POOR HENRY

Poor Henry Gale. We never got his back story on how a balloonist from Minnesota would have crashed landed in a hidden Pacific island.

The Gale sub-story was contained in the episode, "Lockdown," in which the Hatch group was at odds after finding Ben in the jungle. Some believed his story that he was not "one of them," the Others, but a fellow crash survivor. But Sayid always had his doubts about Ben's story. So he went on a mission to find the balloon crash site. When he returned to the Hatch, he told Ben and everyone that he found the balloon and the grave of Henry's wife. A relieved Ben smiled to his prison guards. But that was soon wiped away when Sayid said that he dug up the grave to find the remains of a man named Henry Gale and his identification. The cause of Gale's death was an apparent broken neck.

What we know of Gale is that a) his was from Wayzata, Minnesota; b) he was born August 11, 1964; c) he had a wife named Jennifer; he was a 6'3" 220 lb black man.  The balloon was sponsored by Widmore Corporation, Minnesota Metallurgy, Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack and Nozz-A-La Cola. Two of those sponsors have direct links to the Island.

Was there any significance to August 11, 1964 birthdate?
Historical events from August 11th include:

1. In 3114 BC, the Long Count calendar of the Mayans begins.
2. In 1332, the Scots are routed by the English in the Scottish Independence War.
3. In 1929, Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career.
4. in 1934, the first civilian prisoners arrive at Alcatraz.
5. In 1942, actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for frequency-hopping spread spectrum communications system which will become the basis for modern wireless telephone technologies including Wi-Fi.
6. In 1950, Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak is born.
7. In 1964, race riots begin in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.
8. In 1972, the last U.S. ground troops leave Vietnam.

From the clues found at the crash site, the balloon crash occurred sometime in 2003. This assumes Gale didn't allow his license to expire and that Minnesota has a four-year license renewal period. The $20 bill that Gale had on him was issued on October 9, 2003, according to the serial number on the bill.

This would put Gale's solo balloon quest in late 2003. At this point in time, the Dharma folks had been purged by Ben and the Others. Desmond was locked down in the Hatch with Kelvin since 2001.

There are many theories about what Gale's appearance on the island meant, but there is more a coincidence in that Gale follows the pattern of "lost" adventurers like Desmond. Like Dez, there was an apparent connection with Widmore who had a burning desire to find the island that had banished him.

The unanswered mysteries around Gale are:

• How did Henry Gale break his neck?
• Who buried him?
• How and when did Henry and his balloon come to fly over the Island?
• Of all possible cover stories, why did Ben choose Henry Gale's identity?

One possibility is that Gale was going to be the replacement for Kelvin or Desmond. He would fit the mold of being a technical person who may have been motivated by his quest to impress his wife, so that he could be manipulated to press the buttons for the next several years.

Or that Gale followed the role of Naomi, as a Widmore agent trying to find then gather intel on the Island for Widmore. If so, the Others would have probably killed him because "he was one of the bad guys."

Gale could have been a Jacob "candidate," but his name does not appear on any list.

He could have been a dumb sap who got caught up in another "incident" that caused his balloon to unwittingly plunge onto the island. We know that he survived the crash landing because he wrote a note to his wife on the back of a $20 bill:

Jennifer,
Well you were
right. Crossing
the Pacific
isn't easy.
I owe you a
beer. I'm
hiking to one of
the beaches to
start a
signal fire, but
if you're reading
this, I guess I didn't
make it. I'm sorry,
I love you Jenny,
always have,
always will.
Yours,
Henry 

As a result, Sayid assumes Ben and the Others killed him, while Ben simply denied that he had any part in it. The only other alternative is that Rousseau or one of her traps killed Gale, then she found the note and buried him next to his balloon. But since Ben knew so much of Gale's background information (including his name), Gale's demise most likely occurred at the hands of the Others.

But Henry's note is very similar in tone to the pining Desmond kept for his Penny when Dez was trapped on the Island. There is a pattern of long separation between loved ones that keeps an island captive in an emotional state.

