Thanks Dad

I'm not sure what it is that makes me think of Dad tonight (which I often do, but tonight I happen to be sitting at the computer...).

On June 22, 1980 Dad took me to my first concert - John Denver at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Dad has passed. The Spectrum is now a parking lot. I'm not a 14 year old kid any more (at least not outwardly). My youngest is as old now as I was then. All of which is hard to believe.

Thoughts of Dad remain a comfort to me now, as does the music of John Denver. The first thought that comes to mind when I remember Dad is that he did everything he could to make sure that Dave and Chris and I had a good life. Which we did. And still do.

John Denver and Cass Elliott singing Leaving on a Jet Plane in 1972. And again in the classic Wildlife Concert (with Goodbye Again).

Rocky Mountain High from the Wildlife Concert. Maybe someday Dave will show me how to play this on guitar... And Sunshine on My Shoulders.

And lastly, a favorite... Calypso.

I remember playing all of these songs on Dad's stereo in the living room at Ridge Lane. Vinyl LPs I still treasure to this day, even if I no longer have anything to play them on.

John's last public performance before his untimely death. Boy From the Country, 10/5/97, one week before his ultralight plane crashed off Catalina Island (when he was barely older than I am now)...

Things change, and yet the echoes of the past reverberate down into the present. I was 14 years and 4 months old when Dad took me to see John Denver at the Spectrum. The Wells Fargo Center has long-since replaced the Spectrum as the primary south Philly concert venue. Grace will be 14 years and 4 months old when I take her to see Twenty One Pilots at the Wells Fargo Center for her first concert this October.

Someday, perhaps, if I am lucky, she will think back.........