Fried Chicken

Can't remember the year.. I was living in Long Branch.. A girl named Flo tended bar at a place I frequented happen to mention she was getting a divorce and needed a place to stay for a while.. I had an extra room, I'd just broken up with my girlfriend and figured what the hell, why not.

I've never paid much attention to who's who when it comes to actors, or musicians so when she told me her husband was Danny Ferderici and he played organ for Springstien it went in one ear and out the other.. A few weeks later Flo talked me into giving her a ride to the city. Springstien was playing at Madison Square Garden.. That was the night I met Clarence Clemons.. They weren't making the big money yet and I ended up giving Danny and Clarence a ride back to the Shore..

Flo stayed at my place for a few months after that.. Clarence and Danny dropped by fairly often.. Then Flo got a place of her own... and I lost track of them...  I know for several years Clarance used to drop in at a little corner bar in Sea Bright and sit in with the band from time to time.   Might surprise some people but I didn't follow their careers that closely. Especially after they became rich and famous... figured they had more than enough people saying remember me

I happened to see Clarence a year or after Flo moved out, he invited my girlfriend and I to stop by for dinner.. we did.  You'd have to be pretty dumb to pass on Clarence's fried chicken

That was the last time I saw any of them.  When I happend to hear them on the radio I'd wonder how they and Flo were doing. She'd really wanted to save her marriage to Danny,, I heard some where that didn't work out.  It came as shock to me the morning a couple years ago when the radio told me Danny had passed away from cancer..



I read a couple years ago Clarence was thinking about opening a chain of fried chicken restaurants..  I wondered is he's be able to get past all fat, calorie and assorted other regulations and still have a product he'd serve to people,,, I was hoping, if he'd done it, the Colonel could forget about seeing me again.

Last night Clarence passed away.  He was 69 The music world lost a big man... and unless the years and the fame changed him, a really decent man.