A PLACE IN TIME

My only claim to fame was meeting and spending time with singer Cat Stevens when I worked at Disney World in the early '70s.

Cat was a huge pop star with an unbelievable talent for writing music and lyrics. At the time, there was no controversy sounding him or his religious beliefs.

I was just a 20-year-old girl who loved his songs; he was a 23-year-old man who asked me to dinner, and for a moment in time, something clicked.

Sitting together in the normal, but surreal, atmosphere of the Polynesian Hotel dinning room, I remember discussing his songs, and he asked me what I thought "Into White" meant.


I had no answer. He confided that it was about how nothing lasts and that sooner or later we all just fade into white.

It was a very poignant realization for me. I was taken aback that such a young
person, with the world at his feet, would dwell so deeply on death.

Little did I know that later in life - on Sept. 11, 2001, at my mother's death, and yesterday after the Virginia Tech massacre - I would think of that song and wonder ... is it all that simple?