WEBVTT

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Thank you very much for
that very kind introduction.

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And I also want to
thank Frances Sjoberg --

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I can't see a thing,
for all the work.

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And I mean all the
work she put into this

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that tracking me down.

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I wasn't around for phone
calls and et cetera.

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And doing all the work that
was necessary to help me

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come down here.

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I want to thank all
of you for coming.

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And I will read first from
this book called, The History

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of Home and then from My Hair
Turning Gray Among Strangers,

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and The Great Whirl of Exile
and end with a couple of poems

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from my Vietnam book.

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I will start out with a
poem titled "Guadalupe."

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This is a collection
of poems from my youth

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around the seventh grade or so.

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So you see a lot of my
characters and then sometimes

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myself and the
dreams and fantasies

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that I had around that age.

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And Guadalupe was one of them.

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"Guadalupe.

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If I had lived the rest of
my life in that small town,

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she's the one I would have
married I'm sure Guadalupe

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with long black hair Guadalupe,
as dark as I was Guadalupe who

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one day came walking up the dirt
road past grandfather's house

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and smiled.

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And my heart Oh, she was
beautiful, the most beautiful

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girl in school, I could tell.

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She liked me, my fourth
grade heart unbelieving.

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If I had lived the rest of
my life in that small town,

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she's the one I
would have married.

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I'm sure as sure as
I dreamed back then,

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I would play for the Yankees
and come back home a hero."

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OK, let's go to
another girl, Judy.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Why not?

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OK, this is "Judy, Judy, Judy."

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And one day I got to
wondering whatever

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happened to Judy because
Judy was kind of nice OK?

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"Judy, Judy, Judy."

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"I wonder what happened.

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Whatever happened
to that girl, Judy.

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Judy was her name
who would follow me,

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would follow me after
school determined

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so determined for
a kiss just a kiss.

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She was coy, pretended to
be coy, and was perhaps,

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perhaps a little.

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I suppose I teased her.

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Yes, I teased her.

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Truth is I wanted her, wanted
her just as much, as much.

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Oh I could have oh so easily.

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So easily my hands over
or even under the blouse

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of her Catholic
school uniform touched

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her breast small, small but
not too for a seventh grader.

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Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

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Judy, Judy, Judy.

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So long ago a place called home.

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I think about now and then often
today and today also about Judy

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and how she was one of the
few who ever loved me there."

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