Do Overs

Flying down highway 22 in an old Chevy Greenbrier van with my window open, feeling the summer air’s warmth sliding in the vent window. You have to be as old as dirt to recall vent windows. Am radio blasting and singing along with every song is my neighbor Susan, tan, blonde, 17 or 18 years old, and myself maybe 6 or 7 years old. She was working for her father’s Laundromat and I was a young neighbor with nothing to do. She asked the question and I didn’t hesitate a moment to agree to ride along as she delivered finished laundry to the local Camps. I could smell how clean the laundry was in the back of the greenbrier.

This is where I first heard this song and back then it had no meaning to me except at that moment I felt something and wasn’t sure what it was until years later. Free and independent, Susan could have kept driving and singing forever. She sang louder and with more passion than the other songs. She would look over at me with her blue eyes during the song’s chorus as if she wanted me to join in. “up on the roof (up on the roof/

“When this old world starts to getting me down/ “And people and just too much for me to face/

For my parents, it was their sunroom. It’s where they would escape the world and troubles. I have friends that find their escape in kayaking, hiking, golfing and so many different places and spaces. For the longest time I would find it on the trout streams, but the other morning while doing chores and listening to the local Public Station 99.1 the Drifters came on. Immediately I was swept back to the feeling of independence and freedom, and flying down the road in the Greenbrier. What occurred to me at that moment was that my chores were no longer chores, and they had become my roof and my “cares just drifted right up to space / ” It was peaceful / ” I’ve found a paradise that was trouble-proof/

In the overwhelming troubles in the world today; I hope we all can find our roof.