Brother Love's still Traveling with Salvation Shows.

Back in the early 70’s my husband and I attended a Neil Diamond concert in the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. We had seats topside, but I ran down to dance in the isle in front of the stage, wearing an open, black-hooded ski jacket and tight-fitting jeans. I was in eleventh heaven when Neil sang Forever in BlueJeans and kept pointing right at me, making me feel he was dancing with me from 20 feet away. I was so thrilled that I ran all the way back up to my husband to tell him, and spent the rest of the concert holding his hand so that I could come back to earth. We left our seats in the middle of the last encore, to race out ahead of the crowd and beat the traffic out of the parking garage across the street, but had to stop at the corner to wait for the pedestrian crossing light, when lo and behold, a limousine comes out from under the arena and stops at the corner to make a right turn, right in front of us. The rear window rolled down about six inches and I heard a man say, “There you are again! I’ve been singing all my songs for you.” And then they drove off. My husband was taller than me, so he could see into the car, and when I looked up at him he said, “That was Neil Diamond.” and I said “Wow! What a line. I think I’ll believe it.” And when Neil produced ThreeChordOpera in 2000, I believed that every line in every song was meant for me to take to heart, and use to make my escape in a big old car($100 Cadillac)from hopelessly Yuppified Humboldt County, to the Edge of Night, south of DeathValley where I could see the Vegas glow over the Panamint Mountains, and wait for him to cruise by on his bike(w/armrests)and give me the line, “Baby, let’s ride” in person. It never happened, but I lived the romance for eight years, checking out the biker traffic out of Vegas, on the Old Spanish Trail. I told this story to a Vermonter friend of mine in 1984, and his comment was, “How many fans do ya think he says that to?” And I said, “Yeah, but…why do you think WE love him so much and forever?” I think it’s because he means every word, sincerely. Relevance is very rare in the World these days, so real moments shared are precious.