1
Growing up on the east coast, the distance between towns was never very far.  Seemed like the whole eastern seaboard was one big suburb.  A megalopolis.
But Idaho was different.
I was living in Salt Lake City.
It had been a strange time.  I’d graduated from college.  Which freaked me out just like everybody else.  I’d lined up a job for the winter at the Goldminer’s Daughter in Alta, Utah.
And then I broke my leg.
I ended up in Salt Lake.  My cast gone a few weeks, living at the house of two people I’d met once.
Pretty bizarre.
And one day the phone rang.  My parents were going skiing in Sun Valley.  Did I want to meet them?
Doing nothing, I left Salt Lake Sunday afternoon, and about an hour shy of the Idaho border, the flurries I’d been ensconced in since my departure turned into flakes shaken hard from the sky.  I’d like to say there were clowns to the left of me, and jokers to the right, but there was no one in sight.  For miles.
Fearing getting stranded in the middle of nowhere decades before the ubiquity of cell phones, I turned around.  And watched the weather.  Day after day.  It was supposed to continue to dump.  Once bitten, twice shy.  But when Wednesday arrived, with snow still part of the forecast, I decided to try again.
This time it was sunny all the way to the Idaho border.  Gray until I hit Interstate 86, the main drag through the southern part of the state.  And then it started to blow.  The wind howled.  The snow was swirling.  My first instinct was to turn around.  But I was over halfway there.  I could have slowed down.  Taken it easy.  But fearing even worse weather and nightfall, I was determined to maintain my sixty five mile an hour speed.  I soldiered on.
The left lane was covered with snow eighty percent of the time.  The right, just the opposite.  Clear, only occasionally slick.  But, in the right lane, was the occasional twilight zone vehicle.  Moving at about thirty five, oblivious to the fact that we could DIE out here.  Amidst the sagebrush.  With only an occasional fenced in Indian reservation along the way.  So, I’d be zipping in the slow lane, see a porker, and slide into the fast line.  Knowing that everything would be cool unless somebody did something stupid, and I had to put on the brakes.
The car was a sauna.  I needed all my blower power to defrost the windshield.  And as I sat there, gripping the wheel, what kept me going, what rode shotgun, was Loggins & Messina’s "Mother Lode".

2
You didn’t leave home without cassettes.
I’d made twenty six before I’d left Connecticut.  Everything from the new releases to true classics like "Blue" to recent favorites like "The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle".
But after driving across the complete country, I was burned out on those tapes.  I needed something new!
So, before I left L.A., my temporary home, for Salt Lake, I went to Pacific Stereo, purchased some blank Maxells, and transferred the latest releases onto cassette.
Let me mosey on over to the cassette rack to review what those tapes were.
Let’s see, we’ve got Bonnie Raitt’s "Streetlights".  Her worst album to date.  But, it included "Angel From Montgomery" and her cover of "That Song About The Midway".
"Eldorado"!  "Midnight, on the water, I saw…"  You have to remember, in 1974, we were still waiting for the new Beatles.  And an act that SOUNDED like the Beatles would do.  ELO, after releasing two ho-hum records, suddenly burst forth with a classic!  I LOVED hearing "Can’t Get It Out Of My Head" on KMET.  I RUSHED OUT to buy the album.
There was the Average White Band album.  God, what a CLASSIC!  Forget the instrumental "Pick Up The Pieces"…"Work To Do" slays me.  And "Person To Person" too.  Saw them that spring in some ballroom in Salt Lake.  I beamed as they played my favorites.
Then there was the Who’s "Odds & Sods".  With "Naked Eye".
Randy Newman’s "Good Old Boys".  I heard "Louisiana" in the mountains last night on my iPod and I felt good all over.  That piano intro like the sun rising on a dew-stained plantation.  We move so fast up here in the North.  We don’t slow down and appreciate life.  Listening to "Louisiana" makes one wonder why you’re chasing the dog’s tail.  Maybe it’s time to slow down and appreciate the magic.
There’s the Rolling Stones’ "It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll".  With "Time Waits For No One".
And "Mother Lode".

