the Time Machie

THE TIME MACHINE I’ve read a lot of science fiction and there is a frequent theme of time travel in the books and movies. There is always the question of whether or not traveling to the past would cause problems or a paradox. I say that time travel has been available for years. It has taken the shape of many things over the years depending on the technology. So far, it has not disturbed the3 past, nor caused ripples of change into the present, I consider myself to be a Chrononaut, since I travel through time each day on this vehicle. In my early years, the time machine took the shape of a transistor radio or small record player. Years later, it was a stereo system with huge speakers spinning vinyl records. Soon, it was replaced by tapes, 8 track and cassette. Digital discs came next, compacting the time machine and making it easy to carry with me. Recently, the time travel engineers have made it possible to pump it into my car, my cell phone, or home stereo through the airwaves. I hear the song “Wild Thing” by the Troggs and I am transported back to 1967. There I am, an 11 year old boy who convinced his mom and dad to join the RCA record club so we could get the introductory offer of a small record player and 20 45 rpm records. The record player is rarely silent when I am around. I play “Wild Thing” often, along with “Ring of Fire “ and “The End of the World.” Another trip may find me listening to “Back in the USSR” by the Beatles in 1968. Having just peeled the clean white double album free of its plastic covering to open the foldout LP and find the folded poster and lyrics inside. I reverently put record one, side one on th turn table and lowered to needle to intently scrutinize each new offering from the Beatles. I made notes about each song by the lyrics. My favorite Beatles tune of all time, “Hey Jude” transports me to a warm fall day at Kiefer High School. It is homecoming and my senior class is in the parking lot lazily working on a float for the parade. I am wearing a letter jacket, and laying on a hay bale when the radio plays “Hey Jude.” I lay in the warm sun, feeling like all is well with the world while the Beatles serenade me. My time machine, on shuffle, sends me “I Know I’m Losing You” by Rod Stewart. It carries me to 1976, soon after a surprise break up call from the girlfriend back home. My college buddies and I are in the car when the song comes on the radio. Mack reaches into the front seat and grabs my shoulder. “Hey, Charlie. This is de3dicated to you!” “You asshole!” I reply, but it is only the hell I get from these close friends that helps to soften the broken heart. Later, we will go to the dorm to play Ted Nugent’s “Free For All” at top volume while jumping around the room playing air guitar. This month is the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. His songs and stories played on TV and radio. When “Just Like Starting Over” comes on the air, I am carried to December, 1980. Lennon’s death was announced on Monday Night Football where Bud Sexson and I sat watching the game. I got two calls from people who knew I would be upset by this. Cas called from Kansas U and the girl that would be my future wife, Ashley Peck, called to tell me too. Cas came to visit me the week before school let out for the Xmas break. I had to drive a substitute bus route that morning before school. It was cold and icy as I wheeled the bus through the rural route. Cas rode along, sitting in the front seat. It was then, “Just like Starting Over” crackled over the bus speakers. I looked over my shoulder at cas and we smiled. It warmed the bus to hear the song. Ashley plays her 80’s playlist and The Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star” plants me in 1981. Bud has convinced me to get cable TV by telling me there is a new music television called MTV. Music 24 hours a day. I am sold. I spend hours watching the new music and music videos. MTV changed the face of music and for a time, was the best way to see new music. Electric Light Orchestra’s “Telephone Line” pulls me back to the fall of 1986. I sat patiently in front of the cassette recorder creating the perfect playlists which I would mail to Ashley Peck at Oklahoma University. I labelled them “Stuff Tapes.” I made a series of them with the intent of wooing her from a distance. I could catch her by long distance calls at the right time, but the playlist was always there with her. “Telephone Line” was the perfect explanation of how I felt if I couldn’t reach her. It I 1987, and Leon Russell has called me with “Roll Away the Stone.” The summer sun beats down on Ashley and I. We were married in January and now expecting our fist child. We crowded into the river Amphitheater in Tulsa to get close to the stage to see Leon and Edgar Winter together. Leon is rocking the stage that night, but the bass vibrations from the band are making the unborn Fletcher do somersaults in the womb. We get up and move the very back of the venue so we can still hear, but Baby One is now settled down. I am still convinced that those vibrations made Fletch love music. My Grunge playlist sends Evanescence to “bring Me back to Life.” It places me with Corwin at an outdoor concert in 2003. We see Evanescence and 12 Stone. It is Cor’s firt concert and he is pumped. The darkness falls and I let the music wash over me. I am happy just to be sharing this moment with him. “Layla” carries me to Dallas in summer of 2004. Fletch and I have tickets to the Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar fest. Fletch will be a senior in the fall. He shared a love of classic rock with me and the festival is chock full of great players. Wen roast in the hot Dallas summer sun as act after act fills the stage. The amazing musicians that come and go keep us transfixed. Neil Shon, James Taylor, Jimmy Vaughn, BB King, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Bo Oddly, Joe Walsh, Vince Gill, Booker T, Santana and finishing with home town favs, ZZ Top. Clapton played with everyone. It was an astounding display of musicianship. A time well worth traveling to. And the time travel continues. Even as I type this, Ta Todd Rundgren playlist echoes in my empty classroom. His songs carry me to so many places, from “Just One Victory” while getting ready to play a college football game or “One World” as I stood in a crowd at Cain’s Ballroom watching him perform with Utopia. The same with the Beatles, with Neil Young, with McCartney, Boston, on and on. I know there are many Chrononauts out there, tiptoeing through the years but leaving undisturbed the things that could alter the future. Safety first in time travel.