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 theforgiventeen wrote:
Type in "Steve Miller Band" and you'll find at least 30.
 
Oops. My bad.
Type in "Steve Miller Band" and you'll find at least 30. unclehud wrote:
OK, so I looked up Steve Miller and found .... ONE SONG?!  and it's NEVER BEEN PLAYED?!  {Jungle Love, even?}

Why is this significant to me?

I lived a winter in Idaho Falls back before most RPers were born, and my buddies and I would cut out to go skiing at the slightest real excuse.  If no excuses were handy after a fresh snowfall, we made stuff up.  (This was back when ski bindings were spring-loaded pistons that snapped into a depression on the toe of your ski boot.)

The guy with the wheels had a late 60's Camaro with nothing but Steve Miller cassette tapes, and he refused to allow any other music in his tape deck.  ("It's my tape deck, pal.")  So it was an easy tradeoff — Steve Miller in exchange for a lift to the lifts. 

It was all winter long, so my memories run together.  They all share the same characteristics, though:  freezing cold, before sunrise if we were heading over the pass to Jackson, four guys, sometimes five, with one window cracked an inch and the dashboard vents open to let out the smoke, everyone singing along since we'd already heard each song a half-million times.  Passing around the beer — lift tickets and gas took up most of our money.

Then, one morning, it was different.  A late start meant we were headed up the pass after dawn.  I suppose the intense sunlight caught our pilot right in the eyes as we crested, but for whatever reason, the car started doing slow 360's as we slid down the roadway bouncing off the 6-foot high walls of snow left by the plows.  Front bumper off one wall, rotate in slow motion until the back bumper hits the other wall, continue rotating and sliding, until we come to rest in the middle of the highway. 

It was absolutely silent.

No one had been screaming or shouting, or swearing.  (Unusual, that last one.)  The car had stalled.  There was no one on the highway — of course not, it was just past dawn in the middle of an Idaho/Wyoming winter.  We piled out, each having to pee.  Relief, and the realization that life is indeed sweet, began to take hold as we laughed and shivered from the cold and the experience.

We all piled in again, and the car did not start.  And it did not start a second time.  Nor the third time.  Hmmm.  Temperature near zero.  Middle of nowhere.  No traffic expected for an hour or so.  Had he flooded the engine?  We waited a few minutes and tried again.  No luck.  And no luck again.  We had warm ski clothes, but still ... try again and POW!  The car shook as it shot out a slug of frozen snow that had stuffed the exhaust pipes during an encounter with the snowbank.

Chugga, chugga, chugga ... and then the familiar growl as the Camaro's engine began to fire properly and we started down Teton Pass toward Wilson.

Oh yeah: singing loudly to some Steve Miller tune, of which you have ONE that's NEVER been played.

 


OK, so I looked up Steve Miller and found .... ONE SONG?!  and it's NEVER BEEN PLAYED?!  {Jungle Love, even?}

Why is this significant to me?

I lived a winter in Idaho Falls back before most RPers were born, and my buddies and I would cut out to go skiing at the slightest real excuse.  If no excuses were handy after a fresh snowfall, we made stuff up.  (This was back when ski bindings were spring-loaded pistons that snapped into a depression on the toe of your ski boot.)

The guy with the wheels had a late 60's Camaro with nothing but Steve Miller cassette tapes, and he refused to allow any other music in his tape deck.  ("It's my tape deck, pal.")  So it was an easy tradeoff — Steve Miller in exchange for a lift to the lifts. 

It was all winter long, so my memories run together.  They all share the same characteristics, though:  freezing cold, before sunrise if we were heading over the pass to Jackson, four guys, sometimes five, with one window cracked an inch and the dashboard vents open to let out the smoke, everyone singing along since we'd already heard each song a half-million times.  Passing around the beer — lift tickets and gas took up most of our money.

Then, one morning, it was different.  A late start meant we were headed up the pass after dawn.  I suppose the intense sunlight caught our pilot right in the eyes as we crested, but for whatever reason, the car started doing slow 360's as we slid down the roadway bouncing off the 6-foot high walls of snow left by the plows.  Front bumper off one wall, rotate in slow motion until the back bumper hits the other wall, continue rotating and sliding, until we come to rest in the middle of the highway. 

It was absolutely silent.

No one had been screaming or shouting, or swearing.  (Unusual, that last one.)  The car had stalled.  There was no one on the highway — of course not, it was just past dawn in the middle of an Idaho/Wyoming winter.  We piled out, each having to pee.  Relief, and the realization that life is indeed sweet, began to take hold as we laughed and shivered from the cold and the experience.

We all piled in again, and the car did not start.  And it did not start a second time.  Nor the third time.  Hmmm.  Temperature near zero.  Middle of nowhere.  No traffic expected for an hour or so.  Had he flooded the engine?  We waited a few minutes and tried again.  No luck.  And no luck again.  We had warm ski clothes, but still ... try again and POW!  The car shook as it shot out a slug of frozen snow that had stuffed the exhaust pipes during an encounter with the snowbank.

Chugga, chugga, chugga ... and then the familiar growl as the Camaro's engine began to fire properly and we started down Teton Pass toward Wilson.

Oh yeah: singing loudly to some Steve Miller tune, of which you have ONE that's NEVER been played.