THE SPIRIT OF ST. JAMIE

In another, more innocent era, an abortion was born by accident.

On a school day we decided to do something worthwhile with our nowhere lives instead of working on graduating into the workforce. By forming a band. At the time there was only a guitar, a bong, and our raspy vocals which we were trying to meld in the backyard of the brick house around the bend from William Street Park. The song was called “School Sucks”. The son of the prominent attorney who owned the mansion was the guitar player, I was the screamer, and our eventual drummers were out of Spinal Tap, but the real gem was Jamie. When he walked up out of the ether, interrupting our “rehearsal” we were as spellbound as if Joey Ramone had dropped in for a jam session. With a touch of Jaco Pastorious. Tanning on the grass by the old oak tree we treasure he’d heard something so unattractive it caught his fancy. Whatever it was about our noise is now irrelevant, but that moment will always be indelibly imprinted in our archive of meaningful memories.

As often occurs he was appropriated by a band with more talent we’ve posted below. For a while he banged the bass for both of us until we went back to the boring life we’d had before we’d met him. Bidding goodbye to punk rock we hit the beach and didn’t see him much. Then one day while still a working stiff we spied a familar gait gathering steam as it approached us near the train station. His hair had gone gray, but he’d stayed true to the pegged jeans and boots now so popular with the poseur set. We exchanged greetings, numbers, long forgotten anectodes, and went our way.

Promising to hook up.

It took a while but finally we reached out to the other and honored our word.

And as usually happens when we see him we never say what is really in our soul until we’ve hit the computer keyboard with the vigor of his bass playing.

Which will never be topped.

No matter who Ribzy replaced him with.