Noble Rot

There's always a lot of math to do when considering history. Last night I was reminded that Monday will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of John Belushi's death. That would have been 1982. I was nineteen. John was thirty-three. As with all those who die young, tragically foolishly and too soon, he will always be a mile marker on the road of life.
In the spring of 1982, I was finishing up my freshman year in college. It wasn't a lot like "Animal House", but the guys on One North in Slocum hall liked to think that we were a pretty rowdy bunch. We had fire extinguisher fights, and jousting with ski poles, and by February the carpet in the hallway no longer absorbed the beer that we spilled on it. We weren't a fraternity, but that was the point: The Deltas were the anti-fraternity. We all imagined ourselves as Bluto, but we were just a bunch of Pintos and Flounders.
The summer before I had gone to Red Rocks amphitheater to see the Blues Brothers. As the band blasted out "Can't Turn You Loose," Jake Blues meandered up to the mike and yelled, "Hello Colorado! I'll bet you guys get high on everything but life!" Jake/John was, no doubt, already a mile high and falling fast.
I paid to see all of his movies - even "Continental Divide". If Belushi could be a romantic lead, maybe I could too. I wasn't suave enough to pull off Steve Martin or Chevy Chase, and I wasn't hairy enough to be Robin Williams, but this guy made it look possible. He growled, he roared, he stomped on the terra and he got the girl.
Then, on the night of March 4, 1982, his luck ran out. I bought the Rolling Stone with his picture on the cover - a black and white shot that makes him look a little tired, and worried. As it turns out, he probably should have been. That issue included Hunter Thompson's farewell to his good friend, he said that John was more fun in twenty minutes than most people were in twenty years. If that math holds up, he would have been thirty million years old when he died. Then maybe I don't feel so bad that he's gone.