A charged emotional state was one of the background themes in the series. When a person is in a highly emotional situation, their mind can wander, weaken or plunge into darkness. There were clues that boost those observations:

Henry Gale is the name of Dorothy's uncle in 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. In that story, the Wizard travels from Omaha, Nebraska, to the land of Oz in a hot air balloon. The first episode where Jacob appears is called "The Man Behind the Curtain" also an allusion to the Wizard of Oz. One could make the connection that Gale's appearance on the island is in someway related to Jacob.

The Smiley face on the balloon is a nod to the WATCHMEN comic book. Nozz-A-La Cola is a reference to Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It is the soda that exists in an alternate universe in place of Coca-Cola.  These may be clues that Gale was part of an alternative reality.

We do not know much more about Gale or his background. But we also have few facts about Desmond's early life.  Desmond did not graduate from university because he had to support his three brothers after the unknown death or disappearance of their father. This leads to a question of whether the "taking" of people by Jacob to the island may be "generational," i.e. Desmond's father may have been an earlier candidate who disappeared just as his son would decades later.

One day, in late 1995 or 1996, Desmond was drinking while painting his flat. He fell off of the ladder hitting his head on the floor, and was splayed out in the red paint which pooled underneath him and splattered on the walls. Just after, Penny came home and seeing him on the floor went to help him. This fall would begin to trigger Desmond's mental flashes. In 1996 at Camp Millar (north of Glasgow, Scotland), Desmond woke up from what he thought was a dream, in which he was in a helicopter in a storm. In reality, his consciousness was time traveling to December 24, 2004. Desmond continued to uncontrollably leap back and forth between 1996 and 2004. Confused when in the future, 1996-Desmond received instructions from the 2004 Daniel Faraday to meet him at The Queen's College Department of Physics in Oxford in 1996. After Desmond convinced Daniel that he had been to the future, 1996-Daniel Faraday explained that unless Desmond found a "a constant" something familiar and meaningful in both time periods, he (Desmond) would likely have a brain aneurysm and die. Desmond decided that Penny would be his constant.

Like Gale, Desmond set off on a quest that his mate did not endorse.  Desmond then traveled to America, where Widmore's solo race was set to begin in 2001.  Desmond met Libby Smith (the same woman from Hurley's mental institution) in a café, where she insisted on buying him coffee. During their conversation, Desmond confided in her his shortcomings for joining the race. Libby then surprisingly revealed her ownership of a boat which had belonged to her late husband. Upon her insistence, Desmond eventually accepted Libby's offer of the boat, promising to win the race "for love."

This puts Libby's role in the light of being an enabler - - - much like Naomi acted as Jacob's agent to get people to the island. She could have been also acting on behalf of Widmore, who wanted to get rid of poor Dez so his daughter would not wind up with a loser. It would also mean that Libby was also present to observe, then get Hurley onto Flight 815. It could also mean that since Libby had three husbands, maybe hubby number two was an avid balloonist - - - and she donated her late husband's balloon to Gale so he could accomplish his mission for his wife.

But unlike Desmond's eventual reunion with Penny, Gale's life and time on the island was cut extremely short. But there is a pattern that new people were brought to the island by shipwreck, balloon crash and plane crash, catastrophic events which in many cases cause death. Gale's broken neck could have been upon impact, and the rest of his story may have been an illusion like Oz.

BEST OF TIMES

Here is a new question. If Christian was correct in saying that the main characters in the church died well before and well after Jack, why did they all appear in the church as their "island" selves?

The metaphysical question is what is the physical appearance of the dead in purgatory.

It may not be a bothersome proposition because it was just a television show, and the actors aged only 6 years.  But the show did use other actors to play the main characters roles such as in childhood or as young adults. But TPTB chose to represent the dead LOST cast in the church at their island ages.

Can one infer that when one's soul goes to purgatory, its physical appearance is locked in place? This would seem to match the ancient Egyptian concept of mummification of the deceased body and organs for the reconstruction and rebirth of that person in the after life.

