Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal
(Buck Ram, 1956)
The only other passenger
on the San Bus was Howard
Rhudy, a maintenance
man at the TB sanitarium.
Everyone knew Howard
wrote poetry and was
scholarly.
Howard saw me
absorbing words
copied from The Platters’ latest
hit. I handed him the page
when he asked to see it.
He finally rasped,
Did you write this?
Oh, no, it’s from the radio.
I was thrilled
that he would think me
capable
of writing these words.
Frightened,
that someday
I might
have these feelings
for real.
Seward, Alaska, 1956
Here was one of those relatively rare moments of encouragement (and to write, of all things) from an older person as I was growing up.
Of course, popular music has long served as a training manual for adolescents figuring out how to feel. In most cases the lesson was, and is, “I can’t live without you,” an emotionally fused, utterly inadequate and immature way to approach intimate relationship. I took the hook, as most of us did, and have spent a very long time growing beyond that approach.
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