Right around the time that big old pink supermoon arrived in the sky last night, John Prine left us. I like to think he would have liked to pen a song about that, capturing it in lines that rhyme. Within the confines of four verses, it would be full of mischief and marvel, working us over the way a Prine song does, making us laugh and cry at the same time.

I was sixteen years old the first time I heard one of his songs, and for that lyrical moment – and so many others – I am indebted to my English teacher, Mr. Jones. Every day, Mr. Jones wore the same tweed jacket – it had leather patches on the elbows and on its lapel, a “Save the Otter” button. Naturally, he was well-read, but in retrospect – and more importantly – he was as accessible as a John Prine song. Always the best reader in the room, be brought vividly to life Chaucer’s Pardoner and other questionable characters, knowing the bawdy exchanges that would most appeal to our adolescent sensibilities. With impeccable timing, he knew when we’d had our fill of something like as hefty as the Great Expectations of Charles Dickens. And, at such times, he would pause to wax philosophical or tell us to underscore in red great chunks of text we should learn by heart:

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

For emphasis, he would add “Great stuff!”

Mr. Jones didn’t realize he introduced me to John Prine just as he had changed my life by bringing to it the words and music of Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. He even let me borrow his records. I remember like it was yesterday, a day when we were discussing one of Wilfred Owen’s war poems – which led to me learning about the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and subsequently wearing a CND badge on the lapel of my school blazer – Mr. Jones told me about No Nukes, a live album featuring many of the artists that would contribute to the soundtrack of my life. Because I wanted to impress him, I spent my lunch-money at Ronnie Millar’s Pop-in record shop and came home with my the first triple album. It remains part of my collection – part of me. On Side 1 of Record 1 were two songs performed by Bonnie Raitt, one of them the John Prine song that began flooding the airwaves last night, the song that has followed me like a shadow for forty odd years – “Angel from Montgomery.” How the hell does a twenty-something mailman write a song from the vantage point of a middle aged Southern woman trapped in her own self-made prison? How did John Prine know that a 16 year old girl in Northern Ireland was afraid that she too might one day be trapped in a hot kitchen, the silence around her disturbed only by the sounds of ’em buzzin’?

I could have asked him when I met him after a sold-out show in Phoenix. The roadies had packed it all up, and he was the only person left backstage. I couldn’t believe my luck – a brief but private audience with John Prine. If he was in a hurry to leave, he didn’t show it. As if we were old friends striking up a conversation that had begun years ago, he told me he loved Ireland and had a house there. His wife was Irish. I told him I loved his songs and . . . I told him to write some more. With a croaky chuckle and laughing eyes, he didn’t say he wouldn’t. He thanked us for coming to the show and gave me a big hug. I will forever be grateful for that opportunity. I had won the big door prize.

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