Mobius Monday Minute #9 – January 3, 2011
[display_podcast]
I was listening to the radio the other day while I sipped my morning mocha. When a song came on that I recognized instantly as Neil Young’s “Long may you run”.
After it finished playing the announcer off-handedly mentioned that the song was about one of Young’s cars.
It surprised me. I never knew that.
Kinda made me think about the connections we make with things. I can certainly relate to what Youg must have been feeling when he wrote the lyrics to this song. I remember my first car. It was a Green 1962 MGA two-seater convertible sports car. Incidentally that’s the year mentioned in the song as the last year that he saw his car “alive”.
I was only nineteen back then when I first got it. I had a lot of good memories with it. It took me through my last two years of high school and through the accompanying summers. It was a wonderful time.
This car, despite it’s wonky mechanics, was at least a constant steady reality at a time of real change in my life. The biggest of course was when I moved out of my parent’s house for the first time. It took me to college in another city about 250 miles away and I remember running out of gas on the freeway that crossed the north end of the big city. I was only there for a few minutes when a tow truck pulled up in front of me on the shoulder of the road.
The driver got out and as I no sooner had described what my problem was he quickly took a gas can from his truck and was pouring i’s contents into my empty tank. He wouldn’t even take any money for it. Turns out he worked for the city and it was his job to keep things rolling on that busy stretch of highway.
Try that today eh? Good luck.
Lot’s was happening back then but, no matter what there was always that car.
But, just like the song says changes come and I eventually sold the car.
Funny isn’t it? How you can think of an inanimate object as some kind of important anchor point to memories long past their freshness date.
I don’t really know exactly how this ties in with my ongoing theme on this blog which usually talks about my theory of Mindset Immunity.
Perhaps it’s this admittedly very tangential refrain from the song itself:
“Although these changes have come.
With your chrome heart shining in the sun”
At least that’s how it is with the historical view of memory. The best one’s always shine on seemingly forever.
More power to you.
