I haven’t had the opportunity to do the “ride around listening to the Redskins” that much this year, largely because of a stereo-related issue that wound up forcing me onto XM and thus losing the Redskins’ broadcast for road games. Home games only now, and with half the opportunities I wound up missing some weekends, and honestly my heart’s not in it because that team is godawful with few prospects for improving.
Nevertheless, Sunday morning at 10 found me pulling out of the garage with coffee to hand, tuned into the feed from DC, with Sonny and Sam doing their best Statler-and-Waldorf behind Larry Michael’s game attempt to keep the broadcast on track. Time to go for a ride.
The ridearound had its origins in my senior year of high school, when I’d jump in the car and just start driving. Gas was a dollar a gallon and Milo’s fries and tea were the perfect accompaniment to Eli Gold and Doug Layton calling Alabama football games on the AM radio, and it became a ritual to drive – sometimes as far south as I could, way down 280 to the far edge of the Birmingham sector, sometimes the long way up US 31 or 78, occasionally into the backwoods between Jefferson and Blount and Walker counties. Fall colors through the sunroof, Gary Hollingsworth throwing to Prince Wimbley and no particular place to go.
By the time I got to Nashville, I could actually go to games, and the car didn’t have a sunroof, so the few ridearound moments were at odd times and for odd things – running between three different malls on a December night, 20 degrees and clear skies with a radio station out of Cleveland bringing in Cavs-Kings basketball or the outrage at the departure of the Browns. Plus I actually had teams I could go see in person, so the radio wasn’t that big a deal.
And then came DC. By 1999, I had brought back the classic ridearound – Burger King for a bacon double with two orders of fries and a huge Dr Pepper, with a possible bottle or two of Dr Pepper to refill with, and at least one cigar and sometimes two. Then three and a half hours around the Beltway, down Connecticut or Mass Ave, maybe over Chain Bridge, through the highways and byways of northern Virginia. And I got so stuck into it that I would spend Saturdays or offseason weekends wheeling around with Eddie Stubbs playing bluegrass on WAMU instead of ballgames.
The ridearound didn’t come to California until late in 2006, when the new Rabbit came with Sirius satellite radio – and thus NFL broadcasts. Even then, the ridearound didn’t become a regular thing – we were away for a chunk of the 2007 season, and the discovery of Dan Brown’s Lounge pre-empted riding around a lot in 2008-10 before it was yanked out from under me halfway through last season. And without the cigar excuse, there just wasn’t that much call to get in the car and drive to nowhere once gas broke the $3/gallon barrier.
Nevertheless, on Sunday, I saddled up and rode. Mostly around the South Bay – down into San Jose, around downtown, back up the route of the light rail and down the various surface-level expressways. I discovered a few things, like a Fresh ‘N Easy positioned right in front of the Fair Oaks VTA stop, or the fairly impressive-looking arena for Santa Clara University basketball (I need to stop in for the St Mary’s game, I think). But mostly it was just the traditional stuff: light through orange leaves, burger and fries (In N Out, natch) and Washington’s traditional ignominious collapse in the fourth quarter (seriously 21 points given up in the last 5 minutes. WTF) – and plenty time to relax and just drift along with the road.