Best Summer Ever

Oh my, I've just gone back to 1979, the best summer ever. The Smashing Pumpkins even wrote a song about it.

I was twelve. In the fall would be "junior high", but then they changed it to "middle school". My parents let me stay out way after dark, we would play flashlight tag all around the neighborhood, and I had a little girlfriend that liked to hide with me.

I remember being terrified almost every moment of every day.

Know what took me back there? Cheap Trick. I was flipping around on Rhapsody and came up with the In Color album. This preceded the big hit Budokon record, but had most of the songs, and, WOW, the original versions are not very good at all. Clearly they were much better live at that point in their career.

I remember I thought Rick Nielsen was a genius, and since I'm still thinking about Cheap Trick 28 years later, I'm pretty sure he was.