Ventura Highway

Nothing can take me back faster to Southern California in the '70's than "Ventura Highway" by America. This song is linked to every one of my senses and it pulls at my memories like a magnet.

It's the end of summer and I'm back from another idyll in Utah. School is going to start in less than a week, and we've celebrated our Opening Social for the youth in our church by spending a day at the beach. It's been a long, fun day with friends that I haven't seen for almost two months. So much to catch up on, so much to tell. The windows are down as we continue to enjoy the briny smell of the ocean.

It's hard to get comfortable. Too many bodies, too close together in the family station wagon. I can feel the first heat of sunburn on my shoulders, thighs, and nose. The sand is e v e r y w h e r e and my hair feels like straw as salt stiffened strands whip and crack against my face from the wind coming through the open windows.

The excitement/dread of a new year at school squirms uncomfortably in my stomach and becomes more palpable with each mile/minute closer to home. This was the last Hurrah! of the summer. There's the new thrill being able to drive as we all have our licenses and two of my friends have cars. We can drive to the beach on a Saturday if we want to! We sing along with the radio to songs by 'Bread', 'The Eagles', 'America', 'Seals and Crofts', 'John Denver', 'Olivia Newton John'...carefree, for the moment.

We trade the damp scent of ocean air for dusty desert heat as we wend our way through the hills on the Moreno Valley Freeway and then down into what I call the 'true desert'.  Oleander bushes, tamerisk trees, date and fan palms seem like the only green in the beige, tan and taupe of the landscape all around. The California sun has set behind us now and I can see the ghostly wind trails on the freeway made from the sand skidding lightly across the road. Though full dark it's still hot very warm outside and I stick my hand and arm out the window and let the force of the wind move the changing angle of my hand up and down in long curvy waves and imagine what it might be like to fly like the sea birds I'd seen floating effortlessly and stationary over the crashing waves at the beach. "I would love to be able to do that", I think.

I thought that time in my life would last forever.

Ventura Highway is an 'oldie' now.