Most of the time.

[KB.]

**Just a lot of rambling here**



Most of the Time.

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music."

~Angela Monet

I figure most everyone likes music that term is very subjective by the way, it like smell can bring us back to a moment, or it can make us dream of making a moment. I can see several situations in my life, and when I do I hear a song that was playing at the time. Life really does have a soundtrack, cheesy I understand, but it is true. Humor me, and I will recount some of those moments.

When I was around five years old we lived in this huge house in a tiny little town in West Tennessee called Trezevant. Backwoods to say the least, but we had a huge back yard, our neighbor even had horses. There was that St. Bernard that always came by to eat the scraps of food we threw out. The little girls next door who one day set the garage on fire and left me too receive the blame, it stung. The girl that lived across the street and a little down the road; she was a delight. I wrote my first love letter, at age five, to her. She never got it because I still have it. Silly words from a six year old want to be grown man, written with one of those huge pencils on the widest ruled paper possible. Tablet paper, had that slight brownish color and a distinctive smell, blue lines and red lines, dotted lines. I think she had longish brown hair, but all I remember is that she wasn't allowed to cross the road to my side, so we had to talk across the way to each other.

This at the time seemed as wide a space as the distance from here to the sun. The kind of journey you would have to pack a lunch for. In reality it might have been twenty feet at most, but that was plenty. She couldn't come to my side and I couldn't go to hers. Forever stifled by geography and fear of broken rules I suppose. She did make it over once, and it took the birth of my little brother for it to happen. She did not stay near long enough. That house was haunted. Music, yeah I'm getting to it. My mother would listen to Hall and Oates, "Man-eater" of all things; it scared the **** out of me. Hell I was six, all I knew was there was some lady out there eating folks. Then of course there was the lovely Olivia Newton John and "Locomotion" I would still marry her. I don’t care what happened to her last husband. Anytime I hear one of those two songs on some late night infomercial directed by Beelzebub I think of that huge house, the ghosts in it, and the girl across the street. (I'll tell you some of those ghost stories one day.)

The next memory isn't about one song in particular, but a show called "Austin City Limits" it still plays, but I was watching these 25 years ago with my Great Uncle and Aunt, the ones I talked about in my first story. This was in an even smaller town, called Atwood, Trezevant at least had a cop, well sheriff, and Atwood to this day still does not have a red light, not even a stop sign on the main highway through the town. It was even better then. We had a real life, a general store out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The building is still there. There was a rail road that ran about 200 yards in front of the house, my Uncle Bunk, that’s what we called him, would sit out in the hot summer sun, sticky and oppressive. We would watch that train roll by, count the engines it had and see if we could guess how many cars it would be. I can remember listening to Johnny Cash singing, "I Hear a Train a Comin" on Austin City Limits, I still see my Uncle Bunk with that strong jaw, lanky and wore out from years of working, depression era misery in his eyes, Rooster brand snuff in his cheek, and the smell of Mulberries and Plums on the air. It is by far one of my favorite songs to randomly hear. I hear that song and I remember the day I followed my Aunt Rene to that general store. I was maybe four years old, she had no idea I was behind her, I was a good bit back, and she was already in her late sixties. Well Bunk got to looking for me, and I don’t know if he just thought to go to the store and see if I was there, or if he saw my little skinny, scabbed kneed, trouble all time self following her. He found me regardless, and he had a nice thin switch in his hand; that was one thing about growing up in the country, there was always a tree, and where there was a tree there was a switch. He, in what would be the proper vernacular of the time and place, stripped my legs all the way back. It was quite the painful excursion. You know what though, I never went back in that road, or anywhere alone, until he saw it fit for me to do so.

I hear that song and I remember the time I was jumping around like a fool on some old wood and various other land locked flotsam out in the backyard. There was an old door he had taken off of something; he was always doing some kind of random work like that to get a little extra cash. Doors have what are called door nails, as in dead as a door nail, if you have never seen one then ask someone who has seen one to tell you about them, they are pretty impressive. I managed to jump onto one and send it straight through my foot. I wailed like a banshee, here comes my half deaf Aunt; scratch that she was my Ant calling her Aunt is a crime. She heard me somehow, and she pulled me, using both hands off of that nail. I can see my foot wrapped in gauze, soaking in a pan of peroxide, bloody. How she heard me over that train whistle I have no idea.

