My Date With Donnie (Pt II)

If you didn't get a chance to read Part I, click here (or just scroll down) to read that first!

Back already? What did you think?

Now this song I mentioned was a hit for about 20 minutes. Plus it was, um, several years ago (hint: I was a DJ for the college’s 10-watt radio station at the time) and it was not the kind of worldwide smash you find being played on oldies radio -- and don’t think I’m not bitter that My Music wound up on “oldies” radio – so all I’ve had was my memories to carry me through. And since memory has a way of gilding the past (have I ever told you about my triumphs on the high school tennis team? Oh, all right, my “triumph” on the high school tennis team), the song just got better & better as the years passed.

When I found myself at flea markets and the like, I would often leaf through the albums box to see if old Donnie was there, but apparently the guy who bought his album was holding onto it. Gradually the song receded from the cluttered desktop of my mind to the back of the bottom drawer.

Not too many weeks ago I was walking down a street in a nearby city, on my way to Somewhere Else. Even a “be-right-back” somewhere else… but then I passed a used record store. Actually, I just realized, that’s redundant; there are no “new-record” stores. Anyway, there was a $1 box sitting on the sidewalk.

I’m getting there – don’t get ahead of me.

Oh, all right, you guessed it – I found Donnie in the box, metaphorically speaking. I went in the store, plunked down my buck, exchanged a few words with the guy working there – one of the few living humans who could be expected to have any clue what I was talking about – and became the proud owner of a 26-year-old vinyl album (on which I only recognized one song).

But there’s a new catch, and that was that my turntable was broken – some sort of needle/stylus issue. And since the turntable is (unsurprisingly, if you think about it) almost exactly the same age as the album, it was even money whether it was fixable.

I was brooding about this some days later as I sat at my computer, when suddenly it dawned on me: everything in the universe is available on the Internet. And since guys my age tend to be both nostalgia geeks and computer geeks, I wasn’t surprised to find a site dedicated to all things Donnie.

He’s actually a real estate agent now, but he still plays in a band with one of his original bandmates from the big time. And I gather that in and around Beaver Falls, PA, they’re still the big time.

And…. And! On top of that, clicking around the site for a few minutes (sorry, boss, I promise I made up the time), I found a Downloadable. Video Clip. Of The Song. Well, I sucked up that puppy in nothing flat.

Then I had a moment’s pause. How many stories have you heard of someone who pursued a dream, an obsession, a vague notion … only to find themselves disappointed? Maybe it wouldn’t be all I remembered.

But I threw caution to the winds and I played it. I have to admit, it’s a really cheesy video; but he did have a kind of tongue-in-cheek persona, so I took that with a grain of salt. But the song… you know what? The song still rocked.

It’s a tremendous relief to know I haven’t been pursuing some sort of white-whale-shaped inflatable pool toy all these years. It’s also a relief to get that out of the bottom drawer of my mind. I’m not sure I really want to look in that drawer again anytime soon – I’m getting too old to be sucked into any more 26-year quests.