I have several songs that bring back specific memories. There is a song that takes me back to the night I was leaving Cincinnati for the last time and moving to Maryland. There are plenty of songs that take me back to various times and people from high school. Some songs will now always remind me of dad’s dance at my daughter’s dance recitals.  One song I heard last night, That’s All by Genesis, will always remind me of a minor car accident from my freshman year of high school.

I did not drive while I was in high school, so I spent every morning standing on Main Street waiting for the bus. I rode the bus the entire four years I was in high school. Obviously, this story takes place before I was legally able to drive anyway. I just thought I would try to get people to pity me for riding the bus. Anyway, this particular day I was standing on Main Street as usual. I’m pretty sure it was drizzling a little. I’m pretty sure that’s why someone pulled over and asked us if we wanted a ride to school. I can’t remember who it was. I didn’t know them. I think maybe my brother did. We said yes and piled into the car.

The first stop was at the middle school to drop of the younger kids. The high school and middle school had similar hours. We stopped in front of the middle school, dropped people off and then headed around the school to get to the high school next door to park and go to school. I guess the driver took the curve a little too fast, went off the road, hit the mud and started spinning. We spun around and ended with the car hitting the middle school. The middle school principal charged out and told all of us but the driver to go on to school. Leaving the scene of an accident is not something you should do, but when the principal told us to do it, we did.

I went to school and my first class was Biology(I think, Definitely science). For some reason, my teacher had been talking about a train crash. When the school office told him I was needed there to talk to the police he jokingly asked me if it was about the train accident. I told him close, but a car accident and headed out. The police questioned me about the speed around the curve I answered honestly that I had been in the back seat and looking down at my books to make sure I had my homework so I had no idea how fast we were going. That was the extent of the questioning.

It was a very minor event with no repercussions for me at all, but every time I hear the song That’s All, the song that was playing when it happened, I am taken back to that day.