https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same_Old_Lang_Syne
He was visiting his parents for Christmas at the family home in Peoria, Illinois, in 1975 when he ran into an old girlfriend from Woodruff High School, the former Jill Anderson at the "Convenient Food Mart" (now a convenience store) on Abington Street Hill. Fogelberg stated in interviews that he did not recall precisely whether the chance meeting with his ex-girlfriend was in 1975 or 1976, though he leaned toward 1975; this was later confirmed.
In 2006, Fogelberg received a letter from a young fan named Grace Ferguson who asked him about the meaning of the song's final lyric, "And as I turned to make my way back home / The snow turned into rain". The lyric has often been interpreted metaphorically as the world feeling warmer after he had talked with his ex-girlfriend. In reply, Fogelberg acknowledged this metaphor as "wonderful", although, as he wrote, "as I drove home, the snow actually DID turn from snow into rain!".
After Fogelberg's death from prostate cancer in 2007, the woman in the song, Jill Anderson Greulich, came forward with her story. Greulich told of how she and Fogelberg dated in high school. As she explained to the Peoria Journal Star in an article dated December 22, 2007, the pair knew each other in Peoria, Illinois as part of the Woodruff High School class of 1969. After graduation, each attended different colleges. Following college, Greulich married and moved to Chicago, while Fogelberg moved to Colorado to pursue a music career. While back in Peoria visiting their respective families for Christmas in 1975, Fogelberg and Greulich ran into each other on Christmas Eve at a convenience store located at 1302 East Frye Avenue in the Abington Hill district. Greulich confirmed that they bought a six-pack of beer and drank it in her car for two hours while they talked. Five years later, after the song was released, Greulich heard it on the radio for the first time while driving to work but kept quiet, as Fogelberg had not disclosed her identity. She stated that her reason for remaining quiet about her involvement in the song's narrative was that coming forward might have disrupted Fogelberg's marriage.
Greulich noted that Fogelberg had taken artistic license with two details of the story: her eyes are green, not blue, and her husband was a physical education teacher, not an architect. In regard to the line, "She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie," Greulich will not talk about it, but by the time of the song's release in 1980, she and her husband had divorced.
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