When I heard that Dash Crofts had died at 85, I was reminded of something unsettling.
The music stays. We don’t.
Crofts, half of Seals & Crofts, was part of the soundtrack of my youth—though I hadn’t thought about him, or them, in years. Their songs weren’t always front and center. They lived in the background, floating through long summer days, woven into moments that felt ordinary at the time but permanent in memory.
“Summer Breeze makes me feel fine, blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind.”
When I hear that lyric now, I’m back at a pool club in Stony Brook, New York. Endless summers. Families spending entire days together. Kids chasing tennis balls across hot pavement. The steady click-clack of mahjong tiles. A line at the snack bar for cold Sprites. Music pouring out of oversized boom boxes, filling the air without asking for attention.
No one checked a phone. There was nowhere else to be.
“See the smile awaitin’ in the kitchen
Food cookin’ and the plates for two
Feel the arms that reach out to hold me
In the evening, when the day is through.”
The song reaches across decades to a version of home that no longer exists except in fragments. A feeling more than a place.
For me, Seals & Crofts were never just songs. They were markers—quiet signposts along the road.
One of them was “Fair Share,” which I first heard in the movie “One on One.” I was 13 when it came out. I took a date to see it at the Smith Haven Mall. We sat side by side, eyes locked on the screen, both too afraid to look at each other.
For two hours, we stared straight ahead afraid to look at each other.
My eyes never moved. Neither did hers.
When the credits rolled, we walked out the same way we walked in.
One of many missed moments that were still to come.
And yet, those were the days.
Another Seals & Crofts song, “We May Never Pass This Way Again,” carries a different memory. I was in my dorm at college, standing in the hallway of Hart Hall, watching three young women singing at the top of their lungs into hairbrushes, using them as microphones. Behind them, a window framed Lake Ontario in all its quiet magnitude.
They were graduating, I was staying. Life was just beginning for all of us. The road ahead felt long and wide and full of possibility.
I married one of those women.
It didn’t last. But that’s not the point. I have many fond memories and that was one of them.
We believed we’d always find our way back—to Oswego, to that hallway, to that version of ourselves.
We didn’t.
We visited once or twice. But not in the way we imagined. Not with the same feeling. And then, somehow, 40 years passed.
And so it goes.
Life fills up. Kids, jobs, deadlines, obligations. The days become structured, then crowded, then gone.
“We may never pass this way again” isn’t just a lyric. It’s a truth that reveals itself slowly, then all at once.
I’m reminded of a line from one of my favorite shows “The Office.”
“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
We never do know. Not really.
The moments that feel small—the ones we barely notice—are the ones that stay. The background music. The laughter from across a room. The way the light came through a window at a particular time of day.
Last week, Paul McCartney released a new song at 83. It’s called “Days We Left Behind.” It’s beautiful, classic Paul. And in it, he sings:
“Nothing ever stays…
No one can erase the days we left behind.”
Nothing lasts forever.
Not summers.
Not songs drifting from a boom box.
Not the people we thought we’d always be.
But the memories—somehow—do.
I was just transported back to my childhood in Northern California. Seals and crofts were a main stay in my family‘s music repertoire. We had the same pool club and boom boxes and cold sprites. We were faster than you east coasters. I didn’t see one second of the movie.
In my next life, I’m asking to come back as Randy (minus the Tesla).
You never cease to amaze me
The memories and feelings your words have just hit right . There was nowhere else to be.
That was those days and they were great
Mom ,dad and everyone healthy with so many things to come
Sharon, I really miss those days.
Those songs were such a part of our young life. I listen to them and go back 55 years in my heart. Beautiful…
We were so fortunate to grow up when we did.
Music back then was just different. When I hear the names Seals & Crofts, “Diamond Girl” comes to mind, along with many other’s. Like so many other things that have changed since those days, the music still endures and takes those of us who grew up during that time to a place of innocence and hope. That’s what music can do. Seals and Crofts played a small but important part in that. Thank you. Rest easy Dash Crofts.
Well said Scot.
Beautifully written! Thank you so much for sharing this; it resonated deeply.
Thanks for making my day!
Beautifully written. As a “person of numbers” (Math major), I envy (in a good way) people that say so much with simple words! And a good reminder of so many meaningful songs from our younger days!
Thanks Maria.
You never cease to amaze me
The memories and feelings your words have just hit right . There was nowhere else to be.
That was those days and they were great
Mom ,dad and everyone healthy with so many things to come
Jeff, you took me back all the way to my early teenage years in College Park, MD. I can smell the Hawaiian Tropic, fresh cut grass and hot dogs at the neighborhood pool as we lay on our beach towels and sing along to the radio beside our heads. I can hear the University of Md band practicing … so we turned up the volume on our radio. I remember watching all the cute boys walk by and showing off on the diving board. What a journey down memory lane. Thank you!
Hi Elise. Such a kind comment. Wonderful memories. And today is pretty good too. So glad to have you and Charles in our lives.
I am grateful for our friendship – every single day.
I am too.
Jeff
Thank you for this lovely message
At this very moment I am in Boston visiting my 2 buds from Elementary school
We are in our 70’s & they don’t travel.
I felt I needed one last laugh in person. We are having one lovely moment after another.
Kathy
Enjoy the trip and your friends Kathy!
Lonely for those wonderful days.
And Randy and his Tesla.
❤️
Me too!