No. 603 – A Different Drum

Performer: Peter Gabriel

Songwriter: Peter Gabriel

Original Release: Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ

Year: 1989

Definitive Version: None

As I mentioned, Jin and I hadn’t always been close, but by the end of the Eighties, we were, so it was with great excitement when she announced in the summer of 1989 that she was moving to Chicago.

She had decided that a liberal-arts college wasn’t for her after all. What she really wanted was to get into film—not as an actor but on the other side of the camera. So after taking a year off to work in Columbus, she applied and was accepted into Columbia College, a well-known dramatic arts institution. She was going to start in the fall quarter.

This was great news. My first year in the Chicago suburbs had been lonely for the most part. I was friendly with the crew with whom I worked at the Daily Herald, but we weren’t really friends, you know? But now with Jin moving an hour’s commute from where I’d be, we’d have lots of opportunities to do stuff. It would be a great excuse to get into the city, of which I couldn’t get enough, on a semi-regular basis.

One of the first weekends she was in town, she took the train out to see me. The Bears were playing the Vikings, and I knew of a pretty good place to get together to watch the game. We got a booth, ordered some lunch and hunkered down. I don’t remember what Jin was drinking, but as I still hadn’t learned to drink properly, particularly beer, I was drinking Baileys and milk—an adult chocolate milk long before some sharpy decided to actually package such a thing.

By kickoff, the place was packed with Bears fans, and the afternoon was a blast. The Bears blew away the Vikings, and the place was rollicking the entire game. Jin, who was a football fan but not a Bears fan per se, got swept up in it and was hooting and hollering as much as anyone.

Afterward, we made plans to do something else in the near future. This time, I’d come into town and we’d explore some places around her residence apartment. I really was looking forward to doing more things with Jin.

Life, however, got in the way.