Play It By Ear

She felt wonderfully calm, as serene as a meadow falling into shadow in the evening.
-Stefan Zweig
"The Post-Office Girl"

Twenty-five years ago today:

September 20, 1985
Friday

I am supposed to call Denise Vinsonhaler tonight (after work). She is so nice. I am tempted to invite her to the Horse Races Event. I wonder if Karen Melton, the Ice-Capades gal, will return by that time.

I went to my Great Western Deputy Teller machine in Alameda this morning. I saw two PG&E guys who looked familiar. I guess I looked familiar to them, too. They kept looking…or maybe it was just the shininess of my recently washed Ford Mustang.

Work ended and I was home, doing my aerobics before long. I drove out to Walnut Creek and met with Denise. She lives in a nice black and white house with palm trees landscaped on the outside. I liked the look. She is kind, yet ‘tough sounding’ (as a girl cop should be I suppose). I like her anyway.

Denise and I headed over to the Walnut Festival. Denise had a dorky friend tag-a-long. It was okay. After the festival we went to Lyon’s Restaurant for a brief bite and a few good laughs. Denise was sharing stories about a few of the strange folks that she has met at Baxter’s. I’m glad I wasn’t included on the list.

I was home by half past midnight. All in all it was a pretty fun ‘play it by ear’ sort of evening.


For this quiet, unprepossessing, passive man who has no garden in front of his subsidized flat, books are like flowers. He loves to line them up on the shelf in multi-colored rows, he watches over each of them with an old-fashioned delight.
-Stefan Zweig
"The Post-Office Girl"