Sunday morning began with a couple of cups of weak coffee and a special-occasion Camel 99. As you can imagine, Kansas camping tends to stir up more than a few bad habits. By the time my nephews arrived fresh from a warm night’s sleep in town in a proper bed, they were full of energy and I was an easy target.
“Take us down the hill in the TRUCK—it’s fun. We’ll ride in the back and you can drive,” was their plea.
Ten minutes later, accompanied by my highly-responsible sister-in-law, we set off on a gravel road adventure. Like a rural cab driver, I took direction from the kids in the bed through the sliding back window in the cab. We visited the massive drilling rigs that some shady oil company is using to slowly, but steadily destroy the east end of my family’s property. We surveyed a flat-bed trailer carelessly dropped face-first in the mud. We stopped by a collection of big logs just beyond the gate on the land next door.
Headed back up the hill, assuming our tour was complete, another request came through the window. My little buddies wanted to go see the road that used to lead to the bridge that used to lead people across the creek to another series of gravel road interchanges. The bridge was taken out years ago, but the intrigue still remains. I complied—checking over my shoulder and keeping a close eye on the speedometer. I had very precious cargo.
Roughly two miles down down the road, the boys had gotten cold and decided to ride up front with me. They also informed me they were hungry—which meant it was time to head back toward our camp where bacon and eggs were packed away on ice. Growing restless, Nephew Maddox leaned forward and turned on the radio. To my surprise, their was reception in the middle of nowhere. Billy Joel was wrapping up We Didn’t Start the Fire which the kids both reacted to with smiles. Then the soft pop-country sound of Jimmy Buffet’s Come Monday quietly filled the cab.
Not Jimmy’s most well known album (as far as I know), Living and Dying in 3/4 Time is the collection of songs I remember best from my youth—mostly because of my dad’s boisterous sing-along antics near the turntable. It suddenly hit me that I knew every word to Come Monday and I had two captive victims on the bench seat next to me.
I knew exactly what I had to do.
I serenaded the annoyed boys exactly the same way my dad used to when we were kids. I hit the chorus with extra energy. James gave me two thumbs down as we turned the corner. Maddox flashed mean looks my direction. I turned the tiny knob on the stock stereo until they both covered their ears to block the sound.
I thought of my dad and the joy he seemed to garner from torturing us with the same song. I thought about how lucky I was to be there with my family. I thought about the process of making memories, the passing of time and the unpredictable, amazing mess that life seems to be.
As I parked the truck and the song ended, I mentioned how much my dad liked the tune we’d just heard. They both looked at me curiously—processing the significance of both my dad and I liking the same thing.
Maddox responded first. “It wasn’t that bad, I guess.”
James followed, “yeah, not that bad…I guess.”
And with that the two budding Jimmy Buffett fans headed toward their respective breakfasts cooking in the distance.
A fuzzy photo of the boys slowly getting to know the joys of Jimmy Buffett.
Opposite Day 