The Three of Us - 2013

I will never defend the men who make amends with any enemy's friends,
I will never pretend.
I will never bow down to another man even when everyone's sayin' I've sinned,
I will never repent.

Song: The Three of Us

Artist: Streetlight Manifesto

Album: The Hands That Thieve

Year Released: 2013

Memory Date: May 2013

I joined the Army Reserves in May of 2008. During my next 8 years in the Reserves I did two stints working active duty. The first was a stateside mission to do port security. It was an easy job with a steady pay check, heck I even got to go home at the end of each night. The second was that I deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as a prison guard. Before I left to go to GTMO I trained in Camp McGregor, New Mexico.

I was leaving my wife, Kortney and our 1 year old daughter, Ellie at home. This was the first time I had been away from them for an extended period of time. It was a difficult time not just for me and my wife, but for our whole family. I assured them all that it was something that had been done a million times before by people who weren’t as strong as we were and that everyone would survive the year with me gone. Kortney and I made plans for her to move in with her father while I was gone so he could help with Ellie.

I packed my bags, spent a few days in Concord, California getting all my paperwork together and 

then I took off. I left Oakland Airport on May 5^th 2013 for Camp McGregor. When you prepare to go overseas on a deployment there is a few weeks to a few months, depending on your mission that you go and learn how to conduct operations. In my units case this meant lots of shooting, PowerPoint training and prison operations. My unit (the 357th MP CO) also had a slew of new soldiers join us for our deployment so this was a good chance to get to know them. The whole time at the Camp was a shit experience for everyone involved.

The Camp is a place that I can only describe as the worst location I have ever been forced to visit. It was blisteringly hot during the day, freezing cold at night. We had random sandstorms that would come out of nowhere. God help you if you were outside when they hit, say goodbye to your eyes and lungs. Our living conditions weren’t great, but not to terrible. We bunked in dome shelters that had 12 per shack. I brought a ton of stuff, including my Laptop and my external hard drive which I had loaded with movies and music before leaving. Most of my belongings found their way under my bed as my personal space was about 4’ by 6’.

The one thing that I was looking forward to each day was possibly listening to the most recent album I had downloaded. The Hands That Thieve by Streetlight Manifesto. I was a big ska-punk fan and Streetlight releasing a new album was a big deal to me. I was really excited to listen to it. Sadly, I was far too busy and tired with all of my training/work to listen to it when we first arrived. It was about 2 weeks into my time there that I finally sat down, put in my earphones and listened to what I can only describe as the best thing about this entire time of suck.

I listen to the album front to back every night for the next 3 weeks. It was my way to de-stress after each day. Even on days when we worked from before sun-up to after sun-down I plugged it in and gave it a listen. Our lights would go out at 10pm, the room full of me and 11 other guys would all go about bedding down, I would put those earphones in, sink into my bed and I would just let the sweet horn sounds melt away the stress of the day.

Walk on Water - 1988 - 1989

Well if I could walk on water
And if I could find some way to prove
If I could walk on water would you believe in me
My love is so true

Song: Walk on Water

Artist: Eddie Money

Album: Nothing to Lose

Year Released: 1988

Memory Date: 1988-1989

It’s fitting that my first memory is a musical one. When I first decided to start writing down all of my musical memories (plug, plug) this was the second that came to mind. My mother was a big Eddie Money fan. I remember listening to him a lot when I was growing up and there is a good reason for it. The man has some talent, decent pipes and he can write some decent pop songs. I would never say that he is rock, but still quite the talented musician. I’ve been a fan of him as long as I can remember, literally, which is where this memory comes in.

Since I was 3-4 years old in this memory there are some fuzzy details. Some skewed remembrances or just blank spaces in my mind so I will fill the holes as well as I can. I remember being in a car with cloth interior, my car seat, which was a booster chair has blue cloth on the plastic lap arm. My mother had just driven us from our home to an Albertson’s and we are in the parking lot. I know that I am singing along with Eddie Money and my mother is crying. The car was beat run. I don’t remember the make or model, but it was a silver color, boxy look from the late 80’s, I sat in the middle of the back bench looking at the parking lot. The building was looming over us as we sat in the car, the sun baking us on the inside. It must have been the middle of the day, but I can’t be sure. I remember thinking that the song was weird, the words didn’t make sense and that I couldn’t find out why my mother was crying. All I knew was that she was sad.

Hindsight is always 20-20 (leads us to another song for another day). I now realize that my parents were beginning to enter their divorce around this time. My father had begun using harder drugs and was physically assaulting my mother. I found out all of this stuff when I was an adult. Now when I hear this song I think back to my first memory, Singing along to a song in a hot parking lot, my mother crying and not being able to help her, not even knowing what was going on, just seeing her sad.

Sub-Story: Eddie Money was also my first concert. There’s not a lot of story there. I saw him at a fair in 1995 and I would say that the free show had less than 100 people attending it. How the mighty had fallen.

