When I was a young man, perhaps around 19 or so, I went to a concert with a friend of mine.  His name was Steve Bue, and he was attending DeVry with me.   We went to see Bachmann Turner Overdrive at the Celebrity Theatre in the round, with Poco opening for them.   I wrote about that here.

There are several reasons why this is significant now, most relevant of which is that Steve passed away last year and I was reminded of him when I was perusing the upcoming birthdays on facebook.  His is coming up soon, and I was thinking of him today.  Cheers to you, sir.

Also, I was also thinking of a certain gypsy pirate chick again, and spent a chunk of the day depressed about her.  I am such a dumb-ass for letting someone get to me that way.  Seven years have gone by, and still I feel it as though it was last week.  But, alas, love is love.  And this, my friends, was a grab-me-by-the-heart-and-make-me-dance-all-night-long kinda thing.  It was breathtaking and absolutely burned in my memory.

The only other moment that came close, was dancing to Erotic City in a club in Phoenix when I was about 19.   Surrounded by people, staring at the woman I was dancing with who had just unbuttoned my shirt with her teeth during the song.  We had forgotten there were other people there and when the song ended and we noticed them, we decided it was time to vacate.  Oddly, every time I came back to that bar, the DJ would stop whatever song was playing and start up David Lee Roth’s “Just a Gigalo” to mess with me.  That was a hell of a night.  Screwed that up, too, though, as is my pattern.  I am just not relationship material, it seems.

Ahem.  Where was I?  Ah, yes.  Poco.

Poco was my favorite band at one time, because of this song:

I was thinking about her, and the lyrics to this song.

“Tonight I’m gonna break away, just you wait and see.  I’ll never be imprisoned by a faded memory.  Just when I think I am over her, this broken heart will mend.  I hear her name and I have to cry; the tears come down again.”  

Forever a prisoner, it seems.

I won’t write much more on this topic, as I really don’t want to think about her any longer.  She was a Reason, as the saying goes, although I wanted her for a Lifetime.  And every time, I hear the first few lines of the song, and I fight back the tears, as the words begin to hit home.

And so, as I mourn the death of a good friend and the loss of one of many loves that was my fault, I end this day a sad man.  I will leave you with the immortal words of Garth Brooks:

 

“I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”

Walking the path,

Me.