Now, Christian also said that the people in the church waiting for Jack were present because they shared the "most important" time in their lives. He did not say "the best" times. The idea of the shared experience of an airplane crash may be important, and the survival of the plane crash even more important, but there were some characters who should have lived full lives beyond the island crash.

For the church scene to make sense, it would seem that all the characters were "locked" in their physical place based upon the moment they went into island airspace. And in the purgatory world, Aaron becomes the problem child. It is hard to imagine that Aaron, who left the island with Kate and was with his grandmother when Claire was rescued, would not have lived a full life outside the island. But the ending church realm has Aaron being born - - - meaning that he was still a fetus when the sideways world was "created." It also creates the massive logic issue of how can a dead mother, Claire, give "birth" to her child in purgatory? (In some respects that pregnancy issue was at the heart of Ben's island research with Juliet, i.e. evidence that the Island could also have been a purgatory state.) Was Aaron really born on the island, or was that a fantasy?

For if Aaron's physical spirit was locked in as shown in the after life (as a fetus or new born), one would have to conclude that Aaron died in the plane crash or shortly after birth on the Island. Otherwise, it would have been more appropriate to have a grown Aaron with Claire in the church, or no Aaron at all.  The idea that Claire "needed" to have Aaron's birth to "awaken" in the after life to reconnect her feelings with Charlie seems to be an unnecessarily convoluted plot twist. It makes Aaron a mere prop for Claire to accept her own death. A death that may have been caused because of a traumatic child birth (which mirrors Ben's back story birth).

And if Aaron's "most important" life moment was being born on the island, that would mean Aaron had no other life . . . his soul represents only a fixed newborn whose life was measured in weeks not years. One cannot say that the best days of Aaron's life were on the island unless those were his "only" days.

Then again, the Ajira escapees would have lived a long lives after leaving the island. Kate, Sawyer and Claire would have aged before they died "long after" Jack. But again, their appearance in the sideways after life was that of the island time of the plane crash. Kate, Sawyer and Claire had life expectancies of forty years or more. They would have had the opportunity to change, meet new people, forge new relationships and put the island terror behind him. Kate could have reconnected with her husband, the Florida policeman. Claire could have reconnected with Aaron's father. Sawyer could have reconnected with the mother of his child. All those pre-flight bonds and relationships were present when they left the island for good. So, one would then have to assume that none of those mainland reunions ever took place. One could also assume that the Ajira people may have never made it back. Or one could assume no one ever left the island, per se.

The physical appearances of the characters in the sideways church and Christian's vague explanation creates more fundamental questions. The sideways plot premise does not seem to be consistent when one looks at the individual characters, especially post-island time. In fact, it leads us down the path to consider one explanation: that the sideways purgatory was also the island purgatory - - - the lost souls were locked in their spiritual and physical forms when Flight 815 crashed on the island.

But then again, the appearance of Christian in the church is also problematic. He was never on the island. He died in Australia. His body was never on the plane. He only had two connections: Jack and Claire. So if Jack's island friends "created" the sideways world as a purgatory holding pen for their souls until Jack accepted his own death, Christian's soul would not have been part of that collective experience (unless of course, they were all souls passing through the same after life gate and Christian, Eloise or some other guardian angel corralled them in place so they could "move on together.") Christian should not have been the master of ceremonies at the end.

It is hard to imagine that the island time was "the best times" for the main characters. That shared experience was so powerful that their souls would be linked forever. For a character like Locke, that seems counterproductive. The main characters abandoned him to die alone (or at the hands of Ben). Locke's soul would have had a better or stronger connection to meet up with his mother or even Helen in the after life. But he wound up with the 815 survivors in the after life, but sadly, he wound up alone without a soul mate. How cruel is that?

