Quit your job, empty your bank account, and hit the road. The highways and bi-ways would connect town to metropolis, and small semblances of the rock star lifestyle could be collected among the wreckage of a grueling tour de force through America. Now it seems as though it were all a dream that just slipped away with the tide.

Coast to Coast, five to eight weeks a stint, waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, not remembering going to bed, staying in hotels, tents and backseat, all powered by enough fossil fuels consumed to heat Rochester in December; all for rock and roll. “But how could you stand to see the same show every night?” they’d ask. I used to be able to explain it, now I just smile and shrug my shoulders.

Good rock and roll is hard to come by after all. And they would lay it down deep, from funk jams simultaneously attacking from every direction to blistering solos backed by a wall of sound, from melancholy nonsensical lyrics to everyone’s favorite country ballads, a little Gershwin piano drop out to some punk about a carnivorous martian, an oddity all its own.

Four guys from Vermont would lead campaigns up and down the coasts and through the heartlands to the continental divide, even to other lands across the sea. Behind them their army piled into whatever transportation was available, over occupying hotel rooms, and terrifying the locals with their mere appearance. Traffic nightmares followed wherever they went. Parking lot after parking lot was thoroughly trashed, special teams would emerge from the steamy venues to clean what they could.

Their army didn’t march for war but for their own varied reasons of cause. One could identify their uniforms through the patchwork stitching or corporate logos hijacked off the latest Madison Ave. ad campaign. Unkempt hair and eyes tired from many sleepless nights gave their faces character, but never seemed to slow them down.

Why join this circus-like campaign that taxes body and mind? Some would look to expand their consciousness, either naturally or at a few dollars a hit. A few would tag along just because it was different. Others went to be with likeminded individuals so they could feel like they were not walking the earth alone. Salesmen would find ample buyers for their black market wares. Start-up cults could recruit from society’s fringes. Techno geeks could catalog every event in crystal clear digital sound. A few didn’t know what they were doing there, some just woke up there and had no choice but to march forward, and in the end all had their moments. At any rate, there was not much better to do.

This was different, this was what everybody fought for, this was the culmination of years of sacrifice, this was the better America others had dreamed of, yet could never grasp.

America became the theme park where none of the rides were safe and every trip had its perils. One journey began fighting heat exhaustion in the conservative heartland of the Sunbelt, waves of heat radiating off the Atlanta pavement. It would end a few weeks later in the arctic temperatures of Lake Placid.

More than one head met his fate behind the brilliant ambiance that covered the seediest of sins in Las Vegas. Riots were occasioned in Colorado. Perhaps a spontaneous cocktail party in the lobby of the Holiday Inn at 5:00 AM, dress to impress, we wouldn’t want to scare the normals out of their complimentary continental breakfast. The “you hope” once in a life time spectacle of a tornado touchdown outside Topeka. And of course, you could always go to jail, Jersey’s full of them.

Could have been a dream, just lived out in reality. Maybe everybody just made a scene and took it on the road because no respectable community would tolerate it for more than a few nights. Was there just a terminal lack of fun so grave that everybody dropped whatever they were doing and hit the road to see a rock and roll band? Perhaps you were just supposed to do it.

None of that really matters now, what matters is that it happened. I feel detached from those feelings now and perhaps a little regretful I didn’t give into them further when everything was moving so fast around me. But if ever I feel that others are judging me, playing superior, or that they hold my worth to be less than self evident, or if I feel these emotions myself, I can still smile. Yeah, I was there, and you’ll never know what you missed.