I took a little trip a few weeks ago and after the music was played I went to check out some of my history. Driving from Grand Junction to Denver is a whole different trip than it was in the early 60s. There’s an Interstate now and the trip is not so curvy, not so steep, and not so long.

My family excursions back when I was a kid took me to all the places I passed while driving into Denver. Mostly it made me remember the ride through the canyon, river close on the side, and curvy. I used to sit and watch out the window and I memorized every turn of the highway. I sat in the back seat and at night I could see the dashboard lit up in the window next to my dad. I could see how fast we were going and how much gas we had left in the car though it shone backward mirrored in the glass.

I have always liked to drive, I like to drive at night, though that gets harder as I get older. Seeing is not what it once was in the dark with the lights and glares. But I still love to drive down a lonely two-laner going like a bat out of hell. I just grew up that way.

I saw the second place we lived in the Denver area first. It’s in Lakewood which is the suburb to the west of the city. I was 6 years old when we moved in there. My dad and I planted a tree in the front yard, then we planted a lawn and covered it with some foul smelling shit to make it grow. I remember a few days later, the little grass sprouts started popping up. I was amazed at how all of the blades began growing the same amount, and every day the ground was greener than the day before. Now the tree is 60 years old, and its shade covers the whole lot. The house looks different but the same, you know?

From there, I tried to remember the route my dad would take to go to the base where he worked, where we shopped, sometimes ate at the NCO Club, and where I had to have a shiny military dependent ID card to go anywhere. I got haircuts on Saturdays, seems like every two weeks, most times a crew cut, but a few times I wanted to look like Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip, so I’d get a flattop and though it wasn’t long enough to be just like his, I still would comb it fairly often with the little plastic comb I carried in my hip pocket, pushing the comb through and following with a soft palm across my hair, just like Kookie did. I couldn’t remember where downtown we lived first and where I went to my first school so I drove to where Lowry AFB was. We lived in quarters there. It was not actually on the base, but adjacent to the 6^th AV gate. All the housing is now new apa

hhj