Jimmy gets stuck in Nebraska with Ginger (Sept. 9, 1972)

Sept. 9, 1972

Disaster!

Jimmy is stuck in Nebraska with Ginger (not that being stuck anywhere is all that painful but…) They’re far away.

We hear rumors, but it is unclear just what happened in California.

Alf isn’t with Jimmy and Ginger. Alf flew home a few days ago.

Basil, Jimmy’s father, claims Alf got thrown out of California by the new liberal governor.

Most likely something broke down between the old friends, which is to be expected.

Alf has a reputation for being disagreeable.

Yet, if you consider just how Jimmy ended up with Ginger, maybe there is something ugly that transpired since Jimmy reportedly stole Ginger from Alf at a picnic a few years ago – rescuing her as Frank claims as if she was a damsel in distress.

Alf didn’t explain much to anyone when he returned from California. He just got off the plane and drove to his father’s house in Rahway. The farther away the better as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never had a good relationship with him anyway.

But what of Jimmy?

Again, by the way of Frank, rumor has it that the good boy has to wait in Nebraska for a car part.

He’s driving his father’s Volvo which might not translate well into English in those necks of the American woods.

Louise and I broke down in New Mexico two years go in a Volkswagen van and the gas station had to fly the part in from god knows where.

Poor, poor Jim!

Frank, however, has been going on and on about how lucky Jimmy is, which confuses me.

But Frank said Jimmy – or most likely Ginger – has some friends living nearby and they are staying with those friends.

Fate?

Jimmy is rather romantic when you strip off all the tough skin, down deep.

He likes to cook fine dinners and drink fine wine (not that he can afford it. His tastes just happen to run that way.)

I recall one of his dinners in Parsippany that turned out just a bit strange when he insisted on using green pasta made from spinach.

It looked like something he’d dragged out of a sewer especially after he covered it with tomato sauce.

Frank wouldn’t eat it.

Since I’m known to eat just about anything, I tried a few mouthfuls, and after I decided I liked it, gobbled up mine and then Frank’s share as well

Ginger made some digs about Jimmy being a traditionalist.

Now they’re stuck together again.

In the back of our minds (mine and Frank’s) we wonder if they will finally tie the knot.

They’ve come so close we thought they would have already done it. They’ve lived together – secretly at first in Parsippany where Ginger told her mother she was living with a girlfriend. Yet they fell apart after that, Ginger going off to see her sister in California to clear her head.

Frank can’t tell me why it doesn’t work between those two. I’m sure sooner or later, he’ll start inventing reasons like he always does when he doesn’t actually know.

That’s how Frank’s mind works.

I’m sure he sees this whole being trapped in Nebraska thing as a positive sign for the future.