West and Fast

You know how sights and smells and sounds trigger memories? For me, sour milk is always first and second grade. A road kill skunk reminds me of church trips in high schooleve. Pound cake of my great grandmother.



Twenty some odd years ago, I drove a friend from my hometown to this city I live in now, to the airport. She was going home. Her name is Kelli. I remember going with me was another friend we called Strick. I'm sure some people still do.



If I remember correctly, I had a two door red Nissan, basicly a box on wheels. But it was mine. Strick rode with us because, while I had the wheels, I had no idea how or where to drive in the big city.



The flight was at night, and on the way home we took what I would years later know is called "the loop." You know, the loop of interstate that circles the heart of the city. Late at night with few cars, but with green street lights lining it like so many uniformed soldiers.



I seldom am on that part of the loop, even though I live in this city now, foregoing it's well known traffic for city streets that cut under or around it. They say the Friday afternoon traffic starts on Thursdays, it can be just that bad. But every now and then, every now and then, I find myself on the loop at night.

Last night was one of those nights. Two children in the car with me I had taken to the movies, Nascar style traffic all around me - to the left, to the right, in front of and behind. No time to reminisce with headlights in my mirrors and Spyder & Sass my charges in the back.

But sometimes, sometimes. . . . . . sometimes My Fella and I will go out for a late night Sonic snack and I will not want to go home. . . . . sometimes the darkness calls or the hint of a memory wanting to be remembered. . . . . sometimes I'll take the long way home, driving out East, just to come back West, just to get on the loop late at night.

The lights stand in formation, row after row of green soldier, almost twenty years have passed but that stretch of interstate remains the same late at night, dark and wide open. The windows roll down and the wind rolls in and the green dots roll by, and for just a minute, just a brief minute I can tell myself that I am younger . . . a young man on the verge of adulthood, not the man burdened by it. I think that's what that night really represents - the youth, excitement, driving to the big city and driving home. Young and so sure I could conquer the world on the interstate. West and Fast, west and fast.