The Music or The Misery?: Episode 2 “I Wonder”
Have you ever felt like you were just watching some years happen? . You’re there and you’re enjoying it but you’re watching the puzzle pieces of life come together and you can only say to yourself “Okay, this is life now. Awesome!” That’s how 2007 was for me.
I began 2007 just having worked my third Christmas at the House That Sam Built. Starting out the year working an overnight project for two weeks, I left that project a day early to take a weekend trip to Denver. I spent most of the weekend on my room at the Motel 6, listening to music and watching 90’s high school rom coms on TV. I went to see a concert, my primary reason for the trip, and made my way home. The trip itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for me but something about the drive home felt different.
I feel like I could write infinitely about how incredible 2007 would end up being for me.
Recently listening to one of the “This week in…” throwback countdowns, where they revisit the top songs from that particular week from a random year. This particular episode was from the country air play charts, that week in 2007.
I began one of my greatest life adventures in 2007 at the Western Kansas Broadcast Center. I was working part time weekend shifts on a radio station that I had grown up listening to. 19 years later, I was sitting in an office in that same building listening to throwback countdown full of songs I was playing on the radio.
The memories of that time hit me in a different way. I remembered spending time in a one bedroom house with a “1/2” address that was located behind another house. It had hardwood floors in the kitchen, dining area and living room. I remembered trying to fight the summer heat with two window AC units. Spending days off doing laundry at the laundromat. Working retail shifts and spending as much time as possible working at the radio station. On air shifts, events, learning radio.
So many of the songs from that summer bring back a memory and make me smile. But as “I Wonder” by Kellie Pickler played on that countdown, I thought of my family. How this part time job I applied for on a whim was as exciting for them as it was for me. I was working only weekend hours, but I would have to tell them when I was working. My parents, my siblings, even some of my extended family. They all wanted to listen to me when I was at work. I was so new at it, I can’t imagine it was great radio, but they were proud and wanted to hear it. It probably didn’t hurt that I would sneak songs on for them and give them the best shout out I could think of at the time.
I thought about how proud they were proud of me. And it clicked, 19 years later. Yes, I was doing something that I was loved doing, and I was making a few extra dollars doing it. It wasn’t much, but my family was so excited and proud of me for doing even just that. There’s something to be said for spending the first bit of your 20’s feeling like you’ve disappointed your family, only to have the puzzle pieces of life fall exactly into place, and finally feel the acceptance and understanding that you had longed for.
My life after the summer of 2007 has been full of awesome experiences and so many great moments and memories. But in 2026, I really needed to have that moment to reminisce and think about the 27 year old at the beginning of a new adventure, who was happy to feel like he was making his family proud by just making a few extra dollars on the weekend.
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