I'll Never Forget When...

The year was 1977.  I was 19 and standing in line at a Taco Bell, picking up lunch for my co-workers as part of my summer "gopher" job at Dublin Travel, when the breaking news crackled over the radio: Elvis Presley, age 42, had just been found dead in his bathroom.  

While older people around me reacted with shock, I was sorry but not especially surprised. After all, he was 42. Wasn't that around the age when people stopped buying green bananas? Remember, I was 19.

Of course,  I now realize that 42 is ridiculously young, just like John Lennon was when he died at age 40 in 1980. It was a Monday night and I was at home watching Kate & Allie when the show was interrupted with breaking news by legendary sportcaster Howard Cosell. The former Beatle had been shot and killed. 

The next morning I drove to the now defunct Wherehouse Records and joined a crowd that was silently milling about, everyone carrying albums by the Beatles. There wasn't any talking and the store wasn't playing any music. We all knew why we were there. 

Fast forward to June 25, 2009. I was at my desk at work when my mom phoned. "Michael Jackson is dead!" she gasped.  For some reason my 73-year old mother had always been fascinated with Michael Jackson, which I never quite got because she was definitely more the Julio Iglesias type.  

"He is not," I snorted, wondering where she'd picked up such a silly idea. Michael Jackson was my age. Michael Jackson was too young. Michael Jackson was immortal. But when I Googled his name to humor her, there it was, splashed across every website.  Oh my God, Michael Jackson was dead. 

As word spread throughout the office, work came to a standstill as everyone logged on various websites to find out what had happened to the King of Pop. 

Now Prince.

On Thursday, we were about to enter a meeting at work when a co-worker came trotting down the hallway, looking at her phone in disbelief.  "I can't believe this," she announced. "Prince is dead."

Forget the meeting. We all looked at her slack-jawed.  "Prince the singer?" I asked, hoping maybe it was, you know, another Prince. As if.  My manager rushed to her computer to check CNN and there it was.  "This is another Michael Jackson moment," a co-worker murmured and I knew exactly what she meant.

Just last weekend I was watching Purple Rain and thinking that Prince was ageless. We were born the same year, but I figured one day when we were 70, I'd be in my fluffy pink bathrobe watching a geriatric Vanna White trying to spin the wheel while Prince would still be performing pop-up concerts at 11pm, singing Little Nikki and jumping off stages in stilettos. 

Because that was Prince.

"Some people want to die, so they can be free.
I said life is just a game, we're all just the same, do you want to play?"  ~Controversy