Back to the Future

 

The Captain tells a story about his first day in law school that I assume most lawyers tell: He's in his first class and the professor tells the assembly to take a look to their left and then their right.

Jeff was still in a little bit of culture shock as this was his first time in Indiana, and he knew no one. His parents had driven him from Maine and were still reeling from their first corn dog and the flat vista. 

But back to the class.

"Only one of the three of you will make it to graduation," the prof intones to the would-be attorneys. 

Jeff was sitting between two Hoosiers, John Christ and Eric Yocum, who he had yet to really meet. Jeff looked at one and then the other. 

"I'll be OK," he though.

The three would become blood brothers; attorneys minted in the same year and successful in their separate practices. I don't know what John or Eric thought about their perusal of the people around them, and I would love to share photos of them at the time v. now  but I should leave it to them if they want to share. (And if they don't, I hope Tracy and Vicki will because it would be hilarious.)

I wasn't around in those years, but John a dead ringer for what white Americans'  visualize when they think of Jesus Christ in his prime. Eric was also prone to long hair and might have come across as a hippie or stoner. Though he dropped out of Boy Scouts early on, Jeff started and ended law school looking like an overgrown scout. 

In between, under the influence of John and Eric, he apparently dressed all in black and participated in activities his parents would have shuddered to learn about. I don't know if he grew his hair out then, but clearly Marian influenced him to go back to his scouting days before he sat for that graduation portrait.

I know they spent a lot of time in local bars and concert halls, one of their favorites, apparently was a local band called Rods and Cones.

This morning I got a message from John who forwarded a Facebook message from a friend of his who had come across a vinyl album or record of the band in her closet, digitized and posted it. The Captain won't join Facebook, so I had to relay it.

Jeff immediately regressed to his air guitar days (which really have never gone away) as he listened to the post on my phone. He then high-tailed it to the basement where he dug out his band-signed, Rods and Cones tee shirt and his album -- which he said may be the only album the group produced.

And we spent some time this morning listening to it. Even for my country-loving ears, it was pretty good. 

 If you look closely at the shirt, one of the band members wrote, "Jeff, go deaf." Prescient of him. 

The album cover is the featured photo on the band's Facebook page. Yeah. Even a disbanded local band from the previous century is on Facebook. Maybe that'll get the Captain to finally join the social platform.

In any event, I'm fairly certain that John also shared the post with Eric and that today, all three of those guys will be humming and singing Rods and Cones tunes. I don't know if Vicki and Tracy were fans, but they'll get their opportunity.

Rock on, dudes.