Those Unexpected Turning Points (Rush Edition)

As many of you know, I've been sick with pneumonia. I don't recommend it, and I'm not having fun with it. I can't wait to start feeling better. But the only positive thing about being stuck at home taking my medicine (and wishing my voice didn't sound like a foghorn) is I had a lot of quiet time. And I found myself thinking about those little moments in our lives that at the time didn't seem very significant but ended up being life-changing.

My husband could probably speak about that. It was 1984, and he was going through a divorce. He had an opportunity to come north for a new job. One night, he went to a club in a suburb of Boston, to try to meet some folks in a city where he knew nobody. And who was at that club? A certain woman from a local radio station, there to help judge a dance contest (hint: it was me). I wasn't there to meet anyone. I planned to do my little judging thing and leave. He and I chatted, we danced a couple of times, but I didn't have any plan to stick around. Plus, while he seemed nice and I could relate to being lonely in a new city, he didn't seem like my type-- he smoked (I'm allergic), he was a social drinker (I never touch the stuff), and his politics seemed more conservative than mine. 

But at some point in the conversation, he mentioned that his daughter liked a certain rock band; he preferred country music, but his daughter was into this band called "Rush," and since I was a deejay, did I know who they were? Well, yes, you might say I did! And out of that unexpected meeting at the club, quite a few other events unfolded. For one thing, he and I started to date. And while our relationship had its ups and downs, eventually, we got married and we are still together. I'm grateful for that. As for his daughter, I was able to get her backstage to meet Rush in person (even Neil showed up). Several weeks from today, it will be four decades since the night my husband and I first met. It certainly didn't turn out the way I expected; and if you asked my husband, I doubt it turned out the way he expected either. As I said, you just never know when something could become a turning point in your life (and the role Rush might play in it).

And that brings back another memory from four decades ago-- the day I got that manila envelope from my friend Bob Roper, of A&M of Canada. It was in the early spring of 1974, and I was sitting in my office at WMMS in Cleveland, auditioning new songs, and the album was by a Canadian band named Rush. I didn't know much about them, but I trusted Roper to send me good Canadian imports, and I figured I'd see what was on the album. So I dropped the needle on one of the longer tracks, a song called "Working Man." It was a really good song. It was a perfect song for a factory town like Cleveland. 

But I had NO idea how that one song would change so many lives. I had no idea that fifty years later, millions of people all over the world would know the band, or that I would become friends with the members of Rush and be with them during key moments in their career. It started with Bob Roper sending me a record. I played it. Fans loved it. And the rest, as they say, is history. But to this day, I'm amazed by how it all turned out. If you had told me back in 1974 that my life would change because of one song by one Canadian band, I doubt I would have believed it. But here we are, nearly fifty years later, and I continue to marvel at how that song became a turning point in my life. Not what I expected. And yet it happened. And as I said, it goes to show there's no way to predict what the future holds, or the enduring power of a certain Canadian band.