In the Middle of Our Street

From the days where gloves with the fingers cut off were all the rage...

Hopes and dreams, kids. Hopes and dreams.

In Which We Fight Off Rival Gangs And Take Total Possession of the Hill

Like There Was Nothing Ever Wrong For the Rest of Our Days

One day when you think back on this room, you won't be able to recall what it looks like.

Or if you do it will seem small.

Impossibly small.

But maybe it's just that your world was small. Impossibly small.

Until you pushed against it.

Broke through a membrane.

Realized there was more going on than the things you saw every day.

Maybe you sensed something not quite in sight.

Something that made you think you could see the lines. If you looked quickly. Or turned to the right angle.

Shafts of light. Passing between us. Connecting us all.

And the light's colors would tell you something.

Would tell you the relationship. The prism of feelings.

And sometimes. When you closed your eyes. You were right.

It was all... right there.

Highways and the Byways

It rained.

For the first time in a generation.

It wasn't supposed to rain.

It was supposed to be a charmed event.

But it rained.

That's not totally correct. It poured.

She wasn't there. And I thought at the time that was why it was raining.

That the rain was her absence. That only her return would make things right.

But the problem wasn't her absence. It was my inability to see that she was the problem.

So that night, with the celebration, with the crowds.

Came the rain.

It lasted for years.

I couldn't see it back then. But I could feel the cold wind. And the raindrops.

More Weird Stuff From 1979

There's a story that goes with this... I'll share it later.

But, for now, enjoy this splash of out-of-time weirdness from Ron Wood's 1979 solo album Gimme Some Neck, a then-unreleased Bob Dylan song.

Cars

The girl at the convenience store checked IDs.

She couldn't have been more than 17.

A song came on the radio. She didn't know it. But she liked it.

"It's old, huh?" she asked.

I turned around. There wasn't anyone else in the store. So I guess she was talking to me.

"Yeah. It's old enough to be your Dad."

Years earlier, I would have been buying candy bars. Or the 99-cent fudge brownies.

But it was hot. And I was thirsty.

So I was buying water.

Nice cold water.

Thinking about how a song could be 35 years old. Not just old enough to buy beer, but old enough not to get carded.

By the 16-year-old clerk. Who knew enough to know it was old.

Old enough to be her dad.

Good Morning Wherever

Worry About it Later

She came from a place we'd heard of. A place none of us had ever seen.

But the sounds from that place echoed up and down the hallways.

And if she didn't tell us much, we filled in the details around everything she had told us.

And we imagined.

And we dreamed.

And she smiled.

Because that's who she was. And she didn't want to be unfriendly.

Years later, she was back there. We were not.

We weren't cool enough. Or she was always too cool.

Or something.

But when the wind would blow in the summers, blowing cool off the water after warm days...

That's when we all would turn east.

And remember.

And maybe wonder. If she ever turned west. From five (or sometimes six) hours in the future... and looked back on us.

Colorado State Policeman Trooper Cat

Because It's Uphill

Loveland pass has an elevation of 11,991 feet above Sea Level.

Denver, Colorado, about 60 miles away, is about 5600 feet above Sea Level.

That's an average grade of 2% for 60 miles, although the road at its steepest point is about a 15% grade.

So, no matter how you slice it, no matter how badly you're fleeing from a drug-deal-gone-bad, making it to Loveland pass in under half an hour is quite the accomplishment.

Happy 68th birthday, sorry it's a few days late...

Go Here, Read This, Listen to That

Three things about one thing.

Whiteray on a tragic anniversary in Ohio.


Dorian Lynskey from the Guardian on the same event (and the same song).