199. Rolling Down 295 out of Portland, Maine

No, this entry isn't about a trip in America's far northeastern corner. Today's title is the opening words of a song from 1977 called Nothing But Time.

Among other things, today is the birthday of one of my rock-music heroes, Jackson Browne. His is the cassette tape I would plug in when driving down Preston Highway to high school at Durrett, and later trekking back and forth from Lexington to Frankfort in the days when I was a student at UK and a courier in the LRC, working on the third floor of what the good people of Frankfort call the New Capitol, it being the one most recently built, said construction being from the first decade of the last century.

When I see those pictures on the Page One blog of the Old Frankfort Pike, about which I wrote a few entries back, I am reminded of songs like Running on Empty, Nothing But Time, Rosie, Doctor My Eyes, and Cocaine. Several of those trips were spent behind the wheel of an old Mercedes named Winston and owned by Mary-John Celletti, a friend from Young Democrats days, which usually ended up in the parking lot at the old Holiday Inn on Louisville Road where much of the politicking took place during a session of the Kentucky General Assembly. It is now an apartment complex and was recently offered for sale. Word has it the General Assembly is offered for sale now and then as well. But, I digress.

Another of my music-favs from that era was most anything from the Eagles, headed by Glenn Frey, with whom Jackson Browne penned several tunes which were hits for one or the other. Frey's songs include Take It Easy, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Already Gone, and my favorite Lyin' Eyes, which was #264 on the jukebox at the old Busch's Tavern on Poplar Level Road, now called Marmadukes.

Of course, for those longer trips, playing through Freebird and American Pie could pretty much get you all the way back home in Louisville. I had a few other songs, songs which always reminded me of one particular person. Two of those were Mandy and My Eyes Adored You, both of which were special because of a young lady named Janice, who grew up to be an educator and adminstrator at a Jefferson County Public School. Another was Take It To The Limit, reminding me of yet another young lady, a certain Belinda, who lived in Audubon Park. All of these songs and memories are from the 1970s.

A few years later I got hooked on yet another song, although no one in particular is attached to its memory. Dan Fogelsberg's Same Old Auld Lang Syne came out in 1981 and is associated with Christmas Eve and is one of my favorite songs. From the late 1980s and the early 1990s, Guns N' Roses Patience, Civil War, and their remake of Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door made me a huge fan of William Bruce Rose, Jr., the Lafayette, Indiana musician better known as Axl Rose. Much of this later music was introduced to be my a friend, Rob, who, alas, is no longer of this world.

I can't say that any songs since the 1990s have fallen into the role of "favorite" just yet. Maybe they will, maybe not. But if anyone ever wants to put together a compilation of hits for me to play while cruising down the roads along the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606, all of these above should be on Side A.

So, Happy 59th Birthday to Jackson Browne.

*****

Unrelated, today is the day in 1960 on which I was originally baptized into the Roman Catholic Church by a Fr. Osborne at Saint John Vianney Church on Southside Drive in South Louisville.