Summer 1976 – On the road with The Burgans (Debbie, Jerry, Tholow -  somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area…)  This is not a particularly pleasant story.  However, it made a definite mark with me concerning the loneliness of being a traveler on the road.  

 One of the things I loved about the Bay area when I was in my early teens was the opportunity to hang out with one of my best friends Tim Fullerton (the son of We Five bassist Pete Fullerton).  Tim and I loved to run around with curiosity and abandon in our “can’t die youth. ” The hotel we were staying in had a pool that was in a really inviting (dangerous) spot.  This particular hotel had windows that opened up at the end of the hall on each floor that overlooked the pool.  It was about a 15’ leap out over the fence and concrete to the shallow end of the pool.  Tim and I figured that if we got a running start we could make the jump and land “safely” in the water (I think we were on about the 5^th floor).  Anyway, we stayed in this hotel a couple of days; and, every day the end of the hall called our names.  Fortunately for us, it was summer (it is often very cold in San Francisco in the summer) and neither of us felt like getting wet and being cold (although I don't think we'd have jumped anyway)… so, we found other things to do. 

 The last day we were there, we had come back to the hotel, from an afternoon of running about in the city, to find the hotel pool surrounded by police cars, fire trucks and an ambulance.  It seems as though a despondent businessman had jumped out of the matching window upstairs… and landed between the fence and pool on the concrete.  

 It was not a pretty sight in the aftermath.  Sadly, we had seen him a couple of times in the hotel over the previous days.  Both of us remembered the gentleman.  He did appear lonely to both of us in hindsight.  Although I did not know the details of his situation… I do remember people joking about his final jump.

 It is detached enough to be on the road when you are with friends.  My heart learned to reach out that day to those who have to travel alone in life.  His death was as cold and lonely as the San Francisco summer in which he took his own life.  I don’t know why I chose to share this story… I guess it seemed important somehow.  Take care of each other