Talk Thursday: The Long Way Home (a week late)

You know how you store those special moments in your life and take them out in your old age to pet them dearly? Wait, you’ll get there so take your Ginko. Some of my fondest memories revolve around music or involve music – crap in this case what’s the difference? I love music, I love my daughter, and some of my dearest adult memories are in the car singing with her.

Once upon a time I had this kewl 200SX. I loved it, bought it used and took the best care of it I could… which is to say, I wasn’t very good to it at all. When I married ex-number two we traded it in for a Chevy Luv 4by4 (the exact sequence of events is pretty fuzzy in my memory.) Music in the 200SX was pure Pat Benetar, Thin Lizzy, and Blondie… that much I remember. In the long run, because what woman ends up with the better vehicle, I ended up with a faded white VW Bug that we bought in a storage unit sale for $283 – note there was also a chest of drawers and a bureau in the unit, the Bug was in need of an engine and love.

Before you could say Chevy Luv I was driving a mildewy faded VW Bug that had definitely seen better days. Psam hated that car, I’m fairly certain it was the aromatic combination of oil and mildew that lovingly wafted through the small vehicle (I really tried to not use the heater for this very reason, but have you ever tried to NOT use the heater in a VW – yeah you understand.) Music in the VW was pure KZEL and well I and Psam were past Blondie, she wasn’t hot on Thin Lizzy, and I had a copied cassette of Supertramp.

Keep in mind that Florence is a whole five miles from Siuslaw River Bridge to Heceta Beach Road and at the time Highway 101 was just two lanes in most places. In my defense I must remind you that Supertramps’ Take The Long Way Home is the better part of five minutes, so if you wanted to hear the whole song, you took Rhododendron drive, past the dump, along the Siuslaw River and up 35th street, ergo we took the long way home. Hey it could have been worse, I could have played all 8 minutes and 52 seconds of American Pie, then we could have drove the che… VW past… crap it loses a lot in the translation…. Oh oh, I know she loves Alice’s Restaurant… I mean it’s only eighteen and a half minutes long – we could have driven all the way to Mapleton – and Psam loves all those

eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one

and Arlo was driving a VW microbus, red not faded white.
But no, I had Supertramp and a oil soaked mildewy wafting faded white VW – Psam had to hold her breath or puke, and really I’m glad she has good lung power.



BTW, did you know that March is Sing With Your Child Month? No lie, some of my happiest times of parenthood were singing in the car with my daughter… we had a very special sound track that started with Nino Tempo and April Steven’s Deep Purple, included Sonny and Cher’s The Beat Goes On, Gladys Knight and the Pip’s Midnight Train To Georgia. Those were some of the best days of my life.



Sith,
Cele