Thursday, February 02, 2006

It's just like deja vu but different

It's funny how some songs just trigger a memory.
I was driving down US-23 this afternoon when the song Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel came on the radio, and it was like I jumped into Mr Peabody's Way Back Machine and was transported back to February 1968 when I was a senior in high school, and I had taken my dad to work in the morning, before school, so I could have the car, a 1965 white with red leather interior and snazzy hub caps, Ford Custom 500, for the day.
Anyway, I was driving south down Gratiot Avenue between Twelve Mile Road and Eleven Mile Road in Roseville heading for the Plum Pit in East Detroit, which is now called East Pointe, when the song Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel came on CKLW, which was the highest rated local Top 40 station out of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, just across the Detroit River from Detroit, and it boasted 50,000 watts of power, and it was pretty boss, as us kids with our slang liked to say, but there was a thing called Underground FM Radio just over the horizon that would practically revolutionize radio programming, and even now I weep for you mighty CKLW and the top 40 format of my youth that you epitomized ...
Ummmm, so I was headed towards the Plum Pit, which was the local head shop that boasted a purple exterior emblazoned with a slightly psychedelic purple plum.
I never bought anything from the Plum Pit mostly because I never had any money, but it was fun just to hang around trying to look hip while I soaked up the suburban pseudo hippie life style vibe.
They sold all sorts of heavy stuff like bell bottom trousers, and lava lamps, and black lights, and psychedelic posters, and love beads, (love beads ... man now that is a flashback) and all that other groovy hippie stuff that all the groovy hippies couldn't do without back in February of 1968.
Ok, yeah, I just remembered I did buy a couple of things from the Plum Pit,
I bought a button, oh man, I loved buttons, I bought a button that read ...
America: Sex, Drugs, Murder, Madness, And The Best Ice Cream In The Whole God Damn World
It must have been a pretty big button, don't you think.
And ...
I also bought a bumper sticker that read ...
Jesus Saves, But Howe Scores On The Rebound
Ok, I really didn't buy that bumper sticker mostly because I just made it up, well I made part of it up, the Howe scoring on the rebound part, yeah, that Howe, Gordie Howe, but if they would have had that bumper sticker I would have bought it in a heartbeat, even though sports weren't cool if you were trying to lead the pseudo hippie life style and on and on and on and on ...

So, yeah, isn't it funny how certain songs trigger certain memories which inspire rambling blog posts almost forty years later.

I just did a Google.
After 40 years The Plum Pit is still in business!

1 comment:

hijacked frequencies said...

long live the plum pit !!