moon traveller herald

Dispatch was a mental state. Our fathers were most of them from the army, and the navy, and they insisted we handle things with dispatch. Even if they’d manned the home front, they were into assembly, time-and-motion - dispatch. It had different names. Telegraph, bulletin, flash. It had different names, but one beat: staccato. But dispatch was the concept. Dispatch, thy name was news in Molina.  Each day around 4pm a Chevrolet delivery truck would drop off bundled papers next door for Jimmy Tegan, the neighborhood's Moon Traveller Herald newsboy. I could go out and sit with Jimmy on his steps as he would roll out the news. We would talk. He'd try to teach me to roll the newspapers. Like the news, the craft was mysterious to me. I was all thumbs and no brain. The papers were rolled to become missiles, they would go in his orange canvas bag.  He’d go off on his bike, and they lobbed like grenades on the door steps. Over long years, the Derby morning line...

One Thursday night, he went. The news came by email Sunday. Knew it was coming - then it happened what can anyone say? Oh he was a trooper He was a kick! One in a million unforgettable forever son of the prairie Rob Halle. Things he said I will always remember. Told me once: Never unpack. We'd come down to New York over the years and he would constantly amaze me. He's telling me once about his salesman travels and says: Jack always be ready. Never unpack. So there I am travelling a lot and in a hotel rooms over many years since, and I think of him. Say it people Never unpack. Guy from little town in Wisconsin just waltzed into New York and made it his own town. When we did the 39 cent poetry reading on State St. in 1976 in Madison it was a big thing for me. It was Jeff's idea. With Charlie Deming, with Dana Poissin, With Jim Haas, With Natawa. Rob helped with the sound. It was the last time I saw him for a few years. But somehow we were always in touch. He was i...

MY BABY ALWAYS GOES OUT/SOMETIMES COMES BACK/I ASKED HER WHERE SHE WAS BUT SHE'S TIGHT LIKE THAT...