Going Back In Time This Week

It feels like the days are dragging into each other huh?
The need to get on a plane is overwhelming.
My sister called the other night begging me to move back to Redding.  She used the guilt trip method too. She must not be reading my blog lately because, “Co-Dependant No More” doesn’t allow guilt trips.  I backed up that book with a Dr. Phil book.
Tonight I was actually thinking about it though.  It might have been the Journey song that came on the radio.  You see, in Redding they live by classic rock.  They play Journey and Air Supply in church up there.  It’s scary how out of the music industry they are.    Anyway, a Journey song came on and the heater was blowing full blast…and the memories of Redding and Shingletown came flooding back.  Good ones.

Redding is about 30 degrees hotter than hell on a good day.  During the summer you have to have a towel in car to put over the steering wheel because if you touch the steering wheel after leaving the car in the sun for more than 2 minutes your hands WILL MELT.  If you forget the towel, you have to learn how to drive with the tips of two fingers.  God forbid you have a stick shift.

Living in Shingletown while going to high school in Redding without car means you’re spending an hour and half on the school bus, in the heat, going uphill on the curviest road created.  You learn real fast to make friends with people who have cars.  You can get home twice as fast and you don’t have to peel your legs off the pleather seats every few minutes.  Our school bus in the 80’s looked like we were transporting  30 long haired dogs with all of us fighting to stick our heads out the windows.  It was either to get some relief from the heat or to avoid the barf smell that lingers when someone throws up on the bus because of the nauseating drive.

The driving arrangements went like this; Preps and Jocks drove the slammed mini-trucks.  These would seat two and the driver.
The guys who hung out with the preps drove El Caminos.  These only sat two and the driver.
The guys who were just the dude that ‘hung out’ drove Honda Civics.  seating FOUR and he driver.
Now you have the girls;  Only one girl in our group drove and she lived half way between Redding and Shingletown and couldn’t drive us all the way home.  She did drive a bad-ass Camaro.  Kudos to chicks with big hair and nice cars.

The pecking order for being a passenger in a glorious car instead of the bus went like this;  Girlfriend first. Best Friend second, Best friend’s girlfriend is third.

I dated the guy who rode a skateboard.
My best friend’s boyfriend lived in Redding…and probably had a suspended licenses.
Guess who rode the bus a lot?

One year I managed to secure a spot with the guy who drove the beat up Honda Civic.  It didn’t have air conditioning, but that was okay.  What sucked is that it overheated all the time so we would have to drive with the heater on to cool the engine.  It didn’t have FM stereo either.  All five of us would take turns thinking of a song we all knew the words to.  Being from Redding the only songs we could sing with accuracy was Journey.

So with the heater blazing, feet burning, smoking and singing we were creating one of the greatest memories I had of living in Shingletown/Redding.

Tomorrow I will have to tell you about my best friends. There is picture that is now circling the internet with me in holding an empty bottle of Tequila.  This picture is RIGGED. RIGGED I SAY!  I can honestly say I have NEVER done a single shot of that evil toxin.
Never have I heard a story start with, “OMG, this one night I had such a good night, I was drinking Tequila.”
Nope, It usually start with, “The worst night of my life I was drinking Tequila…” and it ends up up with the story teller weaving you into a tale of puking and losing garments of clothing.”

I’m sure you have a story like that one.   Tell it, as long as it doesn’t involve a Journey song. That would be just too pathetic.