun.

“You go**amned hooligans!” screamed Grover. He fired the shotgun over the boys heads, one barrell, then the other. It was actually loaded with rock salt, for safety, but Grover put on a great display. Terrified, the boys ran like hell.

Somewhere beyond the danger, they’d laugh and congratulate themselves. Back inside the kitchen, mom and Sara rolled on the floor with laughter. Grover was pounded on the back. Beers were opened. Every year, just the same.

“Thaxton Hardware” read the faded sign, across from the Methodist Church. I suppose once upon a time, farmers bought from this general store. The store hadn’t changed since that time. And, from one of the bins, any time of the year, we boys could buy firecrackers.

My grandmother’s front porch was about two feet above the ground, of poured concrete, with four brick and timber pillars which held the roof above. Looking out, to the right a huge Oak tree grew up from within the huge metal rim of a tractor wheel. Beyond, the wire fence to keep chickens, guineas, and coyotes out of the yard and the flower beds. And beyond, the land fell away to the creek and the wandering line of trees stretching as far as I could see.

I had firecrackers, and we boys were playing with matches. We’d light a fuse, throw the firecracker, and then thrill to the report. These were small firecrackers, woven into a package. I now know they were designed to be set off as a package, popping and jumping, but we didn’t know that. We unwove them and lit and threw them one by one.

I thought I’d scare my cousin Bobby, so I pulled a fuse off one of the firecrackers. I lit the fuse and threw it toward him. Reasonably, he panicked, and tried to roll away, but in his haste placed his hand upon the burning fuse and got a nasty gunpower burn. My trickery turned sour.

Scolded properly and with firecrackers confiscated, we boys lolled around the summer day. Evening drew closer. It was the habit of our elders that they brought us presents when they’d been away, and Uncle Esty and Aunt Rosemary were returning to reclaim Bobby and Danny. They brought fireworks.

In the dark, sparklers flashing sparks, we drew pictures in the night, spelled out words, ran like the wind with sparks trailing behind.

With roman candles, each took a turn holding the tube upright, with the colorful balls of fire blasting into the sky with a loud whooshing sound. One, then another, then two together, of red, yellow, green. Another and another and another.

And, best of all, the tiny rockets on a long red stick. Held upright by an empty Royal Crown bottle, the fuse lit by Uncle Esty, after a moment’s pause, up they soared, trailing a tail of fire, and then they burst with a clap of thunder, spreading a flower of soaring, colorful petals.

Year after year. Just like magic.

San Francisco, 1980: I shanghai’d Richard W. and Derek S. to help me move from the third floor at 495 Third Avenue. I’d just rented the new office on Geary Boulevard for Network Answering Service, and I was going to live there in the back room.

When Derek showed up, he was yellow-colored.

Ignorant lads as we were, none of us realized that yellow eyes and yellowish skin meant hepatitus, and he really shouldn’t have been working. As it was, complaining of fatigue, he carried boxes of books down the stairs and loaded them into the borrowed van.

Richard and I sympathized by mocking him as much as possible.

But it became clear that he wasn’t doing so well. He started stumbling around a bit, but gamely continued. We were nearing the end of the job.

I had a nice ficus tree. Aside from it’s bad habit of dropping some leaves if moved, it was a happy little tree, and it was going to live in a new home. It grew in an elaborate chinese pot, very heavy.

In most any chinese grocery store in Chinatown or on Clement street, you will find “hundred-year-old” eggs for sale. They aren’t really a hundred years old, but they’re pretty old. They are black in color. I don’t know how they taste because I see no point in eating an egg known to be really, really old. But the point is that they are shipped from China in huge ceramic bowls. I’d bought this one for $5 from a grocer on Clement Street.

Derek grabbed the heavy pot of the ficus tree, and hefted it. He was doing pretty good till he tried to round the corner at the end of the hall, so as to get out my apartment door. But the tree had grown. It wouldn’t really go around the corner. Derek backed up, tried again, and was again balked.

He tried it several times, sweating heavily, using colorful language and expressions. Behind him, Richard and I, holding boxes, encouraged him to get a move on.

Derek stopped, thought, backed up, set the tree down, and turned to me.

“It’s your tree,” he said. “You break it.”