Night Moves - November 2003

Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in

Song: Night Moves

Artist: Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band

Album: Night Moves

Year Released: 1976

Memory Date: November 2003

At this point in my life I was working a crappy security job at the Bodega Harbor Golf Links, a small golf course located in Northern California town Bodega Bay. My girlfriend at the time had left directly after graduating high school to go to basic training for the Army. We had corresponded via letters and a few phone calls when she was able. In October she told me that she would be given a pass on Thanksgiving from her Advanced Individual training (job training) and she wanted to see me. She was at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Having the intelligence of an 18 year old I decided that I would take off 3 days and drive to go see her.

This plan had a few issues. Firstly I didn’t leave myself enough time to get there, spend time with her and get back to work on time. I would have to drive for 26 hours straight to get to where she was. Than after seeing her drive back that night and do another 26 hours. Secondly, the car that I owned at the time had no chance of making the drive safely. Third, I would be doing the drive alone. Not a great option for a dumb 18 year old.

Sub-story: When I was 16 my parents and I bought me a 1983 BMW 325I. It was in great condition when I first got it, but due to a few years of the hardest driving I can imagine and complete neglect of maintenance the once promising “Betty the Beamer” was struggling to stay alive.

I called up my parents and talked to them about borrowing one of their vehicles to do the 3,500 mile round trip. Luckily my step father Jason said he would allow me to use his 2000 Toyota Tundra. Gas mileage wasn’t great, but at least it was sturdy and wouldn’t break down during the drive. Next was finding a travel companion. I contacted my friends who all had drivers licenses, but I was unable to convince any of them to make the trip with me. Not that I could blame them, it was a hell of a request and on Thanksgiving none the less! After I exhausted my list of friends that could drive I moved to my ones that could not.

I called one of my now, oldest friends, Jake. Jake was, and still is, a mountain of a man. Standing 6’2 slightly over 300lbs there was no lack of size to him. He is a year younger than me and had not yet decided to enter the land of the driving. His response was simple “Yeah, sure man, I don’t have anything going on”. I told him that I get off work at midnight on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He said that he would be standing out front of his parents’ house ready to go. He had no money so I would be fronting the bill for him as well, but I had a companion.

I left work, went home and grabbed my bag, went to get the truck and hit the road. I rolled up and saw Jake standing in front of his house, ripped jeans, metal t-shirt, backpack on his back and cd case in his hands. He hoped in and off we went on our 26 hour journey. We talked for the first few hours, managed to get up to 110 MPH in the truck before the governor switch kicked in and listened to music. I had also brought my cd case so between us we had over a hundred of those small mirrored musical disks with enough tunes to keep us happy for the whole trip. I had actually gone to Warehouse music to get a few more CD’s for the journey, including Fury of the Aquabats! by The Aquabats, Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s greatest hits and Powerslave by Iron Maiden. We drove and drove. Night turned to day turned to night and we had listen to a ton of music, ranging from classic rock like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to Punk rock to even some classical.

It was around 9pm on Wednesday night. We had just stopped at a Denny’s to eat and stretch our legs. Back in the truck, the album Iowa by Slipknot had just finished. I turned to Jake “Your choice”. We had gone back and forth, our musical tastes had always had converging circles, but still maintained its differences. Jake popped open his CD binder and started flipping through. Static played on the radio while I waited, the low hiss of the white noise mixed with my full belly and driving for upwards of 20 hours started to take its toll, it was putting me to sleep. I heard Jake say something under his breath, speaking to himself about his next choice, one more flip then he nodded to himself, he removed the CD from its sleeve and put it into the truck. “What did you pick?” I asked “Bob Seger’s Greatest hits” he responded.

Now I was never a big Bob Seger guy before that night and I made it known to him, “We gonna listen to Old Time Rock and Roll 15 times for his greatest hits?” I asked jokingly.

“He had a lot more than just that one song,” Jake responded “it’s just one of the only ones that get play on the radio, which really sucks because he has some really good songs”

“I guess Turn the Page was okay, for a slower song, Metallica did it better” I conceded. “You should just listen, you’ll like what you hear” he said with a sense of finality in his voice.

I raised my eyebrows and shut my mouth, giving him the classic “yeah…okay” look. We drove in silence for the first song. After it was over I remember thinking that it was okay, but I was still not convinced. Next, Night Moves came on. “God I hate this song, so slow and boring, let’s just skip it” I said

“This is my favorite Bob Seger song”

“What? Reallly? This song sucks” I looked over at him and noticed he was looking straight ahead, the green glow of the dash and CD player lit up half of his face.

“The song is about an aging man who is looking back on his teenage years, the years we are in. He is longing for those times, the time to be young and free, restless and bored. This song isn’t about kids fucking in the woods like people think. It’s a tribute to the years that are gone, the ones that we still have, that we should be making the most out of, the one’s that he longs to get back, even if it’s just in a dream interrupted by thunder in the middle of the night. This song is about trying to get back what you have lost.” I could see out of the corner of my eye I saw Jake  turn and look at me “This song is about where we are and how someday we will wish we could get back to this, it’s a beautiful song” I frowned and nodded “Alright then, start it from the beginning and let’s hear it” Jake hit the rewind button, which was met by the strumming of an acoustic guitar. This moment with my oldest friend made me look at him in a new light, Jake was and still is extremely insightful and smart. He was completely right. 

I’m 31 years old and it’s funny how the night moves.