Dating : Gravel Road Memories

The road zips by as I cruise down the back roads. I was heading home for the weekend to help my parents. I had the top down on the convertible — a 2001 Sebring — and was cruising along as fast as the gravel would let me.

Construction had forced me off the hardtop, and I was out running the gravel roads like I used to do as a kid in the ‘70’s. Only there weren’t half a dozen of us crammed into one car — sometimes my ’73 LeMans Sports Coupe — with a case of beer or a bottle of vodka to share. Times, they have changed. The years have given rise to caution — wisdom, some would call it. But it’s caution. And respect for others.

The sky was a deep blue and mostly clear, with the odd roly-poly cloud dotting the skyline. I don’t remember if they were cirrus or cumulus or deciduous. Grade 10 science class was forty years plus, ago. I did well in school and loved learning new things, but I’ve never had to identify a cloud since then. I have pushed those details out of my head for other trivialities that I need to know.

If only life could have stayed as simple as what a cumulus cloud was.

Doesn’t really matter, though. Clouds are clouds. The blue sky is beautiful. The cool breeze keeps the heat from suffocating me. I am one with my car. I am one with my surroundings. Nothing can bother me, as I blast Ramones or Motorhead tunes, looking to the future, thinking of the past.

Like so many of the roads that I have traveled in my youth, I have lost track of exactly where they are on the map. But it still exists in my heart, beautifully unchanged forever.