On the radio....

So I'm headed to work this morning just before 8am. I turn over the engine and the college radio station is on, ready to feed my day. They have a short newscast just before the top of the hour, then a DJ comes on with a quick top of the hour weather and PSA, then some rock music.

I often get a charge out of this first song I hear in the day as the station kicks off each hour with a college-rock classic. Sometimes it is a dud, or something I never did enjoy, but on occassion you get a tune that charges you up, puts a smile on your face, makes you turn up the volume, and maybe even causes you to break out and sing the chorus.

This morning the staccato guitar intro at 8:01 am signaled one of those great songs. I hadn't heard this song in a few years and knew the band but couldn't quite place the tune. By the time a hiccupping cadence of tom-toms joined the guitar intro, I knew it well. I thought of several old friends as I rolled along the streets of Morgantown and the first verse careened along. Music is like that for me. It ties me to points in my past and people that are close. This is one of the very few songs that actually bring up ties to people from high school, college, and my early years in Morgantown. It is like a thread weaving through points in time.

So I'm at a red light with the windows down and right on cue I'm sneering along at top volume with Johnny Rotten singing the chorus of "Pretty Vacant". The driver in the car beside me just looks on with a slack jaw at the middle-aged guy with the blue and white striped shirt and red tie, sitting in a Honda Element and singing his fool head off to some song they never heard. The light turns green. I make the turn onto High Street, turn up the volume a bit more and motor down the main drag still sneering along to the Sex Pistols like some 20-year old punk.

This is how Fridays need to begin, each week.