Memories of a different time and place

I love listening to Harry Chapin.

I saw him twice in concert, and I think at one time or another I've owned nearly all of his albums. He died at the age of 38, which cost the world another 30-40 years of great songs. Maybe even more if Chapin had been as prolific as his hero, Pete Seeger.

Anyway, there's one song that always touched my heart and evoked strong, wonderful memories. Chapin's "Old College Avenue" tells the story of a young man's first love affair while in college, and it always makes me think of the winter of 1969-70, when I was at George Washington University.

Her name was Kelly, or something close. She was 18 and beautiful and I was 19 turning to 20 and still pretty innocent when it came to girls.

We had a winter and a spring together, but we didn't survive a summer apart. We did so many things together, goofy things like walking in the rain and eating pizza at 3 a.m. and wonderful, optimistic things like falling in love and planning a future that never came.

With her I learned how wonderful love could be -- and how much it could hurt. It was those lessons that helped make me the man I am, both in a failed first marriage and a successful second one.

"It was Old College Avenue, and in the time of having you, I remember it as if it were today."

It was nearly 40 years ago, and it changed my life. I didn't see Kelly again until I ran into her at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. I was older, much heavier and I had a beard, almost unrecognizable to her. But she asked me to take my glasses off, and she looked into my eyes.

"I remember those eyes," she said.

Later that year I sent her a picture of me at age 20. That was the me she remembered.

This isn't a story about two long-lost lovers hooking up. I'm happily married and so is she. I found myself thinking about her for two reasons. One was that on one of my last trips home, I found myself wandering through the GWU campus, remembering things as they were in 1969, when Quigley's was still a hangout and Vietnam was still a problem.

Another was the news I got yesterday about the death of David Poole. It reminded me that no matter how long I'm going to live, I'm a lot closer to the end of this race than I am to the beginning.

Memories are good, especially the ones that make us what we are today.

That's one of mine.