Strange. Life is, there is loneliness. Like I think back to when I wrote you a poem from the beach..about the beach. From Mom’s house. Summer sunshine, –babes in bikini’s – I left that out I think – and submarines..breaking through frozen seas up at ICE STATION ZEBRA (Patrick McGoohan). It was the last poem I sent you; but you weren’t there to receive it. Or were you? I never heard back with your critique. In any case it was the first time in thirty years, in the the thirty years war with the county (of San Bernardino) we fought singlehandedly, that I didn’t see your thoughtful reply about my poem; we were brothers in arms with the impossible dream of surviving..GOVERNMENT! (in the modern sense). Where are you, Steve? I know where you are, we all know because we have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will never leave us nor forsake us. And he never left you, did he? And I still have your cat; because you told John we get ‘Eli’ when you are no longer there for him. And so John arranged for all of that, and Elizabeth went and got him and brought him over to our house. He sleeps with us and we wake up and feed him and he lays there beside me on the couch while I write stuff..thinking of you, our friendship of thirty+years, living on the mountain, going out together and getting wood to stay warm in the winter; and making aRT things together. You always gave me stuff I was going to need when I made my performances on video tape, and helped with the camera work; and tools to use, like a TEAC 4 track reel-to-reel tape deck and I still have a couple oversize reels with the recordings of my songs that maybe I never played back but I’ll need to get another deck for that, because I gave your deck to a tweeker who jumped off the roof high above the parking over Snow Summit and that’s how he ended up..because of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Strange..how that went (I have the hope God worked it out for him). I recall you mentioned about being a ‘roadie’ with friends who had a band and you helped move a HAMMOND B-3 up narrow stairs to a place they were playing that night..a gig! And how heavy that was. Your cat’s sitting here. I take special care of him because he is your cat, the cat you kept in the autumn of your years. He sat with you and you watched TV together. You’d had a head-on collision and weren’t doing well; and you drove over and I made us pupusa’s and we had ice cream with date topping marinated in Hungarian Tokaji, which is a dessert wine, very rare! and you brought up the subject: Would I take your cat and keep him as my own in the event something happens? (We all know what that means.) I said sure. And you said, “He’s a good cat.” I knew that. Every time I went to see you he came over and sat with me on your nauga-hyde couch, –all those poor nauga’s, SIGH! and I petted him and we talked and things happened..until that day they stopped happening. It was a Saturday morning and I was home from Oceanside taking care of Mom and the phone rang..it was John with the bad news. It was time to come get the cat. He’s a good guy because he’s all white except for the black tail. We’re special buddies now. You had my assurance he would be well cared for. And i’ve kept that promise. And the reason all this comes back is I got a phone call from the guy who bought your house..a house so full of memories: Of you cooking, pictures on the walls, the cold bathroom; and the month or two we lived with you, –when the county kicked us out! You were always there, Steve. So I got the call after church, and the phone face said ‘Phillip’ and I know more than one, so I didn’t know right away who. But then he mentioned the stove, and then I started to get it, it was the guy with your house who gave me the pictures from your wall, and an envelope with some of your old bills I haven’t looked at, yet..your cat’s laying here, shedding hair when I pet him. So I drove over to Big Bear City up the street, Blue Water Drive, from the Circle-K, where we all got gas, and met him where he was getting firewood that had been offered, from people with a house he had visited to pick up donations for DOVES. DOVES, you know, is a thrift store located in the old hardware store we lived next to on the boulevard when we first moved to Big Bear some 34 years ago and started our art store, and multi-use business – catch-as-catch-can! – and that was where we met you, Steve, the only guy in town who was curious to come see who the people were who came out of nowhere and hung up the loudly flashing ART sign there on the Strip! main drag. That, who came, was you; and there we were..us. And we gave you the TV set. And you gave us coffee. From Hawaii. There’s so much more. That’s all for now.