My Own Personal Joshua Tree: Giving Thanks to the Music and Memories of Bus Rides to School

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My experience with music was a mixed bag as a child. In the years after my parents divorced when I was three, my mom began listening to more country music, which in the 80s was becoming aggressively hokey and pop-oriented, and I heard a lot of it on the car radio driving around. Despite this, I was able to sneak in some time watching MTV after elementary and I became enamored with videos by the likes of Joe Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, The Cars, The Cure, Dire Straights, Men at Work, and others, but as things began shifting more toward metal and hip-hop as the 90s neared, my access to MTV grew increasingly restricted. Like Sting once sang, I wanted my MTV, but no dice.

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Memories and Mischief from October Country

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Like many nostalgics, autumn is by far my favorite time of year. The county fair season of late summer and Labor Day is coming to an end and the afternoon sun’s ferocity burns less and less each day until you hear the skitter of the first dried up brown leaf skipping across the sidewalk and you’re wearing your fall jacket (finally!) and wondering where you can curl up with a mug of hot cider by a window somewhere to take in the kaleidoscope of colors in the treeline horizon. I swear I’ve seen everything from yellow to purple in those trees, and with the anticipatory thrill of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and eventually Christmas whirling around inside, I can’t think of a better time of year than right here and now.

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