Dancing Days

*continuing the tradition of naming blog posts after songs.....


I was on my one hour drive to work this morning and I got so lost, lost to where I am and how I got here. I was thinking about things that happened years ago, lost in a virtual sea of gray matter soaked with memories. I started by hearing something on the radio station and then transposing myself to the exact time I was in my life when that song meant something. The next thing I knew, without a second transpiring, I had traveled ten miles. I have often wondered if God, unhappy with my performance, after I die, would throw me headlong back into my life to life it again differently. I wonder what would have happened if I HAD become the teacher I thought I could have been. How much different my life would have turned out. I would probably be retired by now. But, then again, I would have never had the chance to drink a glass of wine with Bob Seger, play golf with Alice Cooper (he cheats), interview Yoko and Julian Lennon, Hayward and Lodge, have Lou Reed get pissed off and walk out on my interview, become great friends with Shooting Star, being kissed by Bonnie Bramlett or rock the Quad Cities, Kansas City and St. Louis...and...end up...here.In St. Louis. I would have loved to have been the teacher at either Ava High or United Township that retired after 397 years of quality service with a boat and a house on the river. All things considered, even though it's been more of a roller coaster ride than a merry go round, I wouldn't trade where I've been, who I am and what I became for anything. My brother had a transistor radio surgically implanted in his ear, and I followed suit in my own way. There was no question what I WANTED to be, but what I thought I would become was soooo different. When little Bobby and Billy wanted to be a fireman or a policeman, little Randy wanted to be "the guy on the radio". My first time was 1971, I was fifteen. I knew from that time, from then to high school, to the Academy of Radio and Televison, to WHBF, KFMH and onward....To everyone that listened, thank you. If I made any contact, I am humbled. I only wanted to pass on what I learned by the best in my craft. But, what a teacher of American History I could have been.... I sometimes introduce myself as ..."Randy Raley, you know, I used to be somebody, now, I'm just anybody and sometimes nobody." 

Don't box with God, he's got a lightning fast right cross.