The Neighbor Kids—Then and Now

Went to Beneroya Hall last night to watch (part of) the Seattle Symphony back a Led Zeppelin cover band.  By the time I bought the last wheelchair accessible seat/ticket, it ended up being in the very last row.  The acoustics were great, but it was a too far away to see facial expressions. 

Led Zeppelin was together for 12.  The cover band had been together for 20 years.  They spent more time playing Led Zeppelin music than Led Zeppelin did.  With the symphony backing, LZ’s heavy metal sounded much more melodic stories of the hero’s journey.   It was a surprisingly good combination and we really enjoyed it.  I wished they had played louder—something I can’t ever remember wanting before at a rock concert.

I was going to go see Led Zeppelin with Kevin Warren almost 40 years ago.   He was the nearest neighbor kid my age and lived a mile away.   He bought the tickets and then screwed me over by saying someone stole them out of his home then taking and kid to the concert with my ticket.  Fast forward 20 years and it seems most likely that he died an alcoholic death in an unmarked grave in Arizona at about 40 years old.

I felt good about having finally seen Led Zeppelin 40 years later…and sad about Kevin.

My roommate  and I met son at a meeting tonight.   He is a Washington State Department of Corrections Work Release facility in downtown Seattle.  He came with two other guys from the WR place.   One of them was a nearby neighbor from his childhood.  In other words, they are both convicted felons doing time together.  They grew up in a small town 45 NNE of Seattle notorious for teen substance abuse problems in a way that did not exist back in my day.  We had alcohol and pot.   They had heroin, meth, opiate pills, plus alcohol and pot.

I felt sad when we left the meeting after chatting with him and his cohorts.  They are convicted felons due to stupid crimes they did to feed their insatiable drug habits.   That will affect the rest of their lives even if they never get caught again.   I hope that they stay sober and get on with living a better life than the one the lead them to prison.

I am grateful I finally got to see Zeppelin after getting ripped-off by a friend instead of meeting a childhood friend while incarcerated as a convicted felon.