volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

FROM VOLUME TWO
Sentimental?
Is Roy sentimental about leaving Seattle?
Will he miss the street corners where, as a small boy, he was forced into
servitude by his for-the-most-part drunk parents—on the rare occasions
they were around—and made to stand in the cold and wet to beg? Will he
miss walking past the big, green dumpster behind the Odd Duck, where his
brother almost killed him? Will he miss the traffic islands, Yuppie shops,
snotty women, deep-throating lesbians, music stores, Grunge, Microsoft,
Starbucks, Tower Records, the Space Needle, Ivar’s, the Hammering Man,
Safeco Field, the Fremont Troll, Experience Music Project, the downtown
public library, the Alibi Room, Sound Garden, U District, Dick’s Drive
In, Wedgwood, the Floating Bridge, Belltown, Larry’s Market, the PCC,
the Monorail, the Bon Marché, the Arboretum, Chinatown, Chubby and
Tubby’s, Boeing, Woodland Park Zoo, Ballard, Puget Sound, Pike Place
Market, Queen Anne, Lake Union, Kerry Park, Smith Tower, Amazon.
com, Harborview, Nordstrom, Rainier Brewery, or Tully’s—or even his
latest haven, Georgetown?
He won’t know until he finds out.
And he’s bound to find out soon enough as they hike south along the I-5
corridor, not trying to remember, not trying to forget, just trying to leave.
Finally.
Roy is trying to leave Seattle.
Thumb out, chin high, one step at a time.
So he is not being sentimental about leaving Seattle. At least, not yet.
Right now all he can think about is this: for the first time in his dull, gray,
monotonous life, he’s doing something adventurous, he’s going somewhere he’s
never been—he’s taking a chance.
Throwing caution to the wind.
Tossing out the baby with the bath.
And all because of his new friend, Pistol Pete.
Or whatever his name is.
And so you might rightly ask: how did this revolution come about? How
did simple, window washing Roy Weston manage to alter his life-long
perceptions, shake up his ordered world and shift paradigms so thoroughly,
and in such a brief span of time?
So, rightly, you might ask.
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY 2