Performer: Tommy James and the Shondells
Songwriters: Eddie Gray, Tommy James, Mike Vale
Original Release: Crimson & Clover
Year: 1968
Definitive Version: None
Here’s something funny: I’ve
listened to this song a lot in the past eight years; I’d known it longer than
that; and I certainly had heard of Tommy James and the Shondells. It wasn’t
until three weeks ago, when I collected the background information at the top
of each post that I saw a picture of the band and learned that Tommy James and
all of the Shondells were (are) white guys. That probably was common knowledge,
but that fact somehow eluded me all these years. I didn’t know them very well,
and I just assumed from the vocals on this song that Tommy James, at least, was
black.
I learned early on from
Laurie that this was one of her favorite songs. I can’t remember the context of
why she told me this or whether it was from the first time I visited or over
the phone, but now it was stuck in my brain cells.
When I visited Laurie for
New Year’s Eve that year, it was my first trip from Columbus to see her. The
first two times I had come from Michigan, so this was the first of what would
become many trips on the bore-a-thon known as I-70/I-65, with Indianapolis mercifully
breaking up what otherwise is an interminable passing of flat, open farm land
for five hours.
A stop in Merrillville,
Ind., made sense. It’s at the tip of Da Region, as the Chicago guys at Wabash
called it, which is the start of the Chicago metroplex. From Merrillville, it
was an hour to Laurie’s if traffic was clear but more usually an hour and a
half. It marked the start of the final stretch and the end—thankfully—of the
farm land.
But it also made financial
sense to stop in Merrillville and load up on gas, where it was always at least
20 cents per gallon less expensive than in Chicago. Merrillville also was a
good place to stop for flowers. About a mile off I-65 on US 30 is a Meijer,
which besides being open 24 hours has a decent flower department.
I had brought flowers to
Laurie the first two times I had visited, and it was the least I could do as a
token of my appreciation as a guest. I stopped, filled up the gas tank and put
together a bouquet for Laurie.
As I headed back to I-65,
this song came on the radio, just as I was about to call Laurie and tell her I
was an hour or so away. I knew she wasn’t home at the time, so I was going to
leave a message on her answering machine. (I told you she had Nineties
technology.) When I got the proper prompt, I said it was me and held the phone
up to the radio for a minute, so she could hear what was on my radio at the
time.
When I arrived, it took me
awhile to haul everything upstairs. I had five things—a suitcase, a bag of
Christmas presents, a bag of dinner-related gear, my pillow and the flowers.
Laurie took one look at me trudging up the stairs and asked, “Are you moving
in?”
Little did she know that her
question was only nine months premature …
No, the clothes were my
clothes, the presents were because we decided to have a little exchange on New
Year’s Day, the dinner gear was an expensive bottle of wine that I had been
holding since I had broken up with Debbie for our New Year’s/Christmas dinner,
my pillow was my pillow (I didn’t like Lauries’) and the flowers, of course,
were my hall pass.
The New Year’s weekend
shaped up to be a huge weekend, not only because I was going to be staying four
days. That night, after dinner, I was going to meet the inner circle of her
posse—her best of best friends. With only a brother left, this was as close to
family that Laurie had. Obviously, our relationship was developing.
But there was another reason
that this was going to be a big weekend. It was a reason that I knew of but
Laurie was yet blissfully ignorant. And with that, we’ll draw down the curtain
for now.
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