Back on the Chain Gang

My daughter and I are back on the chain gang.  We're not really out in orange work clothes on the side of the highway, but we're about that miserable.

Our chains are made of mental heavy metal as much as they are of pretty papers.  At some point when she was just a little girl, we made a chain of colorful construction paper to count down the days to a special event.  Nowadays, we use the chain to count down the days until we are reunited.

Over the years, my daughter's status of child of divorced parents has caused heartbreak and misery on the part of both mother and child.  The summers apart or the holidays spent away took giant chunks out of my heart. Now, when we start to feel like we've been apart too long, the chain rears it's head, offering up both bondage and hope.

My daughter is visiting her father this week.  She's been away two days and is due back in five.  So it's back to the chains. Sing it, Chrissie.

The powers that be/

That force us to live like we do/

Bring me to my knees/

When I see what they've done to you/

But I'll die as I stand here today/

Knowing that deep in my heart/

They'll fall to ruin one day/

For making us part

Chrissie Hynde

"Back on the Chain Gang"

WTMT 620

The jingle for WTMT 620 could only mean my dad was at it again: on the go and in need of race results. My first intersection with country music was with my father and the radio.  Although my father’s musical tastes ran more toward mainstream pop, his gambling genes put him on the receiving end of country airwaves more often than not.  He always needed to know how that horse in the fifth did at Aqueduct or the horse in the sixth did at Santa Anita.  For that reason, his right hand could turn the dial to 620 while his left hand steered onto I-65.   Once he had the racing news, he’d put the dial back onto something more to his liking.  And he liked songs with a backbeat and a great big ‘ole hook.

Back in ’78, when he was still driving me to school, his favorite song was Alicia Bridges' “I Love the Nightlife.”

Please don’t talk about love tonight/

Your sweet talk won’t make it right.

Backbeat, check.  Hook, wait for it:

I love the nightlife/I got to boogie/On the disco round, oh yea.

My daughter’s home from college, and the sounds coming from her room have changed.  No more Foo Fighters.  Now it’s the Randy Rogers Band.  Her biggest risk factor for a country music affinity would have to be living in Waco during the school year.  I’ve never cared for mainstream country, and it was just her grandfather’s way of finding out how much money he’d made. Otherwise, he'd never have strayed all the way down to 620 AM for a country station.

But this country music coming from a distant corner of the house is taking me back to race time with Robert.  Given that we’re right here between the Derby and the Preakness, it’s a timely acoustic memory.

Sailors sail, cowboys ride/

Lovers love when they get the chance.

“Kiss Me in the Dark,” Randy Rogers Band