Shades of 1996

I think I'm a member of the last generation who ever spent vast amounts of time making mix tapes. Yes, now the crazy kids (and adults) have the ability to make mix CD's, but it really isn't the same thing now, is it?

To make the best quality mix tape was an art form. You had to have the right kind of tape, the right kind of dual tape head stereo and the patience to sit through each and every song you wanted to record.

I bring this up for a reason. Recently the stereo in my car started working again, now the radio has always worked, but my tape deck (yes, tape deck. It's a '95, before CD players were the standard issue in GM cars.) goes through bouts of wanting to play everything backwards.

I have very few surviving albums on cassette. Most of them were disposed of once I had replaced them on CD in the late nineties. Once upon a time I had a huge box filled with tapes...now very few remain...except for my mix tapes.

I grabbed one on the way out of the house this morning, having no desire to hear the morning radio-heads go one about Terri Schiavo and the Pope...

I rewound it to the beginning before pulling out of the driveway and then started listening. On my way to work this morning, I heard three songs that plunged me straight back to 1996, my freshman year in college.

First was "Hook" by Blues Traveler. Always a favorite of mine, this particular John Popper song features one of the most incredible harmonica solos in the world. Listening to that song made me fall in love with John Popper, even back when he was still fat and gross. (Now he's not fat, just gross, and I still love him.) This song was also exciting for a nerd like me as the "Hook" of the song is actually a waaaayyyyyy slowed down version of Pachbel's Cannon in D.

The next song to come pouring out of the speakers was Counting Crows "Long December". Oh God, how I loved to listen to that song in my love sick days of late '96 and early '97. As a senior in high school I'd developed a MAJOR crush on a fellow debater who was a year ahead of me. By the time I realized I was totally school-boy in love with him, he was a freshman at OU. I used to see him at various times. By my freshman year in college I could barely think of him without swooning. I used to listen to this song and write page after page in my journal about how much I loved him. Looking back to that time, I am sheepish about the amount of time I spent dwelling on Stephen. I think I might have fared a bit better that first year of college had I not been so fixated with him.

(byt the way, the crush finally went away...but I'm sometimes nostalgic for that feeling of utter joy I used to get thinking about him.)

The third and final song I heard on my 10 minute commute to work was "Santeria" by Sublime. I remember being absolutely crushed by the new of Brad Nowell's death. The entire self-titled album is incredible, but the song "Santeria" just conjures images of cruising around in my 1981 Chevy half-ton with my friends and the possibility the future held at that point in my life.

So, a good start to my day that is making me nostalgic for the days when I was just a mere slip of a boy, away from home for the first time.