That might be a crappy title for this thread, but I had trouble thinking of a better one. I was inspired by the “Recommend some new music” thread where people are talking about Big Black. This is my Big Black story:
Back in 1999, MrWhatsit and I were driving cross-country in a rented 14-foot U-Haul. We’re tooling down a Minnesota highway when a sign looms in the distance. I was driving and thought nothing special of it. The sign said, simply:
MrWhatsit shrieks like a woman, yells “STOP THE TRUCK!” and I frantically pull the truck over to the side of the road, thinking that I just unknowingly hit a pedestrian or something. He says, “grab the camera!” so I did, and followed him out of the truck.
He walked 30 yards back down the road so that he could stand in front of the sign and get his picture taken. Then he kept saying, “It’s Jordan, Minnesota! How could I not?!”
I first ran into this phenomenon while a kid in the back of a station wagon on a family trip. I was studying the map, and wondering why I was humming “Sweet Baby James”. Then I realized that we were on “the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston”. No one else thought it the least bit interesting…
Much later, a co-worker drove miles out of the way on a business trip, just so I could be “Standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona”.
A while ago I was in Boston on the subway and I went past the Government Center. But, alas, I didn’t have a lotta lotta lotta hard to do. And I certainly didn’t stop in and make the secretaries feel better.
Going cross country from CA to IA almot every summer, we found ourselves driving through Winslow, AZ on a regular basis, and without fail, every time, my mom would start singing that derned song as soon as we’d see the first sign, some hundred, or so miles out of town, and not stop until we’d get through Winslow. I can’t tell you how many times I threatened to leave her on a corner in Winslow, AZ.
This weekend I gave my woman a “Whole Lotta Love”. Afterwards, I was “Comfortably Numb”.
What?
Ok, fine. When I was seventeen I got hold of a bottle of Night Train & was so excited. Of course it was because of the G-n-R song, not the James Brown one.
I have also driven on Deadman’s Curve, though a friend of mine said it was a curve on Highway 1 in California where a lot of accidents had occurred.
In Arizona (or maybe New Mexico) there is a town where the main street is an old section of Route 66. My wife got into a car accident while we were there.
I’ve driven through New York blasting Big City Lights by the Scorpions.
I’ve reached Amarillo by morning.
I have ridden on a horse that had no name (yet) and hung out with a friend who had a dog named Boo.
