Prologue
California
Maria and Coach left Omaha
In the middle of the night
the winter of ’87…
Leaving behind Nursing School
And Country Radio.
All possessions crammed
Into a 65 Chevy Bel Air
Gleaming chrome and rusting body.
Maria singing...
'The kinfolk said Coach move away from here'
Then curling her 4 foot eleven inches
onto her side and sleeping with her head
in Coach's lap, leaving him to worry
about what they were getting into...
Kansas…roads so straight
A bullet fired down the middle
Would land on the yellow line
Further up the road.
Oklahoma…30 miles
In all directions flat dirt
And one tree.
New Mexico…
Descending into Albuquerque
Golden lights nestled in red mountains.
California…
Paradise...
Green and brown hills...
snow covered blue mountains
in the distance
golden sun setting in the Pacific.
California...
Technology, entertainment
agriculture, aerospace, defense...
economy second only to major
nations...real estate bought
and sold in days with profits
for everyone...
When would it end? ...
That's California's greatest asset
they said...it won't.
But Coach was an old gambler...
there were no sure things, no locks,
and everything moved in cycles...
Coach knew for sure that someday
the state would get its ass kicked.
That the good times would end
in drought, fires, earthquakes,
riots, floods and scandal
didn't surprise Coach.
That they would end
the year he moved there...
sure shocked the sh*t out of him.
(To be Cont.)
Coach Roth
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