The draw of a moment, of a song, can be so strong as to be overwhelming — the surge of one colossal wave stunning the stable, rational land.
A Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
For years I have thought of this trip: atop a badass motorcycle (o not an old-man-relaxed-waistband-jeans kind of bike but a bruiser), on back roads in the West, through the plains, along the upper Missouri past Wolf Point and Glasgow and Malta and down to Iliad, and then down through Cody and Thermopolis and Lander and Sweetwater Station and down some more through the grasslands of Nebraska and Kansas, through Alliance and Fort Robinson where Crazy Horse died and Nicodemus and on to Dodge City and into Buffalo, Oklahoma and deeper and deeper into the Hill Country of Texas, a long, long trip, just to see, to talk to those who reside there, just to ride for all those unfurling miles in the most open country on the continent. I know the route. I have seen some of those blue sky, pilgrim places, but not on a bike, not on the fly. Vincent Black Lightning 1952, Richard Thompson and Nancy Griffith
P.S. When you listen to the song, put aside the “shotgun blast” and the “red-headed girl”. After all, we are always allowed to shape these dreams to our own measures.
