A Cellarful of Nose - Future Shoes

of the reunion, everyone agreed to prop up everyone else's
illusions. But the real truth was, it was over.
The high point of the reunion for me was sitting high on a
rock overlook with Richard, as he told me what his life had come
to, things that had disappointed him, and opportunities that would
not be coming around again. It struck me as extremely poignant,
for an idealist like him to have to hang his head the way he did.
The rueful, illusionless tone of that conversation permeated the
essay I wrote.
My essay was true, but only by squinting, and only by
wanting everyone to have sold out or given up. It ran in our small
rural newspaper, where only a small handful understood the point
about generational decline and the demise of hippie idealism.
Later, when the Internet arrived, I put a version of the story
online, where a few more people read it over 10 years time. The
piece was a favorite of mine because of its style, but I lost track of
the negativity of its content.
Meanwhile, I moved on. I stopped thinking about Jacobs Hill
except as a nostalgia item.
One day, late in the 1990s, I got an indignant email from
Richard, complaining about my act of journalistic betrayal, telling
what were essentially family secrets. I was put off by his ire and I
replied defensively: It was just art, I told him. It was all "true," it
was a leap forward for me as a writer, why can't people appreciate
constructive criticism, etc.
I pointed out Joan Didion's famous remark about writers, that
you can't ever trust them, they'll sell you out every time. As if that
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