Firebirds I've known

& a link for Asheville NC relief

	The stockpile of boiled peanuts I hoarded during lockdown is dwindling. I must head into the southern wilderness.

I’ll forage as much as I can from Alabama before heading north. It’ll be like Smokey & the Bandit, except instead of a Kenworth of beer & T-top Pontiac, it’ll be a Toyota minivan with a smirking skid plate. 

When the movie first came out, I saw a Firebird Trans Am exactly like Bandit’s in Bakersfield. I was twelve & visiting my cousins — teen sisters. A guy about their age from their church dropped by their house to show them. He was a Holy Roller. The car was brand new. So was his downy first mustache. He mentioned the movie as if he didn’t need to, but did anyway a few times.

The surprise visit left no impression. Elvis had just died. The older cousin cried in her room at the news. The younger went out for a facial & frozen yogurt. 

	Another brief Firebird event was a few years later, borrowing a high school friend’s Gibson Firebird while he was on summer vacation with his family. It came with a huge amp of some 70’s kind. He was in a band. 

Earlier in the year, for an arts class extra-credit project, this friend & I made-up a song into a portable cassette recorder: he played a metal-ish guitar lick & I sang the poem The Little Coat by James Whitcomb Riley in on-&-off Geddy Lee. It was the year of Permanent Waves.

Though I knew some chords from EZ-play songbooks, most of the time alone with the loaner was behind my bedroom door listening to the harmonic tones feeding back when I leaned the guitar against the amp, pressing random strings. I felt like I’d discovered something beautifully wild & my own. On the other side of the door, the ménage felt differently. 

To help with the relief, please link to United Way of Asheville & Buncombe Co.

There’s also a song compilation called Caverns of Gold with 100% proceeds going to BeLoved Asheville.