Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

It is time for another trip to the cabin to still my quaking nerves and temper the shift of my lofty or scattered ambitions. I am stressed by the upcoming move and the shifting of time that makes me older but not wiser as I battle my apprehension and dismiss the fact that I actually graduated with a Ph.D. no less, but I can never appreciate my good luck or all the hard work that went into finishing the dissertation, many of it at the cabin. I pack a small number of records; we changed the rules this year, only ten, but both Donny and I are bringing more surreptitiously, unbeknownst to all except each other. We knew we each would and discussed it more than usual, sifting our collections for the unknown, we grabbed albums to introduce to each other like new friends.   After last year's AC/DC debacle, where he tried to play the discography and was shut down, the decision was made (by who?), in passive voice resistance, to bring albums that were near and dear to us and ...

Time once again emerges the winner in its perennial battle to change our hearts and minds, ravaging (perhaps, that's too harsh a word) along parameters that stretch from our youth to our deaths. What are these you ask? Only the old man himself knows and he's not telling. Winter fades to spring on the Elk River and the flood waters recede, streaming rivulets of mud and murk. I pack again for the cabin trip, like every summer since my summers began, excited, except for those few years in high school, when I fled from my parents, a high-minded but foolish youth, escaping into books and records, with friends. We surreptitiously visited the cabin on weekday nights, beers in hand, talk in mind. I pack and pack some more -- the right records, the right books, the right attitude -- looking forward to seeing the Elk overrun its bed or settle back into its groove, and anticipating the smell of the forest, the plants, the early summer.  I make my annual lists and call around...