Journal

It was a gorgeous day. Hardly a cloud blemished the

bright blue Virginia sky. I was driving a 1967 Pontiac Catalina, a tank of a machine. My gas mileage was about 3 gallons per mile and the behemoth seemed to be struggling in an effort to catch its breath. The exit sign said "Colonial Heights" and escape from the freeway to a mechanic was foremost on my mind. After finding a car doctor and arranging "medical" assistance for the old Pontiac it was time to call my old friend Sandy DiPerna in Richmond. Cell phones weren't ubiquitous yet in the mid 1980's so pay phones and a pocket full of quarters were the best method of communication. Sandy answered and we chit chatted a couple of minutes. She told me she would call back as soon as she could find someone to help. In what seemed to be only the blink of a genie my phone rang. It wasn't Sandy. It was however a rather familiar voice. "Amos I'll be there as soon as soon as possible to pick you up". It was Bill Hicks, a pleasant surprise for this weary traveler. Bill took me on to Richmond and secured a room at the motel where he was also lodged. That night I kept my promise to him that I would do a few minutes at the club he was working for Sandy. Which material did Hicks request? He wanted to hear my "Elvis as a stand up comic" routine, or as I like to say "The King of comedy". Later that night myself and Bill along with another Texas comic, Jack Mark Wilkes (Mark Wilkes Boothe) got together in an area directly beside the James River. We assembled ourselves on the short grass and proceeded. There we....uhhhhh....uhhhhh.. shared a perfectly natural spore, and proceeded to open our minds and engage in a stimulating conversation that surely would save the world as we knew it. As long as I have lived there may be only a couple of other times when I laughed so hard for so long. Can you remember the few times you laughed SO hard that it was a life experience? The next day Hicks drove me back to redeem my old Catalina from the mechanic. Bill and spoke on the phone more often after that night than we had previously, and it turned out to be a bonding experience that I will ALWAYS remember. Years later Bill called from Houston and invited to visit the new digs with a spectacular view. I never got there because of one thing or another. Bill of course succumbed to his battle, and I never saw Bill Hicks alive again. He is missed by many but forgotten by very few.

 This excerpt written by: Amos Chang