---

Recently, my children received a small but important lesson in music.

We were driving to the bookstore to pick up some required reading (meaning `` books that children might otherwise enjoy but which will now remain unread until the night before they are to be tested on their contents'' ) and were listening to the car radio.

We were listening to the radio because my car only has a radio, not a satellite hookup, not a CD player or even a tape deck (not even 8-track) and I tell the kids that they are lucky we even have FM because back in my day there were only AM stations and if you drove under power lines or downhill they faded out and then you actually had to talk to each other and '85 but I see your eyes glazing over already -- you must know my kids.

Anyway, we were listening to a `` classic rock'' station. Why? Because it's my car, that's why.

It's also the only way I can avoid a battle to the death between my children, one of whom only wants to listen to Radio Disney -- even if we are 500 miles away from a Radio Disney transmitter and the only thing coming through the speakers is a barrage of static periodically interrupted by JoJo screaming `` Get out,'' which I understand to be the lyrics of a song, or possibly just more static -- and the other daughter, who sits in the front seat and sulks and asks why `` we can't ever listen to any good stations.'' The station she mentions happens to be one I remember from my own youth as one all the `` cool kids'' listened to. Cool, in this case, being defined as kids who did not carry their lunches in Partridge Family lunch boxes, and had boyfriends and/or girlfriends and may actually have been able to drive -- in elementary school. In other words, the kids our parents told us not to hang around with -- another definition of `` cool.''

In any case, as I said, I was depriving my children of their constitutional right of free association with music loud enough to damage their hearing and dumb enough to kill brain cells and we were listening to `` classic rock.''

When, exactly did rock be come classic? Probably when members of my generation began to realize that the music they grew up with was not being played on the stations the `` cool kids'' were listening to anymore. It was being played on stations that designated themselves as playing `` the oldies.''

Now listening to `` oldies'' was OK as long as it was the music of a prior generation -- if only for the possibilities for irony. But our music couldn't be `` old.'' That would imply that we were'85uh oh.

So `` classic rock'' was born.

Anyway, we are riding along, singing along with Warren Zevon's `` Werewolves of London,'' (well, I was singing along; my children were trying to pretend they were riding in another car with another family) when we pulled into the bookstore parking lot and Don McLean's `` American Pie'' came on. Now, whatever else you want to say about the song, it's the ultimate classic rock tune. It contains references to nearly every musical event of the 1960s.

We go in the store, pick out the books we need, pay for them, and walk out to the parking lot. We get in the car, start the engine, turn on the radio and `` American Pie'' is still playing!

So what does this teach us?

A.) As my younger daughter says, `` Boy daddy, that song is really long.'' And

B.) Classic rock may not be cool, but it is hard to get away from -- even if you don't have 8-track. TOM REILLY is a Sun Chronicle local news editor who knows most of the words to `` American Pie'' and will sing them on request, or without one. He can be reached at 508-236-0332 or at treilly@thesunchronicle.com