LOST HIGHWAY? GET A MAP, BOOMER

The Lost Highway by Hank Williams is every road ever traveled.

Some longer, some shorter, but it’s the same road.

You can say you’re not lost. Go ahead.

But we’re all old enough to know better.

Boomers hit the road early, especially Early Boomers, those born in 1946.

They had their road music, a bag of weed, and a ponytail.

Bound for glory, a commune, a protest, or the draft board, they shouldered their pack and headed out.

Unlike early boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1955 and were collectively named Time’s Man of the Year in 1967, late boomers (born 1956 through 1964) were in many ways the generation’s forgotten members.

Teenagers in the 1970s, in large part, retreated from political activity into a consumer-based exploration of peer-based belonging. Recreational drug use rose dramatically, and due in part to the women’s movement and sexual liberation, teens experienced a gradual shifting away from formalized steady courtship toward heterosexual group socializing with more informal dating and sexual relations. 

Teenagers In The 1970’s?

The music of the times didn’t include Hank Williams on my radio, or any radio I heard.

But he never went away.

I’m a rollin’ stone, all alone and lost
For a life of sin, I have paid the cost
When I pass by, all the people say
Just another guy on the lost highway

I looked for signs of the lost highway at my 50th high school reunion.

I understand why people skip events like high school reunions.

No one wants to hear the people say you look like some guy on the lost highway.

For some kids high school was their lost highway and when they left they just kept going.

Others found their way early and never looked back.

The folks I saw were somewhere between lost and found, and the question of, “Who are you?”

Lost And Found, Or Hiding Out

Just a deck of cards, and a jug of wine
And a woman’s lies makes a life like mine
Oh, the day we met, I went astray
I started rolling down that lost highway

From the looks of old Hank, old meaning before he died at twenty-nine years old, he didn’t have a very good diet.

Who was taking care of one of the most influential singer/songwriters of the 20th century?

Williams worked in Shreveport from September to December 1952. Most of his bookings were in beer halls, and his drunkenness was now a serious problem, which was compounded by medication prescribed by a bogus doctor, Toby Marshall. Through it all, though, Williams never seemed to strike out in the studio. Even as he played small halls in East Texas, his recording of “Jambalaya” was #1. If anything, his hits increased in magnitude as his bookings diminished.

‘Bogus doctor?’ Isn’t this how Elvis went out on his lost highway?

I was just a lad, nearly 22
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you
And now I’m lost, too late to pray
Lord, I take a cost, oh the lost highway

Cautionary Warning On The Lost Highway

Now boys don’t start to ramblin’ round
On this road of sin, are you sorrow-bound?
Take my advice or you’ll curse the day
You started rollin’ down that lost highway

Did anyone listen to Hank?

Not the rock heroes who checked out 27.

But we still have time.

Time to dream about packing a guitar in an old van and hitting the road to play campgrounds and street corners.

Time to write a song, a poem, a novel, a screenplay, a memoir.

Enough time to sing and dance.

That’s my lost highway, then I take a walk around the block.

If you find the time for any of it, tell me and I’ll write blog post you can show your grandkids.

Who’s wants to be a star for a moment?

“Grandma, is that you?”