volunteers

I recently watched a three-part documentary of The Jefferson Airplane on YouTube. When I was much younger I took white masking tape and tore and stuck the words “Jefferson Airplane Loves You” on the wall of my bedroom, opposite the bed. “Jefferson Airplane Loves You” was a thing back then, the mid-sixties. A slogan. An encouragemnt. A gathering. As far as I know those four taped words remained all through high school, and likely through my two years at Cape Cod Community College, from where I would bounce home (catch a ride) weekends to work at Star Jewelers, which included a record store, and where I’d worked part-time since junior year at Wareham High.

I came home to Wareham for the Thanksgiving holiday my first year at CCCC, and after saying hello to mom and dad and sister Nancy, my dog Taffy came into the room and rubbed up against me. Then she went into the next room and lay down and died. My dad said it sure seemed that she’d waited for me to say goodbye. The next day we buried her in the back yard.

I’ve long believed that time is not something which travels in a straight, left-to-right line. Rather, it folds over, lays atop itself, and I watch a video in San Diego in the late winter of 2024 and I feel my so loyal dog and friend saying goodbye Thanksgiving 1968. She loved me too.