I like to joke (and it’s true) that when I was a kid, we never flew anywhere; we always drove. That means I’ve seen probably every square inch of Oklahoma and Colorado, and huge chunks of most of the southwest and southeast United States out the window of a car, and stayed in most of the Motel 6 franchises therein.

We had a suitcase made to carry cassette tapes, and everyone would get a turn to listen to their choice of music. My dad only had a few tapes that he really enjoyed: Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins, and, inexplicably, Private Dancer. (He used to say the title track of that album was one of the saddest songs he’d ever heard, and I’m inclined to agree with him). I remember a lot of Kenny Rogers and Johnny Cash as well, and all in all it was pretty much a toss-up guarantee what dad was going to listen to.

Mom had Bruce Hornsby’s The Way It Is, and Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, and we all lurved Lionel Ritchie. But in our car, across those miles and miles of interstate highways on hot summer days, it was almost exclusively country and bluegrass. And Private Dancer. In a lot of ways, that story explains so much of who I am.

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In the very early 80′s my uncle Nick took on a new client in his southeastern Oklahoma chiropractic office: a young, up-and-coming singer named Reba McEntire. She’d released a few albums and was living on a cattle ranch in Stringtown, and when she had need of a chiropractor, she called on Nick. So, we listened to a lot of Reba, and, as an extension, a lot of Randy Travis, George Strait, Skip Ewing, Vince Gill, The Sweethearts of the Rodeo, and the rest. There’s not a country or bluegrass record recorded in the 80′s that I didn’t know. I learned how to harmonize from listening to My Kind of Country, which was the first album I bought "with my own money." I was four years old.

When I was 11 years old we started going to this weekly sort of country-bluegrass jam session they’d had every week in Colony, Oklahoma, and it was there that I first found myself in awe watching people play the fiddle, the steel, dobro – someone even had a washboard. Brian also grew up watching the members of his family play bluegrass; watching it live still makes both of us deeply emotional.

Country music ended up getting on my nerves about the same time my parents did: around the age of 13 (isn’t that when EVERYONE’s parents started getting on their nerves? I’m glad this phase didn’t last long for me). I pretty much left it behind forever, or so I thought, with the exception of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Stones In The Road, which is still one of my favorite records of all time. But other than that I listened to a lot of the great rock and dance music that was coming out then, and punk, but because I was scared people would worry about me or that I’d be grounded, I only listened to punk by myself, when no one was home. There is nothing LESS punk than the way I listened to punk. I am the world’s biggest poseur.

When I was in college I sort of re-discovered bluegrass, and Johnny Cash, and David Wilcox, and folk music, and I came to love Americana only in the last few years. I glommed onto the Dixie Chicks only when Home came out, because it was like one of those great old country records, recorded with harmony, and without drums.

I’ve been listening to a lot of country music again. I’m not sure why, exactly, because a lot of it still pisses me off: I can’t really deal with the Toby Keith-like jingoist crap, or the fact that Trace Adkins is apparently a wife-beater. Travis Tritt once almost hit me with his car as I drove through Nashville, and though it was totally accidental, I’ve never really forgiven him for it, just like I never really forgave Reba for recording Dianne Warren songs and power ballads.

So I’ve been going back to a lot of that old stuff I was raised on. A lot of Johnny Cash. Bob Wills. Willie Nelson. Asleep At The Wheel. Roger Miller. Old Reba albums and Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, K.T. Oslin and Dwight Yoakam (who once toured with the Violent Femmes – how cool is that??). And the people who’ve inherited this tradition: the Chicks, Rosanne Cash, Patty Griffin, Kane, Lyle Lovett. Cross Canadian Ragweed and Carrie Underwood and Chris Thile. I’m not sure why, except that when I hear it, I remember what it felt like to be a kid, and feel like everything was probably going to be Okay. And now, twenty-plus years later, I listen to it and I hear what’s great about it: that it’s earthy and tough and sad, unpretentious but not stupid. Would that more music – of all genres – could be like that.

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When I was living in Venice, our house looked out over the Grand Canal, but the main entrance was onto a calle behind the house. One day, Emily, our graduate assistant, came rushing in: "Wynonna Judd’s filming a video behind the house!" 

We all rushed out and joined a growing crowd. Sure enough, there was Wynonna, with three black, gospel-sounding backup singers and two guitar players, singing an acoustic arrangement of "Going Nowhere." It was for an internet show called "Music In High Places," though the whole thing was later released on DVD.

It wasn’t that I was a huge Wynonna fan; it was the fact that live, acoustic country music was being played RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, seven thousand miles from home. I started tearing up and, because I hate for anyone to see me cry, I went back inside before anyone else. It was one of the only times I felt unbearably homesick when I was in Europe. 

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When I was growing up all of my dad’s friends were these wonderful old Chemistry and Physics professors at the small state university where he taught. I wish I could introduce you to all of them, as they were. One of them, in particular, held a special place. His name was G.E., and he was less like my dad’s friend and more like an uncle. We used to go fishing with him; so many times, in fact, that huge chunks of my memory are just of us: dad, me, John and G.E., fishing at Foss or Vanderwork or Canton. His wife, Sue, was and is one of the kindest, gentlest and yet toughest people I know; exactly the kind of person I aspire to be.

G.E. died this week. He was 89. Dad came the night before the funeral and we all went to dinner. He told me this story:

Dad and G.E. went fishing once, and G.E. was trying to back the trailer that carried his small rowboat into the water. The lake level was high, and G.E. backed the trailer up and off the edge of the dock, bending the axle. He climbed out of the truck and uttered the worst swear that Dad had ever heard from him:

"Dad gummit!" 

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The night Angles closed, Brian and I had dinner at mom’s. Gabe and his boyfriend came by for a bit and we all sat around talking. They went to a party, and later, Erica and Alex brought Cooper over. We loved on him, so much so that the poor kid didn’t get to sleep until after midnight.

It was 12:30 by the time Brian and I were in the car, too tired to go by Angles. But as we got closer to the city, I said, "Can we go? Just for a minute?" I was thinking about how much fun I’d had there as a younger man, and I wanted to see it one more time before it was gone, or different.

We walked in and I looked around for anyone I knew; there was no one. The smoke stung my eyes. I was too tired to have a drink. I texted Gabe: "Where r u?"

"At the Copa."

I laughed a little, and turned to Brian. "Let’s go." And we left. We weren’t there four minutes, but as we drove home I realized there’s no other way I’d have wanted to spend that evening: sitting around with people I love, talking and loving on the baby, hearing Gabe’s wonderful stories. This is what my life is now, and I love it so much more than anything I’ve ever known, but at the same time the fact that I’m getting older, more mature and seasoned but also just plain older, hits me and I feel sad and happy at the same time…

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The song I’m listening to now is "September When It Comes," a song that Rosanne Cash recorded with her father, Johnny Cash, and released on an album the same year that he died. In it, Johnny’s voice sounds weak and sad, sort of like winter. Still, as much as I tend to be acutely aware of the passage of time, and as much as I fear it sometimes, I find that August, and summertime, are wearing me out and I’m excited for the days to get shorter.

Here’s the verse of the song that Johnny sings: 

"I plan to crawl outside these walls, close my eyes and see

And fall into the heart and arms of those who wait for me.

I cannot move the mountain now, I can no longer run.

I cannot be who I was then; in a way, I never was.

Watch the clouds go sailing; I watch the clock and sun.

Oh, I watch myself depending on September when it comes.

When the shadows lengthen and burn away the past

They will fly me like an angel to a place where I can rest.

When this begins, I’ll let you in September when it comes."