A town called Raymond

The address written on the note said 153 Larkin Street. A street in San Francisco, between the Civic Centre and the Pioneer Monument. Or so I thought. San Francisco. City of earthquakes and Alcatraz, Dirty Harry and Chinatown. Cable Cars, barking sea lions, and the heart-stopping tall towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. I just couldn’t wait. 18 years old and the whole city awaited. A six-month stay before I started Uni. Six months away from Mum and Dad and my horrid sisters and brothers.

Turns out, it was not that 153 Larkin Street after all. It was 153 Larkin Street in a town called Raymond, somewhere else in California. Whoever heard of a town called Raymond? But there I was, in a beat-up old shack of a wooden house in the middle of nowhere. The most exciting thing in Raymond is the Raymond General Store.

153 Larkin Street was badly in need of some paint. And it was my job to paint it. That was the deal. I stayed, rent free, if I painted the house.

Funny thing was, I really got on well with the couple who lived there, Pam and Bob. Bob drove a cab and his wife, Pam, worked at the General Store. Weekends, they went gold prospecting out in the hills. Pitched a tent, cooked out, panned the mountain stream, and took back whatever shiny dust they found.

“Come with us,” said Pam. And I did, several times. Even wrote some poetry while I was there, as Pam and Bob waded in the stream and panned for gold.

I visited San Francisco, after I finished painting the house. But the two weeks I spent there, I wished I had stayed in the newly painted 153 Larkin Street, Raymond, CA, together with my newfound friends.

O ~ 0 ~ o ~

A Town Called Raymond is a micro-book by Raymond G. Taylor, his first fictional publication. It is available in Kindle from Amazon and in paperback only by request from the author. Few copies remain of the limited edition of 100.

Order your copy now, from Amazon, for only $0.99

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