Everyone From My Childhood is Dying

As I sat here this evening wondering what I would write about, the news of Glenn Frey's passing just hit the media feeds and again my gut is hit deep remembering a youth set to the background of Hotel California.

My first long, deep slow kiss came in the back of  red pick-up truck driving round Stone Mountain listening to the title song, "Hotel California." After my worst break-up I listened to "Wasted Time" until I broke the 8-track tape. And who couldn't love "Heartache Tonight"?

Once upon a time on vacation in Arizona, we drove to Winslow, Arizona just to stand on the corner. It was amazing.

This week we've seen legends fall. First was David Bowie. I still remember where I was the first time I heard "Major Tom". I think I was maybe eleven years old, and a friend borrowed the .45 from her older brother. We listened to that records over and over and over again, until her mother made us turn it off and go outside. From that moment on, I was a fan.

When he was the Goblin King in "Legends", it was the perfect role from a man who reinvented himself from decade to decade. He was truly a gentleman and a scholar, an icon and actor, a Renaissance Man in a different era. His kind won't be seen again in a long while.

Then we lost Alan Rickman. From the first moment he hit the screen in "Die Hard" he commanded the stage. Who could forget his Sheriff of Nottingham? "I'm going to cut your heart out with a spoon?" "With a spoon?"  "So it'll hurt more!"  Priceless. But he will forever in our hearts be the face of Serverus Snape, talking to Dumbledore.

"After all this time?"
"Always."

That my friends, is a love that will last an eternity.

So farewell gentlemen, until we meet again on the far shores. The world is a little dimmer with your passing, and the memories of my youth slowly become part of a shared past only friends can appreciate. Soon their bones will be dust, but the legacies they have left in music and video will live long past this age, the artists of the Baby Boomer generation. Oh, how we will miss them.