Coffeehouse Chronicles ...and Burn Rubber!

Howz it going, Chroniclers? You got yer cup?

Many of you might be wondering where the Chronicles have been of late. The rest of you know that the HB and I have been separated—NOT PERMANENTLY, YOU BIG DUMMIES! It’s Tax Season. I’m a tax widower. This happens to me every year, starting in February and continuing until at least April 15th. She leaves the house early in the morning and rolls back in, exhausted, late in the evening.

The only good thing is I get to see and hear from random ex-coworkers of mine and hers when they come by the house and drop off their tax docs. Of course, they wanna check in and ask me how the HB is doing. How the heck should I know? I’ll tell you after April 15th.

The HB started doing taxes a few years before she retired after we could not contact our tax guy for copies of our returns. Somehow, the day we were there for our tax appointment, his printer broke down, and it literally took us more than a year to get our copies. Yeah, for my Gen Z’er Chroniclers, this was way before Zoom, E-filing, and digital copies.

Yeah, so anyway, lack of contact with the HB leads to little to no anecdotal stories about the HB.

Before I continue, let me ask this: is there a particular song you hear on the radio that takes you back to your glory days? Maybe brings a memory to mind that makes you smile?

I know that when my friends Paul & Maria Myron see their neighbor, Ryan AntHill, on his daily power walk. He’s listening to the yellow Walkman hanging precariously from the waistband of his fluorescent green Dolphin shorts. Shorts that are just a little too uncomfortably snug. Ryan’s signature 80’s era running shorts are more painful for the unexpected onlooker than for Ryan himself. His ensemble is capped by a fleece crop top with the collar cut out seductively to reveal a shoulder and his favorite Jane Fonda leg warmers. The silly-looking grin he wears is produced by the memory of him wooing his 7th-grade girlfriend, dancing outside her window with Madonna singing Vogue blasting from the boombox he brought and set on the lawn. He graciously provided her a copy of the mixtape he made for her the next day in 3rd period, Mrs. Hotchkiss’s Algebra 1 class.

Just last week, he wondered out loud to me if she still had to don her orthodontic headgear after lunch every day.

For me, it’s the Gap Band’s Burn Rubber on Me.

This song always gets me thinking back to my pal Marc Pruyn and his 1970 white Toyota Corolla. A car that we spent hours installing and fine tuning a sound system that, without a doubt, cost him more than his dad had paid for the car we were wrenching on. Marc & I played the snot out of that cassette. He would cue it to the very beginning of the desired track, pull to an open spot on whatever desired street happened to be close to us at the time, open both doors, turn up the stereo full blast, and when the sound of burning rubber came out of the speakers, Marc would pop the clutch in a futile attempt to make the same sound with the tires of his trusted steed. The car would jerk forward, our doors would slam shut, and he and I would laugh as if we had just done something really cool. Ah, to be sixteen again.

Marc & I are still friends. We will phone one another and catch up whenever I can figure out what time it is in Australia. He is an ex-pat, living some 8000 miles away, but I always think of him and smile when the Gap Band comes on XM.

Last weekend, I drove all the way out to Santa Monica to see my old pal, who was in town on a one-day layover on his way to El Paso to see his mom. He was so appreciative that I would spend an hour on the freeway for two and a half hours, reminiscing and giggling at the reminder of some of our exploits.

The truth is I would drive longer and farther to see my buddy, but don't tell him that, he has a big enough head already.

Drink ‘em if you got ‘em.

#coffeehousechronicles