a good day

I woke up with Creed in my head, of all bands. Later, I drove to work and heard an advertisement for Creed at Jones Beach this summer.

I remember:

My mom wrote me a note for "college visits" so I could get out of school early. I walk to the circle, to your vintage red car. We drive to your school and walk across leaf-strewn cracked pavement past brown buildings into the radio studio. I've never been in one before. Headphones and microphones, knobs to turn and slide and push on and off. You're making a commercial for class and you want my voice. You want to know which songs I think would work for the background. Today you want me. I suggest Creed. You open your CD case and put the second album in. I feel forces all around me...that works. Let's leave, oh, let's run away...that works.

You speak, I speak, you start and stop, rewind replay erase record. I ask lots of questions. Later we leave in fall sunlight, driving up and down Bald Hill and listening to a mix CD. I liked your music. It might have been the most we shared. Later we have pizza and you drop me off at the gym for work. Later you tell me your professor says I have good voice for radio. Later I am a senior in college signing off on my last radio show, and though I haven't seen you in years, I thank you for that.