For Alan

As you may well know by now, I am not an especial fan of winter. That I live in a region, New England, where we get all four seasons is only more ironic when I tell you I reside in a state, Connecticut, where we complain bitterly about whatever season we're in.

We've had five or so days consecutively of below freezing temperatures. If you live in Butte, Montana, or Moose Jaw, Michigan, that may be short sleeve shirt and shorts weather for you this time of year, but for us, it's cold and our litany of lament reaches to the heavens.

Walking to the pharmacy yesterday at mid-day to pick up a prescription I'd refilled for treatment of high blood pressure (and all this time you thought I was a carrier?) the breeze had died down and the winter sun nearly at its peak was as warm as it was to get for the day.

An old Lindisfarne song came along on my Slacker station for Bert Jansch, Pentagle, Nick Mason and the sort. I remembered a concert I'd seen at the Capital Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey a million years ago (actually in 1973) when Lindisfarne and The Kinks played and how nearly a decade later, I sat across from Alan Hull in a radio studio in Germany and we laughed about what a great night of music that show had been because he remembered every song and every note of each song he ever played because he so loved live performing and thought he had the greatest job in the world.

And because I could sit and listen to his stories, and sometime later, Ray Davies' (of The Kinks) as well, I knew I had the greatest job in the world. We never told one another the truth, we were friends after all, and if you can't lie to a friend to whom can you lie?

"When the wind is singing strangely, blowing music thru your head.
And your rain splattered windows make you decide to stay in bed.
Do you spare a thought for the homeless tramp who wishes he was dead.
Or do you pull the bedclothes higher, dream of summertime instead ?
When winter..... comes howling in."

I turned the corner and the winter wind surprised me, cacthing me full in the face and I suddenly remembered Alan is dead.
-bill kenny