I KNEW Stevie Ray when he was 14

Well, not me, but PT, a member of Techwr-L did. I read PT's e-mail and it stirred a memory of a different time in my life.

Why? Because I remember the day Stevie Ray died. I was working at the Spring House, a restaurant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Ken, the cook that day, was a guitarist/friend of mine. We had been jamming in my parent's basement that summer, trying to get something going. Ken was studying guitar to learn to play the blues. This was significant because we were trying to write originals instead of the Scorpions ("Rock You Like a Hurricane"), Dokken ("In My Dreams"), and Whitesnake ("Slide it In") material we had been trying to polish the year before. There was no one better than Vaughan in Ken's eyes.

We had a co-worker Fred, who some affectionately called Derf. Fred was a juvenile delinquent. He was supposed to be going into 9th grade but he had flunked 8th grade. He had behavior problems. He had issues with "truth." Fred was also a cook. Cooks got free meals. Fred would come into work and make five huge pancakes - it was as if he hadn't eaten since the last time he worked - and eat every bit on his plate. Fred had issues with "putting fake mice into the tip glasses of the waitresses who he knew didn't like mice." [Side note: the last I heard, he is currently in jail but I heard that from someone about 5 times removed from the situation.] Aside from all of that, Fred had bought two tickets to AC/DC and, because I told him I would drive him, he gave me his 2nd ticket. Fred also claimed that Motorhead was a lot better than Metallica and repeatedly tried to convince me his opinion was correct.

I was the cashier that day. The phone rang. "Hey," Fred said when I answered the phone, "Stevie Ray Vaughan is dead. There was a helicopter crash."

"Shut up," I replied. "Quit lying."

"No, really. He died."

"I don't believe you."

"Would I lie to you?"

"Yes."

"Not about this," replied Fred. "Bye."

And he hung up.

A customer came to pay his bill. I counted back his change in disbelief.

When the customer left, I walked over to Ken. "Ken," I said. "You won't believe what Fred just told me."

"What?"

"Stevie Ray is dead."

"Fred is a jerk for saying stuff like that."

"I think he's telling the truth."

"What? Really?"

Ken and I found out later that day that Fred was not lying. I think, in some way, it lit a fire under Ken's ass to learn more guitar and to take what he was doing very seriously. The music we put together that summer was some of Ken's best guitar work that I have on cassette.

It was a couple of years later that I ruined him. Ken was in Old Stew and he played lead guitar on Metallica's "Enter Sandman."


-----Original Message-----
From: Pro TechWriter
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 8:06 AM

I KNEW Stevie Ray when he was 14 (I'm from Dallas and have a friend who went to high school with the Vaughn boys).