Frank Gutch Jr: Hot Damn! Summer In the City? I Knew a Girl Named Summer Once…

 

Only one.  I was running combine for a small farmer outside of Halsey, Oregon and was hauling grass seed to a warehouse on the outskirts of Harrisburg.  The warehouse was a stone’s throw away from what I considered a very nice ranch-style house with a big picture window through which I saw her the first time, a small girl… a waif of a girl, but so beautiful it took my breath away.

Frank Gutch Jr: John ‘Buck’ Ormsby: Maybe Out of His Tree, But Never Out of His League; Plus, Artists Who Should Have Made It (A Musical Roundup)

This morning was cold and wet with a chill that went to the bone, the clouds threatening, the rain off and on but somehow consistent.  I knew it would be.  Yesterday, my friend John Hicks had posted a message that Buck Ormsby had died.  No way, I thought, because I had had contact only a few days previous— just a note, but contact.  When I approached Hicks, he said that he had found out from Ormsby’s son’s page.  He sent me the link and there it was.  We are sorry to report… and the words became a blur.   While it hardly seemed possible, Buck was gone.  Is gone, for none of us will hear from him again and that is truly a sad thing.