Just a Small Town Boy

I’m 14 all over again as I absent-mindedly flip on the tv while fixing lunch and Journey’s “Escape Tour: Houston 1981” concert film is on.To think that one group could kick out such diverse hits and not be alone; the charts were full, the boomboxes were everywhere. It was a better time, inarguably.

Was it perfect? No. Politics were politics. Taxes were taxes. We hated to work, loved to play and had things we didn’t like and we got upset and our feelings were hurt.

But never for long.

That is the difference.

We kept on running.

We rolled with the changes.

We were working for the weekend.

We wished we had a girlfriend like the one our best friend had.

Moms and dads just didn’t understand .. or so we thought, er, felt.

But the wheel in the sky kept turnin’ and we dreamt of maybe taking that midnight train going anywhere to meet some small town girl.

It was a lonely world, but we stayed positive. We fought for our right .. to party. We knew mental health would drive ya mad and we weren’t gonna be just another brick in the wall.

We wanted to be stone in love at the advent of the ghost in the machine and synchronicity. We loved the Beatles, Stones, Doors and Zeppelin but we looked forward to what Pantera would become as they played our frat parties.

We were ecstatic, angry, weepy, joyous and ridiculous all at the same time.

We were 80s teens, raised in the open-aired, troubled 70s. We got paid, we got played, we had it made .. we had our mTV. For a minute, anyway.

Long trains were runnin’, we were road-tripping beyond 55mph, running on empty, fighting the good fight in subdivisions to the soundtrack and magic power sent from the spirit of the radio.

What a time to be alive.

I’m still that 14 year-old inside.

I hate that I forget that sometimes.

Thank God for the music .. lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’ my brain.

Choose joy.

Turn it up to 11.

McDermott