There is also an issue of why all the people in the church needed to be together in order to "move on." Was it some kind of reward for destroying MIB? Probably not, because Christian said the characters themselves created this diversion place. Recall, Jacob told Alpert that he could not resurrect the dead but he could grant some form of immortality. So it was probably not necessary to have the characters in the church to complete their journey. In fact, Rose and Bernard seem the most out of place. They specifically told them they did not want any more part of the island melodramas. They went off on their own to build their own cabin and live out their own lives without anyone else. When Rose and Bernard would have died,  one would have assumed they would have moved on together without the help of anyone else.

The problem with the "happy ending" to LOST is that when one begins to drill down through the smiles, it really cannot be considered a happy ending. There are too many inconsistencies and questions to say that the main characters needed each other in order to have true eternal happiness.

THE WAIT

"We've been waiting for you," Locke tells Jack as he enters the main church. This is the last line in the series. Jack then greets Desmond, Boone, Hurley, Sawyer and Kate.  Charlie, Claire, Aaron, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Shannon, Rose, Bernard, Juliet, Libby and Penny are in the pews. Christian is walking about away from this main group.

In an unexplained slight of hand, everyone in the church had been waiting for Jack to arrive. Or more likely, for Jack to "awaken" and realize that he was dead. Being dead apparently releases all the pent up anxiety, anger, daddy issues and emotional baggage piled up during one's life time. It turns one into a smiling pod person waiting for final instructions from his cult leader.

 We waited for six seasons to come to this scripted conclusion. Was it truthful to the series?

1. Everyone in the church had something in common.  TRUE. They were all dead.

2. Everyone in the church knew each other. FALSE. Penny only briefly met the O6 people on her boat. She never met Boone, Charlie, Locke, Shannon, Rose, Juliet, Libby, Sayid or Bernard. Christian only met Sawyer briefly in Sydney. Newborn Aaron does not know anyone in the church.

3. Everyone in the church had been to this church before. FALSE. Only the O6 people returning to the island, Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid had seen Eloise's church before the ending.

4. Everyone in the church had found their "soul mate."  FALSE. Locke is in the church alone with no special person (like his girlfriend Helen). Also, Boone is effectively alone in the church as Shannon was paired off with Sayid. Christian was also alone without Jack's mother.

5. Everyone in the church seems happy and content. TRUE. There were no facial signs of stress or discomfort on any of the participants. In fact, most had the goofy grins of being under ether.

6. Everyone in the church had the same moral foundation to move on into the after life. FALSE. Despite the various sins of the main characters (murder, arson, fraud, torture, adultery, theft, lying, etc.) there was no redemptive, sin cleansing moment before the church reunion. Newborn Aaron, for example, was not alive long enough to be evil or sin. It would seem that the pure act of dying erased any moral consequences for prior actions.

7. Everyone in the church needed each other in order to move on. TRUE, but with a caveat. That is the assumption, but Ben was given the choice to join them and he passed on Hurley's offer. Rose and Bernard lived out their lives on the island without the help of anyone in the church. One would think they would not "need" the group to move on to heaven. They could do so without anyone's help. It was apparently an option that everyone in the church decided was appropriate.

8. Jack's presence was needed in order for everyone to have closure in their lives. FALSE. When Christian said everyone present died well before and well after Jack, that must mean that people had a life beyond the island, and beyond the interaction with Jack. As we have surmised, the people who left the island (Kate, Miles, Claire, Sawyer) would have been young enough to have long lives in the States. They would have met new people and spent more years creating new, longer lasting bonds and relationships. If Jack was needed to close the last hole in their lives, it really is a sad commentary on their post-island lives.

9. When Christian opened the doors, the white light transported everyone to heaven. FALSE. We do not know what happened next. One assumption is that they went to heaven. Another assumption is that they time flashed back to the island (in a cruel game, a reboot without past memories to see if things would turn out differently). Or the characters could have been vaporized into nothingness, an atheist view of what happens in death without any religious meanings.

We all waited for the conclusion to the series. We waited for the answers to the big questions. But just analyzing the end of the series, the church scene, we still wonder what LOST was really all about. It may be summed up by this observation:

Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you can't change. Kiss slowly, play hard, forgive quickly, take chances, give everything and have no regrets. Life's too short to be anything but happy. — Unknown

HURLEY'S REGRETS

As with the earlier post on Jack's regrets, what about the other island guardian?

