Today's post features not one, but TWO albums! The setting for these occurs after what I referenced the other day, Aerosmith Big Ones. However, it involves that same ol' black, 1979 Ford F-250 truck. Those nights were drives in a late autumn. The windows were quite literally rolled down while my cab remained toasty from the furnace that was a massive 460 cu in engine block. There were speaker boxes behind a bench seat reverberating the rock of Van Halen's 5150 and OU812.

The drive was a nightcap after the warm glow of the family-friendly country club, Casper Creek, an evening of shooting pool and dancing to songs from both a house band and hits like Shania Twain's (If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here and John Michael Montgomery's Sold (the Grundy County Incident).

I'm going to come off as Titanic's Rose, but it's been 27 years, and I can still smell the cigarettes at the front door, see the lights bounce off the darkened ceiling and feel the incandescence of the pool tables all beneath a dome of Desperately Wanting. At the end of the evening, I'd hit the door as the chill of the night sharpened my senses. My boots trampled grass and crunched gravel until I broke the silence of the night with my sole clanging with the power of Grayskull onto my truck's running board—my engine roared like the mighty Battlecat! As its headlamps shone through the Midnight Blue, the five ID lights at the crown of the beast popped on, my orange beacons of masculinity railing against the haze of darkness. As I thundered down those backroads with my Van Halen soundtracks, could life at 17 be any sweeter? Feels So Good.

And while I do not know if I can find a song more befitting of today's Carnivore, these lyrics are at the crossroad of today and yesteryear:

U.S. Prime, Grade A, stamped guaranteed
Grease it up, and turn on the heat
...
Hey, oh me, I been working up an appetite
It seems like the harder I work the more my body needs

Van Halen, Good Enough