September 2018 - My journey to a butterfly

Today’s Stream of Social Consciousness word prompt by my friend Linda G. Hill is “Earworm“. At first glance, I turned my nose up at it. I was thinking “earwig” and thought, “how the hell am I going to write about a creepy bug?” I then spent the next 10 minutes or so wondering why I always called it “earwig” when it appears the correct name is “earworm”. Anyway, I finally googled it and realized she was not referring to the creepy bug, (which most definitely is named “earwig“). “Earworm” refers to a song that gets stuck in your head. Oh yes, I thought. I can write about this…

When I was about five years old or so, my family drove from Massachusetts to Disney World. We took my dad’s blue truck. The back pickup bed had a cab on it and we slept in there on blankets and pillows, goofing off and playing games to stave off the boredom. God, it’s amazing any kids at all survived back then…how did people think popping kids in the back of a truck with nothing to secure them was a good idea? Anyway, on one particular stretch of the journey, I was riding shotgun with my dad. My brother and sister were in the back cab, while my mom was napping in the back seat. This was in the mid 70s, so no CDs or cassettes for music. I’m sure we probably could have had an 8 track player in there, but Dad didn’t roll like that. He was old-school. We were in an isolated area of endless highway with no radio reception, so he ended up just turning it off. I’m not sure if it was the last song on the radio, or maybe it was the only popular song I knew, but I started singing “Country Roads” by John Denver. The problem was, I only knew the chorus. “Country roads, take me home….to the place…I belonggggggg…..West Virginia…mountain momma….take me home…country roads….”. I must have sung that chorus for a good 3 or 4 hours. After about the 50th round, my dad looks over at me, sitting there in my pigtails, crooning to him and says, “Don’t you know any other words to that song? Or any OTHER songs?” I giggled and said, “nope!” and kept on serenading him, until we finally reached an area of reception and my anthem was replaced by something else…probably Crystal Gayle or Gordon Lightfoot or someone like that.

Throughout the years, my dad and I would reminisce about that day, and one of us would sing the chorus and we both would end up with wide smiles as we returned to that blue pickup truck. It unofficially became “our song”.

I’m 46 now. My dad is 77. Life has it’s funny way of not working out the way you plan, you know? Families sometimes become fractured and before you realize what’s happening, relationships are just gone. I don’t really get to talk to my dad anymore, and it’s kind of weird how that song seems to be popping up everywhere lately. Except I don’t find myself with that wide smile any longer…instead, I end up with kind of a tight throat and a tear or two rolling down my cheek….like right now. Maybe life will figure out a way to turn things back around again. God, I miss him.

Take me home… to the place I belong…