Sun, Snow, and Six Strings is a collection of vivid, true-life stories told plain and straight, like sitting at the bar with an old friend who’s been around. The scenes jump from Hermosa Beach dives to car deals, concerts, girlfriends, cops, and plenty of funny near-misses. Nothing is polished for effect  It’s real, raw, and conversational. These are snapshots of a life lived without much filter, stories of luck, trouble, charm, and humor all wrapped together.Here are some stories to read or you can:

Why Not ? -3

I stopped drinking when I was 35; I’m near 60 now, but I was always very curious about people, even when I was a drinking man. I had a friend named Dan who was a guy that any man would take advice from. He was a weightlifter, long haired, motor-cycler, tattoo guy, and he worked as a bouncer at the bar.  One day I asked him, “Dan, why is it that you don’t drink?” He looked at me straight in the eye and told me, “Dale, I just don’t dig it anymore.” 

Now, that’s what I tell people why I don’t drink. “I just don’t dig it anymore.”

The Tucker -5

The Tucker. Let me tell you about the Tucker. When I lived in Hermosa Beach around 1988, there was also around the neighborhood a particular car: a Tucker. In case you don’t know what that is, a futuristic car built in 1949, by a man named Tucker. There were actually only 51 built that year. In 1988 when the value of any car was always less than 2 million dollars, the Tucker’s commanded $250,000, whichever few Tuckers were still around. The one in Hermosa Beach was in perfect condition it used to cruise around to the Mickey’s deli and up and down the beach. Just great but the real story behind the Tucker is:

One day I went over to my friend’s mechanic shop because I always like to talk to mechanics, and we were drinking beer out of green bottles and just sitting at Friday afternoon at 6:00. All the cars were done and the customers were gone. We’re sitting in the office drinking out of our green bottles and from next door runs a guy into our office and he asked, “Hey would you help me move the car that’s parked in the driveway out here?” My friend Bob immediately countered,  “We will if you show us the Tucker.” The guy thought about it for a minute, then he agreed, “Okay.”  Anyway, we pushed a car out of the way onto the tarmac, and then he took us inside the garage. He pulled the cover off the car, and there was the Tucker. I don’t remember which number it was it might have been 48 or 49 but I actually sat in the Tucker and was able to look at the shift knob. The shift knob was very similar to a new Toyota shift knob. It was a h pattern but it was not on the console, it was on the steering column.  It was just about 3 inches across from first, second, third, and fourth. That’s my story of how I got to sit in a Tucker. That’s not the end of the Tucker story. 

The Tucker in Hermosa Beach was owned by a couple of brothers who made a little side money selling drugs. One year the DEA busted the brothers and claimed that the car was purchased and restored with ill gotten gains from drug sales and confiscated it. I heard that eventually the DEA gave it to the Smithsonian Institution. 

So there in the Smithsonian Institution is the Tucker that I sat in.

Don’t Drop It -7

Back when I used to have a sales job back in 1989, I worked with a couple of girls that were cousins. They wanted to include me and invited me to their families’ dinner for Thanksgiving. I was a non-traditional guy because most of my family is in New York and I’m in California.  I went and was seated next to their sister and young cousin who was about 6 years old. She noticed when I picked up my glass that I had my pinky out on my wine glass, and she looked at me and informed me, “I know what that means, that means you’re being polite.” I didn’t say anything but went back to my what I was doing. (eating bread) ?

Eventually, she picked up her water glass, and her pinky was conspicuously on the glass, down under at the bottom of the glass, near the stem. I asked, “And what does that mean?” She replied, ”That means I don’t want to drop it.”

Old School –4

I was outside the bar one summer day with three other guys. We were smoking a joint just off Hermosa Avenue. A black and white cop car came down the road. It was just a few years ago when you could get in trouble and get a ticket for having weed out in public; I threw the weed we were smoking towards the dumpster. Of course, the cop stops, got out of his car, came over and demanded, “What are you doing? What were you doing?” He made me go into the garbage and find the weed that I had thrown in there, and give it to him. He had all four of us lined up on the sidewalk, and proceeded to go through our pockets. I had just come from down the road and was on my way out of town after making a pickup of some illegal drugs, namely powder cocaine, and my dealer was using the newest things: little tiny plastic bags. The cop went down the row of us, reaching into all of our pockets one at a time. When he got to one of my friend’s pockets, he stuck his hand in, and he got poked by something that wasn’t sharp, but had a corner on it. The cop probably knew that it was the old school “bindle” of cocaine, which is just a piece of paper wrapped up, and it’s corners are kind of pointy, and the coke is within. When he got to my pocket he had already found the Coke in Jaybro’s pocket; I was expecting he was going to stick his hand in and pull out mine. Instead he stuck his hand in, moved it around, and the little plastic bag was so small and delicate that he never felt it. He pulled his hand back out and never tried to take me to jail or anything. Jaybro ended up going to jail and it ended up costing him nine hundred dollars in fines.

 That little adventure there cost him, because he had the old school “bindle” instead of the new school plastic baggie.

Needs Engine -10

Back when I used to work on cars and sell them to make money, my friends would always be on the lookout for a good deal for me.  One time a friend told me he knew about a Mazda RX-7, but it needed an engine. I get that all the time from people, and if it needs a valve job, they’ll say it needs an engine; if it needs a piston, they’ll say it needs an engine. I asked him, “How exactly do you know that this car needs an engine?” He explained, “You go to the car,  you open the hood, you look, you see—no engine.”

Sun, Snow, and Six Strings is a collection of vivid, true-life stories told plain and straight, like sitting at the bar with an old friend who’s been around. The scenes jump from Hermosa Beach dives to car deals, concerts, girlfriends, cops, and plenty of funny near-misses. Nothing is polished for effect  It’s real, raw, and conversational. These are snapshots of a life lived without much filter, stories of luck, trouble, charm, and humor all wrapped together.Here are some stories to read or you can: