Here's an idea for a thread:
The thread title is not a reference to "He's So Vain." Instead, it's about a song or poem that, when you read or hear it, you think "This sums me up in a nutshell. It's really about me."
Here's my contribution. These song tells you everything about me that you need to know:
A later note: I guess I should explain my affiliation with the song. Instead of running away with the circus, I quit a steady but boring civil service job to join the hang gliding industry as pilot, instructor, sailmaker, and ultimately test pilot, usually working for peanuts and realizing that it was mostly hard work. But I was often "alone on the high wire," in a sport known in those days mostly for its fatality rate. (When I told my dad of the six friends of mine who died from hang glider accidents in the previous ten years, he told me that he hadn't lost that many friends in World War II. But then again, I was associating with designers and test pilots, who were always "pushing the envelope" of performance and design. I don't think I ever told him of the time I myself nearly died, being sucked up into a thunderhead and getting out of it by doing everything I could to get down. But that's another story.)
I'm the kid who saw things far beyond the schoolyard, like viewing Albuquerque from over a mile over it, with nothing in between me and the ground but a tube of aluminum, or soaring with eagles and hawks that accepted me as just another one of them.
I'm the one who thought that the woman I adored might take me as a lover, only to be gently let down. We parted as friends, though, holding hands as we sought new lives. And I've had a few actual love affairs that haven't worked out, and one that still does, even after more than thirty years.
I'm the guy who can't stop dreaming of things like social justice, universal health care, and gender equality, any more than I could make them come true. I'll keep trying, and I'll keep dreaming.
That's why this song has such a personal relevance for me.
The thread title is not a reference to "He's So Vain." Instead, it's about a song or poem that, when you read or hear it, you think "This sums me up in a nutshell. It's really about me."
Here's my contribution. These song tells you everything about me that you need to know:
A later note: I guess I should explain my affiliation with the song. Instead of running away with the circus, I quit a steady but boring civil service job to join the hang gliding industry as pilot, instructor, sailmaker, and ultimately test pilot, usually working for peanuts and realizing that it was mostly hard work. But I was often "alone on the high wire," in a sport known in those days mostly for its fatality rate. (When I told my dad of the six friends of mine who died from hang glider accidents in the previous ten years, he told me that he hadn't lost that many friends in World War II. But then again, I was associating with designers and test pilots, who were always "pushing the envelope" of performance and design. I don't think I ever told him of the time I myself nearly died, being sucked up into a thunderhead and getting out of it by doing everything I could to get down. But that's another story.)
I'm the kid who saw things far beyond the schoolyard, like viewing Albuquerque from over a mile over it, with nothing in between me and the ground but a tube of aluminum, or soaring with eagles and hawks that accepted me as just another one of them.
I'm the one who thought that the woman I adored might take me as a lover, only to be gently let down. We parted as friends, though, holding hands as we sought new lives. And I've had a few actual love affairs that haven't worked out, and one that still does, even after more than thirty years.
I'm the guy who can't stop dreaming of things like social justice, universal health care, and gender equality, any more than I could make them come true. I'll keep trying, and I'll keep dreaming.
That's why this song has such a personal relevance for me.
Last edited:
