EACH TIME IT HAPPENS, its more depressing that the previous. This time it was in a grocery store, where i had acquired the habit of regaling my favorite cashier, a nice sixty five year old lady, with song. I actually sing "decently", and its usually neil diamond, my favorite. I'm open to requests, however.
My cashier friend gets a smile out of it, and for me, the groceries get sacked, I smile too, and away i go with a full load. Yesterday's concert was attended by a slightly under forty coworker, and here's the depressing part; she said she had never heard of neil diamond.
when i responded that neil is among the best selling recording artists of all time, over many generations, she seemed unimpressed. Meanwhile, my primary target, the cashier lady, indicated that though she listens to country and western, she has certainly heard of neil diamond.
"Isn't he kind of a crooner, like andy williams?" she asked. "no, said I, neil rocks more than andy, a lot more." Not bad, though, for a country western fan, to know about a boy from brooklyn. So it seems to be a generational thing. Lady number two was just too darned young. But wait! Every time neil performs live, the sold out audience is replete with teenagers, generation Xers, baby boomers, and on up. Some folks are better informed than others, it seems.
the incident reminded me of the early nineteen eighties, when one of my college students actually asked me: "so was paul McCartney in a band before Wings?" Oh my. Alas youth. We were all young once. As goethe said "young people would indeed be insufferable, had i not once been young myself." You rock, goethe!
By now that same former student is in ripe middle age, and has probably, at long last, read about the Beatles, maybe in a history book.
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