I was talking with the lovely Missfit last night as we were doing a good bit of driving last night, and Metallica’s cover of “Turn the Page” came up on the radio. And I started thinking…
Bob has always been there…
See, when I was fairly young, I would often come with my mother to the bar, as I suspect this was the time when my father had a lot of night shifts at the foundry. Of all the things I remember of that time in my life (aside from an elderly babysitter and 700 Club, and this sweet bowling arcade game, for some reason) was always wanting to play “Old Time of Rock n’ Roll” on the jukebox. And I recall going nuts on whatever small piece of floor served as a “dance floor”. I could not leave the place without getting that one on the jukebox. I think this was my earliest love for music (between that and the Ghostbusters theme, which I also went nuts for on Saturday mornings and on my dad’s 8 track). I can’t completely recall what came first, my experience with this song, or Alf. Because I remember that first episode with Mr. Gordan Shumway sliding across the floor, doing a karaoke.
Of course my early teenage years were marked slightly by seeing the video premiere ono MTV for Metallica’s “Turn the Page” cover. A video I only ever saw on television once, as I suspect from the controversial nature of it. It was a documentary style video of a mother who was a prostitute and stripper to try to take care of her daughter, with a fairly depressing ending.
Then there was Junior year prom. The theme? “We Got Tonight”. This became a rather fitting title for that evening, as I had fairly abruptly ended my year and a half relationship with my girlfriend the day before at lunch. (mostly due to crappy treatment, not due to the cheating I found out about weeks later that had occured. But that’s about ten other blogs I could write). So after much deliberation, we agreed to go ahead to the prom together, as uncomfortable as it may have been. But, we went, had a good time, mostly apart, and had our “last dance” to the sang/theme of the night.
One day, Mr. Seger, our paths will cross…