October 2 n d

We're barreling down I-10 east, spotting gators under bridges.  47 miles to New Orleans.  Between the patches of suburban superstores are forests of thick green that stretch on for miles.  We are hours from the town where my father grew up.  I'm staring out this window and can't stop imagining what it must've felt like to be a little boy running through these Louisiana woods.  Maybe barefoot.  Maybe not.  A hole in the shirt. On the body of a short, wild boy with a tiny round afro, not much unlike the one he dons now.  My Father as a boy is looking up at me in my mind and all I can think of is how much he does not know.  How when you are a kid the world is yours. No sight of the cliffhangers or surprise endings your life will pull.  His feet charged through these thickets unaware of the Vietnamese jungles he'd be forced to know.

That is what his 20s were colored with, and I wonder if those army days transformed the sight of these Louisiana woods.  I wonder how our lives could've been any more different.  Forty years later, I am sitting cushy in a van, waiting for the chance to stretch my legs, soundcheck and play.  And when I look at this murky green marsh it reminds me of nothing but its own beautiful, strange trees and the alligators hiding beneath.