Another? So close? Glenn Frey died today. And again, this one seems hard not to take personally. It has been a very tough week for the entertainment industry. I am sure our parents and their parents before them hit a certain age and then suddenly they realized that the entertainers they had grown up with were beginning to lose the undeniable battle with age and mortality. We have clearly now hit that age in our generation.
Several years ago, after Doug and I had become reconnected, I invited him to attend an Eagles concert with me at the Savemart Center. Doug wasn't a fan of The Eagles, but I had been for many years. Lisa was originally going to come up and go to the concert with me, but those plans fell through and she wasn't able to make the trip up to Fresno. The kids were with their dad for the weekend, and Doug was going to have the weekend off from his truck driving travels, so even though he was reluctant, he agreed to accompany me.
They weren't great seats--directly on the side of the stage, and pretty high up. By the time we got there, the crowd was beginning to fill up the arena, so when we looked up to find our rows, we spotted two very large women sitting with one seat between them and one more empty seat on the aisle. We began to surmise--correctly so, it turned out, that because of their size, the women had spread out and were hoping no one had purchased the seats next to them. They couldn't possibly have sat comfortably next to each other. We made our way up to the row, and sure enough, we had the aisle seat and the one next to it, which one of the women was occupying. She apologized for being in our seat and moved to the seat adjacent, but she simply didn't fit all the way in the seat, and she couldn't help encroaching into my space. (We laughed about the circumstances later. Perhaps is was fate trying to literally push us into each others' proximity directly.) Determined to make the best of it, I spend a good deal of time sitting on Doug's lap.
The concert was fantastic despite the minor discomfort. Getting to hear the musicianship and the vocal talents (the harmonies!) live was exactly the kind of concert I had hoped for--The Eagles didn't need doctoring and effects in the studio to sound good. The just WERE good. Somewhere in that night, sitting on Doug's lap, Doug began the slow turn that made him really appreciate The Eagles as a talented group. Somewhere also in that night, I suddenly realized that this man, whom I had known for years and had become even better friends with as adults than we ever had as young sweethearts briefly in high school, was not going to be just a friend to me. Somewhere in that night, soaring among The Eagles soundtrack, I let myself begin to hope that real love and life was in our future.
The Eagles, and Glenn Frey, are a piece of the fabric of the us we are today.
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