I met Kevin 40 years ago, when we were both working at the service station. We did gas, oil, air, windows, lube, everything. My wife and I had split up and his wife had left him, and every night after work we’d sit around for hours together drinking beers, Kevin playing guitar and me trying to figure out the harmonica. We’d tell stories about our relationships and our lives, and it filled an emptiness we both probably had at the time.
My first harmonica was a C harp, but there’s this Marshall Tucker song Kevin always played, “In My Own Way,” and it’s in the key of G, so I bought this Hohner Marine Band G harp. That’s the song that kinda got me started. Back then, Kevin used to say he hoped we’d have a friendship that when we were a hundred we’d be going to the coffee shop on Saturday mornings. We don’t go to the coffee shop, but I’m 60 and we still get together three, four nights a week.
~ Dan Pruitt, radiologic technologist, men’s prison; Archer City, TX
