That's what it says on the back cover notes for "16 Greatest Hits" put out by Dunhill Records courtesy of ABC Records and all those rights reserved et cetera et cetera.

I'm from the generation after that, the one without any representative sentiments. I didn't see Steppenwolf until sometime in the late spring of 1979, a few months after I'd bought the sixteen greatest to my family's near-unanimous annoyance. My main early musical influences were a handful of FM stations with hearty appetites for the rocking goldies or whatever they call them five years later; my purchasing tastes ran towards the compilations. I'd put on that Steppenwolf and rock hard or sit in a chair and read. The lyrics I could decipher became affixed in orbit around my head.

I walk down the side of the highway, off on the gravel and grass shoulder, the words trailing me, twisting around in one ear and whistling out the other, mumble mumble, head out on the highway, looking for adventure, and whatever comes our way. And I'm so ennobled walking down the side of the highway the half mile from my house to the new strip mall. Yea, I'm, I'm . . . racing with the wind, and the feeling that I'm under because in the mall is the cheese shoppe, where the girl works who's not nearly as much in love with me. Love does come in qualitative increments to the desperate, so several days a week, three or four or more, I head out on that highway and go hang out with her for a couple blissful hours, talking a little, watching her bend and serve the customers, but never really working up the nerve to ask her out or anything. No car. Hey, you want to go walk down the highway or something?

Sometimes she has the day off, which I always have to find out myself. Often enough I get trapped at home, nervous indecision decaying me so much that by the time I get there she's long closed and gone. I end up foolish hanging around anyway, waiting for something miraculous, slowing swinging around a tree at the edge of the parking lot. Something something, take the world in a love embrace, fire all your guns at once, and explode into space. Except the sentiments don't seem to have much to do with my context, so I go wander a few steps to the curb, sit down and examine the gravel--bunnies?--that gather and collect, get washed over and abandoned around the lip of the lot. Tiny shatterings of glass that may as well be sand. I judge the imperfections of the painted slot line beside my left shoe. Paint covers asphalt, but tire erases paint. Life just doesn't have that stomping beat of rock and roll. A three and a half minute drug that stops and everything's back to slow emotion again.

I was easily ripe to go see the Steppenwolf, get a massive forty-five minute injection of true loudness.

I saw them in 1979, I saw them in 1979 with my older brother. We both saw them at the same time, though we had split up upon arrival, or rather, he had split off and ditched me the second we walked through the doors. We got to see them because our father played a trick on us. In the late spring of 1979, Steppenwolf played the Fillmore South of Bowling Green, Kentucky: the rental meeting hall of the Red Carpet Inn right off one of the exits from I-65. Apparently the long-pending construction of my father's business endeavor in that town had made him some contacts, of sorts, he could get us tickets from the sponsor, he addressed us at home in our hometown, he said, "How'd you boys like to go see Steppenwolf next Saturday night?" We looked back at him like what? He told us, "That's right, they're doing a gig down in Bowling Green," and I cringed at both terms, but didn't tell him that nobody really says gig anymore, trying best to suppress my continuing disgust at the mere mention of that town.

Because of course.

The Friday night before the show, suddenly looking up from his plate during a rare all-family dinner, he hoped told us boys to make it an early night of it: we'd be leaving at seven in the morning. Again, all we could do was look back at him like what? I couldn't believe I'd slipped up so stupidly. I smoldered crimson-eared right there in my place. He gets the tickets free and we slave a day. We left at eight, and spent the day digging drainage ditches or wirebrushing the rust off steel I-beams the lengths of trucks, sweat baked in the sun, in exchange for the tickets. I would have gone my whole life without seeing Steppenwolf if I'd known the price beforehand, known long enough to have adopted an excuse out of the whole deal.

