I’m having coffee and pancakes at Keith Browning’s house with him and Rick Ardinger. Rick heads Idaho Humanities and has set up the Almost Trashy tour. Keith is Idaho’s old man of letters and lives here in Lewiston, where I did my first reading/performance last night at a bakery. A lot of writers and friends showed up and we had a party afterwards–both for post-reading and for Keith’s 82nd birthday. Keith published my first chapbook of poems through Confluence Press back in ’82.

Jim Hepworth, my fellow FFJ writer, showed up and took five Trash Fish and said he’d pay me back. I don’t care if he does, though, since I wouldn’t have written the book if it weren’t for him, and, well hell, it’s Hepworth, so what can I say. We had a lot of George Dickle yesterday, so it’ll be a stretch to make it to the next reading in Boise today.

Yesterday, the Clearwater was blown out but was covered with swallows when I drove over Lolo.