The summer of my 15th year, I wanted nothing more than to get behind the wheel of a large automobile. Even though David Byrne wouldn’t write the song for another couple years, I kept asking myself, “How do I get there?” After getting a head full of classroom knowledge in Drivers’ Ed, we graduated to…
The first car I drove was a 1971 Ford Maverick. 2 door, dark green, and about as base of a model as you could get. No pinstripes, mag wheels or body trim, just a dark green, non-descript basic mode of transportation. The interior wasn’t any fancier. Black vinyl bench seats, AM radio and not even…
Learning to drive is a teenage rite of passage for most, and more life-changing than earlier stages like riding a bike. Up until that point, there was a tendency to stay close to home, since if you rode too far, you had to make sure you could still get home before dark. It’s the first…
I’ve never been much of a night owl, but as a kid, staying up past my normal bedtime was a rare event, and I took advantage of it when I could. That was especially true at the end of the year. Christmas had come and gone, and hanging around the house instead of being in…
1991. My fiancee and I had moved down from Connecticut to Northern Virginia (to find jobs, because the CT job market sucked). She was working for a pharmaceutical company, and I was working for MCI (when it was still just a long-distance company). MCI was a meat grinder. Lots of meetings, politics, and tense ‘discussions’,…
I’ve always been a huge fan of radio. Growing up, it was a way to transport my imagination beyond my small town. Whether it was to Top 40 music, listening to the national news or just hanging on late at night during a snowfall to see if school was cancelled, radio was my constant companion.…
Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a tendency to be a smart-aleck. When I was 10, my Mom was buying some sodas and asked “What do you want?” I said, “A Cadillac, but I don’t think that’s happening.” I didn’t get any laughs from the audience. When I was in sixth grade, I signed…
Being precocious is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing if you’re the kid who learns how to be the center of attention. It’s a curse for everyone else who has to deal with THAT kid. Well, I was always THAT kid. If there was trouble to be had or mischief to be made,…
As a kid, my family went to church twice every Sunday, and once in the middle of the week. I didn’t think much about it, because that was what I was used to, but I don’t recall ever watching The Wonderful World of Disney on a Sunday evening, because we were always in church. So,…
I grew up in a musical family. Mom and my sisters all played the piano. My brother played the guitar. The one thing that we all did, especially every Sunday at church, was sing. Most times it was in the congregation, but once every month or so, the four kids would be trotted out to…