Laughing Sparrow Died

Recently the MySpace Music page of an artist I really liked disappeared on me. If you are fortunate enough to have heard of McFadden's Parachute, consider yourself oh so lucky. If you do, can you name all the members? Well, they can be counted on a very blind butcher's hand-Dagwood McFadden is the only member; a sort of musical jack-of-all-trades who plays every single instrument on the Parachute's records, thanks to that elven magic known as overdubbing. His song 'Silver Days And Purple Nights' was one of the hallucination induction engines that kept me sane during my second and summer semesters as a junior. Apparently this guy was a kid in the late 60's and early 70's, which makes me just a little jealous. After all, he grew up to a lot of great music; not just the popular sounds of the era, but also local bands from his Rochester, NY hometown that specialized in acid garage. Groovy. I hope he's not done with music; if he is, then the world will just go a little more gray for me. If I could just hear 'Silver Days And Purple Nights' just once more, I think I could die happy. I got to thinking of someone else who had fallen off my radar in recent months; a girl I went to Penn Ken with. Fall semester of my freshman year-we had an Honors English Comp class together. She was in the honors program like everyone else in the class; I was just good enough on the placement test to be allowed to schedule it. We never really talked though; me having just come out of homeschooling through high school and being socially inexperienced as a result. Still, she was always quiet herself, but sweet too-not to mention tall, slender, pretty brown hair to her elbows and always wearing long sleeves, as memory recalls. I admit to having a serious crush on her for the rest of that first year at Penn Ken, and all through the next year as well. After moving to State College to finish my degree, I was afraid I'd lose contact with her altogether. But she came up as well; I ran into her one day at the bus stop, and we chatted until my bus came. Sadly, that was the last I saw or heard from her. I recently looked her up in the Penn State directory; she's not listed anymore. I have her PSU e-mail address; but if she's no longer with the university, she'll never get anything I send her. My only hope is to see if she has a page on Facebook and/or MySpace, and pray to God she remembers me. It's depressing, painful even, when a friend steps outside your life like that. It's going to happen to me again at the end of next semester; my friend Emily is, I believe, going back to Harper's Ferry, WV to work at the National Historic Site and resume her internship of last summer with the Park Service. (I did suggest to her, tongue quite within cheek, that she should give working at the Steamtown NHS in Scranton a try; but she rolled her eyes at the idea, being much less of a train buff than me.) Or like my friend Jenny from Honors English; she's in Ireland right now, spending a semester abroad. My friend Stoner Tim is in China, and apparently has a kid there. My friends Mike, Matt, and Jonathan are still back in Pittsburgh, due to Matt and John working jobs right now and Mike taking a major only available at Penn Ken. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strain; pretty soon you're gonna get a little older..........