I first met Lynda when she came to my neighborhood to visit her friend, Jane for the weekend. Jane had lived in Seattle near Lynda and just recently moved to the 'Burbs' with her folks.
It was the summer of 1969 and I was out in front of my house doing some sort of yard work, no doubt pulling weeds which seemed to be what I was doing all summer. I noticed two girls laying in the sun on the lawn across the street, laughing and talking. Lynda's laugh was loud. It would echo through out the neighborhood. She was in jeans and a thin cotton short sleeve shirt with a small flower pattern. They saw me watching them as I pulled the weeds. They eventually came over and introduced themselves to me. They sat and watched me work as we got aquainted. From that day on, every time Lynda came over to visit Jane, we would get together.
That summer, Lynda tells me that she is gong to write me a 100 page letter. We talk
on the phone many nights through out the summer and she keeps me posted on how many pages she's written. The letter arrives in a Screaming
Yellow Zonkers box. It didn't quite make it to 100 pages, but it was great fun
to read.
Over the next few years, the kids on the block would plan 'Make Out Parties'.
I noticed that this tended to happen more often when Lynda was over visiting Jane.
A time was set for a group of us to all gather, usually around 1 am, and a place
was chosen, usually an abandoned house or if it was a warm summer night, we would
just lay on someone's lawn under the stars. We would take turns paring up with
a different partner. It was very educational for me to see how different the girls
kissed. Some would let you grope, while others, not so much....
There were times a gaggle of us would hang in my parents basement playing pool,
listening to music, reading my collection of ZAP
Comix and doodle drawing,. Lynda and I would take turns working on the same
drawing. Since she was a very talented drawer, and I was more of a budding stick
figure kind of guy, the drawings were a bit odd. I wish I had kept more of them.
We would also take turns reading stories from Zap Comix, each of us picking a
character and reading their lines. Lynda tended to always be Mr. Natural, using
a deep voice and I would play the nerd white guy that Mr. Natch always picked
on. Most of the time we could not get through one story strip since we ended up
laughing so hard.
Soon after I got my first car, a 1958 Ford Fairlane, I made a trip to Seattle
to visit Lynda, where I got to meet her mom and brothers. Lynda's room was in
the basement and we ended up on her bed which was the only furniture in her room
to sit on. She put on Santana Abraxis as we talked. Her mother kept yelling down
the stairs to Lynda, interrupting us. I think mom suspected what was going on.
For several years I managed the Guild
45th Movie Theatre in Seattle and when one of my friends needed a job, I would
hire them to sell concessions. Both Roger and Lynda worked for me when they needed
money. Whenever I needed some signage to promote a new candy we were stocking,
I would have her draw large comic representations of the Milk Duds or Jr. Mints
to hang from the ceiling. I took this picture of the drawings she did on her shoes
while she was at the theatre. Eventually, Lynda got a better paying permanent
job in the corporate art department helping produce the newspaper ads for the
theatres.
Me, Lynda & Roger
My buddy, Roger Junk and I shared
an apartment on Capitol Hill in Seattle for a time. We were both 'bachelors' and
I came up with this idea that every time one of us was able to entice a woman
over for a 'Visit', we would all sit on the back of the couch and have a camera
take our picture. We were sort of trying to document the fact that we actually
had some sort of life. We both tended to not have much time since we had full
time jobs and were also working on our different art projects. Roger was a budding
sculptor and I was a budding filmmaker. Lynda, of course was a budding painter
/ cartoonist. Lynda and I had gone to see a movie that night. I'm thinking it
was Louis Bunuel's “That
Obscure Object of Desire” We then went back to our apartment to have some
wine, visit with Roger and take this picture.
Then there was the time I hadn't seen Lynda for some time and I happened to be
near her studio above the locksmith so I yelled up to her 2nd story window. She
came over and saw that it was me and invited me up. She was in the middle of working
on her Naked Ladies series of paintinga and had a deadline for a show. She was
having some tea and poured me a cup as I looked at what she had completed. I noticed
one of her “Poodle With A Mohawk” posters and reminded her that she had promised
me one long ago. She apologized and said she knew where she might be able to get
her hands on one for me. She wanted to trade one for my Blangy Satyricon posters,
but the trade never happened. Later we walked to Volunteer Park and I took pictures
of her next to a phallic stone thing that we passed on the way.
One Sunday morning, I got a call from Lynda in tears. Seems she was swinging her feet, by propping her body up off the floor, using the kitchen table and counter.
Her foot swung into a chair leg and broke her toe. She couldn't find anyone to take her to the emergency room and called me. I had to be at work soon but I drove
her and dropped her off. She had to wait with this guy who had a knife wound in
his neck and the Dr. asked if the guy could go first even though she was there
first..
Once when I was walking down the sidewalk, I ran into Lynda outside the Comet
Tavern
where she just got the new matches she designed for them. She asked if I had my
car and could give her a lift. I did and did. She saw my note to pick up a framed
bunny poster and drew a cactus on it with a thought bubble circled around “Pick
Up Bunnies”
I had a rented a studio on Capitol Hill where I would work on my 16mm film
projects. In my store front studio space I had fixed up a sort of living area,
an office and my film editing bench. One night there was a knock on my door
which was unusual. It was Lynda and a troupe of friends (mainly guys) who happened
to be near by. She wanted to show them my studio and find out what I was working
on. I invited them in and walked them around the studio. I then showed them
the film I was cutting which happened to be the one and only porno film I have
ever worked on. I was cutting a blow job scene. They were very impressed with
how I was trying to match the rhythm of the actress's head bobbing from one
angle to the next. They call this 'Cutting on Action'. Lynda's following couldn't
believe that I could get paid to edit this kind of stuff and also couldn't believe
that I could edit it without getting all 'hot and bothered'. I told them that
after working on it for hours, it was just like viewing anything else. People
walking, shots of people riding bikes or swimming. After showing them the scene
forwards and backwards several times, they decided to let me alone so I could
finish my work. I thanked them for giving me a break and showed them to the
door. I went back to my cutting of the scene. I finished it and went to bed.
As I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a knock at my door. It was Lynda. This
time alone. I invited her in and she asked if I had finished cutting the blow
job scene. I had, and offered to show it to her. She said that she thought I
did a good job but wondered if I needed to spend so much time trying to make
the movements match. "I don't think the guys are going to notice...."
