How good is hearing one of your favourite songs played on the radio?

Even better when it is a long time favourite unearthed to tickle the airwaves once more.

Music has the ability to move your emotions. It can motivate you, take you places, make you laugh, or even cry, perhaps rejoin you with distant memories…

Or just make you sick!

Uh?

Recently TomO and I were driving along the freeway and one such song came on the radio…

“Most People I Know (Think That I’m Crazy)” by Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, a great Aussie rock-band.

I was growing up in Townsville, North Queensland and heading into puberty faster than warp speed just as this song was released.

Strewth, remember those free and easy days?

You could head off on your bike with your mates in the morning with strict instructions to be back for dinner.

In reality we were usually back by lunchtime. Food was required on a regular basis with all that testosterone sloshing around!

But testosterone and girls is for another time…

Anyway, TomO says…

“So Dad, you like this song, hey?

“It’s fitting ‘cause Mum and me think you are just a little bit crazy, that’s for sure.”

I reminded him that he was a chip off the old-block and he might just be a little crazy as well…

“Sure, it is one of my all time favourites” I said, “it takes me back to a time when I was around your age, maybe a touch older.”

“Were you going through puberty”, he asked?

“Yeah, sure mate, I love that song, but it makes me feel sick” Avoiding the puberty question…

“How could it make you feel sick if you like it?”

“See Dad, you are crazy.”

“How could you love a song and say that it makes you sick at the same time.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

I had aroused an interest that would have him hunting down an answer like a pit bull terrier nipping at your heels.

The song had finished and I vowed to find a quiet moment up in The Shed later in the day when I could crank it up on my iPod.

Humming along to myself I got to thinking this would be a good time to share a story from my younger days…

A good opportunity to reinforce the evils of smoking.

As I drove, he listened…

I’d heard some mates talking about how they had tried smoking, but I was shying away from these discussions as I was too scared to give it a go.

I wanted to, but didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of my mates. I mean what if I threw up, or coughed, or whatever? I’d be the laughing stock of class 6E and maybe even risk being dropped from the footy team.

It was about mid-semester when that fateful day arrived, I just didn’t recognise it when I got out of bed that morning and headed to school, after all it was the same as any other day, at least I thought it was.

On the way home I passed Leong’s corner shop.

You’ll know the place, full of lollies, ice-creams, chips, stuff I didn’t usually have any money to spend on, but still I passed by most days.

I was hanging around outside on my bike, not sure what I was actually waiting for as I was still another year or so away from taking an  active interest in the girls that hung out there.

Anyway, I see this bloke pull up in a flash car. Well I thought it was flash anyway, a new Holden Kingswood sedan, and as he gets out he tossed a half-finished cigarette onto the ground.

The next couple of moments were a blur really, certainly impulsive!

And isn’t that the story of my life.

I swooped on that smouldering cigarette, durrie, as the older boys called them, with all the zest of two seagulls fighting over a lone chip, discarded uncaringly on a beach side promenade.

Quickly extinguishing it, I hid it in my pocket and was back on my bike.

Maybe that is where my athletic prowess started, if I can call it that, as I peddled faster and harder than I had ever done before and probably ever since.

I swore the whole world witnessed this event and the police would be on to me before I got home, sirens blaring, handcuffed and dragged before my parents.

Oh my gawd, the risk I was taking of being caught with this solitary piece of contraband.

Luck was seemingly on my side though, I got home unchallenged by the law.

But there was still Mum to navigate past as I headed for the kitchen cupboard that stored the matches.

Would she miss a box?

The mind was racing, but I needn’t have worried.

I should have been in the military as the task was completed with precision. I had the matches and the durrie, there was an air of subterfuge about the whole thing; a tinge of excitement…

I was now feeling like a fugitive running from the law as I headed down to the old sawmill a couple of kilometres from home.

In hindsight, I’m not sure why I didn’t do it the time old-fashioned way and light the bloody thing up behind the shed.

Anyway, I scaled an old sawdust pile and slid down the other side, careful to remain well out of sight.

Fumbling, I took that used durrie, yep the one covered in someone else’s spit and saliva, probably contaminated with all kinds of germs and put it in my mouth.

For crying out loud, this thing had been between the lips of someone I didn’t even know.

But it was far too late to contemplate now as the flame of the match was licking at my fingers like an out-of-control bush fire…

This was supposed to be a pleasant experience, or so they say.

I tried to be sophisticated about it…

Sophisticated?

Hell, who was I kidding?

Here I was covered in sawdust and sucking on a discarded fag…

Despite numerous advances from our next door neighbour, I still wasn’t willing to let her tongue loose in my mouth, mixing all those salvia juices together for fear of catching girl germs.

But here I was with someone’s used fag, durrie, whatever you want to call the damned thing, jammed between my lips…

Okay, so let’s just put it out there, it was gross!

But give me a break, I couldn’t even afford a packet of lollies from Leong’s store, let alone a packet of durries…

I coughed my way through that cigarette.

As I lay back in the sawdust dragging on that cigarette I got to thinking that snogging Debbie Kelly couldn’t possibly be this bad, and now I had ticked this off the “to do list” maybe I could take up her offer…

Just for a comparison!

I wasn’t feeling one way or the other on this smoking thing.

I was indifferent at best!

And about half-way home it hits me, my head started spinning and I felt the whole world was about to end.

I felt sick…

Man, I mean really sick.

To this day I’m sure Mum was wondering how I came to be covered in sawdust.

But she didn’t ask.

Perhaps she thought I was stealing a kiss from Debbie Kelly down at the old sawmill?

Having a good old snog as our tongues danced in a sea of saliva.

If only it had been the case maybe I would have a cheeky smile on my face each time I heard Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs belt out that song.

TomO listened on intently.

I did notice a bit of a wry smile coming out the corner of his mouth.

Perhaps he was weighing up what he would have done, a snog or the cigarette…

You see as I lay back on my bed, my head spinning faster than an out of control merry-go-round, Billy and the Boys were belting out that classic on the radio…

And I felt so sick, so very sick…

But I still love that song!

Baz – The Landy…