The Rocky-ness of Being Alone

Contenders and pretenders

Where I worked was to the mid-upper right (Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash)

Somewhere in the presidential year of 1976, Jackson Browne’s The Pretender was released. I was twenty years old, a college junior. I had already seen Browne live twice and thought his earlier album, Late for the Sky, a modern masterpiece. One of my best friends and I gave each other a copy for Christmas, 1974. A strange invitation. And then we broke up with our girlfriends, or vice-versa.

Somehow, The Pretender didn’t hit me as hard. Maybe it was too depressing; maybe I was too depressing. Anyway, my college friends were into dancing, and nothing says “I don’t want to dance” like a Jackson Browne song. Yeah, he has some upbeat tunes like “The Boulevard,” but even the faster ones are depressing, unless you feel like doing The Hustle to “Redneck Friend.”

But when I listened to the title tune of that ’76 album last night, I began thinking of other things. I love the song, and even more, I love how one song leads to specific images and memories — ones you’d never imagine remembering.

In the early winter of 1977, I found myself invited to accept an internship in Washington, DC, working for my congressman. One week I was in college; a week later, DC, with friends who drove me and helped me find a K-Mart in Maryland, somewhere north of Pennsylvania Ave., so I could get some plastic…