our town and november

Today B., CPT A. and I walked around the palace inventorying computers, refrigerators, etc. pilferable items in the interest of the American taxpayer.  I hit my mid afternoon slump toward the end and went to work out.  My work outs consist of pull up and reverse sit ups and sometimes dumbbell curls…I use 30 to 35 pound weights, 12 to 16 reps then five more over my head.  Then off to run 2-3 miles where I listen to Cracker and am a rock star.
This evening I came back and caught up on the pile of paper that accumulated on my desk over the course of the day.  After dinner I put on a Garrison Keillor CD I found in the Chaplains office today while doing the inventory.
There was a recording of Iris Dement’s performance of “Our Town” on there from November 1992.  I like Iris, love her voice and love that song.  But what is really cool is I remember the night that show first aired.
I’d driven from Cookeville to Murfreesboro to see M., my friend from high school.  That night we ate chili he fixed.  I remember it tasted odd and then his dad asked M. if he’d put chocolate in it.  I’d never heard of chocolate in chili before.  But I suppose chocolate and chilis together is a common thing in central and south America.  Since then I’ve eaten a chili pepper pop cicle from a street vendor in San Antonio.  Later M.’s dad drove to the mini mart and brought us back a gallon of Schaffers in a plastic milk jug.
The next day M. and I drove to Nash Vegas and spent the afternoon at Davis Kidd Books where I bought Oscar Williams poetry collection which I’ve read over and over and its pages have become bloated, brown and faded from years of sitting in my truck and being assaulted by sea spray when I took it on the ships with me.
That evening I said good bye to M and started the drive back to Cookeville down Highway 96.  I stopped at Sonic and while sitting in the truck eating chili pies and tator tots I heard Iris Dement sing Our Town on the Prairie Home Companion.  I remember I just stopped eating and listened, I was so taken in by her voice and the plaintivness of the song.  And the awareness that this was my life and that it would go on and on and I would watch things around me change though at the time I had no concept of patience or how far away we can truly go.  That night back in Cookeville I stopped at Wal-Mart and bought a thick flannel shirt because it was chilly outside and winter was coming on.
A few years later I would think Our  Town was maudlin sentimentalism, another hoaky ballad.
But I came around and recognized its beauty again.  Since that November night M’s dad has passed away, M’s moved to New Jersey and I’ll probably never see him again.  And I’ve traveled the world but sometimes would give anything to be back in one of those little towns with a Sonic, sitting at friends house, our driving home down a dark two lane highway with the chill of the November night blowing in thru the half open window and a Prairie Home Companion on the radio.