Summer Drives

As I traveled between Sacramento and Mendocino via the I-80 corridor yesterday, I experienced something akin to déjà vu as I recalled making the same drive along I-80 several times in the summer of 1987.  It was a curious thing to think about the similarities and the differences between then and now…

The destination—in 1987, I was taking trips right into San Francisco, meeting up with friends I’d ironically made working at the Big Wheels in Shingletown.  George and his buddies were regular visitors to the area.  At eighteen years old, I was all agog at being in The Big City.  While I had lived in my very early years in the Los Angeles area, my parents transplanted us to Shingletown when I was eight, so my growing up years were rural—very, very, rural.  Weekends in San Francisco were filled with evenings quietly tiptoeing through the KPIX studios where my buddies worked, and then checking out interesting angles and lines to the city’s night life.  I fell in love that summer with the architecture and design of the beautiful city. 

This summer, almost 30 years later, I have been frequenting the Mendocino area, loving the interesting and eclectic blend of offbeat culture, beautiful forests, and the Pacific coastline.  There is something so soothing to me about walking beaches, and communing among the redwoods.  And the people I meet here are awesome. 

The music—that summer in ’87, I was constantly on the lookout for Huey Lewis and the News, the first couple of visits missing him by days in one direction or the other because of the band’s tour schedule.  My persistence finally paid off, having met him at a media event and winding up with opportunities to see him perform, and even attend Forty-Niner games at the sideline as he sang the national anthem at the start of the games. 

This year, with a verve that seems to come from the same youthful resonance all those years ago, I have been chasing after musicians all summer, enjoying the music, and meeting people who have that beautiful hunger and passion for the talents they’ve been given.  In 1987, the pursuits were completely successful only because of luck and happenstance.  As a woman in my forties, I am equipped with a radar, and intuition, and a perseverance of a woman on a mission.  I want.  I seek.  I find.  Tour buses, meals, after-hour jams, and new friendships have all fallen out of the musical tree in my pursuits this year. 

The wheels—in ’87, I was cruising around my universe in a 1975 Mercury Monarch.  I had bought it from Chuck and Carol Ann Dinning, as Carol Ann had upgraded to a new ride.  It had four doors, of which only two fully worked from both the inside and the outside.  Ditto on the windows.  But wow, that car could go fast.  Typical of a teenager, I was not fully satisfied with the ride, and longed to have a car that was smaller—cuter—and more fuel efficient.  In retrospect, I really had it all with that car.  The back seat was so huge I could—and did—sleep in it on some of my longer adventures.  I recall longing to get into a car with a car payment back then, as I felt that would be some sort of rite of passage, some big deal that made me more adult. 

This year, I’m driving a smaller, “sportier” car that probably would have filled the bill for the longings of eighteen year-old me.  As a middle-aged woman, I try not to curse on my longer road trips as I sit crunched up in my little Mitsubishi Mirage, a veritable ergonomically-incorrect torture machine that leaves me in need of body work after every adventure.  And there is no way I’m going to sleep in the back seat of this thing! 

This car also brings with it the unique opportunity to be ‘profiled’ almost every time I drive it in an urban area, as with its large rims and slim tires, it apparently takes on the look of gangster trouble.  While not the ideal ride, I love this car, as it has helped me travel thousands of miles over the past fifteen months I’ve owned it—seeing, living, loving, learning, and moving on in life.  I paid $1500 for it, and could not be happier that I don’t have a car payment or the need for an upgrade. 

As I drove through Fairfield yesterday, listening to Hall & Oates on CD, I thought about how many times I’d listened to that same band in the Monarch, on cassette tape.  Back then, I would sing along, but look side to side, furtively, so as not to be caught by other drivers.  Now, I roll down the windows in the slowed traffic, crank up the tuneage, and dance it out.  Sometimes, along with whomever is driving along side along the highway. 

It fascinates me, the things in life that change, and the things that don’t.