Oh, Gosh.
Eighty years ago today, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra made their last live radio broadcast:
I’m a bit younger than many who might remember this (I was 68 this past week). But I grew up in the British West African colonies, and we were a bit behind the eight-ball when it came to popular culture.
Subsequent to these broadcasts, Glenn Miller persuaded the US Army–in late 1942–to accept his relatively elderly self (he was 38 or so) into the position of the leader of a “modernized Army band.” On December 15, 1944, he and everyone else on the plane with him, lost his life in a crash somewhere between Twinwood Farm Air Field (in the UK) and Paris, France.
Meanwhile, and ever since, his music–and the sound of the era–lives on:
Lord. So many memories. And so much appreciation for those who abandoned celebrity and fame in order to serve those who–in times of national extremis–were giving their all.
Thank you Glenn Miller. On behalf of those who lived, and those who died, I’ll never forget.
