It's April 1965 - You're Gonna Start A Band - People Laugh - You Don't.

May 1967 - You're In Eleventh Grade - You Woke Up And It Was Strange.

Caught Up In A Hailstorm Of Strange Feelings

You weren't that way the night before - The night before it was The Smothers Brothers - radio -homework - phone - plans - clothes for Monday.

Monday - you woke up feeling strange and wondering; why is there a dress code? What's with skirts? Who made the rules? Why can't you be in a rock band and not be the singer? Why do you have to like someone just because they like you? Why can't you be an Astronaut? You love Biology. Why do you have to take Home Ec?

Must've been dreaming - something you ate - nope, felt that way for a while; all year, by last count - strange. You've been noticing lately - you've been watching. You have aunts - you have cousins - your aunts built airplanes and tanks during the war - your cousins dropped out of college and got married - they're miserable. You don't want to be miserable - gotta be more to life than that. Why can't you wear jeans to school? You can't stand hairspray. You spend Hundreds on makeup - Pimples are pimples and they won't go away 'cause you tell them to. Perfume makes you sneeze. You want to live in a cabin by a lake.

You've been thinking about it - thinking a lot. Your girlfriends look at you and sigh and suggest you go shopping. Your mom tells you you'll get over it - just a phase. She was a welder once, you have photos. Your cousins tell you you need a boyfriend - you have a boyfriend - all he wants to do is get you alone and get busy - you try to have a conversation with him and it's like clear blue sky where his eyes usually are - and he never looks you in the eye - always the tits - they never say a word. He doesn't take you seriously - you would bet your life he doesn't think about you at night. Why do you always have to be the romantic one? Why can't you have bad breath, just once?

So you wake up; eyes wide open. Beatle posters on the wall - Grace Slick staring down from the ceiling - too early for the alarm. Morning, grey and you're still not sure why you're here. Something's gonna happen - you can feel it in your bloodstream. Summer's coming.

Alarm goes off - radio blares on - jolt of adrenaline - KHJ and you fly out of bed. First one in the bathroom - bus shows up in an hour.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe it won't be strange then.

And a blast of The Real Don Steele (with Humble Harve at the end) from KHJ - May 5, 1967.