Cosmic Radio

Growing up in Brooklyn, figure around 1975, I had a friend whose mother was half Puerto Rican, half Irish, and fully gorgeous. We were at the age when that stuff just started to matter, and we never talked about it, well maybe not in front of him. We also never talked about something else about her. When I’d go over to his house, we would gallop up the stairs, sliding our hands up the wooden bannister, to the second floor, his room to the left, his parent’s room to the right. His mom would be in her bedroom, with the door closed, and the radio BLARING. She was not listening to WABC Radio, where they played the Top 40 hits of the 70’s, the radio was tuned to a religious show, “Do you accept JESUS as your only lord and savior?” When there was a lull in the show, you could hear his mom talking. At first I thought, Maybe she has company? Maybe she’s talking to his father? Or his brother? Eventually I realized, she was talking, to the radio. I knew that was weird, it made me nervous. I felt bad for her. I felt bad for my friend, who would give me that insecure look that said, Yeh I know it’s messed up, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. I could tell that she really was talking to the radio, that those voices were really talking to her. That made me think, in the egotistical way of kids, What if the radio is talking to her? I mean who is to say it’s not? I mean, sometimes it feels like the radio is talking to me. It also made me think, Maybe she’s not that far off? Maybe there’s something to this voices in the radio thing? How many times have I been listening to WABC AM or WNEW 102.7 FM and the song that comes on the radio, is directly connected to what is going on in my life? When did I hear The Beatles, “Let It Be” when I really needed to hear it? So many times it seemed that the radio, was talking to me. Does that mean I am like my friend’s mom? Is there something in the cosmos controlling the messages coming through the airwaves? 

Sometimes, weird things seem to happen… Somewhere around 3rd grade, I have a crush on a pig-tailed bespectacled girl named Susan, and it feels like whenever I am thinking of her, when I am sitting by the pool on vacation, driving in the Chrysler New Yorker with my father, Elton John’s, “Crocodile Rock” comes on the radio. Coming from the speakers I hear the words I really want to hear, “I remember when rock was young, me and Suzie had so much fun, holding hands and skimming stones…” I just know, in my grammar-school brain, this is a sign, some supreme being is sending me a message that Suzie and I are supposed to be together. Alas, that was not to be. 

 Many times in my life, the radio seemed to be talking to me, a Wizard of the Radio waves communicating with me, I swear. Or was it coincidence? 1990. I am a few years out of college. My buddy Dave Gordon and I are on a road trip from Brooklyn to Notre Dame; a pilgrimage to see Touchdown Jesus, Lou Holtz, and Rocket Ishmael. It's the final installment of those iconic Fighting Irish vs. Miami Hurricanes games that came to be called, “The Catholics vs. the Convicts.” We are in the car for HOURS, talking about all manner of things. Somewhere in the flatlands of Ohio, Dave, who I have known since high school, brings up my father. 

In 1990, it had been five years since my dad’s passing and Dave wants to know how I am doing. He asks, “Do you ever feel that your Dad is around? Does he ever give you signs?” I think about that question as the Ohio countryside goes careening by; after a minute I say, “No. Never. Nothing specific. I can hear his voice in my head. I know what things he would say to me at points in my life when I need his advice. And that’s a comfort, but I don’t feel like he's around. I don’t feel like he is watching over me or anything like that.” 

 Those words are hanging out of my mouth, a word-filled comic book bubble suspended over my head…and what comes on the radio next but THE song that reminds me of my father’s passing, “Heaven” by Bryan Adams. If you look it up, that song came out in 1984, and was all over the airwaves in the summer of 1985, when my father passed. It’s a romantic song, but as we do sometimes, we “customize” songs to have meaning for our lives. When I was 22, that song was helpful to me, as I was dealing with my father’s passing. Whenever it came on the radio, it was a salve, a comfort to me, thinking about my father, maybe in a better place called, “Heaven.” 

 I turn to Dave from the driver’s seat of my ‘88 Sentra and say, “This is really weird Dave, you are asking me if I ever get signs from my father and I say ‘no’ and then this song comes on the radio.” 

 It does not stop there. Because I am skeptical, as many of you are, I was thinking right then, Wow, that’s weird, but it’s just a coincidence. Right? Those thoughts are floating in the chemistry of my brain when what comes on next on the radio is the other song that is most connected to my memory of my father, and of the summer he passed. A song by Corey Hart called, “Never Surrender.” I always thought that my father had quit, that he had given up after he got his diagnosis. The doctors told him he had atherosclerosis, a severe case of hardening of the arteries, they told him it was a death sentence. And he just took it. He didn’t quit smoking his Marlboros, didn’t start exercising, didn’t start eating right, just continued to do what he was doing that got him in that fix in the first place. So I always thought that he had given up, and that’s why, “Never Surrender” always made me think of my dad. Those two songs, back-to-back, right after Dave asked me if I ever got signs from my father, and I gave him an unequivocal, no. Somewhere near Akron, Ohio. 