“ Hope is a waking dream. ”
— Aristotle

 The major life decisions Hugo made come down to the earliest crisis. The profound effect of his father leaving him created a void which Hugo filled with candy bars and shyness. He was helping his father restore a classic car, but when he left Hugo lost the drive to do much of anything. We have no evidence that he excelled in school, or that he liked anything interest except music and entertainment like Star Wars.

The second major life event was the incident where two people were killed in a porch collapse. Hugo was attending this party. When he stepped on the overcrowded balcony, it fell. Hugo blamed himself. As a result, he voluntarily committed himself to a mental institution.  It would seem that Hugo was quite content within the facility. There was little stress on his life. There were no pressures from his mother to do things or go on dates. The dark side of this situation was that Hugo apparently created an imaginary friend, Dave, who controlled much of Hugo's decision making process.

 It would appear that Hugo did the minimum in his life: his appearance, his fast food job, his personal time - - - all were loosely pieced together not to better himself but to blend into the background.

Outside of the mental institution, Hurley did not have many friends. His best friend was his chicken restaurant buddy Johnny, who also hated his job and their boss, Randy. It was the slight encouragement by Johnny that got Hugo to make the giant leap to ask former schoolmate and record store clerk Starla out on a date. But Hugo was betrayed by Johnny, who took Starla away after he learned of Hugo's secret lottery millions.

The next major event in Hugo's life was the winning Numbers. The Numbers were his curse. It created bad luck, including death. He hated the fame and fortune. He really hated that his father returned to the family only AFTER Hugo became wealthy.  It is why he went to Australia to find out why the Numbers, which he learned from Leonard at the mental hospital, were cursed. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the search for the Numbers cursed Hugo again by crashing Flight 815 onto the island.

The next life event of note was Hugo's short lived relationship with Libby. It lasted about two weeks before she was killed by Michael. But before that time, it was Libby who stopped Hugo from following Dave off a cliff. It was Libby who made it known that she was interested in Hugo. It gave Hugo enough courage to ask her out on a date, a date that never happened. The cruel aspect of this event was that Hurley was on the verge of personal happiness but it was taken away (until the after life reunion).

Did Hurley have any regrets on any of his prior 815 decisions? Possibly only one: keeping his lottery winnings secret from his best friend, Johnny, destroyed that friendship. But it was not a great anchor on his soul because Johnny was not part of his sideways reunion.

But what about his decision to take Jack's place as guardian? The circumstantial evidence from Ben was that Hurley did a good job (whatever that means). But it also shows that decision froze Hurley in time; he had no "other" life after the 815 crash. He had no other post-island relationships even though he was a young man with great wealth. We do not know whether he ever returned to his mother and father (or why they were not part of his sideways reunion in the church).

Hurley never really made any life changing decisions. He took the cards that he was dealt. In certain respects, Hurley's life was one of walking through independent events. He may have hoped for a good outcome, but he never seized the moment to try to directly influence its outcome. As a result, he probably had few regrets because it was not in his nature to put himself on the line. He may have wished for a girlfriend, but did very little to make it happen. He may have wished for a better job, but he did very little to improve himself to get better work. He left things literally to chance to change his lot in life so he really had no need to have true regrets.


And maybe that was the point. One theory is that the entire series was Hurley's dream. A dream that worked out quite well for him in the end (a girlfriend and many loyal, close friends which he did not have in his real life).

JACK'S REGRETS

It is a simple observation.

Will you look back on life and say, 'I wish I had,' or 'I'm glad I did'? — Zig Ziglar

In the linear progression of events, everyone has regrets. For every decision, there are consequences. Some paths open while others close forever. The mental game is "what would have happened" if I did X instead of Y.

Let us examine Jack's life.

First major life decision was following in his father's career path: medical school. Was this something that he truly wanted to do, or was the need of his father's approval clouded Jack's judgment? Was there even an alternative (like music which was the secret for his fantasy son, David)?

