I picked a couple up today, who looked to be in their 50s. They were on their way to Vegas for the weekend. They seemed a little old to be engaging in Vegas type shenanigans, especially on Halloween weekend. They told me it was their first time ever going to Vegas at Halloween, and so they packed costumes. They were going to get away for a few days and they loved Vegas.
These days, I tend to play an easy listening mix on my car stereo while I am driving rideshare. When Barry Manilow’s “I Can’t Smile Without You” came on, the wife got very excited. She explained how much she loved Barry Manilow, and I told her that I, too, was a Fanilow.
Her husband, who was not as enthusiastic about Barry as his wife was, mentioned that they had tickets to see him last year. I told him he was on my list of people to see, and I was surprised when I recently found out that he was still performing. Heck, I was surprised he was still alive!
The wife said they had traveled all the way to Vegas and planned an entire weekend around seeing Barry. They had gotten all the way through the metal detectors at the concert when they were told it was canceled because Barry was not feeling well. The wife said she spent the rest of that weekend very angry about that fact, and the husband confirmed it as he said she took it all out on him. She reminded him that he didn’t have to go, if he didn’t want to. He told her that he will remember that for the next time. She boldly told him that there would be a next time… she will see him!
As I had said to them earlier, I was surprised he was still alive. The wife told me that he was alive and even had grandkids, somethings she was very curious about… “how did he have grandkids?!?“ I laughed, and said, “maybe he adopted?“
At that point, we started talking about all the celebrities who had passed away recently. Last week, the actor who played the bailiff on the TV show “Night Court“ died. The wife was surprised to hear that. The husband went on to say that Suzanne Somers had also died recently. A lot of the people we had watched on TV when we were younger, watching them in first run shows, mind you, not reruns, were all dying.
Some of the names that came to mind for the couple were Lisa Marie Presley, Tony Bennett, Alan Arkin, Richard Roundtree, Jimmy Buffett, Tina Turner, Raquel Welch… the wife did remind us that Wayne Newton was still alive, and she had never seen him but with all this talk of people dying, she was now going to see about catching his show the next time they were in Vegas.
The husband said it was kind of scary that all these people he remembered watching in movies in the theaters or on programs on TV were all gone. It made him feel old. I commented back to him, “Hey, you’re going to Vegas on Halloween weekend. You can’t be that old yet!” He laughed .
The wife said they could still catch a Barry Manilow show, hopefully before he dies. The husband told her that after the last time, she could go on her own.
I almost volunteered to go with her.
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