Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

taking years off between projects were not being labeled as having left. I found musicians, we made demos, performed for prisons and homes for mentally challenged individuals, and did charity fund raisers. What the hell, in many cases they were more worthy of my efforts than a paying audience would have been.
    It was during this time that Bob Seger broke through nationally with the Silver Bullet Band. In truth, he deserved to be on top long before this. And so it was with joy and anticipation that I listened to a live broadcast Bob was doing that was affiliated with the local rock radio station and broadcast all over Denver. I did stop to scratch my head when he gleefully tore into an original song called “Gang Bang,” which pretty much was about the title. Kind of a “Lock and Load” that slipped under the radar. My mind was content to know that the empty slot had been filled upon my vacating the territory. Music was on my mind every day.
    Dawn and Joel came out to visit, which lifted my spirits immensely. Dawn, more than Joel, had missed me terribly and cried when she had to say goodbye and go back home. She wanted to stay with me, but I promised she would come back again soon, and she did. Kimberly and I also took a trip to Tennessee to visit my mother’s folks. Dawn made the journey with us and we flew Joel down to join us.
    I caused a scene at the airport because I had gotten a reservation number for a car and a price, and I came prepared with the money and the confirmation number, then the agent refused to give me a car because I had no credit card. Our whole trip, the time off from work, the meeting of the family . . . all lay at risk. I became outraged to the point that people were pulling their children away from the rental car area. The manager took pity on my poverty, lack of certifiable societal affiliation and gave me a car that was barely running, but we made the trip.
    I missed my children a great deal, but Kimberly was different. She was nice to them because at that time she was a nice person, and she also wanted me to be happy. But she was afraid to love Dawn and Joel. After several years I became increasingly restless and did not want to continue to see my children grow up in front of me with only two short visits a year. I knew I had no life with Susan, but I wanted a life with my children while they were still young.
    Kimberly and I talked about how we could accomplish that. The most agonizing issue revolved around whether or not I would re-enter live performing. I still did not want to return to the stage but the reality, especially from the financial point of view, left little room for compromise. Our combined income per week was something less than three hundred dollars, and we knew that would not be enough to make it in Detroit. Still, I refused to go back on stage. So, we agreed on a compromise because we were both anxious, for reasons of our own, to return home. Given my great mistrust of the music industry my compromise was demanding and I was hard pressed to find a way to make it happen. But as I said, most people don’t know what goes on in the world of music. Kimberly would have to get a job that would support the two of us until my plan could be realized. It was almost as if she was supporting me while I made my way through my particular education of higher learning.

Chapter 24
     
    O N THE LONG DRIVE BACK TO Detroit, as the Rockies grew smaller in the rear view mirror and finally disappeared altogether, Kimberly and I talked in quiet tones about fond memories we had taken to our hearts and wondered if we would ever see our friends from Colorado again. I certainly knew that I could not have survived without the love and care of my sister Nina when we first arrived. Beyond the friends and loved ones, though, was Colorado itself and the magnificent beauty of the mountain lakes and streams, the clear open spaces, and the number of days in the year during which the sun shined.
    In Detroit we would return to a climate in which the sun would generally disappear from the end of October until the beginning of May. And then there was the intuitive sense that as we geographically came closer to Detroit the negative energy became more pronounced, something we both agreed did, in fact, exist. The journey did not end without sadness, however, because we had brought along a cat we had taken in as a stray. She had been with us for more than two years in Colorado. As we pulled up to