Del and I go back a pretty long way. I Wish My Brother George Was Here, Del's first album, was the first CD I ever bought. I used to listen to it in a CD Walkman with a cassette adapter so I could listen to it in my car, a 1982 Chevy Cavalier that my sister bought for 400 dollars. When it got handed down to me I had to pop rivet sheets of aluminum to the sides and spray foam in the doors just so it would pass inspection. Back then, on my breaks from being a dishwasher at the Olive Garden, I would sit in my car, listening to Mistadobalina, drawing little graffiti-style Stormtroopers in my ring-bound sketchbook against the steering wheel. Just taking a break from the world, just me and some colored pencils scratching away at a future still a loooonnng way off. I would watch the cooks and prep cooks doing lines of coke off the tailgate of a rusty old 4runner, getting ready to go back in and face the music of an Olive Garden Saturday night in Springfield. I got a ride to my other job once in that 4runner, it had 480,000 miles on it. Which I didn't think was possible. The guy who owned it, Jamie, used to come to work with ringworm because he had two kids and couldn't miss a day. He loved Del too actually. We used to get to work early on Friday mornings and unload the truck with my CD playing on top of the wooden palettes we'd pull off the trucks. For breakfast, we would fire up the Olive Garden breadsticks and instead of garlic, we would put on cinnamon and sugar. Those breadsticks were a little piece of heaven. I guess it kinda sounds like hard times, but it really wasn't. At least it didn't feel like it. Just people getting by the best way they know how. With a little Del, and a couple of sugary breadsticks. Thanks, Del, I owe you a beer.