Road trips with coworkers can have their awkward silences. Long, awkward silences.
I’m not going to lie, I come from a long line of men of few words. Marcel Marceau was chatty in comparison to some of my relatives. Long silences are not a problem for me.
However, for my coworkers, I try my best to engage in small talk, or at least play music to keep the quiet at a minimum during extended car rides.
Although many of us have varied tastes in music, there is one artist who bridges the gap better than others, John Prine. Prine, a singer / songwriter who passed away three years ago, was poignant, funny, sarcastic, and honest. From his first album to his last (both outstanding), Prine spoke from the heart in a way that resonated with listeners young and old.
While I listened to a good amount of Prine in high school (made me an absolute chick magnet), I did not start hearing what he was really singing about until I had a career and was a husband and father. There are songs of Prine’s which carry different meanings for what stage of life you are in, which is part of the reason his music rings true to so many.
A car trip last week with three coworkers to the Midwest Art Conservation Center was a perfect example of that. Although curator of collections Amalia Wojciechowski, curator of exhibitions Shannon Pueschner, and project coordinator Holly Van Eperen are not known for their awkward silences, music helped bridge the gap between coworkers on the long drive to and from Minneapolis. It was Paradise . . .
