In A Single Perfect Sphere

I worked as a temporary employee making salad dressing for restaurants and cafeterias. The job lasted all of two weeks and I was so fed up with the working conditions and the management that I had called the agency to get me out of there. The end of my second week, the supervisor called me into his office and told me the devastating news that my services were no longer needed. He gave me the option of finishing the day or leaving immediately. Well, I jumped all over the leave immediately. After all, I was maybe 18 years old and had two weeks of pay burning a hole in my pocket.

Now I lived in a little town south west of Toledo about 20 miles and the salad dressing maker was just short of the Michigan border in Toledo. It was about a 45 minute drive to get there and this was the early 80’s. My car had AM radio and no air conditioning. I did however have a tape recorder, the kind you used to tape conversations. I also had a few cassette tapes as this was the up and coming music format. 8-track was already on the way out but I still loved the repeatability of that format.

I was just starting to get into RUSH as a group as they were the hottest group at the time. I believe that Permanent Waves had just been released and Spirit of Radio was climbing the charts. I had gone to their previous album, Hemispheres, to give it a listen. I popped the cassette in as I left home and 45 minutes later, I got to work. The trip flew by as I became enchanted by the sounds of the tape player. It was mono, so the sound was awful, but that trio of musicians made 45 minutes seem like a trip to heaven.

The song that struck me he most was the last song from the front side of the album. It was kind of a roadmap for life at that age. The lyrics are as follows:

We can walk our road together
If our goals are all the same
We can run alone and free
If we pursue a different aim

Let the truth of love be lighted
Let the love of truth shine clear
Sensibility
Armed with sense and liberty
With the heart and mind united
In a single perfect sphere

As Rodney King would later say, “Why can’t we all just get along?” It would be great if the hearts and minds were united, (as they were after 9/11) but we have gone back to the same struggle for power instead of pursuit of a common goal. I guess that is what makes life interesting.

Icool

Cobb