“The sad thing is nobody ever really knows how much anyone else is hurting. We could be standing next to somebody who is completely broken and we wouldn’t even know it” – Unknown

It was 1956. I was 13. We had just moved to Shaw AFB in Sumter, S.C.

My brother and I were scanning the radio dial about 8 pm one night when we stumbled onto a black radio station out of some non-descript backwater town somewhere in the bowels of the State.

It was playing Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino and we were instantly excited by this “New” sound. We had never heard anything like it. For us, the birth of Rock N Roll.

Sad we had to listen to Black radio stations late at night to hear this new sound with that fantastic beat. Back then, white stations would not play black music.

I was stunned by Fat’s death yesterday. Another icon of my generation is gone. Another legend, Chuck Berry passed earlier in the year.

As these icons of my life pass away, a sadness grips me.

Is that normal?

“I have to write things down to feel I truly comprehend them” – Haruki Murakami