Long before I felt compelled to discuss politics, I was already a longtime member of a Leon Russell message board.
It was the very early days of the internet and AOL and dial up were the norm, so "video chatting" was virtually nonexistent.
In fact, multimedia of any kind was considered exotic...and time consuming to deal with for the most part due to dial up performance.
Along about 1998 or so, we got it in our heads to finally get together as a fan club in person, and we even decided to try to pool our money and hire Leon to play a special venue
"just for us...the Leon Lifers".
And the funny part was, here we were, most of us middle aged, most of us family people with kids, and on quite a few occasions it was THE KIDS who stopped and turned and said,
"Wait a second...you're always telling us about stranger danger and yet here you are, and you're all going to meet people that you don't even know, people you met on the internet, the very thing you keep telling US to NEVER do?"
And sure enough, one Leon Lifer gathering led to it becoming an annual thing in short order!
And the family of the guy who STARTED the online Leon fan club decided that they were OUR "Mom and Dad" so to speak and Miss Honey, a grand old lady in Oklahoma, opened her home to us for an annual get together and outdoor party and barbecue.
It finally became so big that we began to take over venues in both Muskogee and Tulsa, and STILL invading Miss Honey's home as well, and the Leon Lifer "shindigs" became four or five day happenings.
And sure enough, eventually some of the single men and ladies began to fall in love, and as a result there have been something like seven or eight marriages resulting from the common bond of Leon Russell's music.
So sure, it does happen, if there is enough common ground and enough of a bonding experience.
Even though Leon has now left us for his spiritual journey, the Leon Lifer shindig continues and we continue to be a great big warm and slightly dysfunctional family, and there's even a few love connections happening even now, this time with the younger generation of Lifers, who are now discovering and rediscovering the music of the "Master of Space and Time"...and discovering that there are warm bonds between them.
