I’ve fallen in love with the album, “Duke” by Genesis all over again.

I originally bought it because one of the songs was getting so much airtime on a local rock n roll radio station. Didn’t have streaming audio or MP3s (remember those?) so my only option was to get the vinyl album. That’s still here somewhere, packed up in a box with some of the albums I “borrowed” from my mom over time.

Tonight, instead of carefully dusting the shiny black vinyl grooves and gently placing the metal stylus on the spinning platter, I’ve stumbled across this album thanks to my magic music AI butler who suggested it to me. How things have changed.

Technically it’s not rock. Not dance, but some parts are dancy enough. Kind of progressive rock-ish.

Loads of sweeping vocals.

But the thing is love the most are the chord changes. They are like what I imagine feeling like flying is like.

Neil Diamond did an outstanding job with his music for the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” thing. Never saw the movie. The book was really good. Most folks reading this won’t remember that, either.

But I could imagine this album’s music would be an an outstanding accompanying score for the idea of that story.

Haven’t heard this album in like literally 35 years.

I wore it out in my first apartment as a solo bachelor. In my mind’s eye I can still see the turntable where I’d play the album before heading out to work the evening shift at a local Mexican place as a waiter.

Not one for reliving the glory days. That’s because the glory days start every morning when I’m celebrating another day of living. (There’s another song that comes to mind… look up “Rare Earth I just want to celebrate”)

But sometimes there’s a composition that just hovers, gently but powerfully, right in front of you, waiting for you to see it. Really see it. For me this is one of those things.

Not hearing this set of songs in over three decades after hearing it often for a year or so is an odd thing. It’s like experiencing a very familiar sensation for the very first time. Yah, that idea messes with my head, too.

Will I wait another three decades to hear it again? Maybe. There’s so many full albums to experience still that I’ve never heard before.

But tonight, we’re surfing these marvelous chords.

I was chatting with a colleague at work and was reminded of a high school classmate who changed my world view forever by happenstance.

The high school mate eventually became a fairly good friend – to the point where he not only didn’t punch me for dating his ex-girlfriend but playfully ribbed me for it.

He was a huge young man. Built like a gorilla. Lifted weights. But he was about my height, meaning he wasn’t very tall. Kind of wavy, curly dark brown, almost blackish hair. Hair everywhere. By the end of the school day his beard grew out enough to make him look like a pirate.

Being a 16-17ish teen who lifted weights and who stretched out his t-shirts you’d think he would have been pretentious and vain. If he was, I didn’t see that aspect of him. What I saw was lots of funny, good natured, and playful attitude from him.

We met as science/chemistry lab partners and found our personalities were a good fit. Almost too good, as we both enjoyed doing side experiments we ouldn’t have been doing. These always involved mixing things together or burning something we shouldn’t have done.

His name was Jean (pronounced “Jon”). He was also from Lebanon. Both I remember as I called him “Jon-Jon from Lebanon”. His personality being what it is, he didn’t mind and thought this was funny.

He and family had been in the States for a few years already. The reason they’d moved was to get him out of the Lebanese Army. He’d been a soldier since he was ten years old. I don’t recall if he fought for or against the Palestinians.

Naturally that info raised questions for me and one of the first I asked was, “Did you get to kill anybody?”

I remember him saying, “Yes” and then making a deflection joke to steer us away from that topic. That was a clear message to me to not follow this line of questioning any more. Ever.

That’s when my world view changed. It was like a veil was lifted and I could see things outside of my cotton-wrapped existence.

While I was learning how to operate the gears of my Christmas-gifted ten-speed bicycle so I could race with my friends, Jean was learning how to disassemble, reassemble, and maintain field rifles so he could kill the opposition.

While I was playing “let’s see who could jump down the most stairs without falling” game with my brothers and sisters, Jean was learning how to scale and descend walls to keep from being bayonetted by people chasing him.

While I was lobbing snowballs over the street at my friends on a cold winter’s day for the satisfaction of seeing the snow splat on them, Jean was lobbing rocks and Molotov cocktails at fellow children and grown men and women with the intent of disfiguring or killing them.

Some say we are America the land of Capitalist Pigs. Do we consume too much without thinking of others? At times, yes. But now and again I am reminded of Jon-Jon from Lebanon and am thankful that we are not America the land of Child Soldiers who are conscripted to fight State-sponsored gang wars.

At least, not yet.