Of all the wonders that music offers, nothing can beat its powers as a vehicle of time travel.
That’s why, every time I hear that distorted three-note riff that opens the Rolling Stones classic, “Satisfaction,” I am flashed back to that gravel alleyway behind Gene and Jude’s hot dog stand near the intersection of River Road and Grand Avenue in River Grove, listening to my buddy John Hendrickson say, “Doggone it!”
It was an incongruous curse for a punk like John, because although he was course and rough in every other way, he was a choirboy when it came to cursing.
And anyway, he had plenty to curse about this time because he had just done something that threatened to ruin not only our day, but maybe even our whole summer.
It was early June in 1965, and we were both just 17. I hadn’t known John for very long—just a few weeks, ever since my sudden transfer to a new high school late in my junior year.
Oh, he wasn’t the sort of friend my parents hoped I would make in my new school. He was too angry, too much a rebel, an outsider. But I was angry, too, because I never wanted to leave my old school and all my lifelong friends. And so our anger became our bond.
And now school was out for the summer, and as we headed for Gene and Jude’s to celebrate with a couple hot dogs layered with greasy fries, the Rolling Stones came on the radio with their latest angst-filled release, “Satisfaction”—which John and I instantly recognized as our new anthem of disenfranchisement and discontent.
We were eastbound on Grand Avenue, a hundred yards or so from the intersection when the light turned red. We would have to wait through a whole light change, and then wait some more before we could turn left.
“I can’t get no…satisfaction,” Mick Jagger sang to us, as if he were sitting between us, as hungry and angry as we were. We cranked the radio louder.
John swung left into the gravel alleyway a half block before the light. “We’ll take the short cut,” he said.After all, stoplights were for squares, not angry punks thumbing their noses at the world. It was as if John had asked himself, “What would Mick do?” And this is exactly what Mick would do.
But in the middle of the alley stood a rusty fifty-five gallon trash drum, blocking our way.
There were sensible alternatives we could have taken. One of us could have gotten out of the car and tolled the barrel aside. Or we could have turned around and gone back to the traffic light.
But, hey, we were young and angry, and we had MickJagger growling his agreement into our ears.And not once does he sing the word “sensible.” What would Mick do if he found a trash barrel in his way?
John hit the gas. I could imagine Mick sitting between us, howling his approval, pounding on the dashboard with his fists.
At the last moment, John swung to the right of the barrel, so close he would have hit it if the Ford people had put an extra coat of paint on the car at the factory.
The right side of the car—my side—wasn’t so lucky. The alleywaywas narrow and edged with shrubbery, and John’sFord was pruning a good two or three feet of branches from them. I had to lean over imaginary Mick to avoid being limb-lashed as leaves cascaded through the open windows.
And as we broke clear of the shrubbery, our rebellious voices roaring along with the Stones, Mick’s voice on the radio fell suddenly silent…
…because John’s rogue off-road detour had snapped off the car’s antenna.Actually, it was his mother’s car, which meant he would be paying for it in more ways than one.
John slammed on the brakes and crunched to a stop on the gravel, letting the damage sink into his brain. Leaves showered down off the car’s hood, followed by the snapped antenna.
The car was silent.
At that moment, we should have been singing, “I can’t get no…no, no, no!” along with Mick. But instead, John cut the silence with his angriest punk rebel curse: “Doggone it!”
I know I shouldn’t have, but I laughed. After all, there was still plenty for both of us to be mad at, compounded now by the nuisance of having to drive around town without a teenage soundtrack blasting from the open windows. But I thought: What would Mick have done?
He’d have scooted out the door, saying: “What kind of angry punk rebel says ‘Doggone it’ at a time like this?”
That was a long time ago. It was just one insignificant moment in a long life, a meaningless event a full half-century past. But such is the power of music to transport me back there with only a three-note guitar riff.
Other musical vehicles take me to still more places—the Beatles singing the single word “Help!”transports me to July of that same year, sitting in the back seat of a station wagon rolling over a Mississippi River bridge, begging Dad not to change the fading station until that new song was over. Or the Monkees singing “Cheer up, sleepy Jean,”sending me back to New Year’s Eve 1967 in an apartment on California Avenue in Chicago’s west side, with a boxy plastic radio blaring from the top of the refrigerator.
It is one of the joys I get from playing in Old’s Cool—my rock band that specializes in covering old, cool songs—to slip into a tune and to watch the faces of audience members as they slide down their own memories, back to a moment a half-century or more ago.As cool as it is to ride on a time machine, it’s even more fun to drive one.
We’ll be playing a free concert at the Fountain ViewAmphitheater here in Sun City tonight at 6 p.m.
Come on out and do a little time traveling with us!
