Baker Street opens with a beautiful flute solo that build into a frenzy before the explosion of horns enters with its timeless hook. This 1978 song remains a radio staple, but to me, it is a visceral reminder of the beginning of the end.
My parents separated somewhere around this time and my mother had been taking some classes at Virginia Commonwealth University. She split time between the two cities, but we stayed with our father and continued going to our elementary school.
My life really did not seem so different. Sure, there was yelling and tension in our house, but I could not begin to comprehend how each of my parents were affected. At 8 years old, I was oblivious to what was happening. I still went to the same school, played with my same friends and slept in my own bed.
But not for long. My mother decided to take my sister and I to Richmond to live with her. We lived in an apartment downtown with one of her art school friends. We enrolled in a new school. The classrooms only opened up from the outside where you would walk from one class to the next. This would not be the last time as the “new kid” in school.
I can only imagine how lonely and desolate my father felt when we left, not only losing his wife but his children. But in the words of Billy Pilgrim, “So it Goes”.
We left my father in my mother’s classmates VW Bug with the windows down and Baker Street playing from the radio.
Childhood lost 