30 Days of Writing - Day #3 - They Played My Song

Well, actually, they didn't play my song. But it wasn't for lack of trying.

The memory is a little cloudy these days but I think the story goes a little something like this.

I'd gotten my driver's license in the spring of 1970. I'd cut it close, failing in my first attempt because I went over the speed limit. It would be a habit I would keep the rest of my life. So I took the test again, just in time for my then-girlfriend's high school graduation dance.

Fast forward to the fall. I'd gotten into the habit of going out cruising in Dad's car with my fiends. You know. Tooling around town listening to the local radio. Scarfing down some cheeseburgers at A&W. We weren't getting into any trouble. And we weren't picking up chicks. Actually, you can't really pick up chicks in a four-door, cream-coloured, 1968 Pontiac Strato Chief. Not exactly a babe magnet. Believe me, I know.

Dad's car was exactly like this except it was four doors and cream colour 

and this is a Parisienne and his was a Strato Chief.   Same year, though. Okay, so close.

Anyway, one early winter's evening me and the guys, Paul, Gary - who's Rolling Stones "High Tides, Green Grasses" LP I still have to this day - and his brother, who's name escapes me were cruising around town, listening to the hits on the radio when one of us - I can't recall who, but I'm sure it couldn't have been me - got it into our heads that we should drive out to the radio station and request a song.

Okay, cool. Let's go. And we did. Now the radio station was in an old house in the west end of the city, a quiet part of town. (Oddly enough I would work in the newsroom of this radio station seven years later.) We turned off the street and started to drive around the wide circular drive at the side of the house. There was a bit of a slope to the drive and we started to slip backwards in the freshly fallen snow.

Now, at about the same time I thought it would be a good idea to back up and take another run at the driveway, Gary's brother also had an epiphany, unfortunately unrelated to mine. He thought now was the time to knock on the station's door and request our song. So he flung open the back seat passenger door and was about to bound out and up the steps when - CRASH - the rear door broke off the car. Well it didn't actually break; it sounded like it, but it did get all bent out of shape. To say nothing of me at the wheel shouting expletive deleteds at Gary's nameless brother. Although, there were a few names I used that were so much better than his God-given name, whatever it was.

Oh, and the song we were going to request, and never did?

Should have listened to Mama - and Three Dog Night!

Which is nothing compared to what Dad told me when I got home.

There are no rules to this little exercise. Participants are in for the long haul, a half haul or a day here and there. I tried my best to keep track of who's in on this little exercise but after a couple of days gave up. Our loquacious leader Nicky has taken a very lackadaisical approach to all this. Well, she's French, eh, and we all know how laissez-faire the French can be. So what I suggest you do is visit her at We Work For Cheese and check out her linky-dinky thingy to see who's in from day to day. And if you're in, leave your link with her so the rest of us can drop by and leave smart-ass comments on your post.

"Sunday Funnies", which would normally be posted here today can be found over on my other blog dufus daze. Check it out.