Classic

            The first time I gave my age any real thought I was driving, listening to a classic rock station, and they played a song from my high school days. “This is supposed to be a classic rock station,” I screeched. “That song isn’t old enough.” After a little more thought and with a heavy sigh I muttered, “maybe it is old enough. Maybe I’ve become a classic.”

            I also recall the first time a song came on a station popular with younger people and heard myself say, “they call that music?” Then, “Oh, god, I’ve turned into my father! Maybe I am getting older.” I determined then and there I would never again use that phrase and if a song came on that sparked that thought, I would simply change the station. Nothing against my father, but I didn’t want to be one of those kids-these-days guys.

            Now so-called classic rock radio stations play music that came along well after I left high school. Music I don’t even recognize. Never heard. Much of it I don’t like and isn’t what I call rock. And there are the endless commercials. Nothing worse than having to listen to music you don’t like interspersed with annoying commercials.

            Fortunately, with technology, I don’t have to listen to any music I don’t want to. With music services I get to create my own channels, pick the songs I want to hear, dismiss those I don’t, and not have to experience commercials at all. And the channel doesn’t have to have a name that suggests how many years it’s been since the songs were released.

Most importantly, I don’t have to hear some obnoxious DJ telling me this is classic rock when it clearly isn’t old enough.