Willets

It's awhile before Jeremy actually gets into town and meets me. He has to hitchhike in because he can't get a ride. Meanwhile, I just enjoy some drinks with the locals. I'm told that Wednesday nights at this bar are the best in the town, so my timing seems be fortunate. He finally gets in with his guitar, as he will be playing tonight and we commence to drink beer. Jeremy knows everyone at the bar which is slowly filling up, and there is a generally great mood throughout the place. The first kid to play on the open mic is from Kentucky or somewhere like that, and has been hitchhiking around the country for the past year. He has a harmonica brace made out of pencils. I like his style. The bar is fully packed now, and despite being pretty tired Jeremy manages to introduce me to the whole town it seems like, and he and some other guys play a great set at the end of the open mic. All of the local beers have really got to me and I'm totally beat at this point. After returning a movie across the street, we walk with his friend and bandmate Brendan down the street and crash at his place.
The next morning we walk to a nearby coffee shop. Naturally, everyone knows everyone there. I read an illustrated history of US capitalism, along the lines of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and I drink a soothing tea. Sitting outside, people come and go, all of them known to Jeremy and consequently soon known to me. People strike up conversations with me as if they've known me for years, and Jeremy breaks out his guitar and a little show happens right there on the sidewalk at 8am. All in all, we hang out for about an hour and a half before Jeremy heads off to work and I walk back to my bike, shooting for San Ramon, just outside of San Francisco. Willets seems like the most pleasant place in the world, a sort of mythical small town where everyone is friends and life goes by at an easy pace, and as I head back to the coast and route 1, I think that Wednesday nights certainly are pretty nice in this town.