THIS STORY WAS WRITTEN FOR MEDIUM’S THE CHALLENGED.
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It’s early June 1973, and Paul Simon’s Kodachrome is playing, and playing, and playing on the car radio as I’m driving on America’s East-West Interstate 80.
The bastards were going to pour sand down my gas tank. Greg and Steve were the worst of the most notorious class in the history of St. John’s Elementary School in Burlington, Iowa.
No wonder Mrs. Smith retired early, replaced by this lamb fed to the lions, who quit every night for seven months.
44 6th graders! I tried to be their friend. That failed miserably. I’ll need a new strategy for the fall. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
Was it worth $5,432?
My first new car, monthly payments, and two weeks before the summer cement factory job begins.
It’s early morning at the Brady Street exchange: Will I go west to the Rockies or east to DC?
The mountains and all that space, or Abe, the Mall, and Nixon?
East it is. Sorry, John Denver.
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I first heard it around Chicago.
When I think back to all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all
Oh man, I’m such a schmuck—the irreverence of it all. That’s got to be part of the secret. To succeeding in this fuckin’ adult world. Someone’s got to be the grown-up and he’s got to have his shit together. How do I do that?
By Pittsburgh, I’ve heard it ten times. Thank God there’s a Motel 6.
Abe looks so serene, Jefferson is arrogant, and the White House hides a crook.
I love the sense of being in the center of it all.
I should call my parents and tell them I went east, not west.
Maybe tomorrow.
I like this freedom and feel like I’m on the cusp of something.
The greens of summer make you think all the world’s a sunny day
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Note: I slowly figured out the teaching gig and would come to love my middle schoolers. I remained a nice guy, with a dash of firmness and a dollop of consistency. I taught 6th grade for five years before transitioning to college teaching, which presented its own set of challenges. Fortunately, I caught Greg and Steve in the school parking lot before they ruined my new car engine. In those days, the fuel tank cover did not lock. I checked a few years ago. Neither has served prison time.
My Toyota Corolla started rusting three years later, and I traded it in. This was before Toyota figured out how to make better cars.
To this day, “Kodachrome” the song warms my heart and picks me up. And the Netflix film by the same name, starring Jason Sudeikis (Ted Lasso) and Ed Harris, is a poignant father-son film, alas, sans the song.
