365 Project: A Coke, a Song, and a memory

True Story:

I’m sitting here inside my office on a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of a three-hour window where I have some open time to do my latest “Project 365” post.

Only I have nothing to write about.

That’s right. Nothing comes to mind.

Zero. Zilch. Nothing. Nada.

And, I want a Coke.

I don’t know why, but I have a hankering for that throat-burning, effervescent, colored, corn syrup.

So, I’ve decided to kill two birds with one stone. (Anybody who has actually seen me throw knows it would more likely take about 15 stones to even hit a bird, but I digress).

Here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to drive to the store and satisfy my craving for a bottle (or maybe a can) of Coca Cola.

On my way there, I’m going to turn on the radio and the very first song that plays will take me to a time and place, or tap an emotion, because … well … that’s what songs do, right?

I’ll get my Coke. Then, I’ll come back here and drink it while I finish this finish blog post about the song I heard and all the memories it brings forth.

Feel free to take a break here yourself and head to your own refrigerator for a beverage. Make it a coffee to keep yourself awake for the back end of this post, if you must.

It’ll make it seem like we did something together. (OK, not really … feel free to skip beyond the bullets below, but just appreciate the fact it’ll be a good 15 minutes or so before I’m back and typing.

So, don’t go anywhere.

• • •

I’m back and, well, that worked out better than I expected, considering the first thing I heard when I turned on the radio was about three minutes of commercials.

Truth to be told, I hardly ever listen to the radio in the car anymore.

I’m either listening to Howard Stern, a podcast, or playing the music of my choice courtesy of Apple Music.

And leaving this entire post thing in the hands of fate, I decided I would not turn on the radio until after I purchased my Coke, so I could capture the moment on my cell phone and come up with a photo to kick off this sixth day of Project 365.

Once I heard the familiar guitar riff of Slash, I knew I had a keeper.

“Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N Roses was the very first song I heard courtesy of WPLR.

It was a 1987 mega hit by the one of the biggest rock and roll bands of my generation.

And while I missed, or blocked out much of 1987—after all, I did turn 21 that year—that song did spark a memory in me.

In 1989, a movie named “Lean on Me” hit the theaters, starring Morgan Freeman as Principal Joe Clark, who worked in the inner city of Paterson, N.J., and was tabbed to turn around a struggling high school. He did so in controversial fashion.

It’s a great movie—no doubt in my Top 10 of personal favorites—and is a flick I will watch time and time again when I am channel surfing and I click my way across it.

“Welcome to the Jungle” plays as the movie morphs the storyline from the time Eastside High School was a respectable educational institution and turns into the so-called jungle it became before Clark was hired as principal.

The song itself does take me back to that time period of the late-80s, when I was still young and knew nothing while thinking I knew everything.

It didn’t touch my soul the way some songs have, but it’s a song instantly sparks a memory and that’s what I was looking for.

That’s it. That’s all I got. I’ll do better tomorrow.

See you Monday.