A SUMMER DAY IN THE SIXTIES

A SUMMER DAY IN THE SIXTIES

I was in my early twenties and had been married for a short time. It was starting to get into summer here in California. We lived along the coast in Santa Monica.
My wife and I got into a big argument one Saturday morning. To keep from arguing any more, I decided to go out and cool off and take a little walk down along the boardwalk at Venice Beach which is only a few blocks from where we lived.
After getting down to the boardwalk and walking a few hundred feet, I decided to stop part way out on the pier at a restaurant named "The Seashell". After a few minutes waiting in line I was seated near the window overlooking part of the seashore. I kept thinking about my wife and how much she meant to me. As I sat there drinking my coffee rubbing the cup with both hands nervously thinking how silly I was for using some pretty bad words.
Looking out the window along the beach, I saw a man and woman sitting on lounge chairs holding hands and looking out over the ocean.
He was leaning over kissing her on the cheek, which made me feel even more lonely for my wife. After being in the restaurant for awhile,getting myself together,I left thinking I would stop and pick up gift for my wife.
I stopped for a moment along the pier and looked out over the ocean watching these little waves splashing against the bottom of the pier, just standing there staring downwards thinking.
I turned to walk back down towards the boardwalk and noticed a guy sitting near me, on a large fishing tackle box writing on a tablet.
As I walked past him he slipped off of his tackle box toppling him over onto his side. I rushed over to help him up into a chair that was near him and jokingly I said, "you should have been sitting on the chair". With a smile on his face, he looked up at me and said, "I know". He didn't seem to be hurt, more embarrassed than anything.
I noticed the tablet that he writing on had a lot of crossed out sentences written down.
I couldn't make out what he was trying to write, as he sat back in his chair. I handed him the tablet that I picked up, he reached out for it thanking me for helping him. I said "hi I'm Norm," we shook hands and talked for awhile.
He was a clean shaven guy with short hair and was real friendly. I'm just tinkering around, trying to write a song. I said "oh yeah, stick with it, you never know."
I said, "I better get going," glancing at the tablet once again I noticed what looked like a name on the top right hand corner but couldn't really make it out. Walking away from him,
I yelled out, "take care, keep writing."
I worked my way back down to the boardwalk and bought my wife a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
Back at our apartment, I told my wife how sorry I was and how much I missed her the short time I was gone.
Many years later I was so surprised one night when I was watching a television show and they introduced this guy that was a singer and a songwriter and had the latest hit.
I couldn't believe who it was, I called out to my wife in the other room, "honey come quick to see this guy." "He's the one I told you about years ago, I met him on the pier in Venice when we had that terrible argument in the 60's".
My wife called out, "who is he, what's his name?"
It's Willie Nelson, he wrote, Crazy and Hello Walls…..

In 1996, my wife and I saw him perform at the Riverside Casino in Laughlin, Nevada. We were sitting fairly near the stage in a jam packed theatre. As he was singing and scanning the audience, he smiled at me, waved and tipped his hat towards me.

A true story By Norman Clifford