But without medical school and a staff position at his father's hospital, Jack would have never met Sarah, the critically injured spinal patient. It was this miracle that cemented Jack's mindset that he could cure anybody. It was also a major milestone because Jack's stubbornness against his father's opinion of the patient's condition led to Jack's miracle. As a result, Jack merged his professional achievement with his affection toward Sarah, who was abandoned by her boyfriend right after the accident. Did he feel sorry for her, or did he really fall for her? 

His second major life decision was to marry Sarah. But he got cold feet before the wedding. Then Jack became paranoid about her feelings toward him. Jack self destructed his interpersonal relationships.  Was it because he could not handle his own success?

The third major life decision Jack made was to turn in his father for medical malpractice. Jack first covered up for his drunken father's negligence which killed at patient. But at the very last moment, Jack told the truth. His father's career was ruined. But, in reality, Jack's career would have also been ruined. California has a harsh licensing board - - - to cover up for malpractice is just as bad as the malpractice itself. Jack's behavior cost the hospital millions of dollars in a wrongful death claim. As a result, Jack would have lost his staff privileges and probably his medical license. (This is one of the major plot inconsistencies in the medical-legal issues of the show's scripts which leads some to believe that many of the background elements of the characters were dreams, nightmares or mental fantasies).

So what were Jack's life regrets?

His relationship with his father was strained at best. He never felt that his father acknowledged his accomplishments. His father was always critical. 

His relationship with women was rocky as well. We have no evidence that Jack dated in school or when he was on hospital staff. Was he a shy introvert? Or did he have his job consume all his waking hours? Did he make the conscious decision to fore go personal happiness for the better good of being a surgeon? 

Did Jack wish he could change his life?

If the island was the magic box that made wishes come true, it is hard to tell. He did like helping others. He did like being a surgeon. He did not like losing patients (he became emotional at the end like the last gasp of air by Boone). He could not accept losing patients. Against all hope, he was used to prevailing against all odds. Maybe his ego would not allow him to change.

The escape from the island did change Jack. His time as an O6 survivor led him into a drunken, suicidal depression. There really no reason for this except the Big Lie he concocted in order to "save" the people he had left behind. (Logically, by telling the truth could have launched a real rescue party to save his friends trapped on the island.) Perhaps, it was the perception that Jack on the mainland was not in charge in the way that he was on the island. The 815ers looked to him for leadership. Back in the real world, he could not get the same type of loyalty, even from Kate.

If the show was about a retrospective a character's life, choices and regrets, did we have any "gotcha" monumental climax with the central character of Jack? Not really. He got to speak to his father one last time in a non-substantial fashion. He got no resolution of his prior feelings - - - because once he realized that he was dead, nothing mattered anymore.

And maybe that was the key to Jack's lost soul: nothing matters after you die.

A POET

During any holiday, American radio stations play classic rock and roll tunes because most parents and adults are driving to and from their weekend destinations.

So it is not surprising to hear a classic like "American Pie" by Don McLean.

In junior high, my science teacher spent an entire class period explaining the lyrics to this song to us. It was an important piece of music that incorporated a key moment in his past. Music does creates markers of memories to people.

"The Day the Music Died, " as stated in McLean's 1971 song, was about an aviation accident that occurred on February 3, 1959, near Clear Lake, Iowa. The accident  killed rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Jiles "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and the pilot, Roger Peterson. After terminating his partnership with The Crickets, Buddy Holly assembled a new band consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, to play on the '"Winter Dance Party" tour. The tour also featured rising artist Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, who were promoting their own recordings as well. The tour was to cover 24 Midwestern cities in three weeks.

Kids today may not realize that their Disneyifed pop music has its roots in a turbulent crossover in the 1950s when blues, country and old standards became electrified by a new brand of rebels called rock and rollers. Buddy Holly was one of the new pioneers of the rock sound that defined a new generation.

