Where Were You?

"I don't work January the 8th, 'cause it's Elvis' birthday." - Gary Busey in D.C. Cab

Well, I have to say that, while I don't share Gary's particular mania about the King, or a whole lot of other things, I can say that I appreciate his enthusiasm for celebrating the date of his idol's birth. So much of our popular culture celebrates the end of people's lives rather than the beginning. In some ways, it acts as a kind of measuring stick for fame if you can answer the question, "Do you remember where you were when you heard..."
There were more people alive to remember 1977 when Elvis passed away on the throne than 1935 when he entered the world. Richard Thomas made an entire film based on the day that James Dean died, September 30, 1955. Ironically, this little film about teen angst and celebrity worship came out just two days before what would have been Elvis' forty-third birthday.
JFK, John Lennon, John Belushi, and a myriad of other famous people whose names were not John are sadly remembered best for their exits, rather than their entrances. The celebration of life is often obscured by our fascination with death. It is, after all, the great equalizer. I confess that this is not a phenomenon restricted to stars for me.
If you have read this blog over the past few years or talked to me in the past thirty, you know that I regularly do that thing that Bill Cosby once referred to as, "You know who died yesterday?" Many of the people I have eulogized have been denizens of the world of popular culture, but I have carried that ethos into my private life as well. Witness the relatively ridiculous challenge I have remembering my father's birthday, but how morbidly easy I find it to recall the day he joined the choir invisible.
Yesterday was my father's birthday. My son wrote a nice letter to him as part of a Day of the Dead project for his art class. He said that he wished that he could have had a chance to get to know him, and that I have referred to his grandfather as "a goof with a capital 'G.'" His memory remains, and his life still has great resonance for me as I make my way through my own version of fatherhood. I still remember where I was when I heard that he died, but I would rather share the stories of his life. The one that began November 17.