Kay Pack Never Knew That I Existed

Tonight while checking email and listening to boomerradio.com, a block of songs played that sparked hippy-dippy memories from Atlanta's WQXI and WPLO, and the profanity filled underground newspaper from the 60s, The Great Speckled Bird. To use a far out term from my teen days, I had a flashback. Trust me. It wasn't a delayed reaction to some postage stamp laced with a chemical known only by its initials, or from licking a South American frog. Geek that I was, I never even tried an herbal brownie back then. This flashback was entirely musically motivated and brought with it vivid images of maroon and white high school letter jackets, Christie Anderson, monster movies at the Glenwood Drive-in, and McDonald's fries. Each reflection led to another in a series of experiences almost 40-years old. The fallout shelter in Jeannine Lawrence's basement, Slurpees at 7-Eleven, and freaking out when Debbie Bailey kissed me on the cheek. Those tunes from my own Wonder Years helped to shape me . . . in fact, shape a whole generation. Faceless on-air personalities such as Tony "The Tiger" Taylor and "Skinny" Bobby Harper guided us through a difficult time of social change and the passage from adolescence to young adulthood. Their word was near-gospel and their G-rated humor made me laugh at myself and the world around me, despite the fact that the Beatles' Abbey Road album proved that Paul was dead and that Kay Pack never knew that I existed. www.baxwrtr.com