In the Air Tonight

Like many people, music forms the soundtrack of my life. When I hear a song that's had an impact on me, for better or for worse, I am immediately transported to that point in time when the song was imprinted on my brain. For this reason, while I love the Clash, their classic Rock the Casbah will forever remind me of a party full of drunk, singing frat boys in college that my girlfriends and I hastily departed. Conversely, while I'm not a fan of Phil Collins, the crappy Genesis song Invisible Touch reminds me watching a bunch of grade school kids dancing their hearts out on a ferry crossing the English Channel which renders it almost tolerable to me.

Horrifyingly, the Phil Collins song that I heard this morning, In the Air Tonight, reminds me of SU's Day Hall my freshman year. We had one elevator in a bank of three that, when you pushed the "emergency stop" button, would skip floors. I lived on the eighth and top residential floor -- so we continually bumped every floor stopping for no one. We called it the Day 8 Express. The repair man was also a frequent sight on our floor, and in the control room in the empty floor above, as the elevator was forever stopping between floors with the doors wide open (i.e., where people would have to climb in and out) and/or simply breaking down (i.e., out of order).

One warm, sunny day, my friends and I spent the day studying, hiking and playing Frisbee at Green Lakes State Park. When we arrived back, the winding road leading up to our dorm was closed so we parked down the hill and walked up. As we got closer, we initially noticed crowds of people gathered outside the dorm fire drill style and a moment later we saw the coroner's van. It was a slow motion, surreal experience.

Based on what we were told, a blond kid from my floor named Matt was getting into the elevator and it went up, doors wide open, to the control floor above -- decapitating him and sending his body down the shaft.

When we were allowed back into the dorm, to say the mood on the floor was somber would be a gross understatement. To the best of my recollection, we were not given grief counseling. Maybe I just don't remember it. What I do remember was a group of us sitting in Fernando's dorm room in silence just listening to music.

Well the hurt doesn't show but the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you and me