Revisiting Richard Brautigan, an introduction

I first became acquainted with Richard Brautigan in January of 2003. I have my own ideas about January of 2003. I would tell you because I am here and it was very far away.

I was holed up in a motel room in the frozen, frozen air of Idaho Springs. I have written about this before. I suppose any time I've written about this before it was always about the experience of Idaho Springs at that time and that Richard Brautigan was merely incidental to it.

The truth is, I don't remember 2003 in much clarity. Yes, it was a long time ago, but I was a very different person back then. I was 20 younger, for starters. At the time I was working as a bartender. I partied a great deal. I smoked a lot of weed. I was then, just about opposite of who I am today, but that's life, right?

What's important here is the timing. I first learned about Richard Brautigan in January. The first thing I ever heard was “See See Rider” in Trout Fishing in America. I was hooked. I read everything I could get my hands on during that year of 2003. I remember reading the last book sometime in the fall.

I took a lot of road trips that years and I looked in every used bookstore from Cincinnati to San Francisco. Hunting up these books was just as fun as reading them. I had a great deal of free time in 2003. Not many people understood what I was doing, myself included.

I don't remember much from any of the books except the few pieces I've referred to over the years. “See See Rider” being one of them.

I'm not afraid to admit that I'm going through something right now. It's not nostalgia. I really loathe nostalgia. What I'm going through is this, I'm asking if I remember anything from these Brautigan books or if it all left me when I stopped tending bar and smoking dope two decades back? Or will I even like the stuff I read now?

I decided to read all of them again. Can't wait to see how that pans out.