Today is the 22nd anniversary of the death of Harry Chapin. I remember I was working on my car in the back yard when I heard the news on the radio. I went inside and called a friend and told her. She and I had gone to a couple of Harry’s concerts, and we always had a great time. Harry was a troubador, a rabble-rouser, and a tireless fundraiser for World Hunger Year. I never heard him say the exact words, but he was the kind of guy who would say something like “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable”.
But most of all, he was a great entertainer. Every once in awhile, I hear one of his songs on the radio, and just for a second, I’m back in the Glacier Dome in Traverse City, Michigan, where I first saw him perform, or the Civic Center in Lansing, where I saw him last.
Godspeed, Harry. The cheap seats still remember you.
When I was in college, I was an usher for one of his concerts at Purdue. Unfortunately, my strongest memory of that was of him berating the college kids who wanted autographs because they weren’t buying the stuff in support of his charity. As I recall, the stuff was rather pricy, even for me, and I had a decent income as a student.
He was quite a showman, tho. I wept at the needlessness of his death.
This thread made me cry (unabashed and anonymous here) because I clicked on Ice Wolf’s link and went to that song, which I’d forgotten - but is SO relevant in my life right now - my 9 1/2 yr-old son is SO much missing his dad who has taken a job that keeps him out late and working pretty much 7 days a week. They have a great relationship in general, but it pains me to see the lyrics of this song being lived out here…
