Del: They say … don’t ask me who the hell “they” are … there are only two stories in life. 1. A man (I know, not appropriate language these days, but I’m not “they”) goes on a journey, 2. A stranger comes to town. I know who I am. Maybe that was the case for my Old Man, too, wherever he is.
Right after Labor Day, the answer became crystal clear to me … I was the one who goes on a journey. It was time for me to go. Clear as my windshield after going through the car wash.
Here’s how I remember it:
Greg: And, poof! There he was … gone … Del … my classmate … my bandmate … my best friend. I was devastated. The plan … over. College starting next week. Leaving home. Moving into a dorm. No Del. Band over. Cassandra back to high school. What the fuck happened?
I tried to put me in his shoes. No place to live? I knew he was envious of what Cassandra and I had found, but hadn’t we always gone out of our way to include him in everything? Could it have been painful for him to see our happiness? Yeah, he owed money to my Dad, but that shouldn’t have been a big deal, not to my Dad, anyway.
The worst part … I felt like Del was moving on without me. He was pursuing a dream. He was going for it. I was being a sheep and just doing what was expected of me. I had never in my life been so depressed.
And here’s how I turned it into song:
Rolling in Dough
Del: Now we’re able to laugh about it, but there was nothing to laugh about then. I felt certain that it was time for me to leave, but there was nothing else certain about my life.
I didn’t know where I would live, where my next meal would come from. Looking back I see a mixed-up kid whose emotions were all over the map. I was scared shitless, but utterly confident that I was doing the right thing. Not surprisingly my music from that period was at both ends of the spectrum.
This is where my head was:
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