The Backward Look
Several nights ago we attended a performance of Bob Seger’s music at the Paramount Theater in Aurora. The band was first rate, the lead singer in a fitting manner honored Bob Seger who is eighty years old. Seger the balladeer wrote and performed world-creating music. That is what music does, rhythm, rhyme, harmony and lyric are touchstones, a kind of enchantment inviting the recipient to a full spectrum understanding of life, of what is possible. Seger and others like him appropriately are the way-showers for their generation.
This video is offered because I like this song, and because a few days ago I lost a friend. He was a man of uncommon decency. His manner of life was something of an artform, though he never would have thought of himself in such terms. Now one life – the object of reflection, of grief for what is missed even while better understood, appreciated. James Longstreth was an individual of rare significance, the effect of his being will have enduring effect for many of us.
Is it only in retrospect, with the backward look that life and others can be understood?
Like A Rock by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band.
