It's a casualty of my profession, having to say goodbye to people who go away. This past week, 6 students successfully defended their MS theses, and so this means that most of them will soon be saying goodbye.
There is a famous radio sketch from 11 January 1948 by Jack Benny that involves a taxi driver who can't bear to say goodbye. A summary follows:
Jack and Rochester pack warm clothes for the trip to Denver. ... Jack and Mary take a taxi to Union Station, but the driver doesn't want to take them all the way to the station because he hates to say good-bye. They meet Rochester, who is bringing Polly so she can forget the carrier pigeon she was in love with. The taxi driver shows up to say good-bye again. They run into Phil, who is taking a later train. A woman asks for Phil's autograph, but he gives her a lock of his hair instead. Don joins them and talks about how he prefer a lower on the sleeper car. Jack gets his tickets from Frank Nelson at the ticket counter, and then has to run to catch the train. Upon reaching his bed on the sleeper car, he finds the taxi driver waiting for him because he just cannot say good-bye.
If you want to hear the sketch, listen to this and skip to 11:35 into the program.
As you can guess, the taxi driver shows up throughout the show. He can't bear to say goodbye and neither can I.
Kind of a tangent to what you said, but in the same vein, this time of year always has me get really nostalgic for some reason. And I'm not even going anywhere. I'll be right back next year. I'm not even leaving town for the summer. I'm not even leaving my room. And I haven't even had anything really that amazing happen this year. But still, every time the end of year rolls around I get all weird and nostalgic. Crazy, eh?
Posted by: Nathan at April 25, 2003 1:09 AM