The article in the North Shore News and your on line book brought back a flood of memories from the ‘best time of my life’ 1969-1974. There was of course my lowest point following a divorce, which included a two week stay at the Olympic Hotel in about 1970. I recall that they refused to serve me in the coffee shop because they thought I was a Narc. I wrote the following poem one night while staring at the ceiling and listening to the brutal thump of the bed upstairs and the periodic weeping and wailing of a drunken hooker. I also remember the loud music… It wasn’t my finest hour.
Olympic Hotel Rm 9
There’s a drop
from my ceiling
up there
where
the paper’s peeling
I wonder where it comes from
Up yonder above the glum
It drips
Through a headline
up there
where
old paper’s hang
I ponder where it comes from
And fonder love the slum
It drips
from a feeling
up there
where
the sky is kneeling…
Jim Cathcart, North Vancouver