Too Fast On The Downhill

This song Skateboard has been stuck in my head for the last twenty-four hours for some reason.  I looked it up this morning just to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind and it is in fact a song.  I remember it well.  I remember vividly my brother’s faded beige Jefferson Starship cassette that I would steal and listen to again and again.  Hearing it this morning brought back an unexpected flood of memories I had forgotten. 

For a while in the late seventies, my family and I lived in a sleepy little town named Cardwell in the southeastern corner of Missouri, the “boot heel” as it were.  When I say sleepy, I mean it – dirt streets sleepy.  It was probably slightly larger then but as of the 2010 census the population numbered (713) souls.  I’m not sure how long we lived there or how many houses we lived in but I remember at least three.  I remember my dad turning (36) years old there and what a big deal that seemed to be for him at the time.  I learned to read in the second house even though I had told my teacher I would not.  I remember pretending to be sick so I wouldn't have to go to class and how embarrassing it was that I couldn't read.  I remember telling her that she should just go help someone else because "I wasn’t going to need reading" in my life…that’s ridiculous.  

I remember the taste of that red dirt and the way the wind would blow it down the streets and stain the green grass and the white houses.  I remember going to old man Emmet’s hamburger stand and those greasy hamburgers with the diced onions.  To this day, the best burger I’ve ever had.  I remember crossing the St. Francis River and driving into Paragould, Arkansas on rare occasions.  There was a little shack of a house, either on an island or the banks of that river with goats.  The highlight of my day was seeing those stupid goats.

There was a band, or at least members of, that sprang out of this little nowhere that you have forgotten about called The Kentucky Headhunters.  They filmed parts of this video in Cardwell.  I’m fairly certain that my dad baptized the bass player, Doug Phelps, but I might be imagining that.  (He’s the one in the Southland Rebels basketball jersey in the video.)  Sheryl Crow grew up a little north of here up 412 in Kennett. 

 

I remember building the church where my old man preached with the rest of the devoted congregation and hiding from thunderstorms under the carport and walking long rows of cotton and climbing wagons in muddy barn yards and tying my shoes for the first time and John Dudley's hound dog.  I remember going to the “gym” with my mom and all the other moms and those exercise machines with the vibrating belts.  I remember helping my brother and his friends try to build a guillotine for a school project and being the obstacle over which they would jump with their bicycles.  So wanting to hang out with my cooler, older brother was I that I would actually lie down face up on the ground and let them jump over me.  The sight and zing of those spinning wheels right in front of my eyes is forever tattooed in my memory.  I remember falling asleep on the kitchen floor and waking up and watching Saturday Night Live when I should have been in bed.

I wish I could go back there.  Not to visit so much as to start over maybe.  I wish I could go back to those hot steamy summer days sitting under that mimosa tree in Ms. Diggs’ front yard and be a little kid again.  Maybe ride my bike out to Red Devil Ditch and hunt for crawdads or frogs.  I wish I still had that empty ice cream container with the rusty wire handle and I could go collect worms and things. 

I’ve been a little bit out of control lately. Maybe this side project I’ve been working on will put me back in check.  Meantime, I’ve got a block party to attend.  There's supposed to be art.  

“Too fast on the downhill…faster than I can go…”