Jack Kerouac, free of that slaving meat wheel

Jack Kerouac's grave in Lowell, MA
(c) Rick Dale, October 9, 2014

In the 211th Chorus of Mexico City Blues, Jack Kerouac concluded:

Poor! I wish I was free
of that slaving meat wheel
and safe in heaven dead

Jack got his wish 45 years ago today. I've posted consistently on or around the anniversary of Jack's death dating back to this blog's inception. Click here for last year's post  (which includes links to all previous years' posts).

Were Jack still alive he would be 92. Of the real-life characters represented in On the Road, only Al Hinkle (Big Ed Dunkel) is still with us and he is 88 or so years young. Gary Snyder, Japhy Ryder in The Dharma Bums, is 84.

I guess it's therefore not inconceivable that Jack could still be alive, assuming he undertook a major lifestyle change early on and stuck with it. But would we have the canon as we know it?

Little matter. Jack's gone, but he left us a lot of prose and poetry to light our way. Read some today in his memory. Please.

RIP, Jack.