David Cassidy...still breaking hearts.
I am one among thousands, perhaps millions who turned on the television on September 25, 1970 and had their heart stolen. A handsome young man walked off a psychedelic bus and my heart was gone. Stolen by David Cassidy who was introduced to me by Keith Partridge.
I was thirteen years old and just beginning high school. David Cassidy was the talk in the hallways and at the lunch tables of my all-girls high school on Staten Island the day after The Partridge Family aired. A name that a day earlier hadn’t crossed my or my friends’ minds was now the only thing on it.
I imagine for an earlier generation, it was like the first time Elvis appeared on television, but David Cassidy did not swivel his hips with blatant sexuality making parents everywhere gasp in horror. Instead, he had a subtle, innocent sexuality that was approved by our parents because Shirley Jones provided the “G” rating. The Partridge Family was a show we watched with our parents. They along with us laughed at the silly scenarios. Danny, usually the instigator, Keith the buffoon, Laurie the idealist, Tracy along with Chris the innocent and Shirley the voice of reason. It united two generations for those thirty minutes. It was an escape from the nightly news reports that were dividing us. College campus protests and dying boys caused by a war in Vietnam, a country which had also never crossed my mind.
In addition to my heart being stolen by David Cassidy, he also took my money, although sadly, years later I would learn that David didn’t benefit from those purchases. Records, posters, pukka shell necklaces became my treasures. I was too young to attend David Cassidy concerts alone and although my parents watched the television show with me, taking me to a concert was something completely different. And so, I played “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat” over and over again on my small phonograph in my bedroom while a smiling David Cassidy stared down at me from my wall.
My high school years ended the same year The Partridge Family did. I packed for college and left behind my poster, my albums, my pukka shells and David Cassidy. I still liked his songs and would listen to them on occasion when I was home, but never at college. I, like the world, had changed. We both had become “too cool” for David, neither was as innocent as we had been on those Friday nights.
Through the years that followed David Cassidy was not on my mind except when I would occasionally hear a David Cassidy or Partridge Family song on the radio. I turned it up, sang along (much to the dismay of my husband and children) and would become lost for those 2 minutes and 6 seconds. Lost to a time when my biggest concern was buying the latest copy of Tiger Beat with David Cassidy on the cover and reading everything I could about his life. My daughters grew up listening to my nostalgic narratives about him. One year, he was appearing at a local venue, and I was secretly hoping they had bought me tickets as a surprise. The concert came and went, without me. I’ll see him some other time, I thought to myself. Once again David Cassidy was off my mind.
I didn’t follow the stories of his reported downward spiral. I didn’t view the police video of his first DUI that was available at the click of a button on the internet. These were not about my David. The public one who stood on a stage and gave all he had to give to a stadium filled with screaming teens or a small club filled with nostalgic adults who had paid the price of admission. Those stories were about the private one and the price of admission was paid by him, his family and friends.
When I first learned of David Cassidy being rushed to the hospital in need of a liver transplant, he again was on my mind. I never thought he wouldn’t recover. He was David Cassidy, after all. He had provided so much joy and happiness to the World that the World owed this to him. I said a prayer and went about my day. As the weekend approached and his health continued to decline, I found myself, once again, wanting to read everything I could about him. This time though, it wasn’t about his life, it was about his impending death. David like so many years earlier was all I could think about. I prayed. I cried. The vibrant, very talented boy who had stolen my heart 45 years earlier was now a spiritless, very sick man who was breaking it.
Upon hearing the news that David Cassidy had passed away, I grieved. I grieved for David, for his family and his friends. I also grieved for that “some other time”. It was now gone, forever. It went with a man who recognized in the end that like all of us, there are too many “some other times”. His daughter, Katie Cassidy, shared his final words with the World, “so much wasted time.” David Cassidy, in the worst of circumstances still provided one more thing to his fans. He reminded all of us to treasure something far more valuable than records, posters, or pukka beads. Time.