Although McLean dedicated the American Pie album to Buddy Holly, none of the musicians in the plane crash are identified by name in the song itself. When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean replied, "It means I never have to work again." Later, he more seriously stated, "You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me.... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence."

McLean has generally avoided responding to direct questions about the song lyrics, such as saying, "They’re beyond analysis. They’re poetry." He has acknowledged that he did first learn about Buddy Holly's death while folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 3, 1959, (the line "February made me shiver/with every paper I'd deliver"). He also stated in an editorial published on the 50th anniversary of the crash in 2009 that writing the first verse of the song exorcised his long-running grief over Holly's death:

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And, I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance, and...
Maybe they'd be happy for a while
But, February made me shiver with every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep - I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside the day the music died

It is interesting to note that an artist such as McLean is still careful to not explain his lyrics. He wants people to interpret them in their own way. He may have been inspired by actual events, but may have wrapped all his childhood memories into a collage of images that only he will truly understand.

There was a passage that caught my ear:

And, there we were, all in one place - a generation Lost in Space
With no time left to start again
So, come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick - Jack Flash sat on a Candlestick, 'cause...
Fire is the Devil's only friend
And, as I watched him on the stage my hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell could break that satan's spell
And, as the flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite, I saw...
Satan laughing with delight the day the music died

He was singing, bye bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing...
This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die 

None of the musicians who died that fateful day were named Jack. Jack is from a nursery rhyme. And nursery rhymes are the first fantasies told to little children as they fade off to dream.

The main characters' parents would have been the start of the Boomer generation, the first generation of rock music. The main characters would have had this sound in their memories growing up as children. In the LOST series, most of the music bridges were from the 1960s (except for Charlie's own music). The mood of the series from its background music is like it was frozen in time in the 1960s just as McLean's musical memory seized up when the pioneers died in a plane crash.
There are many similarities between "American Pie" and LOST: a plane crash, time standing still, death, and symbolic images.

The LOST characters were all in one place, a cast of lost people in a generation that should have been on Easy Street living the American dream. When they reached the island, there was no time to start their lives again. Fire was an important symbol tied to Jacob. It was in his statue home, and the campfire when he told the remaining candidates that they needed to act so their friends deaths would not be in vain. Jacob was called The Devil. He did cast spells over the Others and Ben to do his work. And if Jack had to be nimble and quick to defeat MIB, it was his sacrifice in the island succession ritual that allowed the other survivors passage to the next life. He knew it in the bamboo field that that was the day he died.

Many ancient cultures believed that human spirits would wander and haunt the world unless they "accepted" their own deaths. How souls would block out the memory of their own demise is unclear. How souls would want to change the outcome of their deaths for a greater purpose or remorse for things not accomplished is also unknown. Modern society does not stress the importance of the ancient belief of preparation for one's after life. Kings and Pharaohs built grand tombs and stockpiled it with weapons, food, gold, servants and livestock for the journey to the next level of existence. Rock and roll led to rebellious freedom from past tradition. It allowed the Boomers to reach new heights of accomplishment, but also new levels of selfish behavior. One mantra was Live for Today.

Many LOST fans are still melancholy about the end of the series. Everything must end in order to have a new beginning. They miss the rhythm of the series, not caring about the symbolism; they miss the wild ride, not whether the story lines made sense. They still wait since the day their show died.

LITERARY TWIST

LOST had numerous literary references throughout the series, from character names to actual book props.  Many thought those were clues as to the premise of the story lines.

There is one literary format that is rarely discussed because of its twisted ending. It was once used as a reference outline for a Twilight episode.

The story structure is contained in a Civil War era short story called An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce in 1886 and first published in 1890. Bierce was called his era's greatest cynic based upon his work, The Devil's Dictionary.  Bierce had been a news correspondent during the Civil War.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is the three act story of Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer condemned to death by hanging from Owl Creek Bridge. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist stands bound at the bridge's edge. It is later revealed that after a disguised Union scout enlisted him to attempt to demolish the bridge, he was caught in the act.

