One night after Christmas break many years ago, heading for New York City where I’d catch the connecting flight returning me to college in Rhode Island, my plane got stuck in a holding pattern. For the better part of an hour, it traced wide circles around JFK Airport. Nothing much to do except plug in the stethoscope-like earphones the airline had provided and click the dial in the armrest in hopes of finding some decent music.
For some reason, my finger paused on the music channel playing Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is?” a song so depressing yet mesmerizing that I just sat there listening and expecting the plane to crash.
Well, it didn’t, but that song had seared itself into my mental playlist, an earworm before that term existed. In time, it faded, only to be replaced and trumped 10 times over by Alone Again Naturally)” by Gilbert O’ Sullivan.
Well, that was unpleasant. I would normally write, That sucked,” but seeing as how my wonderful wife Maureen double-checks my writing and how she frowns on my use of indelicate language, I took the high road there.)
And occasional glimpses of sunlight and hope aside, that’s how I spent my 20s, clenched in the grips of sad songs, saddled with the personality of Eeyore and hounded by the Irish fatalism surging through my veins.
This story is from the Winter 2022 edition of The Upland Almanac.
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This story is from the Winter 2022 edition of The Upland Almanac.
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