From: hill@worldspice.com (Hill)
To: tallpaul@aol.com

Tall Paul,

Imagine my surprise when, late at night, I saw a familiar looking face on the web. But not quite a face...a scribbled drawing of a face on a list of "fonts" available for download. "Now where have I seen this face before?" I asked myself. I know it from somewhere in the distant past. Twelve years distant to be exact. Hazy drunken nights at a long since forgotten bar on the outskirts of Vanderbilt. Jonesey's I think it was called. All I remember is that the name changed even before I graduated. But wait, there was more exuding from my gray matter...

I remember a summer, living with some of my best college mates and a fair portion of the women's swimming team, all with college jobs in a new industry called the "PC Business". I had a posting with IBM and managed to sleep in the college radio station on a late night jazz shift from time to time. Another roommate worked with Apple, and one other even wrote computer code as a way to pay for his flying lessons. That last guy also got it in his head that learning to play the guitar would be a good idea that summer, if nothing else than to impress our female roommates just a bit more.

We all trotted down to the aforementioned bar. The only choice of the night was how many pitchers of beer to order and still have change left over for nachos on the walk home. Two pints into the evening, the musically ambitious roommate introduced us to his guitar instructor who had just walked in the front door. Quite a tall chap, I thought to myself.

The tall guy with sunglasses proceeded to cultivate the sparse crowd into what seemed a gathering of friends, a family of sorts. Singing like fools long before Karoke was chic. Anything was fair game, any title could be improvised, and my particular choice was "Steamroller" because it wasn't so much a song as a poem. I still can't carry a tune. Dear god, just don't ask him to play American Pie unless you know how the bloody song ends. Nothing quite as fun as watching a co-ed lost in infinite rounds of "Took my Chevy to the Levy" with no hint of Paul throwing them a lifeline.

(dramatic pause) I knew I had it. A faded T-Shirt with that same familiar face I saw tonight. I should all but have it carbon dated, or perhaps taken into a field and shot at dawn. It's one of the few trinkets left from those days, but the memories of good friends from that long ago summer come rushing back every time it floats to the top of the drawer. I think that's probably the best $10 I ever spent in Nashville.

That summer wrapped up, I went off to London, constantly trying to seek that same feeling of friendship in all the local pubs I could find. It was close, but none of them could play the guitar worth a damn. The PC business ultimately sucked me up into a career where 10 years zoomed past.

I escaped to a new life in a very old business, one that affords me the ability to travel the world most of the year. I'm often asked what I "do for fun" back in the States, I tell them about the theater, talk about the snow and hiking, but I always find room to tell them about a little bar in Nashville where they sing loud with friends.

I make my home in the forests of British Columbia these days when I'm not travelling, still play around at a radio station, and walk a few blocks down the street to sing a song with my mates at the local over a pitcher of beer. Funny how we come full circle, isn't it. Thanks for the lesson in life.

Tony
"Steamroller" in the summer of '86