When We Slow Down

A few months ago, Pat and I visited New York City. On a day when we happened to be down on the lower East Side, we decided to conclude our day by taking a subway up the 5th Ave line, so we would be closer to the Port Authority station to get back to our New Jersey overnight place. We got off at 59th Street, where I was expecting to see a bridge over the East River, or a lampost that might have inspired a Paul Simon rhyme from my memory.After walking several blocks toward midtown, we arrived at the entrance to Central Park, where I caught sight of the lampost. . . the one that, I had supposed, inspired Paul Simon to compose his 59th Street Bridge Song.  "Hello lampost. What ya knowing? Time to watch your flowers growing. A'int ya got not rhymes for me. . . dit didda, feeling groovy. . . La di da da." Reminiscing now. . . time warp backward. . . Back in the day, long about 1967, my high school civics class made a video that ostensibly depicted the feeling of being a happy-go-lucky teen during those revolutionary (or so we thought) curious 1960's. Wandering through those unprecedented, unduplicated times of peace-obsession and protest, and believing we could change the world. . . we clipped our collection of home-made film footage together to make a movie that would express. . . well, we weren't so sure what it would express. But it felt good just doing such a creative thing. Our civics teacher helped us put together a sound track for our little movie. We leaned upon a songster hero of those times, Paul Simon, for the sound track during that scene. The song was "59th Street Bridge Song." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xhJcQEfD5s Now fast forward. . . and then back again, just a couple of weeks ago. . . this time inBoston. . . There we were, my wife of 45 years and me, one small part of a generation, as Don McLean had mentioned somewhere along the line, "lost in space", (so to speak). . . we were sitting in some grand old theatre in Boston, listening to Paul Simon sing his songs. Accompanied by a multiplicity of musicians in the background, Paul did what I suppose all great songwriters and performing musicians do after they've achieved the heights of success and then lived to tell about it. I'm sure that Paul understood everything about what was going on in our minds. . . what we were thinking and feeling about those halcyon days of long ago. . . and surely he know what songs we were expecting to hear.

So. . . Paul did his thing. . . whatever he chooses to do during this late season of our baby boomer lives. It was all good. But . . . funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. . . Paul saved the greatest songs. . . some of those that he knew we most wanted to hear . . . for the end. "The Boxer" was an encore, and the original greatest Simon song of all, "Sounds of Silence," was the second encore. It was all good, but. . . My one, small disappointment came when Paul did not sing his song that best expresses what we are facing in America today, An American Tune. It's the song with the line:  ". . . and I dreamed I was flying: high up above. . . my eyes could clearly see . . . the statue of Liberty, sailing away to sea. . ." King of Soul