A Thousand Miles from Kansas

The outside temperature, according to my car, is 101 degrees Fahrenheit. AC is blasting, keeping it a cool 74 degrees inside. As I arrived at my destination, Molly Hatchet’s southern rocker “Flirtin’ with Disaster” came on the radio. I immediately turned up the volume and thought of Summer Jams of the past and our current issues as a society. It also entered my mind that I would soon be exiting the vehicle into this record heat and that, in itself, feels like flirtin’ with disaster! 

Released in 1979, “Flirtin’ with Disaster” went on to become Molly Hatchet’s best selling song. And during this time of Summer Jam concerts, Hatchet was always on the concert bill with Styx,  Journey, Ted Nugent, Triumph, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, .38 Special, and Loverboy to name just a few. Once the Summer Jam ticket was purchased, you hoped for a dry, sunny day so you could fill your cooler (back then you could take coolers into the stadiums!) and bask in the sun and music. I had the pleasure of attending a couple of Summer Jam concerts back in the day and Molly Hatchet rocked with blistering guitars and growling vocals. 

As I listened to “Flirtin’ with Disaster” today and contemplated if I really needed to vacate my air conditioned automobile in the sweltering heat, The following lyrics from the song stood out: 

It looks like self destruction

Well how much more can we take

With all of this corruption

We’re flirtin’ with disaster

Ya’ll know what I mean

And the way we run our lives

It makes no sense to me

There are a lot of things about the world today that do not make a lot of sense. Hatred,  corruption, and the quest for the all mighty dollar, ruble, pound, yen, won, yuan, and peso seem to be our societal norm and it begins with big government. Flirting with disaster at the expense of the rest of us. I’ll just leave those lyrics there for contemplation. 

© 2023 Gregory Vessar. A Thousand Miles from Kansas. All Rights Reserved.