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By Jack Joseph Smith

FEstivAL BLiNdNEss Oregon fields SUGAR BEETS LAY across the Willimatte Valley The rock and roll beat of the fifties out of the 90 mile andhour 63 chevy A salty dog from Missouri at the wheel; unarmed Jack at shotgun trying to spell his name at age 33, and leeway laughing at the grain trucks roaring out the back window to thE North Pacific sea sat two teen aged boys of wealth and fame. The Junction City Scandanavian Festival ran a 100 yd. long beer hall along the West side of the railroad tracks to make sure the big high box cars wouldN't block the evening sun after it's afternoon southward spining down to rest over the coastal range. The breath of the tables were long enough to sprint on, and the constant clinking glass of Miller Malt pitchers of beer was enough to stop any Tom Cat from sipping. We were at the south entrance table under a giant black Walnut tree. A construction man with his nun, a family man from a split level home of his own making turning his head in anarchy toward Mexico, a LEAN grain transport agent sat loose for the long w summer spread of an Oregon evening, while his wife's thin painted lips remained poised in and out of the dream of theatre. Then there was the blind Psycholigest and his good Shy lined women. The roar of his laughter was equal to FLAsh the distance of the train whistle, and the clang of cLosiNg the red lit gates. After 25 pitchers I began to see that he saw me, Now it was later in the night and I was alone between my San Francisco Window and mid chamber fireplace. I would go to the melincoly lady Vivan, who was really "Susan down by the River," but rather lived on the West side of our indust- rial farm town tracks. I was running down the red dog road to her cabin without water, which made it a shack, Old English 800 and poems and tabistries and pictures on the walls made it sweet for her and the guests of too many hours. And Doughter VENUS

Original Scan

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AI Interpretation

GPT

Festival Blindness moves from a fast car through a festival beer hall to a late-night visit. The restored passage compares a blind man's laughter with train sounds and records the speaker beginning to see that the man saw them.

Blindness belongs both to the named man's condition and to the speaker's uncertain perception after many pitchers. The later cabin offers poems, pictures, and company rather than a clear resolution. Extensive cancellation and marginal revision make several connections provisional; the page should not be treated as an unbroken final narrative.

Claude

A typed and revised memoir headed 'FEstivAL BLiNdNEss': a fast drive in a '63 chevy', the 'Junction City Scandanavian Festival' beer hall, 'the blind Psycholigest' whose 'roar of his laughter was equal to' the train whistle, and a late-night visit to 'the melincoly lady Vivan', ending 'And Doughter VENUS'.

The title joins festival and blindness, and the passage moves from public revelry to a private night visit. The narrator's account is a literary voice.