There are other songs… “Blackbird” by The Beatles holds a special place in my heart, and is connected to my early days of fatherhood. Summer 2001, hiking at Steep Rock in Washington, CT, along the Shepaug River with my trusty yellow lab, Seamus at my side, and Nicholas, my two and a half year old in the blue, Kelty Kids backpack. Taking in the greenery, the fresh air, keeping Seamus near me, I am pointing things out to Nicholas as we walk. At some point I see a crow land on a dead branch just above the dirt road we are walking and I begin whistling, “Blackbird.” Not singing it mind you, whistling it. Nicholas, all of two and a half, recognizes the tune from my whistling and says, “Daddy, why does the blackbird have a broken wing? Why can’t he fly?” I am astounded, a sign of my new son’s genius? How did he know what song it was? And how does he remember that specific line? Nick and I have a whole conversation, walking along the river, about the blackbird, and the broken wing. I went home that night and wrote about it in my journal. 

Over the years, whenever I hear that song, it takes me back to that moment. I shared that journal entry with Kira, my wife, and when Nick got older I shared it with him. So now “Blackbird” has some Spinner family history to it. 

Fast-forward quite a few years and Nick is heading to college. August 2017, the three of us go to Bloomington, Indiana for Nick’s college orientation. We are touring the campus, sitting in lecture halls, learning about: college life, underage drinking, and financial aid. Some meetings the three of us are together, sometimes they separate the students from their parents. At one of these separate meetings, the IU staff hands out paper, pen, and envelopes to the sixty or so parents in the lecture hall. The woman at the podium explains, “Write your student a letter, to say hello, to give them advice, to make them smile. It can be something serious, funny, whimsical, an inside joke, something to let them know that you are thinking of them. We will keep these letters safe for about three weeks. Then when they are settled in, about mid-September, we will spring this little surprise on them. Spread out, go out onto the campus, find a quiet spot under a tree, or by the fountain, and write your letter. Have fun with it, no pressure, just a note to be shared later.” Parents move around the room, some sit on the floor, others spread out to quiet spots. I stay right where I am, and ready my pen. Then the IU staff pipes in some light rock music to the lecture hall’s speakers, to make us reflective. The first song was, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, and the tears were welling in many an eye as we tried to focus. As soon as we recognized the song, Kira and I glanced at each other. It was brutal, we were about to leave our first-born son 850 miles from home, all alone on this college campus. “Landslide” if you know it, is about handling the, “seasons of your life.” Tough stuff. To make matters more melancholy, more nostalgic, the next song that comes on is, “Blackbird” by The Beatles. How? How could they have known? Who is choosing the songs? With all the songs out there, why choose, “Blackbird?” Kira and I shared another knowing glance as the waterworks increased. At this pivotal moment of Nick’s movement toward manhood, out of all the songs in the world, what comes on but the one song that is most connected to Nick’s childhood, for me. 

Fast forward just a little more with me? Nick has spent four wonderful years at Indiana, growing, learning, changing, and he’s graduating. He’s leaving Bloomington for good. So I agree to drive our SUV from Connecticut, out to Bloomington to help him move home. I’ll spend the night with Nick, let him enjoy one last night with his boys, and drive back to Connecticut in the morning. Nick and I go to Uptown Grill, our favorite Bloomington restaurant for a nice steak dinner. After a delicious meal, a few cocktails, we walk down Kirkwood to, “The Tap” my absolute favorite Bloomington haunt. It’s not really a college bar, there’s no sticky floor, no smell of stale beer. The Tap is the bar for parents, or graduate students, it has an amazing selection of beers on tap, and two walls full of refrigerators filled with bottles and cans from all around the world. Nirvana for a beer lover. We always go to “The Tap” when we visit Nick, and this will be our last time. There are baseball games on the tv’s, it’s Memorial Day Weekend. A nice crowd of people are talking at high tops, and at the bar. Some twenty feet above, and behind the bar, is a small stage where there’s occasionally a solo guitarist playing. That night the guitarist plays some great music, our kind of music: James Taylor, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp….we have one or two beers and I am going to head to the Marriott. Nick is heading out for his final night in Bloomington. It’s 11:30 and I am paying the check, and the singer says, “I have had a great time tonight, please remember to tip your bartenders and wait staff, I’ll be here next Thursday. I’d like to play one last song for you.” Nick and I are standing, about to walk towards the door, and we hear the first few chords of, “Blackbird.” We look at each other and smile a knowing smile. Coincidence? Or Cosmic Radio?