Friday Dreams

I was very weary on the drive home today, the week having taken a toll on me. I was daydreaming of seeing my wife and the dogs when I arrived home.  I turned on the radio, selecting a classic rock station out of Knoxville, TN, that I can sometimes pick up clearly.

The fatigue melted away for a few minutes when this song came on. Took me back to the days before everything Southern was scorned and hated. The days when Southern Rock was a genuine sub-genre of rock music. The days when I had never filled out a tax return. The days when the  length of my hair was greater than the height of our youngest grandchild.

Molly Hatchet. Just saying the name out loud make my face crease into a smile. I’ll never be able to forget a scene in Billy Bob Thorton’s “Daddy & Them,” a movie I’ve long suspected was based on my family, where one of the brothers crashes his truck on a country road one Friday night.

“How much you had to drink?” asks the deputy.

“I don’t know,” replies the brother. “I bought a thirty-pack. You’d have to count how many’s left .”

“What made you crash?”

“I was reachin’ down to pick up my Molly Hatchet tape, and the next thang I knew….”

Anyway, if you’re in the mood for something to make you nod your head and tap your boot, here ’tis.

~ S.K. Orr