Let’s move forward a bit, I may jump around over the next few. This one is May of 1995; I remember that because it was the day of my senior picnic in high school. Gorgeous day, warm, smelled like fresh cut grass, I had a good time, everyone was in a good mood and being civil with one another, and I had a date with a young lady that I had told a friend of mine (Craig that’s you, if you ain't reading this then kiss my ass) would be mine, I saw her walk down the hall and into her Algebra class, I looked at Craig and said, "I'll make her mine", that’s the family friendly version of what I said. He laughed a little, called me some name, and we walked back to "study hall" or more commonly referred to as all three lunch shifts cause we got it like that. Maybe a month later I had my first date, he always was true and would tell the story of what I had said, and told it the right way. She and I went to a place called the Boston Beanery, quite silly considering the deep southern location. They had great sandwiches and pizza. It was quiet, cozy, not too bright or dark. I could smoke. She was an athletic girl, fit body, strong as steel. Had a smile like Julia Roberts, and was very possibly the devil. We had a good meal, I was nervous. She had told me she never kissed on the first date, now she had informed me of this at school earlier in the week, and she really messed up doing that because it gave me time to improvise. I had a plan. I would play a song on the way home, she lived very close to me, not that anywhere there wasn't close to any place else. This was in Milan; it had stoplights, but not many.

We must have just left a movie, don't remember which one, The theater and restaurant were in Jackson, a good thirty minutes from home, which was great, gave you time to talk on the way home. We were at the intersection of 45 bypass and Oil Well road, waiting on the light to turn west towards home. I popped a tape into the radio, yes I said tape, and it was a single at that. The song, well it was "Can I get a Kiss Goodnight", by Blackstreet, it was all over but the shoutin, to steal a title from a great writer named Ricky Bragg.

I got to her house, and I walked her to the door, but she stopped short and took my hand and led me to a stone bench under a tree in her backyard. I got my kiss, several of them. That song has an eternal place on my internal play list. It along with the smell of pear lotion from Bath and Body Works,

There is of course Bob Seger and "Turn the Page". I think this was 1995 as well, although it could have been 1994. It was fall because our school was playing a football game. My folks were out of town, and my oldest friend, we had know each other since I was seven, had somehow managed to conceive a plan to drive to Little Rock after the game, turn around and drive back, It would be a nice ten hour trip, we had told a few folks to come by in the morning and we would all cook breakfast and watch a movie or some ****. I remember giving Christy McAdoo a key to the house in case Bryant and I were not back yet. That was also the first night I met the father of the friend of mine that I first moved here to live with, Ralph was the Father's name, he asked us what we were up to, and I told him, "Well I think we are gonna drive to Little Rock, then turn around and come back", he must have thought we were crazy. We set out, in a maroon 93 Nissan Sentra, hell of a car, took it on so many road trips, abused it to no end. It was raining, and a little chilly, I was wearing a plaid flannel shirt of my Uncle Bunks. Bryant started telling me about this "cool" song by this guy named Bob Seger; I wasn't really paying attention, but shortly afterwards the song came on. I remember the line, "smoked the days last cigarette". We got hungry and stopped in some small town at a Waffle House, got to love a Waffle House beats IHOP any day. It was like we were living the song. "Well you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road, you can feel the eyes upon you as you’re shaking off the cold, you pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode. Most times you can’t hear em talk, other times you can." Good times. There we were on the road again; it was our second road trip we had driven to Panama City Beach the previous December. We got to Little Rock, and we turned right around just like we said we were going too. Somewhere about seventy miles outside of Memphis I must have fell asleep, I remember dreaming about sleeping at a rest stop in Colorado, I woke up, it was one lane traffic, pouring down rain, and I was about two mouse hairs from the back of a semi truck. I looked over at Bryant, cursed at him I am sure, and asked him why he hadn't woke me up, he replied that I was driving just fine. I miss Bryant, haven't seen him in more than two years I think. We were at least having a good time the last time I saw him, I guess I have been unfair to him, he would have done anything for me if I had asked, and I thought it best to leave him be when he probably needed a good friend the most. I used to really like Seger's song, "Still the Same", I'm not anymore though.

