On this, the eve of work...

As is typical when returning to a workday from vacation, I woke with a start.

You know, those sit-up-in-bed mornings where you aren't sure if its Sunday or you are already an hour late to work?

You are getting old when two tablespoons of sugar in your coffee makes you sick. So you cut back to one and try not to powder the mug down with too much Coffee Mate.

And then you ponder the looming day while reading Fark.

One of the stranger things I pulled off this vacation was to see/drive a 1978 Trans Am. Ironically, in my own town. This despite expecting to fly to Wisconsin to see one if it ever wooed me enough on ebay. And yes, I know it makes no sense to contemplate the purchase of a car that gets about 3 gallons to the mile, but even in 1978 a Trans Am was an irrational purchase.

I can cut through the fog of morning thought for a moment and remember the sunny, warm sandunes of the Texas Gulf Coast in the late 1970's. When you could walk out on the beach at night and it was COVERED in sand crabs that would scatter when the beachlights were flipped on. You don't see that anymore. Probably a consequence of human encroachment, but I'm sure they lurk somewhere in the vegetation waiting for their day to return... But isn't it strange how every memory from childhood seems to sunny and warm? Could it be a consequence of how HOT the weather was in the late 1970's? All I can remember is beach, sand, swimming pools, and the confines of hot smelly cars. And fireflys. Where did all the fireflies go?

On every street it seemed was one of those ostentatious cars - usually a bright red or deep black. I can still visualize running into that one 1979 TA up the street on Meridian. The one with a giant gold phoenix on the hood. It was bright and hot that day, and that TA looked like a giant trophy on wheels.

The irony of that moment was that car represented the last gasp of the American Musclecar, especially in the face of the Iranian Revolution and Carter's price controls.

I was 9 years old, walking through real history witnessing a part of America that (for better or worse) was about to slip away forever...




This is probably why we hold onto memories of the past.

They are like footholds in the dark vortex of time we climb as we get older and forget who we are.