The Past in a Playlist

Today's been a bit...strange?...poignant?...sad?  I'm not sure what word I'm truly looking for.  

I've been up and down the mountain three times today, which is two times more than I like, but due to the unrelenting heat, I had to bring the dogs home after our morning walk, then go back down to the store.  Home again, thinking I'm ensconced for the rest o' the day, I have lunch, but while watering the plants, I broke that ugly container my new bonsai was in.  There must have been a crack I didn't see because all I did was lift it and it was suddenly in two pieces.  I didn't have another pot or container, so buggers, it's another frigging trip down the mountain.

A couple months ago I made a playlist CD for the car, and since the dogs weren't with me, I could blast the music to my heart's content without freaking them out. There are some great old tunes on this playlist from Bob Seger, The Eagles, Jimmy Buffet, Phil Collins, mixed in with newer stuff.  My criteria when making the CD was Road Music to Sing Really Loud.

So.  Because I'm singing, I roll up the windows once I'm down off the mountain.  I get to the main highway and have to stop at this large intersection that takes forever to get through, but as Bob Seger is just starting to sing Like a Rock, I don't mind waiting through 6 endless traffic lights.  It's a killer song, his voice so rough and deep, and I'm belting out the words, lost in my own world.

When it's over, there's this little horn tap, and I look to my left to see this old guy in a pickup truck making that "wind down your window" move.  I stop the CD, hit the button to slide down my window, and raise a brow at him.  His passenger window is already down so he just leans a bit in my direction, and says, "I love those guys.  Haven't heard that song in years."

I smile, but I'm sort of bemused because wow, how loud did I have my music?  It's then I realize I didn't close the two back windows--the ones I always have at half-mast for the dogs.  Cripes, I've been blasting tunes for miles like a dumb ass kid!  It makes me laugh.  Which makes the old guy smile wider at me and ask, "What radio station you playin'?"

Shaking my head, I say, "It's a CD I made for myself."

"Too bad," he says.  "Just hearing that song reminds me of so many things.  When I was in school my friends and I used to follow Seger all over Michigan before he got famous."

"It's a great song," I agree, though I don't get the Michigan** reference until later.

Finally the light changes for his lane, and with a little wave, he turns left and drives off in his old pickup.

I hit rewind and replay the song.  What word do you use when a song takes you back in time, reminds you that those days of standing straight and tall, like a rock, will never come again?  Life moves inexorably for each of us, but there are those moments, those tiny little fragments in time, when we can't help feeling that it moves just too damn fast...  

Bob Seger, singing Like a Rock, in a perfect video...

**When I got home--and after replanting the bonsai--I looked up Bob Seger on the internet to see if I could figure out the Michigan reference.  And go figure.  He's from there!  I guess I always thought he was from Texas, or somewhere in the south, not from the cold northern state of Michigan.  See?  Learn something new every day.