September means one thing to me.

Led Zeppelin.

If you spend any time around a classic rock radio station, you know that September is also known as Zeptember. At least that's what it was known on Rock 106 in the greater Peoria area when I went to school down there.

There was this one time I was driving from Macomb back to Peoria, taking these lonely back roads that wound through the smallest of small towns, where you would spend hours driving through browned cornfields that stretched on and on and on. Every now and then you would drive through a little town or village, but it was mostly straight highway and loud classic rock on the radio.

There was this one moment, though, that I will never, ever forget. Driving east on a two-lane road. Mid-morning on a Sunday, after a long night of partying with friends that went to Western Illinois University. Drinking gas station coffee, listening to a long block of Zeppelin on the last day of the Zeptember celebration.

Even though Illinois is pretty flat, you can find the occasional hill or rise in the landscape. I was driving along this road, climbing up and up and up, until I reached the peak of the hill, and all of a sudden this glorious autumnal revelation appeared to me. Golden fields of corn ready to be harvested, lines of trees with leaves of yellow and red and orange, and this beautiful clear sky and a friendly sun warming everything and telling me that this was one of the most beautiful scenes I would ever witness.

And on the radio: "Over the Hills and Far Away."

I also think of Matt during Zeptember, and some of the guys from the house, and my Zep boxed set we'd always play during parties, or catching "Ramble On" on Matt's radio in his truck while we were coming back from getting a 99 cent double stack at Wendy's, so long ago.