In Memory of Manuel................

Just cruising down the curvy road from work today, listening to the crackly classic rock station barely coming in with all the steep green foothills around. I caught sound of a song, “The House of the Rising Sun” the original and it put me in memory lane of my old school buddy Manuel Alcala. We used to sing that song. He was our neighbor in that San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles, all the way from grade school till high school, when we moved. He was my good buddy and I would hang out with him and his cousin “GoGo”.
Manuel was a big guy and when we graduated from elementary school, we had to go to a school different from all the others because we lived on the other side of the flood control ditch and in a new school district Manuel, myself and two other neighbor kids had to go to the rich kids middle school, in a different town on a bus. We would ride in the back and raise hell when we could. We were outcast at the school and Manuel protected me when others made fun of my name. We watched out for each other in many ways and I was remembering that as I cried. My feelings are usually in a tight steel box that only comes out when I have to be touchy feely, but this song sideswiped me. Manuel got killed in that Metro-link Train crash in LA a year or two ago, where some guy pulled his SUV in front of the train and it crashed into it killing 10 people and Manuel was one of them, sitting in front , going to work. I lost track of him after high school and never have seen him since. I finally grieved and wished we had reconnected.

On a lighter note, I hope to see some of you tonite in Auberry at Jim and Sheilas house for drumming! Call me if you need directions.