Everyone on the radio this morning is mourning David Bowie’s death.  I know the name, of course.  If you asked me who he was, I would reply, “A rock singer.”

That’s about it.

Banjo Man came out of his office to ask me about David Bowie.  I believe his words were,”Everyone’s talking about him.  Why don’t we know him?  What years was he famous?”

“I don’t know.  The seventies?  Eighties?  I think we were into Willie Nelson at the time,” I ventured.  “And Waylon.”

“Huh.”  Banjo Man looked perplexed.  As if he should be more on top of things.  More trendy.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.  “I call it ‘The Diaper Years’, when I was too busy changing diapers to know what was going on in the world.”

There were many, many diaper years.  That was back when we were members of the Columbia Record club and a new vinyl album arrived every four weeks, via snail mail.  It was an event that was very, very exciting in our little mountainside home.

No internet, no Pandora.  No email.  We had to go to the Post Office to get the mail (after 10 AM, thank you).   And long distance phone calls were expensive and had to be timed via the kitchen stove timer so as not to break the budget.

The diapers were cloth, the bread was homemade and, for better or worse, we never crossed musical paths with David Bowie.

I feel really old this morning.