It was a Chicago bar,
the stench of stale smoke and steamed bodies
splashed across my face as soon as I crossed
the threshold. The bar was full with a few stray
seats waiting, when I spied him as soon as the 
door closed. An awkward date with a young seminarian
(a poem for another time) suddenly had some
promise.  I was twenty and knew his music
(John Hartford, not the seminarian), never thinking
I would meet the troubadour, a New Yorker with a
slight southern drawl. I left the seminarian and
scurried to the stool next to the musician.  He sat
there wearing a signature hat, hunched over a glass
of something, pointy toe cowboy boots resting on the
scuffed silver bar. His banjo resting in the stool on the
other side, perhaps the promise of a song or two.
I was amazed at his down to earth persona, just sitting 
at the bar drinking like everyone else. He seemed to be
alone. 
                Before I could say something to him
                “Gentle On My Mind” permeated the old bricks
                as we sat around the mahogany altar and listened.