No. 620 – Deja Vu

Performer: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Songwriter: David Crosby

Original Release: Deja Vu

Year: 1970

Definitive Version: None

At the time my parents began to go through the arduous process of the dissolution of their marriage—and I began to go through the arduous process of attending junior high school—CSNY and all variants were No. 1 on my playlist.

It was at this time that I discovered this song. When Dad had been in charge of the living-room stereo, he always played Side 1 in his stack. After he left, and I took charge of the stereo, I decided to flip the record over.

It was only after I got older that I understood why we had to move from our house, because I sure didn’t understand it at the time. My parents’ dissolution—they went that route instead of a full-blown divorce, which Mom later regretted—had been finalized in February 1977, and we still lived in the same house we had since moving there in 1972. Why do we have to move now?

The why soon enough became beside the point, so I started getting into the search. We looked at houses and condominiums. I had two requirements: I wanted it to be near where my friends lived, and it wanted it to be cool.

I gave a big thumbs-down to one house we looked at that was near the Kingsdale shopping center. It was a split-level on a corner lot, and I not only would have had my own bedroom, but also the room was on a lower level and I had my own door to the outside.

But it looked too much like a generic house for me, and I’d be in a totally different neighborhood from Marty. As I mentioned, we were inseparable during this time, and I felt as though I couldn’t be without my compadre. I don’t know whether my vote had anything to do with it, but we passed on the house, which, of course, I later regretted when the advantages of having a separate unmonitored entrance and exit became all too clear.

Soon after that we looked at a condominium on Carriage Hill Lane, which was maybe a quarter-mile from where we lived. It was only slightly farther from Greensview School, so Jin and Scott wouldn’t have to change schools, and I’d be close to Marty. The living room and staircase were open to the second floor, and it had a loft off the main bedroom. Now that’s cool. And I wouldn’t have to cut any grass—a big bonus as I was in the process of honing my laziness.

The drawback was I’d have to share my bedroom with Scott. There certainly were worse things than that, so I signed off on it. Just before the school year mercifully ended, we moved to our new home—the Condo.

Until further notice, the Condo was where I lived the longest—almost nine years. It also, without question, was the setting of the most family tumult. I thought when we moved there, the crazy period of our lives—our parent’s divorce—was over. It turns out, it was just beginning.