3
I had a rule.  I had to listen to the whole tape through.
Driving in the western U.S. isn’t like going from Fairfield to Stamford.  No, the ride is long.  ENDLESS!  You can’t cherry-pick.  You can’t only listen to your favorites.  You’d run out of tunes in an hour.  No, you have to pick a tape, rewind it to the top, and let it play.  From beginning to end.  Oh, if it rubbed you the wrong way right at the start, you could eject it.  But, once you got past the two minute mark, you were in.  The hope was to get sucked into the mood of the album.  The head of its makers.  To lock into a trance.
Now when driving in sunlight, you let the tape play through, and then you pop in another.  But when it’s white knuckle weather, you can’t do that little maneuver where you look through what’s available, eject and then insert.  In those mere instants that you were distracted from the task at hand, you could lose traction on a patch of ice.  Start to slide.  Swerve.  Be heading for the ditch.  You might be required to pump the breaks.  Press the clutch.  Downshift.  No, you had to pay ATTENTION!
And on this particular afternoon in February 1975, when Mother Nature decided to fuck with my life, the tape I was playing throughout was Loggins & Messina’s "Mother Lode".
I was a fan.  That first album, "Sittin’ In".  Great.
But the second.  Kind of lightweight.  With that lame "Your Mama Don’t Dance".  But, there was the incredible "Angry Eyes".
Since I was INVESTED in the act.  Had even seen them in concert the previous Thanksgiving at Madison Square Garden.  I purchased "Mother Lode".
But hadn’t played it all that much.  Like I said, I was stuck on "Eldorado".
But driving Interstate 86 I suddenly became hooked by this song "Changes".

But I’ve seen changes
They happen every day
And I see change
Comin’ your way

It was like the song was speaking to ME!  Like Jimmy Messina was riding shotgun, reviewing his life, telling me about his hassles with his manager, girlfriend and the IRS, warning me that this world was quite different from the illusion, the rap.  That you had to keep your eyes open, make choices.  But, still, you’d be bounced around like a pinball.  What was I DOING??  I didn’t want to be in college, but this regular life…IT WAS CREEPING ME OUT!
I was living with people who treated me okay, but were mostly interested in my wallet, wanting to know I could pay the rent.  I was a ski bum at the most difficult ski area in the country, and I’d just broken my leg.  Nobody knew who I was.  Nobody cared.  Except for Jimmy.
I reached over and pulled that lever to rewind the tape.  Hearing the gears turn for the better part of thirty seconds, I let go, and let the song play again.
And shortly after that, the weather became TRULY intense.  I not only COULDN’T change the tape, I didn’t WANT TO!
It was me and Kenny and Jimmy in my 2002 together.  A team of three sharing one mind-set.  If we stuck together, we could fight the elements and WIN!
I’m being oh-so-gentle with the pedals.  I’ve got the lights turned on to fight the storm darkness.  Zooming towards Twin Falls.
I’m both zoned in and zoned out.  Totally focused on the road, but probably unable to have a conversation, if there were a live human being there with me.
The tape played through.  Then again.  Then again.

4
Strangely, shortly after getting off the Interstate in Twin Falls, pointing my BMW towards Ketchum, the wind stopped blowing.  The flakes faded to a whimper, and then disappeared.  The sky was still gray, but the sun illuminated the cloud ceiling, there wasn’t all-encompassing darkness.
I stopped at a gas station.  Filled up.  But when I got back into my automobile, I continued to let "Mother Lode" play.

5
Not too long thereafter, Loggins & Messina broke up.  Kenny Loggins embarked on the solo career he thought he’d begun years before when Jimmy started producing his debut and then joined the band.  Kenny went on to have some monster hits, but they were all lightweight trifles.  And, when the hits dried up, he disappeared.
Jimmy Messina made a solo album.  And hasn’t been heard from since.
When kids comb the archives, looking for great stuff, I don’t think they’re looking for Loggins & Messina.
And, I can understand on some level why.  Because of "Your Mama Don’t Dance".  People think the band was lightweight.
But Loggins & Messina had their moments.  "Mother Lode" stands up.  I downloaded every track from KaZaA.  I was glad to see they were available.  My only hope is that the Internet will keep their music alive.  All those seventies acts that weren’t about glitter, rather saw themselves as musicians, playing mellifluous material.  That spoke to their audience.