All his life was a circle.
Harry Chapin’s life began in NYC, was lived making other peoples’ lives better, and came to an end on the Long Island Expressway 40 years ago today when the Volkswagen Rabbit he was driving was hit from behind by a tractor-trailer. He was 38.
I’m remembering him today as I so often do.
Sometime before that July 16th afternoon in 1981, I had the occasion to sit in his car while I watched him comb through its assorted contents: music equipment, clothes, coffee cups, and spare change. Lots of spare change. He was searching for a pair of jeans, other than the ones he was wearing. He would later auction them off from the stage. On the worn denim pant leg he would write the opening lyrics of “Taxi.”
The jeans ultimately ended up in the lucky hands of the highest bidder, a drummer named Susie, for $75. By today’s standards, it doesn’t sound like much. But It was the 1970s, after all, and that was a sizable amount of money for a student.
He had come to the small, all women’s college I attended to perform for free. All the money earned from the show – $3,500 it turned out, plus Susie’s $75 – would be donated to World Hunger Year, an organization he started to fight poverty and food insufficiency. It felt like a million dollars to us and he accepted it as graciously as if it were.
Like a lot of people, I loved Harry Chapin’s music. I would get lost in his stories. And, like a lot of people, I wanted to meet him. When the yearbook committee that I headed up wanted to include never-before color photographs in that year’s edition and funds were nil, I saw my chance. “I know,” I thought. “I’ll call Harry. I’ll see if we could get him to perform at our small college. If we sold out, I figured we could pay him about one thousand dollars and still have enough of a profit to upgrade the yearbook. I was certain he’d be as excited about my idea as I was. I’ll simply get in touch with him.
But how? How do you call a Grammy-nominated artist? Well, you start by calling his agent who won’t take your call. Then you look in the phone book (yes, I said phone book) and you phone everyone named Chapin in the NY Metro area. Then you get lucky and get his sister on the phone. Shocked, you tell her about your obsession: the yearbook. She gives you the number to Harry’s house. Your stomach drops. You call.
“Hello. May I speak with Mr. Chapin, please?” “Which one?,” asked the older man on the other end. “Harry, please.” “Hold on.” (Hand over receiver), “Harrry …telephone!”
“Hello!”
“Mr. Chapin, my name is Cathy Duca, hello. I’m the editor of the yearbook at my college and we’d really like to have color pictures this year, and …”
“First of all, don’t call me Mr. Chapin. That’s my father. Call me Harry.”
“Okay, Mr. Chapin, thank you. Anyway, the yearbook …” I tell him about paying him the thousand dollars. He laughs.
“I normally get twenty-five thousand dollars for a show.”
I gulp. “Well … well … “
“Thanks, Cathy. Sorry. I wish you good luck. Bye now.”
Before I heard the click of the phone, I said emphatically (urgently), “Mr. Chapin, I mean Harry, it’s not just about the yearbook. We’re an all-women’s college and … and … we believe in the same things you believe in, helping one another, giving to one another . That’s the kind of school we are. Maybe if we split the thousand, and give five hundred to an organization?”
“Okay, tell you what. Come up with something. I’ll be there on October 18th at 8:00. That all right?”
We never spoke again until he and his band walked onto the campus at 8:00, as promised. He pulled up in his blue VW Rabbit. He felt like a big brother. He performed to a standing room only crowd of about one thousand people. Every single ticket was sold by word-of-mouth, no advertising, no budget, just a couple of months of handing out flyers and telling everyone we knew what we were doing. Each person there knew the cause – the larger one – and seemed excited to be a part of it. A personal highlight was when Harry shared with the audience the story of our phone conversation. I think he referred to me as “fast-talking” Cathy Duca and then invited me on stage to sing the prelude to “Cats in the Cradle” with him. I’ll never forget it, ever.
Two days later, another student from the college was on the local bus, returning to campus from her student teaching job. As the bus neared the campus, she overheard a man ask the driver if the upcoming stop was the correct one to get onto campus. He told the driver that he did a show there two nights earlier and his car wouldn’t start. It was apparently towed to a nearby service station. Exactly how he got back to Long Island after the concert I’ll never know. But clearly, he took public transportation to get back to NJ to retrieve his car. There was a trace neither of a limousine nor a huge ego.
Harry Chapin used his celebrity as a platform to bring attention and dollars to social causes. When he performed, he did more than entertain. He inspired. He aroused. He made you feel as though your worth was exactly what the world needed, and he made you feel as if you suddenly had more of it.
He is buried in a cemetery in Huntington, New York, his epitaph taken from his 1978 song “I Wonder What Would Happen to This World”:
Oh if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man’s life could be worth
I wonder what would happen
to this world
Harry Chapin traveled an arc from storyteller to activist. I suppose his last day on this plane completed his journey as he was headed to do one more benefit concert in East Meadows, NY. He closed his life’s circle having left a legacy of service, of love and compassion in both what he said and what he did. I think of him as a rugged and gentle troubadour. Anyone who knew him or knew of him was familiar with his mantra, “When in doubt, do something.” His philosophy was as simple and as potent as that.
You also knew that storytelling was his love language and touching hearts his currency. He deeply and forever touched mine.
Somewhere inside of me still lives that college student. She’s wrapped in a 60-something body and outlook now, with nary the innocence and idealism. Yet, as I reflect on the passion and goodness of one man, I can feel it scaling some of the jadedness and pessimism that has built up of late, like plaque around my heart. Legacy is a curious thing. It can, when focused upon, reignite a flame once thought gone.
In some way, to me, Harry Chapin will always be 38 and I will always be 18.
While I and others were off to find things like footlights, he was off to find the sky.
I hope he did.