"Slippin' Away" - Recorded in March of 1973, and Number Four on the Billboard Country chart, the Bill Anderson-written, Jean Shepard-recorded, Hit "Slippin' Away" fit nicely with my mood that day as I made my journey. I kept singing the song's refrain in my mind.

A long-time friend, "The Whisperer" as Bill is famously known, wrote "I can feel it slippin' away. Slowly, slowly, slippin' away".

I sure wished Hermitage Hall would. The sooner the better.

Over the course of the last fifty years or so, what Hit Country music recording has Bill Anderson not written or been involved with? His accolades are too numerous to list in my simple book. However, I will be eternally grateful Bill arranged for me to sit on the stage while the Grand Ole Opry performed one Saturday night. A pleasure I may never experience again.



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AN OVERWHELMING CASE OF BUTT GLAUCOMA ENGULFED ME. I felt I would drown in the notion. This meant I could never see my posterior returning back to Hermitage Hall.

I was too youthful to recall when I was originally surrendered to the custody of Hermitage Hall. I have been informed I was pretty much left on the doorstep right after the stork delivered me. Nor can I quote the circumstances thereof.

To this day no living blood relative has ever materialized to proclaim our mutual kinship. Neither have I shaken any family trees, or enlisted any geneological records, in an effort to locate them. The situation does not bother me. As I approach my Senior years, much faster than I care to admit, and cancer (Basal Cell Carcinoma) seems to want to become a close personal acquaintance of mine, (thirteen tumors to date) I do not give two shakes to a shit if any exist. I stopped worrying about that prospective multiple blue moons ago.

I rounded the corner of the greystone McSherry's Used Furniture Outlet and allowed my wandering mind to scatter in all different directions. It usually did. Six cement steps led to the front door of the business. I know. I counted them. Seen through the establishment's canted bay window, with its flat front and angled dual sides, the open floor plan once housed couches, chairs, tables, beds, and what-nots in various shapes, sizes, and hues. In its heyday, McSherry's contained the largest selection of somewhat-used accessories to adorn any home. All at a reasonable cost, of course. How sad, or at least nostalgic. Times, they sure do change everything the monster pertains to.

Like many businesses of that era, the now defunct retailer succumbed to stagflation and the stock market crash of 1973. These unfortunate incidents featured price controls, high inflation, slow economic growth, and a large amount of unemployment. All attributed to skyrocketed gas prices, OPEC's raised oil costs, and embargoed oil exports.

At the time, just trying to survive from one moment to the next, I paid no attention to any such affairs. If I'd been asked about them, my pat answer would have been a blank expression. I would not have even known the words you spoke. They were way beyond the grasp of a twelve year old, especially one with much more important thoughts to consider. Issues like now that I've run away from Hermitage Hall for good, where do I go from here?

I moved on. Don't ask me why but lava lamps, with their boluses of colored wax-mixture and incandescent lightbulbs, flashed through my memory banks. Associated incessantly with the hippie culture, these decorative lamps were chic. They worked by reducing the wax's density and the liquid's surface tension. In sequence, this caused the wax to rise through the liquid, cool, and lose its buoyance. Before long, the wax fell back to the lamp's bottom in a continuous cycle suggestive of the smooth, ropy surface of undulated pahoehoe lava. Thus their nomenclature.

The other excitement of that particular Saturday occured in the world of sports. Thoroughbred horse racing to be exact. Secretariat won the 105th Belmont Stakes by the widest margin ever at the track against four highly overmatched opponents. Big Red, as the super horse became known, also set the American record on dirt of a staggering two minutes and twenty-four seconds for the mile-and-a-half distance. Twice A Prince, My Gallant, PVT Smiles, and Sham proved no competition in the battle. Two weeks earlier on June 9th, I had watched the bruhaha on the Black and White television set in the Recreation Room of Hermitage Hall.Thoroughbred horse racing remains one of my choices in recreational activities. I could truthfully inform you I have won my fair share of bets in the game.

Much more of a day-dreamer than a television watcher, especially in the fulfillment of wishes and hopes, I recalled something I'd heard Macdonald Carey state on NBC. Truer words seldom expressed when he pronounced, "As sands through the hourglass so are the days of our lives." The famous lead-in described me categorically. These defiantly were the days of my life. The tighter the knit, the warmer the fit.

Perhaps I should have been crushed by the burden of my lot. I wasn't. I was happy to be away from Hermitage Hall, and though totally on my own in a world waiting to gorge a feast on those cast aside by humanity, I was carefree.

A bluebird chirped overhead. I scanned all around for where the joyous sound emitted. The high-pitched declaration caused me to pine to fly away on his wings. I knew I couldn't. Somebody else may have been angry, and someone else may have been hurt. I shook back my pullover, with its imprinted wolf head on the front. Powerfully built, and heavily muscled, these canids always were my favorite animals.

I made a snap decision and beelined against a yellow light. My mind recalled how holes in the ceiling of the Hermitage Hall cafeteria allowed water to drip into our morning milk. The memory passed as I sojourned on my trek to obscurity.

(TO BE CONTINUED:)

In Chapter Seven, death stared me in the face. I didn't blink.