My ride dropped me off at the corner of Auburn Blvd and Fulton Avenue, Friday January 23rd 1970, just off the Interstate. A mild wind blew and some drizzle came down from overcast skies, but I'd been through much worse only a few days before. I walked the remaining mile or so back to the duplex on Michelle Drive, used my key to get in, and found nothing changed since I'd left. My mother was still at work.

My bedroom was exactly as I had left it, except cleaner and tidier than I remember. I was so weary from the 5-day trip that I didn't even bother to eat, curling up in a fetal position on my bed and not waking until the next morning.

It was a Saturday when I walked into the kitchen to find my mother had already made coffee and buttered cinnamon toast. It was her day off. We hugged, and I was very glad to be home after such an exhausting trip. I sketched out my New York adventures for her — those I was most comfortable telling her — and then the conversation got very serious.

In three weeks I would be reporting to my draft board to take a physical to be classified for induction into the armed forces. I had no choice but to show up, and a letter that had arrived earlier that week explained that I would be boarding a Greyhound bus on Feb 16th with other inductee candidates bound for the AFEES station. Enclosed were a bus ticket, three meal tickets and a motel reservation.

My mother said I was welcome to stay until I was either drafted or got my high school diploma and found a job while I was waiting to be drafted. She wasn't very specific about a timetable, but she insisted I get my diploma. She also suggested I get a haircut, but I said nothing on that and let the matter rest. I agreed to get my diploma, saying I would call the school district to see how I could arrange that.

For the rest of the weekend I just played my guitar, finishing up some songs I had started in New York, some hinting at my relationship with Rebecca, others about my trip back in the dead of Winter. All of these songs had a melancholy edge to them, all of them saying goodbye again and again to a lover or a dream or some hope I'd clung to for too long.  I had accomplished