Spring In The Light Of Other Days

The perennial rat Fink by big daddy Roth

In about six hours spring will officially begin in this hemisphere but that's not what this blog is about today. Again this morning as I lay in bed pondering because I couldn't get back to sleep (around 4:15 AM) my mind fastened on a spring day I remember from the mid-60s in southeast Boise. The time had to be around 1962 or 63 are even 64 because I was a teenager and I was at East junior high school. I was able bodied so is before my accident which is in 1966. I lived in southeast Idaho as I've written about in the past and does actively writing the little Yamaha that I had access to the time.

It's not like I was this massive motorhead I was not. I wish that I was but I was beginning to hang around with the crew that were definitely more motorhead oriented than athletic. Of course was listening to the Beatles at the time, music wise, but I also was listing to Jan and Dean, the Beach boys and other rock music centered around automotive/motorcycle/motorbike living. I was beginning to hang out with friends that actually were motorhead's, Larry Crouch, John Messmer, Ed Seeman and a few others. They always had copies of Hot Rod Magazine and were semi-artists cartooning different auto motive tropes like I think, big daddy Roth and of course the perennial Rat Fink character. I think in my own way I was looking for some sort or group to identify with as my “tribe”.

One of my best memories of that period was a quarter-mile drag strip which been measured off out on Gekeler Lane. Gekeler letter was a straight Street probably well over a mile in length. It's main claim to fame was the home address of Triangle Dairy major enterprise in Southeast Boise. A major Holstein heard not twice a day with milk trucks running all over Boise in the old days when milk was delivered to your door and half-gallon bottles, actually any way that you wanted, and you still had to remove the cream that seeped to the top of the bottle before one really use the milk. I can actually say I raced a vehicle on the street once maybe twice. One time I think I actually fired up the family Studebaker truck which was a far cry from a hot rod but still a combustible engine and begin above 30, prerequisites for the quarter-mile strip. Also I think I remember either running or riding with Larry Greenas we raced his Crown Vic (Victoria). Larry's crown was beautiful two-tone, two-door blue-and-white ragtop. I never did witness a large groups of kids at the quarter-mile but they tended to drag race often on. The cops didn't bother them much and was sure a lot of fun. It seems like I float back to that period every time I hear Monday Monday by the mamas and the Poppas or Paperback Writer of course by the Beatles .I think I only did the truck once by that period of time my dad was smart enough to start writing down the mileage on the odometer. But motorcycles and other people's vehicles were certainly open game.

On days like today when the sun's out and for the first time the thermometers is inching toward 60°, this year I feel the pull of some invisible rope trying to drag me back to Gekeler Lane and hot rods and hooligans.