As a writer, I've naturally used a lot of personal experience in my work, delivered with varying degrees of dramatic modification. But I still have many memories I've never written down and one came up this morning as I drove on a chore. The radio played "Watermelon Man," and this triggered a memory of my Watermelon Man Marathon.
It was my first year in grad school. Winter 1967. I had a Saturday night gig as a folksinger at a local joint called Tino's Pizza. Fellow literary grad students would show up for beer drinking and occasional listening. Eventually other folk musicians showed up with instruments and I became the host of unpredictable evenings.
On one occasion I started playing Watermelon Man on the harmonica and a sax player, of all things, joined me. One by one various musicians seemed to appear out of nowhere until we had a motley band of instruments one seldom would put together, playing Watermelon Man for what must have been damn near half an hour. I don't think it was any good musically but damn it sure was fun.
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