Yesterday, I was 26 years old again, just for about 20 miles on U.S. 190 back to I-40. You can flat haul ass on that road, and I did, just for a little, in my 1967 Mercury Comet Caliente ragtop. I won’t tell you just how fast because my mom is reading, so I’ll say on the other end of the spectrum that I am typically staying under 70 this trip. What made me 26 again is a compilation cassette tape that I made for my 1989 voyage to L.A., up the coast to Seattle, then back across the top of the country.
Photo in my driveway courtesy of Jennifer Foster, WDAV announcer producer and dear, funny, special, outlier friend, the day of my departure, 13 days and 2,200 miles ago.
Mercury Comet
Memories of the Future
I have needed utter silence to pack my bags, boxes, books, and radiator hoses for six weeks on the road. But when the key turns in the ignition of my old ’67 Comet ragtop, my playlist is ready to crank up to the skies.
I have learned that road-trip music provides an ear to the future, as well as to the past and present. To put it another way, sound is second only to smell in my Proustian lobes, and this June and July, starting today, are my next batch of good old days. So, I aim to remember the summer of ’09 even more clearly and fondly than I remember the summer of ’89, when I crossed the same continent in the same car. (I dug the cassette soundtrack for that trip out of a closet for this trip, but we’ll get to that.)
