It was in 1972 that I believe “Taxi” entered my life. I would leave home to live in my own apartment, where I found to my surprise another Harry fan.
This soon grew to 3 of us in our own places out in the country. We would all work hard and when we could get together we would cook on Hibachi’ and of course play music. Harry albums never failed to be played whether it was an after work sit on the porch, or a 70’s style party.
As time went by we found the end of the 1970’s approaching as one day I was traveling to work and the announcer said “Harry Chapin will be appearing in Concert at Elizabethtown College on Feb. 26th 1979”. I came home that night and told my friends what I had heard and they just said, “yea right, like Harry would come to our little town”. But…..it came to be a reality!
So there we were, sitting on the floor of the college gymnasium, 30 feet from our favorite storyteller and singer. Harry recounted his flight coming into Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as the plane banked right over the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant as it made the approach to a landing. He made some comments about the power plant but I don’t remember what he said. One month later we were placed on the map as ‘TMI’ became one of the most famous places on the planet for all the wrong reasons. ( We don’t blame Harry for that * lol )
What happen that night in February was that all our years of listening to Harry Chapin songs merged into one pinnacle of awareness and focus that is still hard to put into words. Being in the presence of these people performing left me mesmerised. Just a night that I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage cause I’d miss something. It was just like it happened only yesterday.
We went right on listening to Harry’s music and having flashbacks of the concert and then one day I walked in to get my haircut and my hairdresser handed me the newspaper. I felt like I had just lost my best friend. I called my friends who had been to the concert and we agreed that we should wear black armbands for a month to remember Harry. We did.
The armbands and the tickets to the concert are resting peacefully…..Up on the Shelf, next to me now.
Dale..1/25/03