Adventure Before Dementia

Summer of 1973

We have been scheduling our long haul travel days on Sunday, we find the traffic is lighter and its good to reset the week by traveling on the day of rest.  We discovered a special treat of driving on Sunday mornings, reruns of American Top Forty with Casey Kasem on Sirius XM, 70’s on 7.

This past Sunday we were listening to the countdown from June 6, 1973, the golden and familiar sound of Casey reading listener letters brought me back to my youth when I would stare at my transistor radio in my room and try to predict the top songs of the week.  The summer of 73 was also the year my family took a cross country road trip.  My dad signed up to deliver a station wagon from Orlando to Seattle.  Perhaps he answered an ad in the paper, he can’t recall the details, but looking back, the whole matter seemed to be a difficult and elaborate task in the pre-internet world.  

I remember several details on the trip, I remember visiting Yellowstone, I remember the bats in Carlsbad Caverns, I remember the mountains of Montana and I remember swimming in a pool in Denver with Gladys Knight and the Pips’ children who were performing at the stadium next door (We went to one of the Pips rooms and met him, I can’t recall which Pip he was but he was one of the three Pips.  Years later when I worked in radio, I edited Gladys Knight out of “Midnight Train to Georgia” so it was only the Pips singing background.  I still think it is one of my finest accomplishments in radio).  I remember pulling off the road to avoid a tornado in Kansas City but I can’t recall where we stayed or how we booked the trip.  My dad said that we would just drive and pull into a motel with a vacancy sign.  We knew which roads we would take on the map, then we would pull into town and find a place to stay.

With our adventure, we have adopted as similar strategy, we know our general direction but don’t want to have the pressure of having every day etched into the calendar.  We are trying to stay booked 3 weeks ahead, and I will say, booking is a chore.  We have several apps to help us with our travels, but its not easy.  One app is designed for State Parks, another is for National Parks and another one has all the parks including RV parks and KOAs but you have to book each one through still another app.  The RV park in Cape May didn’t take credit cards, so we had to mail a check for a deposit.  

After several hours of booking and planning, I get quite frustrated and am not a—how can I put this—happy camper.  Most of our arguments have come during trip planning meetings.  So with all the technology and apps at our disposal, we are still navigating a walled garden of campground inventory that is fragmented and clunky.

Which brings me back to the summer of 1973 and Casey Kasem.  We were now down to the 10 biggest hits in America, Casey had just read a letter from Columbus, Ohio where someone was curious about who Daniel was in Elton John’s song “Daniel”. I was curious too, Elton has a brother named Daniel, but the song was written about another Daniel and it had something to do with Daniel coming home from war.  Thanks Casey!  As Casey ticked down the top 10 I was amazed at how I could sing every word to every song.  1973 was a mixed bag of pop music.  On one hand you had Alice Cooper, The Stones, Paul McCartney and Dr John, on the other hand you had The Osmonds, Tony Orlando and the sappiest song ever recorded: “Coming in at number 5 this week, Clint Holmes drops 2 notches with “Playground in my Mind, I like this tune,” chirped Casey.  

The vault of my brain was instantly opened and I started involuntarily singing along...“My name is Michael, I’ve got a nickel, I got a nickel shiny and new, I’m gonna buy me all kinds of candy that’s what I’m gonna do.”  I wanted to pull Teddy (that’s our RV) off the side of the New York mountain road and put myself out of my misery.

But it got worse, for the next several days, this monstrous ear worm would not leave my body.  We were hiking falls in Ithaca and I turned to Christine and started singing. “My name is Michael...”

Damn you Casey!  Damn you summer of 73!  Damn you Michael! 

I now realize that music served as a backdrop for our cross country track in 1973, that the summer songs were equally if not more memorable than the bats, caves, geysers and the Pips (Gladys would not see us, only one of the Pips, but I still love her and believe “Midnight Train to Georgia” is the perfect song with and without Gladys).

Being on the road of life means reliving parts of your past that will always be with you.  No matter how many miles you travel you will inevitably revisit the playground in your mind, whether you like it or not. 

We are in Robert Treeman State Park in Ithaca, NY and just danced in the most beautiful playground of waterfalls and refreshing pools, this place is stunning and we are so happy to be here singing sappy songs on the road of life.