My first couple years in college, after school let out for the summer in early May, I would climb inside my parents’ red GM van and drive down to Athens, OH to visit Matt. Ohio University, where he went to school, was on a different schedule than Bowling Green State University, and Matt’s classes didn’t end until June. There was always one weekend I could drive down and hang out with my childhood friend.
I’ve always loved solo drives through the long stretches of greenery Ohio has to offer. Something about all of that vegetation, all of that life, renews my soul. The drive to Athens takes you through the southern portion of the state; the farther down you travel, the hillier and greener the landscape becomes. With a stack of cassettes scattered in the passenger seat, a couple cans of Coke, and a bag of some greasy, salty snack (generally Bugles — you can’t go wrong with Bugles), the road trip to OU was how I marked the beginning of summer. (more…)
In an ongoing series, Dw. Dunphy takes an occasional look back at Christian contemporary music (CCM) of the past and makes the case for a new audience to rediscover the best of it as great, lost pop music.
The band’s second album, Ten Songs by Adam Again (1988), was a bullhorn to staid and button-down listeners that this probably wasn’t their dad’s idea of Christian rock. If the cover of Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” wasn’t an indicator, the groove of 
On Sunday mornings, I’d drag my ass out of bed and wander over to the cafeteria to replenish my fluids and put some food in my stomach. After that, maybe I’d take in the Browns game or listen to music on the headphones. This was the routine in spring semester, 1989 — even though the spring was a far-off, distant thought as winter dragged its feet on its way out. My favorite Sundays during my freshman year of college were the ones in which my friend Dan and I would venture into downtown Bowling Green to idle away the remains of the weekend. It wasn’t a long walk, but the inclement weather of northwest Ohio made these trips seem like they lasted for hours. Dressed sloppily in sweatpants or jeans so grungy they practically did the walking for us, hair askew and crammed under a baseball cap, and bundled in our down coats, we’d trek off campus.