I wrote about Rosanne yesterday because I attended a wrestling tournament at the school where she teaches and that made me think about, among other things, a singer we both liked.

Rosanne and I had a lot in common. We’d both visited England the same year, we were the same age, we both taught special ed and we both liked Harry Chapin. She, however saw him in concert – and got a kiss on the cheek. I only planned on seeing him in concert – in Chicago – the summer he died.

I probably first heard of Harry Chapin through his Cats in the Cradle which played on the radio a lot in the late 70’s. I bought his Greatest Shows Live album and remember listening to it in my first apartment.

On that album I liked a number of songs, but my favorite was probably Taxi. It told of a pair of former lovers who were briefly reunited in a taxi. He was the driver, she the passenger. The song talks about where they’d planned on being at this point in time and where they really were. I think the song was meaningful to me because of a recent breakup of mine. Thinking ahead to a point in time that if my former boyfriend and I were to meet, what we might say.

I can’t tell you what Rosanne liked about Chapin. She could have liked that song best, or another. But it was great to find a friend with whom I had some musical tastes in common. We couldn’t see Harry in concert together, so we went to see his brother Tom at the Birchmere.