In 1979 at the banquet room of the Red Carpet Inn, us fans sit in folding metal chairs, eight to a cafeteria table, in discomforting stuffiness, waiting and waiting because the band's equipment took a wrong turn at Standiford Field way up in Louisville. The local airport out past the graveyard is more like a stretch of driveway for the Toyotas-with-wings that the charter companies send up. Maybe this means waiting for a goddamn truck to haul it all the way down. At least I have a good seat if they ever do get started. First thing after my brother sidled off I went over to the table at the back that was the bar, hesitating before buying one of the small plastic cups of cola for 95¢. They were already poured, hours ago, the not-near-full cups set in a cluster on the table top, nicely set off against an equal flanking of lemon-lime soda. It didn't matter which cup I picked up, they all floated a cube or tiny two of half sucked ice and a clear melt slick dissipating a full inch down into the caramel color. About ten pennies worth of soda, which I took to the front of the room to a seat on the third row of tables center right where I'm still sitting, to nurse the drink I've just finished nursing after an hour of waiting. I'd played the stranded in the desert game, but now I crunch down on a final shard of ice. I swallow, I swallow again. I lick the inside of the cup. Still my tongue is parched with boredom. The damn thing was supposed to start at seven-thirty, there's a second show slated for nine-thirty, and it's already eight-thirty. I have only seventy-five cents in nickels and dimes, but I am starting to feel pretty righteous. I mark my place with my empty cup, leave my windbreaker sprawled on the chair and walk back to the crowd around the bar not really sure what the hell I'm going to do when I get over there. Probably a beautiful woman will sense that I need a drink and use it as a great line of introduction. I may be young and ugly but I've got a prime table. She'll say, "I'm here to see the band, but of course I read the book first." I'll reply, "Of course; personally, I was very flattened Unterm Rad," and she'll laugh.

The only people really there are middle-aged and dressed up. I snake an arm between two bodies and filch a soda from the corner of the table. None of the old men standing around seem to notice. I don't get it, that is, them. More and more as the crowd increases, most of the men resemble rectangles in dark suits, a bunch of refrigerator cartons out at a formal box convention. It's hard for me to believe that I haven't possibly stepped into the wrong room. Winding back to my seat none of the cute girls my age turn to look at me; looking around I realize very few of the females are my age, and fewer than none attractive or unattached. Nothing better than staring at pretty girls to make the time pass quickly: this is going to be one long night.

Who are all these people and why are they here? I get back to my table and find a foursome of them have invaded the other end. Two couples who look old enough to be friends of my folks, although much too ugly and hick. This whole place is a swirl of confusion, the room is one of those that can be divided into thirds with soft folding track dividers, and now a perky waitress brings the couples big platefuls of steaks and seafood, and another round of mixed drinks in long-stemmed glasses, real glass. Hick heaven. The only thing wrong with this picture appears to be me, resting my head on my arms hiding under my jacket so I don't have to watch them eat. They refuse to acknowledge me at all. I swear they're the kind of creatures the aliens began dropping in rural areas years and years ago or something, most the people in the room--this here is barn country, everybody is shaped like cows or silos.

The third time the m.c. comes onstage to keep us calm things are pretty shaky. He's lost security and credibility in the same suitcase; the stage is only a three inch platform, and a particular pitch in the twang of his voice sets the monitors screeching back every time. On this go he's so desperate, so excuseless, he resorts to introducing the celebrity bigwigs at the reserved tables directly front center. Everyone around me becomes comprehensible upon hearing that this gala was put together by the strange alliance of one of the big old local banks, the one t.v. station in town not Nashville, and their affiliate on the FM band that broadcasts the more smooth Barry Manilow milieu. The m.c. is a hot celebrity d.j. from the station, as hip as a hairpiece, I think one man is on the Board of Something, and the younger woman wearing a short dress prettier than herself, she's a celebrity television personality: she bends over every night on the local news. She gets howls and whistles from the side of the room--several dozen younger people looking like they're here for the music, the band, they've pushed back some tables, and sit atop them against the wall. She actually blows them a kiss, thinking she's the hottest piece of ass ever sat on the face of western Kentucky, which may well be true but doesn't prove one hell of a lot. The guy introduced as the great guy who put this whole great night together draws a real round of applause. One of the blue jean crew chants twice, "Give us music, or free beer!" Someone else drones a few bars of, "Refund, or free beer."

