“How Can I Find True Love” will always belong to the juke box in the upstairs dance hall above the general store at a little known hot springs resort called Sol Duc, in the Olympic Peninsula forests of the state of Washington.
I worked at the soda fountain there during the summer after I graduated High School in 1957. It was a very rustic place and there was no radio reception. All we had was the juke box. We teenage workers all lived in little cabins in the woods.  We cleaned the resort cabins, ran the little store, waitressed in the cafe, made Peanut Butter Milkshakes at the soda fountain and generally had a good time.  One day a man came to put the latest records in the juke box, including a new group, the Del Vikings.  We didn’t know which side of the record was the hit.  We chose “How Can I Find True Love” and played it endlessly.  Only after the summer ended and we all rejoined normal society did we learn that “Come Go With Me” was the big hit.
ljm

I am not The Last Spring Overture
My birth name was Spring, not Greig
And I am not the last of us
Although I soon may sadly be.
I gave my violin away
To someone who abused it
And died with it still in its case
And unavailable to me.
I loaned my autoharp to one
Who never gave it back to me.
My mandolin was somehow stolen
Off my wall during a party.
Years have brought me dolorosa
For the music I’ve not made
On instruments I never learned to play,
The voice that wouldn’t do my will.
My mind can play that Overture
And does it almost once a week
So maybe what I said was wrong
I am The Last Spring Overture
ljm

All alone in an unhappy place
Where all the walls are mirrors
And ugliness is looking back
No matter which way I may turn.

There doesn’t seem to be a door-
Just only mirrored walls and ceiling.
The cold floor hurts my shoeless feet
As endlessly I pace in circles.

The crowd of people in the glass
Have followed me for many years
Behind the curtains - in the shade-
Never coming face to face.

But here they now encounter me
With looks of reprehension…
And all I have to offer them
Are bitter tears of sad regret
ljm

Everyone knows that roses have thorns
But must there be thorns on my daisies too?
Looking for beauty my fingers find pain.

Not every path needs to be level and smooth
But why must mine always be broken and steep
And why is the Sun forbidden to shine.

Where are the birds God promised to send.
Their music is healing and I am in need
But the treetops are empty  - I hear only pain

I once saw a rainbow where one didn’t belong
And took from it hope that all would be well
The last of that hope still supports me today.
ljm

Dodging memories that bring me pain
I scurry through the obstacles
I set up for my foolish self
To keep me from the place I need to be.

I bruise my shins repeatedly
On dangers that I did not see
Due to the fancy mask I wear
That blocks half of my vision.

The need for haste is manifest
By ever looming banks of fog
That somehow scheme to bar my way
And keep me from salvation.
                 ljm

Clutching at thin straws of sanity
Swirling in a sea of madness
I dog paddle with all my might
Towards a shore that seems too far
To offer any hope of safe arrival
         ljm

Did I step on a butterfly once in my youth
That I must live in such pain today

Did I not reach out to someone in need
That my days are now crowded with hurting.

Did I never walk for that extra mile
That each step today is a torment.

Did I not study the course close enough
That agony is what I have to learn.

Have I earned a lifetime of level-nine days
When to be only aching becomes a reward.
                 ljm