Jimmy Buffet, whom I refuse to listen to on purpose since his "Math Sucks" debacle, always reminds me of John, that’s Ralph's son. Best friend for a long time, don't see him much these days, which considering we live maybe five minutes from each other is a shame, but it is my fault, I screw **** up, it is in my nature. He, Bryant and I went to a Buffet concert at the Starwood amphitheater in Nashville; don’t think any of us were even eighteen yet. John fell asleep on the way back, I woke up and we were sideways on the interstate with a lot of lights heading our way. John and I took off one day after we had graduated and drove to New Orleans, yep in the Sentra, think I had 74 bucks to my name, and one change of drawers. We got to New Orleans at six in the morning and some of the most freakish people you could ever imagine were roaming the cobblestone streets of the French Quarter. We left pretty quickly, and drove back to Magnolia, MS and got a room. We chased an armadillo around a truck stop in Shreveport on the way back (we took the scenic route), if you have never chased an armadillo I suggest you do, just for the sheer terror you will be introduced to once you get close enough that it decides to go defensive. Going north of Marshall Texas (home of the fire ant festival) towards Texarkana. You had best be wary, and keep your arms inside the car. Somewhere along that rural highway 59 there is a huge, fast, and blood red beast of some sort. John was driving, I was looking straight ahead, we were doing at least sixty miles per hour, yet we both saw him off to our right. I still get the shivers. Credence singing "Cotton Fields" or "Who Will Stop the Rain", and Buffet singing “A Pirate Looks at Forty those and many more songs, remind me of John and all the road trips we took.

One time when I was about 17 I decided I was going to leave home, not come back. I don't recall what I was so mad about, not **** probably, but I made it to Tupelo when Confederate Railroad came over my 84 Chevy trucks radio singing "When You Leave That Way You Can Never Go Back", thing is the radio hadn't worked for months. Maybe it was a tape again, not sure, but I got the picture, and turned around.

Chevy Chase did a movie in 1995; I watched it with the young woman who came after Ms. Can I get a kiss goodnight. The movie was called "Man of the House", it had a shitty soundtrack, one of the worst on it was Enigma doing "Return of Innocence", but that’s okay because I will on occasion download it and remember driving back home, on the same route as I did with Ms. Kiss, and I see long legs, dark hair, amazing brown eyes, huge eyes, and a skirt. It was a little humid; the air was wet, amongst other things that night. Far too distracted to drive, never should have pulled over though, I lost her that night. I put her better judgment and the things she believed in to question. That reminds me of Neil Young singing "****in Up".

I'm cutting these too short, stories here for every song, it's late, and I need some sleep though. I'll just have to revisit them later. I'm not done yet though.

When I left Houston, I was a mess; a woman of course, ain't it always? Seems to be the driving force behind my restlessness. I was playing Robert Cray's "Already Gone" over and over like it held some cipher to undoing the mysteries of life. Some time about two weeks before I decided to leave I switched to him singing "Baby's Arms, “I’ll be on the first thing smoking later on today, I'm going home". That was a nasty ride home, no radio in the U-haul; I think that qualifies as purgatory personally. Had a blow out in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, home of Ali Landry. She of course was no where to be found, I looked believe me.

On my way to St. Louis last May, I couldn't find my boxed set of Led Zeppelin, really irritated me, but I had Bobby Blue Bland's California album, the featured selection of the drive was "This Time I'm Gone for Good", he was right, I should've stayed gone when I left before. I've been tempted, but that song starts playing in my head, and the temptation slips away for awhile. It's great because the way the song works it could apply to a place, a person, or a thing. It plays in my head a lot.



I'll wrap it up with my current track, "Most of the time" by Bob Dylan. Nothing to even explain there. If you're interested you can look it up, takes maybe 20 seconds to type that into a search field and read the lyrics.

KB

Without music life would be a mistake.

~Friedrich Nietzsche



**The Blackstreet song is actually, "Before I let you go", and there have been a few more songs to write stories about since i wrote this the first time.