[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7B-wA6_iUo]
This Billy Joel song, FAMOUS LAST WORDS, is the ballad of my labor days of years past, present, and probably future..
I still recall getting this CD for my birthday from my brother in 1993, and I listened to it over and over, and over again after the Ashland PA ABA Parade that year..
Every song was amazing..But especially this final song, with its lyrics of cleaning of streamers after the Labor Day parade and enjoying coffee and apples in the early autumn.
I still remember when Billy Joel appeared on David Letterman during his first week on CBS back in ’93… My God I am aging. We are all though–I am not alone but maybe more melancholy in my approach to the passage of time.
Years gone by… Age 13 in ’93…..age 23 in ’03… and this year, this month, this day… age 33… Add that together and start your numerology. I’ll just grin and bear it. Or something.
The wedding cake still tastes great after all these years…
And somewhere, somehow, my memory still walks the streets of Ashland, Pennsylvania, during a Labor Day ABA parade……with streamers and horns, balloons and the sweet smell of fried food and Devitos Pizza in the air above my head. Those were the days.
These are the days, too.
They’ve changed.. and gone by.
And as time goes by so do the years.
33 years ??! I just was 21, wasn’t I!? I was just 13… in ’93. Back during that blizzard….back during that point in time. Brendan! Joe! Johnny! Where are you? Where is the poetry!?
I think it’s still being read in a deep and dark basement, under the strained lights of the 3am hour. The dead poet society still preaches, I hope, at 21..I hope.
Where the hell does it all go?
To the Langoliers, I say! Eating away as Stephen King wrote. UNDER HIS DOME. With Billy Joel endlessly playing on David Letterman’s opening night on CBS..
