Picture a guy who’d just resigned his Air Force commission and started his civilian career.  As a go-fer, not exactly what I was used to or expected.  But I should have realized I’d be starting over, at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole.

Picture a rental car loaded to the gunnels with liquor for the Kroehler Furniture hospitality suite at the 1971 High Point Furniture Market in High Point, NC.  And me as the driver, having had the fear of God pounded into me by the clerk at the state liquor store.  I was told that I could be arrested if I was caught off the flight plan back to our hotel.  I’d had to file with the State of North Carolina in order to purchase an extraordinary quantity of liquor.  What if I had missed a turn and deviated from my flight plan?  Chopping rocks in a prison full of hillbillies was most assuredly not what I’d anticipated in civilian life.

Picture my chagrin when I made it to the hotel successfully, avoiding a lifetime in prison with no chance of parole, taking an inventory of my demon rum and finding I’d forgotten to buy vermouth.  Another trip to the state store, but this time no flight plan required.  But time consumed over a $2.00 bottle of vermouth.  But somehow I go the bar set up so we could numb the decision-making properties of furniture store owners from throughout the country.

But all of this is backstory.  The true highlight of my first national furniture store was hearing a song come on the radio that caused me to pull over to the curb, without deviating from my established flight plan, so as not to miss a word.  I’d never heard the voice before, and he was backed up by… a cello?  Was this rockn’ roll? Folk? A cello?  None of the above; it was Harry Chapin singing his first hit, Taxi.

Picture me being shocked by my inability to compartmentalize the song.  I considered mself a fairly serious music fan, from classical to rock to folk to whatever.  But this was utterly new.  “We learned about love in the back of a dodge.  The lesson hadn’t gone too far.” (When I said I knew the well dressed lady who hailed Harry’s cab),   … she said I’m sure you’re mistaken… it took a while but she looked in the mirror, and she glanced at the license for my name… she said, “how are you Harry?” and I said, “How are you Sue?”  Through the too many miles and the too little smiles, I still remember you.”

Picture my inability to put the car in gear and continue my appointed rounds.  I had to hear the song again, but it wasn’t like could stop at a record store, pick up the album if there was one and go home and drop it on the turntable.  No, the show lasted a week, which actually seemed like three months.  Taxi.  A cello?  And a backup singer who sang everything from bass to soprano?  I couldn’t wait to get home, find the record and make it mine.  Which I did.

Picture me, over the years, seeing Harry in concert several times with more than a few different girlfriends until Harry’s untimely passing in the 80s.  he was simply, long with Leonard Cohen, part of the two best lyricists of our time.  There was a sequel to Taxi.  There was Cats in the Cradle (especially impactful since I hac become a single father in the late 70s.  There was Sniper.  There were way too many great songs to list.  And Harry in concert was a party.  And, yes, it was a cello, with different players throughout the years, and ‘Big John’ Wallace providing the ‘vocal pyrotechnics,” from bass to soprano.

“She was gonna be an actress, and I was gonna learn to fly.  She went off to find the footlights, and I went off to find the sky…  and here I’m flyin’ in my taxi, taking tips and getting stoned.  I go flyin ‘ so high when I’m stoned.”

A cello?