Every now and again, two roadies come out and fiddle around with the PA, rearranging the lay of the mass of speaker cables. They bring a guitar onstage, greeted by hoots and shouts of, "Rock and roll!" Then they take it away and nothing happens for another twenty minutes. I get up, again leaving my place well marked, to find a payphone to call my father. He's renting a cheesy little dump over in the trailer park for all the time he spends in town. I explain what I've been told: the first show's been canceled, obviously, and consolidated into the second show, whatever that means, which has been bumped back at least an hour. He knows better than to ask if I really feel like sticking around after all, saying only to give him another call when it's all over.

Back at the table there's nothing much to do beside glower at the two couples. The woman nearest me, diagonally across the table, becomes my focal point. The gals are hot numbers and the guys big studs, but they're all so gristly and ugly I can't stand it. They've stuffed their faces, the plates are gone, their half of the table is littered with glasses and damp napkins. Now another round and the bastards don't even offer to buy me a pop. In two hours they haven't offered, in two hours they haven't so much as glanced at me. They just keep getting drunker, which makes them louder and stupider, and also really funny. For a random group of four people, they sure have about the four most gratingly hideous laughs I've ever suffered. That one woman, she's easily so tickled, she snorts like a horse with a snoutful of dust. Her jaw is really attractive, her whole mouth is half as wide as it should be, but makes up for the slack in length. She brays her teeth while hawing, and they're all sort of orange toned, outlined in rot brown, but looking unpleasantly artificial, the upper fronts definitely a poorly made plate. I begin understanding that none of these people have any teeth; the instant image of them all turning and gumming at me gives my stomach a quick flop. Next I can't stand her hair, it's the big kind that stands all up and sweeps all around but never ever moves, not a quiver, not in even the briskest wind. The whole 'do must have gotten a good coating of shellac; the color is that exact lacquer amber.

As I'm glaring at her, her face suddenly crimps then crumples. She gives out a little gurgle and slightly shudders, eyes crossing then closing, her lips pinched then parting as a nasty mess issues forth. A slow moving stream of overcooked flesh-colored oatmeal falls in dollops onto the tabletop, something a cat with an upset stomach might spit up, a pudding of undigested chow. She tries to stand but her knees never straighten so she slides back down into her chair, a fresh burbling fouling her blouse. Quite unconscious now, she flops face down in her helping on the table, moans a cowish low and vomits again, this time the sludge carrying out those upper teeth. One last jerk sends her crashing to the floor, taking half the glasses with her. Finally her companions realize something's going on over there. Her husband manages to get her partially back in the chair, her sloppy head on his shoulder. She rewards him with a final heave down his front into his lap.

I bury my head under my coat and pretend to sleep for fifteen minutes. I re-emerge after I'm absolutely certain that they're gone for good; thank god some busboy cleaned up after them.

With my entertainment gone I become fossilized with boredom, perking up only when some of the rowdies renew the chant, others picking it up and embellishing until fully a third of us are banging our cups, stomping our feet and roaring out, "MUSIC, OR FREE BEER!" There's not a man man enough to come out onstage, though there are two among us to get up on the stage, wearing chains and denim vests and holding their pint beer cups. They try the mike but can't make it work; undaunted, they know how to cup their hands and use their lungs. There's about a five minute period with real riot potential, I just keep waiting for someone to throw the first chair. Ice and crumpled cups are already flying through the air. The momentum gets pointless after that, and has clearly ebbed before the m.c. makes a showing, flanked by two roadies burly enough to discourage just about anything. Their looks say fuck with the equipment and die. The m.c. explains that they have to get off the stage while they explain we all just want the show to get started, that or some free beer, man. All ends amicably with the m.c. laughing nervously and assuring us that the equipment has just arrived and the real party will be starting shortly. The man's lying to us again, but it holds for the twenty-five minutes until the roadies actually do start lugging the equipment onstage.

