A row of trucks

On my way to the store today I passed the college ball fields and saw 3 Ryder trucks parked in a line. I guess they're there with stuff for setting up the 2009 graduation ceremonies. My heart started to race a little and an old excitement began running through my brain. I could hear loud live music and smell campfires and weed...I was ready to hit the road take some acid and get the job done. It took me a couple of seconds to recognize what this Pavlovian response was about.

When I was 15 I had the opportunity to work with a crew of people that subcontracted as a labor pool to the purveyors of Midwest summer music festivals. At the time I didn't know how it all worked I just knew that I'd get the call at my Mom's house that a bunch of hands were needed to work and I'd start calling my friends and family members. We'd all hook up at the little white house on "Gasoline Alley" and jump in the vans and cars and head on down to Madison where we'd pick up other folks.

At that point my "position" as fixer was passed on to someone older and presumably more experienced. I was there because I had the only stable phone number and I could find everybody else. I couldn't drive, I weighed about 95 lbs soaking wet and really I was just a kid. So I rolled the joints and the 18 and olders took the reins. I was along for the ride and the cool tee shirts. I did get to work on the crew and I always came home a week or so later with some money.

From Madison we'd go to Chicago to meet with the Guy. He also had a bunch of bodies and a line of Ryder trucks with the necessary implements in them. Leaving from there to points west we would eventually end up somewhere in a cornfield on an abandoned farm that had been leased for the occasion. There were always problems with mud, fencing, sanitation, food services, decking, sound towers, stages etc. that our crew could be turned loose on. Semi able hands in the right places at the time they were needed. There is much more to this memory and I may write it down some other time but this morning, when I saw the Ryder trucks lined up in a row I was 15 again for just a few seconds.