The First of >25 Things

A couple months ago, the "25 random things about me" meme was all over Facebook. Users were to publish 25 facts about themselves and tag 25 people. The 25 tag-ees were then to publish their 25 random facts, re-tag the tagger and 24 others, and on it goes. Spread like a virus.

As is characteristic, I missed the boat on this little fad. By the time I thought I had scratched together a passable collection of random facts, the thing was over. And really, I think I was hung up around 23 or 24.

So reproduced below, in expanded format, is the first of a few of the random observations I thunk up before abandoning the project altogether.

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My greatest music-related guilty pleasure: On long solo drives, especially in the summer, I dig out a couple CDs loaded with country songs from when I was a kid and sing along.

My country listening started in the early '90s and fizzled late in the same decade. I tuned out right around the time Faith Hill started showing up on top-40 stations; for whatever reason, "crossover" country was a deal-breaker for me. But for a few years there, it didn't get any better than Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks.

That stuff does not age well, though. Looking back, I can safely say that if anyone tries to tell you country's not all about drinkin' and cheatin', they're in denial. Songs I actually have in my collection include "Bubba Shot the Jukebox," "Jukebox with a Country Song," and "Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox" - and that's not the only theme. Whiskey is also big. Also rain, rodeos, and saying goodbye.

A focus on place is also heavily recurrent. Georgia, Austin, Arizona, Carolina, and Little Rock (twice) are among those represented in my playlist, and that's just the song titles. What is it that's so evocative about a dirt road, a muddy river, a slow train, or a small town?

It's an idealization of the American dream. A simpler time and place. A simpler way of life. Where everybody knows your name. How many of the people who identify with those places in song would be mind-numbingly bored by them in reality? But only the Dixie Chicks, in "Wide Open Spaces," sing about heading to the big city without attaching any consequences to it.

And despite my derision, the place theme is a big part of my nostalgia for the genre. An open road, man. Falling in love. Maybe it was Memphis. Porch swings. Hot summer nights. Maybe my nostalgia is actually for all the trouble I didn't get into around porch swings and muddy rivers when such things were right there in my backyard for the taking.

Or maybe, more simply, I'm just getting old and like to listen to stuff I already know the words to and can sing along with...on an open road...with the windows down...on the backroads of Indiana, on my way back home...