The rain falls. Cracks of earth have been the feature of my yard. How this year's crop of grass has pined for the downpour!

Simon & Garfunel's Old Friends 1997 compilation set fills the room with melodies of my past. This 3-CD set served as the soundtrack to countless stories across the I-40 landscape. How often have I taken a step back in my life and wondered if these stories are actually mine? How often have I done that as I wrote them?

There have been others, of course, like the Counting Crows quadrumvirate of August and Everything After (1993), Recovering the Satellites (1996), This Desert Life (1999) and Hard Candy (2002).

Or the masterful Shinedown live album, Somewhere In The Stratosphere (2011), a reminder of my grad school past, or Vedder's Into the Wild (2007), a companion into Alaska.

Recorded in January-February 1997, Foo Fighter's Everlong is an OST in its own 4:11 span. In my world, February 26, 1997 was the opening of the Wolfchase Galleria. In that era, it was the locus for so much of my life. I had jobs at the Store of Knowledge and the World of Science (twice); friends worked at places like Johnny Rocket's, the Sunglass Hut, Stride Rite Shoes and Hallmark. Walking around with my best friend, something new always seemed right around the corner. Everlong spoke to that time. The rhythm of the night was always Everlong.

And all those stores have disappeared. The people are no more. The sound is silenced. A part of me longs for what that was. These days, that mall is a metaphor for everything I HATE about Memphis—about time itself.

It is gone, but I am still here.

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