A Conversaton with Elizabeth
1998
Re: Blood on the Tracks

From:          larry.m.mixson@bvs.com (LARRY M. MIXSON)
To:            Elizabeth
Date:          Fri, 6 Mar 1998 13:46:35 -0800
Subject:       Re: Blood on the Tracks
 
I do hope you get to see your mother again while she still recognizes you. I know I would feel a great loss if my mother was unable to recognize me. As I have said my grandmother and my mother are going though such a period. In some ways the way my wife's mother died last year is easier to handle. Her having an embolism and going into a coma was unexpected and was hard for my wife to deal with but having the three weeks for her to finally die gave enough time to "accept" it (if one ever does) but not so long as to make it difficult. The months or years that Alzheimer's can take can be much more difficult.

Blood on the Tracks also makes me feel sadness and perhaps not grief as much as loss. I always associate it with you and those years in Gainesville. Tangled up in Blue was always one of my favorites. When we were discussing coffee the line from one of the songs "one more cup of coffee before I go" came to mind.
 
Those years...
 
I graduated from high school in 1970 (30 year reunion in 2000!) and moved out of my parents house later that summer to live with Bill, the guy who played the same record over and over. I started U-of-F that fall. My draft number was something like 75 and expected to get drafted but it didn't seem real and I didn't really think about it. When the demonstrations started I marched with them down the street and thought the campus. I remember on night marching with the crowds and the tear gas started flying, I ran. The whole thing seem like some sort of dream, later when I saw the move Apocalypse Now some of the scenes reminded of my experience. They got rid of the draft with the last number to come up in the 50's, whew, that was close.
 
Living with Bill started to become a pain, not only the same old record, but in other areas as well. When I met you in, I believe '73, it became clear that I had to move out. I believe that Bill really never forgave me for moving out so unexpectedly as I found a place and just announced to him that I was moving out. Bill stayed on to live there for many more years, getting married and even having his wife live there with him. I still see him once in a while when I return to Gainesville, usually at church for he goes to the same church my parents do and I sometimes go with them when I visit. Funny about connections for the woman who we rented that house from owns and rents the house next to my parent's house (the one they are selling). My dad said that every so often he sees her and she still asks about me. I think that Bill and I were one of her favorite tenets as we always paid the rent on time in cash. She used to invite us into her house, gives us something to eat and drink, and talk for an hour. Bill and I used to hate it and would take turns paying the rent.
 
I have wondered what has happened to all of my old friends from Gainesville. I had spent many a year and times with some of them and yet now I have no idea where and what they are doing. Sometimes my parents run across one of them or more likely their parents and will mention it to me. In the year 2000 I plan to go to my 30th high school reunion and will see some of them. What a trip that will be.
 
For now,
Larry

From
December 1975

The week between Christmas and New Years it was pretty much dead at work with the University basically shutting down and the students on break so I went into work for only a few hours each day.   Wendy and Sean had gone to their parents in Melbourne and I missed talking to Wendy at work. Elizabeth, well I’m not sure where she was.

Bob Dylan
But me, I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view
Tangled up in blue

Work