Thunder Rolls.

In another harried race to get my daughter to school on time the other day, my stress and frustration was running high. My motor generally runs pretty cool, but for some reason this morning it was kind of hot. I had a lot to do and any delays were going to exponentially screw up my day. This made me anxious and tense. I felt trapped under the weight of my busy life. Fortunately, as life will sometimes deliver, a surprise was lurking in the shadows and my mood was changed in a drumbeat by a song on the radio. The song was, “Thunder Rolls”, by Garth Brooks. From the first rumble of thunder in the beginning to the final note, my mood shifted. The day’s need-to-dos and have-to-dos lost their power to determine my state and/or piece of mind. This song is pretty unremarkable as far as songs go, but to me, it is special.


In 1992 or ’93, during a two month road trip around the U.S. with a couple of my best buddies, Jason and Scott, this song was played many times over the course of a several hour late night trek from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Corpus Christi, Texas. I recall this as vividly I remember anything: I was riding shotgun. Scott was driving and Jas was lying down in the back of the van. Scott was a very proud and vocal country music hater, but something seemed right about listening to it while driving through West Texas in the middle of the night. So we listened.

I believe we played the entire tape five or six times, with Scott picking up new lyrics each time. The last time the tape ran, “Thunder Rolls” cued up and he started singing it. He not only sung. He laughed. We both laughed. Jas told us to shut up, but laughed, too. As we dodged the swarm of suicidal deer lining the interstate far away from our lives and homes, we laughed the hysterical laugh that can only come with the sleepless adventure of cross-country travel and youth. At our top speed of sixty-five miles an hour, we had a moment. We knew it then. We were shoeless and shirtless and the windows were down. The hot breeze blew and we were alive. Life was at its absolute best. We were free; free of clocks and calendars and jobs. We were broke and happy. We owned our days and understood, even then, that this was rare and beautiful. I took a picture of my bare foot on the windshield and it remains one of my most valuable treasures. The moment was captured.

Even if I did not have the photo, the moment was captured in this song. I had heard this song many times before the “moment”, but it was never that special. In the years following, this song has a tremendous power to remind and rewind. It is nice to go back to a moment that was perfect. In a world and life of much less-than-perfect, a truly perfect moment is very welcome and I never change the channel when I hear this song. It represents a time that was wonderful and pure and ours.

And as my life today careens down its many uncertain paths, it feels good to turn back the weighty hands of time and sit, again, in the sweaty passenger seat of my 1986 VW Vanagon and let the hot wind blow the dust from the page and the magic notes do their thing. It feels good every single time.