Time Flies (Full Stop)

If you're part of my generation, you've likely been observing a significant expansion of membership in the dead parent's club. Our parents were generally fairly young when then had us, but now as we enter our our forties and fifties our parents are reaching their expiration dates,

It's weird how the death of a parent hits you, though, especially when it's a parent who's somewhat remote. You don't see them everyday, and then they're gone and you still don't see them everyday and you can begin to forget they're gone, since it doesn't really feel like anything's changed. But then something happens to remind you of your missing parent, and you're sort of flummoxed by the fact that two decades have passed since your mom or dad was there to answer the phone.

Today was one of those days for me. You see, my Dad, at least as I recall him, liked two forms of music: he liked show tunes, and he liked the Eagles. The show tunes he had on vinyl, so he mostly listened to those at home. The Eagles, on the other hand, he had on cassettes that he would listen to in the car. I can't even begin to count how many times I heard The Long Run during the divorce years, when Dad would pick Sib4 and I up at our house in the 'burbs on Friday, drive us to his apartment in Los Angeles, and then return us on Sunday afternoon. 

So today when I read that Glenn Frey had died, my first thought was of Dad. And I was immediately floored by the realization that it's been almost twenty years since he passed away. That's just weird.

But then I started reading about Frey and the Eagles. For those who weren't fans, the band was formed in 1971 following a tour backing up Linda Ronstadt. After selling a bazillion albums, they broke up in 1980, reforming again in 1994 to record Hell Freezes Over, and then touring sporadically until the conclusion of the recent History of the Eagles Tour last year. But here's the strange thing. If you do the math, that's (just) nine years of initial success, fourteen years of separation, and then twenty-two years (!) of reformation. But if you'd asked me, I would've probably put those numbers at twenty, fifteen, and ten. I mean, it seems like just yesterday -- not twenty-two years ago -- that the music industry was getting all excited about the Eagles getting back together.

So then I started poking around on the Internet testing my sense of history. Based on that experience, I think it's fair to say that I actually have no sense of history. Thirty years since The Breakfast Club? How can I possibly be that old?

More important, how can so many markers in time -- e.g., the death of a parent, an unparalleled event, even the release of a favorite movie or album -- feel both so recent and so, so long ago at the very same time?

Then, of course, there's the morbidly narcissistic question: what will be the event -- whose death? what anniversary? -- that inadvertently brings me to mind long after I'm gone? 

Happily, that one's not really my problem to solve. So instead I'll return to where I started, and in acknowledgement of the vagaries of time, and in honor of both Glenn Frey and my Dad, post the following: