Home In My Hand
Bud’s moving in and much like me at age 20, everything I owned fit in the back of ’69 Chevy Caprice. I had these two monster-sized Jensen speakers with 15″ woofers, my bass & its amp, stereo gear, albums, and a wardrobe of mostly jeans, t-shirts, and gym shoes. (My wardrobe today consists of exactly the same thing I’m glad to say.) So, quite literally Bud’s home in his hands.
I always jokingly said my ’69 Chevy Caprice slept six adults easily, but you could easily fit six grown adults in it. The trunk was bigger than most cars these days. Its gas tank held roughly 30 gallons of gas, which was a good thing as it got only 10 miles per gallon (on a good day). But, it had high-compression, 350HP V8 engine with a positraction rear end that got me out of a ton of sticky situations in those disastrous Illinois winters. Illinois is nothing but farm fields, so when the snow comes in, there’s nothing to stop it but highways and houses. We had a record breaking snowfall in the winter of 1978 going into January of 1979 and that old car hauled ass from the suburbs of Chicago to my college apartment in Normal, Illinois.
About the Bi-Cotton Rod… My freshman year at Illinois State University, I had to give a speech about a product. The goal of the speech was to essential sell the audience on a product. I was not coming up with any product to talk about when I spotted a Q-tip sitting in my garbage pan. The term “bi-cotton rod” immediately hit me and the speech wrote itself from there on in. I started off with this boring, mono-toned talk on the benefits of cotton and, after one minute, I kicked into a total carnival barker routine (Google the term if you don’t know it) and woke up the entire class, including the instructor. So, when I wanted Jeff’s parents to be rich, having his father invent the Bi-Cotton Rod (a generic Q-tip as it’ll be later described) was the perfect answer.
Foghat’s “Home In My Hand” is from their fourth album “Energized” in early 1974. By 1974 I was fully listening to the growing list of FM rock stations in the Chicagoland area and that introduced me to a wide variety of music. For me, hard rock has always been my go-to music.
When I turned 20, everything I owned fit in a barracks room, including uniforms and kit. Most of what I owned was a cheap stereo, a pair of 15″ Soma speakers described earlier, and a 12″ B&W TV. I was driving a thoroughly rusted out ’71 Vega but was away on courses and TD so often it barely got used. Before I turned 21, I’d be married and living in an apartment with not much more except for an old metal framed cot as a couch and a chair carved out of a solid block of foam that pitched you on the floor if you weren’t careful.
Turning 21… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh3tdkWG8yQ
Man, I can’t imagine being married at age 21. I got hitched when I was 25, which is only four short years, but I had given up drinking, playing in bands, and my weekend “Let’s party!” lifestyle. At least you had a TV. I never had a TV until I got married when my wife had a nice color TV, a VCR, and a 1979 Camaro. I married the right woman. 😉
Never heard of Fludd before, but then their Canadian and, besides BTO and the Guess Who, I wasn’t much into Canadian bands. Fun song though! I turned 21 in early 1979, and by the end of the year I was finished with college, started a fulltime job at a bank, and was dating my boss (who also owned a TV and a VCR… I have a type it seems).
Technically I didn’t turn 21 until after I’d been married six months 😉 The TV was a gift from my parents, it used to be in the cottage.
My wife didn’t and still doesn’t drive, I let her father talk me into buying a POS car that lasted just long enough to cost me more in repairs than I paid for it.
Fludd had several more hits up here, one “What an Animal” was on steady repeat when I had a dishwashing job along with Myles&Lenny ‘Can You Give it All to Me”
Stick around, you’ll probably see Canadian bands you never heard of if something makes me think of them 🙂
We’ll start slow with this one…vinyl pops and all 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjWR5UeaoQ8
Bi cotton rods? i need those in my ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ7IEWwQ4Cg
That video is freakin’ hilarious! Of course we put them in our earholes… what else would you use them for? Well, they can be used as mini-torches for guinea pigs so they can see their way from the cage to the refrigerator late at night.
We usd to call them matches. Inmates would fuzz them out then cut a small strip from a chip bag and stick that in an electrical socket then use the flame from it melting to light the q-tip ‘torch’ and then light the cigarette or joint they weren’t supposed to have from that…or just wad up newspapers and light those for a laugh or to burn someone else’s cell out…or their own.
Never heard of Fludd but I was just a child then so my worldly wise sisters may have known. I remember buying tickets and going to rock a concert in high school. Seemed to be netural gound peers who belittled me spared me the insults and let me have fun. As for apartments I have made moves normally plan a month or two in advance. Apartment cleaned then furniture taken apart and move so as not have the neighbour do heavy lifting. In my first bought a microwave and toaster over since the one there seemed dangerous and dirty one made snide remarks about me being a nice wife maybe I should not have sewed his pants nor cooked him supper. Needing men folk for protection had to explain the superbowl knew more about foot ball though I’d rather be a cheer leader prefer short skirts to pants. He saidgood lord when I wore black and pink mini dresses so I was glad he left. Hope your room mates did not act like tap dancing N-z- what else does one call the tall, snide, alt right with hairy legs and knobby knees. He was not even a good tap dancer. I doubt if I’m mature enough to get married but be friending neighbours reduce desire to get married. But I have a white dress I bought for $5 and heels so at least I’m slightly ready for some poor sucker mohahahahaha.
Having the right dress is pretty much 90% of what weddings are all about. 🙂
Even have pearls, rings, heels panties and stockings with bows to match the dress could use a garter belt. I could always go as tuxedo lady if that is what the poor sucker wants. I’ll even let the dj play the village people even though mister president homo/transphobe is irony impeared danced to it. Too bad Devine famous drag queen i cha cha heels didn’t set him straight. The village people entertained him and he should have gone as diaper man being infantile. But won’t spoil the fun I’d even invite you in the unlikely event it happens like asteroids hitting the earth or Yellow Stone park turning into a super vulcano scary isn’t it but that’s how likely. Just as well I’d go the stag party more fun than the bridal shower just to be gossiped about and worse watch sex in the city.