{"id":160,"date":"2021-12-31T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-31T19:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/?p=160"},"modified":"2024-02-22T17:44:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T22:44:58","slug":"what-about-the-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/?p=160","title":{"rendered":"What about the Boy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We are less than six hours away from a new year, and I lament that I didn\u2019t make more of \u201c1921\u201d by The Who in the first few months of the current year. Before I go further, it\u2019d be helpful for you to check it out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/track\/2EJo2k8xmQsA3E5VwTta7I?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"80\" frameBorder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019d first heard the song back in high school through Launchcast, that fabulous music player that helped me discover so many artists and tracks. When the words, \u201cGot a feeling \u201921 is gonna be a good year, especially if you and me see it in together\u201d played in winter of 2003, they resonated. As one terrible year, full of disasters for the Riley family, drew to a close, the optimism in those first few seconds gave me hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then, the song rarely popped into my head. I don\u2019t have Tommy on vinyl or CD, so I didn\u2019t have much occasion to hear it. But as another terrible year (2020) began to draw to a close, the hope of \u201c1921\u201d returned. \u201cI had no reason to be over-optimistic but somehow, when you smiled, I could brave bad weather\u201d seemed so appropriate: a new president about to be sworn into office; vaccinations for the terrible disease killing so many; another copy of the fresh notebook that arrives every January 1st for us to write a new story. The harshness is more tolerable with others beside us, and whatever was to come could be surmounted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are, however, more words in the song: \u201cSo you think \u201921 is going to be a good year? It could be good for me and her, but you and her, no, never!\u201d Oh, yes, I remember now: this is a song about murder, about a killing that is witnessed by a child, about lying to that child, telling him that the things he knows he saw and heard didn\u2019t happen, confusing him so much that he becomes \u201cdeaf, dumb and blind.\u201d Those lovely opening lines are dashed by violence and there I was, pulled out of the song, watching the Capitol be breached by fascists and white supremacists. There was no peaceful transfer of power, and yet so many still grab us by the shoulders and scream, \u201cYou didn\u2019t hear it; you didn\u2019t see it; you won\u2019t say nothing to no one never in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-black-background-color has-black-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>I used to write a lot more than I do now. Back in those days of listening to Launchcast, it was my soundtrack for writing nearly daily in my LiveJournal. I listened to music and wrote about high school and dating and Pennyfarthing and figuring out what was next for me after graduation. But that activity faded in college, replaced during my AmeriCorps service with Weekly E-mails. They were reflections on my service and life in New Hampshire after getting my degree at Elmira, and they went to an ever-increasing list of friends and acquaintances. Both my LiveJournal entries and those emails capture moments in time, but it\u2019s the replies to the emails that mean so much more to me now. In them, I know that I matter to someone else. I hear the voices of friends also figuring things out, sharing their thoughts and stories, teaching me lessons. The words I wrote elicited a response, and it reminded both me and the person replying that this could be a good year with us seeing it in together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I\u2019d like to start writing again. I\u2019m uncertain of the frequency or length, but I hope it lets us brave whatever bad weather is to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Love,<br>Paul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both my LiveJournal entries and those [Weekly] emails capture moments in time, but it&#8217;s the replies to the emails that mean so much more to me now. In them, I know that I matter to someone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[11,9,12,10],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paul","tag-communication","tag-the-who","tag-together","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}