05.05.06
“Come and lay down by my side till the early morning light. All I’m taking is your time, help me make it through the night…” Kris Kristofferson
In my haste to tell of our near freezing experience in Big Springs, I realized I had forgotten to tell about our stay in Lincoln, Nebraska. We had breezed into town and asked a local where we could find a cheap place to stay. He directed us to a very cheap, very run-down hotel in the center of town. This hotel was straight out of every sleazy hotel scene in movies and novels. We checked in and were handed clean linens (towels and sheets) and a room key. The room was only a few dollars a night. We were up on the third floor. We stepped over a sleeping (we hoped) body in the hall and wrestled with the lock to our room. There was a double bed that sagged dreadfully in the middle, a dresser and a lamp. I had led a sheltered life, and this was the first time I had ever seen cockroaches. My experiences in the Mid-West since then have often included roaches. We were a little leery, especially because we weren’t at all sure of the lock, but also dead tired with no other prospects. We made the bed and lay down, hoping that the creaking springs would actually hold us up for the night, and closed our eyes, anticipating a long awaited sleep. That’s when we heard the harmonica player in the hallway. No, I am not making this up. There was really a blues harmonica playing in the hallway just outside our door all night long. He sometimes stopped long enough for us to fall asleep, then would start up again. I think he passed out momentarily, then came to again. Sometimes he sang the blues. It wasn’t a terrible thing. He was a pretty good player, and I consoled myself with the thought that I was joining many other artists who had slept in similar circumstances. I was still young and romantic. Now I would just be annoyed as hell. We did make it through the night, finding needles and lots of empty bottles in the communal bathroom in the morning, then headed back on the road on our way to Big Springs. A few years later, while living in Oregon, we turned on the news just in time to see this flea bag hotel, once a great landmark, imploded while a huge crowd of people in town and on national news looked on. Apparently many artists had stayed there over the years, but would no longer. It was a strange feeling watching that very brief part of my life imploded on television.