Monday, August 07, 2023

Fifty Years of Music • August, 1973

Your everlasting summer and you can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last
Well, you wouldn't even know a diamond if you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious I can't understand. –Steely Dan

It's August 1973, I'm out of high school and about to start college at Allan Hancock Jr. College in Santa Maria. Yep, back in the day it was called, "Junior College." Looking forward to two years of, "You're not really in real college yet bucko!"

Well, it's still the summer and I'm having fun with my new girlfriend, Mary Kit. She graduated a year early, and to my great luck will be attending pretend college with me too! In reelin' in the years here, I can say... the weekend at the college really did turn out like we planned.

I'm seeing a bit less of the boys of summer, and they're wondering, "Where's Doug these days?" 

Ron dropping water balloons on our sisters from his rooftop while I pelt them from behind the stationwagon, riding bikes on 166, smoking the thin Erik filtered cigars on a starry night, Bill pushing me in his mom's wheelchair to Rexall, as (oh boy), I pretend to be handicapped, Gary buying us beer at Dino's, hangin' out in Paul's fort overlooking the garbanzo bean field, making whirlpools in my backyard circular pool, taking turns cranking and waiting to eat my mom's homemade peach ice cream.

"Yeah Doug's off with Mary Kit again, I think they drove to San Luis." We sure did love hanging out there. I have a wonderful memory of the two of us walking together in the downtown indoor network of wooden and brick shops, it was like a hippy mall. The smell of leather and incense. Now Cal Poly, that was a real university and a real college town.

Let's think this through, Cal Poly and 30 minutes from home, or maybe the five hour drive to San Diego State? We got time to plan our getaway...

Enjoy the playlist my friends.