Music Monday: “I Want You” by Savage Garden

(This post first appeared on my Substack on July 18, 2022.)

Memories are funny things.

I struggle with dad brain often. While I managed to be a Jeopardy! champion once a long time ago, I doubt I would be as good at the game today. My memory is not as sharp as it once was when it comes to facts and operations and things like that.

However, some memories are strong, probably because of the feelings that they engender.

25 years ago I was working summer housing and conference staff at my alma mater, the University of Missouri. I was one of the youngest members of the staff, as I was still 18 years old after freshman year.

I found myself making friends that were of legal drinking age at the time (although everyone wasn’t). And in the 1990s, well, let’s say that drivers license and state ID card technology was not where it is today.

About a half hour or so west of Columbia there sits on the bluffs overlooking the Missouri River a winery called Rocheport. And some of us would try to work our schedules so that we were not on duty or working on Friday afternoons so we could, well, go get our drank on.

(Aside: I am not a wine drinker at all. But when I was in college, I drank my fair share of wine. Pink Fox forever. If you know, you know.)

So, how does a trip to a winery in 1997 relate to the song above? One of the staff members who was a semi-regular designated driver for the journey out to Rocheport and back was into Savage Garden, and so the above song was in regular rotation in her car. If you were riding with her out to the winery, you were going to hear this song. It was a fact.

This is what I mean about memories how the mind can play funny games with you. I can sometimes barely remember what we had for dinner last week without consulting our menu log.

But I can tell you that we would climb into Heather’s stick shift Saturn sedan around 3:30-4pm or so and hit the road, spend an hour or two at the winery, and race back to town to catch the end of happy hour at the Heidelberg because we needed the two for one appetizer special in order to soak up the wine and occasionally the beers or mixed drinks that appeared at the table because, well, happy hour. And again, relatively primitive ID card technology.

I am bad at communication sometimes, so I have lost touch with many of the people I worked with that first full summer away from home. A few, however, I am still in contact with even now, after 25 years. So to Ron, Court, and Meaghan, cheers to Rocheport and the Old Heidelberg. I don’t really drink anymore, but we really should make a trip out to the A-Frame for old time’s sake.

Maybe we can drive over from Columbia one day, blasting Savage Garden on the way for old times sake.