In the days before piling in to the van for the family road trip I had made copies of my older brother’s Rush cassettes. I had them organized in my tape case in the order I was going to listen to them. I had redrawn the covers, as best I could, on the blank cassette cover with sharpies and nearly-dry, colored markers. I loaded a fresh set of batteries in to my Walkman. I was ready for the long drive to wherever we were going. My plan was to just lay in the very back of the van, as far back as I could get, and just listen to Rush for the entire trip.

Forty-five minutes after we left home the playback started to slow and shortly after the Walkman just stopped. I did not bring extra batteries. I didn’t even get through the first tape, A Show of Hands.

Sonofabitch.  

I haven’t listened to you in a long time but I’ll miss you Neil.