I first became aware of the existence of San Luis Obispo, California, in 1969. It was my freshman year in college near Chicago. My brand new roommate thrust his hand into mine and declared, “Hi, I’m Rob, and I’m from San Luis Obispo.” Hailing from the picturesquely named Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, the odd name of the California town stayed with me.
Neither of us could know that less than two years later I myself would visit SLO, not on a lark of a trip to the west coast, but on a mission. Rob had been hitchhiking home for Christmas vacation in 1971. The convertible veered off the road and flipped. The owner was killed outright, and Rob was comatose.
Rob and I had sung together in glee club. When the club toured California in the spring of 1972, 25 club members crowded into his hospital room. As his closest friend at the time, I was ushered to his bedside. He appeared to be taking a nap, hair neatly combed; I shouted into his ear as if that would break the coma’s hold. Still, he slept on. Eventually, we all vacated the hospital room.
My next visit to SLO was in 1974. Rob had continued to sleep on. When the nursing staff at the long term care facility rolled him onto the grass, strapped into his wheelchair, they had to reassure me that the person I saw was indeed my former roommate. Pale, blind and curled in a fetal position, I made a vigorous attempt to rouse him. Instead, Rob would sleep on for another 12 years before his light would finally be extinguished.
Tonight we are again in San Luis Obispo, waiting for the start of the movie, “Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”. The theater looks tiny because it is. There are exactly 47 seats. I sit in one of those seats, reviewing my own inner life, and a consequential chapter that started playing here in San Luis Obispo, what now seems so long ago.