In the first part of the story, a gentleman planter in his mid thirties is standing on a railroad bridge in Alabama. Six military men and a company of infantry men are present. The man is to be hanged from the bridge. As he is waiting, he thinks of his wife and children. Then he is distracted by a tremendous noise. He can not identify this noise, other than that it sounds like the clanging of a blacksmith's hammer on the anvil. He cannot tell if it was far away or nearby. He finds himself apprehensively awaiting each strike, which seem to grow further and further apart. It is revealed that this noise is the ticking of his watch. Then, an escape plan flashes through his mind: "throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, take to the woods and get away home." His thoughts stray back to his wife and children. The soldiers drop him down.

The story flashes back in time: Peyton Farquhar lives in the South and is a Confederate supporter. He goes out of his way to perform services to support the Confederate cause. One day, a gray-clad soldier appears at his house and tells Farquhar that Union soldiers in the area have been repairing the railroads, including the one over Owl Creek Bridge. Interested, Farquhar asks if it is possible to sabotage the bridge, to which the soldier replies that he could burn it down. When the soldier leaves, it is revealed that he is a Union scout who has lured Farquhar into a trap, as anyone caught interfering with the railroads would face execution.

In the moment's before the man's death, time seems to distort and slow down. When he is hanged, the rope breaks. Farquhar falls into the water. While underwater, he seems to take little interest in the fact that his hands, which now have a life of their own, are freeing themselves and untying the rope from around his neck. Once he finally reaches the surface, he realizes his senses are superhuman. He can see the individual blades of grass and the colors of bugs on the leaves of trees, despite the fact that he is whirling around in a river. Realizing that the men are shooting at him, he escapes and makes it to dry land.

He travels through an uninhabited and seemingly unending forest, attempting to reach his home 30 miles away. During his journey through the day and night, he is fatigued, footsore, and famished, urged on by the thought of his wife and children. He begins experiencing strange physiological events, hearing unusual noises from the wood, and believes he has fallen asleep while walking. He wakes to see his perfectly preserved home, with his beautiful and youthful wife outside. As he runs forward to reach her, he suddenly feels a searing pain in his neck; a white light flashes, and everything goes black.

It is revealed that Farquhar never escaped at all; he imagined the entire third part of the story during the time between falling through the bridge and the noose finally breaking his neck.

One can easily see the same pattern in the general story line of LOST.

A diverse group of people are somehow connected (through various flashbacks) when they board Flight 815 from Sydney to LA. During the flight, time passes slowly. It will be a long journey. Minds will wander from consciousness to dream states; from small talk to deep concentration.

Then there is turbulence. The plane shutters and shakes. The passengers are all nervous. Fear is awakened within them. The the plane rips a part in mid-air causing each person's life to flash before their eyes.

Just as in the Bierce story, a constant theme of the main characters was running through the jungle. There were strange noises, whispers and supernatural forces. There are dangers lurking on the island but there are also things missing from each person's life, such as love or friendship or a purpose. Each main character has a bout of some psychological issue. Time begins to be distorted; the past becomes the present and the present the past.

Then suddenly, it is revealed that the in the sideways world, everyone is dead. This is a purgatory that the 815 passengers "created" at the most important moment in the lives. One needs to consider that the most important moment in a person's life is their own death, whether or not one believes in an after life.

Though explained as an ABC marketing department mistake of having the 815 plane wreckage under the final series finale credits, no one can doubt that disturbing image and silence made people think. Something that many fans discounted from the very beginning. That the whole LOST story from when the plane broke a part at high altitude was not as it seemed: that the passengers and crew never survived the plane crash. Everyone re-imagined their lives during the terrifying time the plane broke a part until it crashed on the island. As with the Bierce story, LOST ends with the characters being engulfed by a white flash of light.

If LOST followed the Owl Creek Bridge literary twist, the expansive story lines of each character's fantasies, fears, dreams and hallucinations are only minutes in real time. If one is looking for a unified theory to explain (and explain away the inconsistencies), then this old (and cynical) literary form could be the answer.