Early this past Saturday morning (6:15 am), I wake up with a song in my head that I haven’t heard in a while: Green Day’s “Longview.” (Bite my lip and close my eyes; takes me away to paradise…)
Then I realized that I was actually hearing it. I go out in the hallway, and it’s coming from my boys’ room (ages 6.5 and 8). I walk in there and the big one is jumping up and down on the bed playing air guitar with a badminton racquet. The little one is sitting on an upturned Lego container play air drums with toy nunchucks. They’ve got that CD blaring (which they found in a box) and are having the greatest time. They shout, “This song is SO COOL!”
I suddenly felt old and young all at the same time. I remember slamming in the mosh pit with my brother at Green Day shows in Berkeley before they had a record deal. Must have been in about 1991-2.
From 1992 to 2005 doesn’t seem that long ago, but it is. My life is wildly different than it was then, in ways I never contemplated in 1992. But, these kids are conspiring to keep me young, and I’m gonna let 'em.
I grabbed a tennis racquet until Mom came in and told us to knock it off and to stop playing that disgusting song.
Live long and live young, my friends.