Santa Rosa Chapter II

My first true love was a girl named Sharon. She was raised in Santa Rosa California, in an area known for fertile farming and wine, and this story may have been named wine of innocence but it has taken a deeper and fuller taste. When I met Sharon she was living near Buellton, California. She was 19 and as I drove into town I saw her resting with a brunette, leaning on the hood of a black car. Later I saw her at my friend Dan Han's house. I was visiting Dan for the weekend. He had a small get together - music was playing, people were drinking, flirting, wasting time. It was summer. Someone made the kitchen into a small dance floor 3 of us were dancing. I stepped on Sharon's foot she quickly unloaded a vicious lashing on me. I was hooked. I later found that her father worked for the state of California in Sacramento, and her mother lived in Santa Rosa, but they were separated. I would visit for a time while she lived in Buellton, and we would walk along dried river beds, talk, argue, make love, drive out to the sea. And as the world revealed itself to me, Sharon unfolded. It was only a few months until she moved back to Santa Rosa with her mother. Her money had run out and she went back to community college with free rent and a waitress job. I'd visit her up north and she would walk me down St. John's street where she was raised, and show me the abandoned house she grew up in.