Because life is, or seems at times, ridiculously long, it allows for many improbable things to happen. One such thing happened to me this past autumn, when I met and drank with the man who wrote the songs that filled my adolescent mind. As a teenager, I used to ride my bike 20 miles to buy this man's records, and now he works as a civil servant in London, and this past summer, we sat across from each other, at an outdoor picnic table in the city, drinking dark beer and talking about the songs he did write, and those he never did. He and his wife even invited me to visit their suburban home, to stay overnight if I needed to. Does all of this sound as strange as it does to me? He was also wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Strange enough? Let me back up. Because life is, or seems at times, ridiculously long, it allows for many improbable things to happen. One such thing happened to me this past autumn, when I met and drank with the man who wrote the songs that filled my adolescent mind. As a teenager, I used to ride my bike 20 miles to buy this man's records, and now he works as a civil servant in London, and this past summer, we sat across from each other, at an outdoor picnic table in the city, drinking dark beer and talking about the songs he did write, and those he never did. He and his wife even invited me to visit their suburban home, to stay overnight if I needed to. Does all of this sound as strange as it does to me? He was also wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Strange enough? Let me back up...