The Steppenwolf come out in black leather neck to toe and the applause is so intense my ears hurt, which makes me feel good considering the crowd has dropped to about half what it was. Of course they start with "Born To Be Wild." Within a few songs the crowd has been halved again: all the old folks go home to bed. The volume between songs doesn't drop, though; only one or two of the guys were even in the original group, but this line-up has all the old songs down real tight--it's like I'm just listening to the record and suddenly they're in the same room playing it--and the occasional ones they introduce as new songs they've written are received with polite enthusiasm even though they aren't the hits and never will join the tally.

The only thing wrong is that they don't play long enough to suit us. A short set for the 7:30 show would have been one thing, but most of us have been sitting here for almost four hours, and most have been passing the time swilling quite a few cups of beer that certainly weren't filled free. Everybody's up standing and stomping and pounding and hollering, the sound of hands clapping swells even and dense as white noise. The level is continuous for ten minutes, so they have to come back out and that makes the roar louder than anything I've ever heard in my life.

They tell us that we're such a great crowd, with thanks to the guys running the show and the guys with the keys, ha ha, they can play on past twelve, so we're all just going to party together all through the night. We're down to fifty diehards and we're all ready to party. I don't think they expected a show at the Red Carpet Inn in Bowling Green, Kentucky to end up anything like this. They blow through some more hits, new songs, and repeat a few of the absolute greatest hits, and I am the first one up on a table dancing. It makes me ecstatic to see that Steppenwolf is having so much fun, they're just four guys a few feet away, positively rocking out. I make eye contact with the singer midsong, we both grin at each other and give our heads the party nod and he rips off into the next verse. I know I'm having the greatest night of my life.

We don't really party all night long, only until half past midnight, and they don't invite us stragglers to come party with them wherever rock stars party in small towns. Just as well, I want to go home and go to bed anyway. I'm pretty rocked out. When I meet up with my brother, he claps me on the shoulder, the first time in ten years, and says he saw me up on that table and was blown away, he couldn't believe it was his own little brother, me, he didn't know I ever got that wild, he'd never suspected I had it in me. It's the first time I've impressed him enough to say anything about it. Truth be told, it's one of the few times I've impressed myself enough to feel it.

I phone my father and wake him up, I can tell. I'm sure the last thing he wants to do is drive us back to Louisville. Tough, I don't sleep on trailer floors. He mumbles fifteen minutes over by the gas station across the street.

My brother heads straight over without waiting while I search around for a dumpster to piss behind. When I rejoin him we just stand around in the dark. Everything in this town closes up by midnight. The Scottsville Road junction with the Interstate is the only thing lit up. We stand around not talking, I watch him finish off a cigarette and toss the butt onto the road. We hardly have the occasions to talk to each other, much less the inclination of anything to say.

He begins hesitantly, "Uh, do you mind, you know, like if I ask you a personal question?"

"No."

"Have you, uh, have you ever, you know, gotten high?"

"Well, couple times I guess, yea."

"Well, I got a joint on me if you want we could smoke, if you don't, you know . . . "

"Sure. Why not? That'd be great." Of course. Tonight I've become a wild guy. It's the feeling that I'm under.

I'm almost sorry when my father pulls up, however late. It's been so sweet being really stoned and just looking around at things, the sky so black and star filled, the shadow of a copse across the moonlit field, a spell I know defies even poetry. Also, having spent the past twenty minutes huffing pure night air through my lungs hasn't dispelled my certainty that I must reek of pot smoke. We both say it was real great and thank him for getting the tickets. My good fortune as second son earns me the space beside all the junk in the backseat. I know the only way to keep the drive back from being utterly intolerable is to curl up under my coat and pretend to be asleep until I am.