When I moved to California at the age of 17, my father and I drove all the way from Chapel Hill to Berkeley. We were on the "new" stretch of I-40, just 15 miles into the drive, coming into Hillsborough (this was a new stretch of freeway in 1989) ... right as we began the long transition merge to the shared mainline that carries I-85 South & I-40 West across the 45 miles between Hillsborough & Greensboro, a song came on the radio: it was Carolina In My Mind by James Taylor. We both started bawling.

The reason that this memory is so special is rather obvious, but it has taken on newfound power as my father moves toward end-stage Parkinson's Disease.