”It was late in December, the sky turned to snow”

I happen to push the dial

a little out of place

on the small analoge set by the bed

that I use for newscasts before breakfast,

and that song by Al Stewart grabs me

by the neck

- and here I am, immediately translocated

to Dallas, Texas, late 1978,

driving that old 72 Chevrolet Bel Air

from Judy's and my rented place

at Melody Park Apts. on Melody Lane,

across the city those 18 miles

over to the Zachry Asphalt Plant down in Irving,

to my job as an Engineer's Aide,

with the car radio blasting,

London & Englemann playing the popular songs

in their morning show on KLIF 1190,

the land still dark,

endless lines of headlights either way,

coffee in a mug in the holder to my left,

those frantic commercials still sticking:

”I drink Dr Pepper and I'm proud,

I used to be alone in the crowd,

but now you look around these days,

there seems to be a Dr Pepper craze;

I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper,

we're a Pepper,

wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?”

and one song that was on repeat

on KLIF that winter

brings everything back, loud and clear,

bright and inexorably:

Al Stewart's Time Passages;

Judy's and my marriage,

less than half a year

into the seven years it lasted

- and once again I'm reminded

that I still haven't been to Baltimore

to leave a pebble from a favourite place of hers

in Sweden on her headstone

at the Jewish cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland,

even though she passed already in 2009,

while Stewart's song still haunts me:

”A girl comes towards you

you once used to know,

you reach out your hand

but your all alone, in these

time passages”

as I recall how the workdays in December

began driving with Judy in the dark,

blaring KLIF,

with my bike in the trunk,

the Chevrolet so wide

that I could place the bike there

without folding,

Judy leaving me at Zachry's, driving off ,

my work days closing with me biking home

through Dallas,

on my Swedish orange Crescent racing bike,

stopping for some warmth and coffee

at a certain coffee shop run by an Arabic immigrant,

my feet and hands hurting as they got warm again,

myself satisfied with the exercise home past Love Field,

and further on up Inwood,

even in cold and snowy Texas winter weather,

and this 2025 morning my careless dial handling

has me mourn Judy, mourn Dallas,

mourn my age of 30

during Jimmy Carter's time in office,

as another song from that late 1978

have me remember my loving, loyal wife Judy

with a burning sensation of unrecoverable loss:

”You're once, twice, three times a lady”

and I shiver