Young Road Trips

(Album: Welcome To Sparks, Nevada - 2020)

We crossed the Vietnam Veterans Bridge
During the spring, there are pink and yellow foxgloves along the ridges
This old car smells like when we were kids road tripping
To Pennsylvania and West Virginia and to the Crybaby Bridge

The Vietnam Veterans Bridge crosses the ravine
You look out and all you see is serene green
Trees going on for days and days
South Lake Tahoe that way, Sacramento and San Francisco the other way

This car feels like it's been lived in
Like there have been good times in here and all kinds of sacrilege
This car has so many miles, it's been on so many pilgrimages
Who knows where it's went and who knows where it's been?

This car reminds me of young road trips
Listening to Jimi Hendrix's Rainbow Bridge
And Robin Trower's Bridge of Sighs, the sun don't shine, the moon don't move
The way he bends his strings sounds like a scorned person crying

Tonight we'll be crossing the Vietnam Veterans Bridge
On the way to San Francisco on Memorial Day, I should've been in Sweden or Norway
But things didn't work out that way this May
It's nice to be sharing time with you though, it's nice to get away

Being around the house so much reminds me of being a kid
I know my way around the yard, every blackberry bush, every rosebush, every inch of my bedroom, every garbage can lid
Every fern, every flower, every tree trunk, every spigot
I knew a red squirrel named Fox, I knew an albino squirrel named Edgar, I knew a brown squirrel named James, I knew a black squirrel named Willis

And when we crossed the Vietnam Veterans Bridge
I think of the word Vietnam, I was born in 1967, I heard it every day until I was 11
My mom would drop me off in downtown Canton, Ohio to play chess
At a chess club, I'd be sitting there with Vietnam vet's

I remember their army jackets and their Marlboro Red cigarettes
Though I was a kid, they treated me like an adult, they treated me with kindness and respect
I remember sitting on the cement steps California dreaming
Waiting for my mom to pick me up and take me home

I was just a kid with a bunch of guys who looked like John Voight in Coming Home
And here I am on my roof looking at the Golden Gate Bridge
Reflecting on my life and all that has led me from those young road trips to this
Grateful for you, for with you, my life is blessed
I, remembering young road trips