Featured Essay: Falling in Love During Routine Maintenence

by Sam Ponke

I posit that Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties is one of Dan Campbell’s greatest creative endeavors. The first is The Wonder Years, both of which are actually group endeavors.

It’s April 17, 2019. I’m a senior in college counting down the days until graduation because after four years, I have finally found my footing. I’m driving to campus down a road that’s too cramped to have as many lanes as it does. The weather is nice; Spring has stopped being so wet midwest and given way to blue skies, dappled sunlight, and a whole lot of wind.  (Graduation was overcast, in case you were wondering).

I’m listening to “Just Sign the Papers” on Routine Maintenance for the first time and I’m crying.

I have never been divorced.

In fact, my last breakup had been nearly four years prior, freshman year. And at that moment, I was constantly aware of the fact that I was falling faster and faster for someone whom I thought didn’t like me back. (Spoiler: She does)!

So I pre-order this Routine Maintenance  the day purchases open because Dan Campbell is my favorite musician of all time. I spin it all summer. 

Anxious about this newfangled adulthood, my friends and I start a book club to, obviously, read books, but also to drink beer and savor a bit of that good, good education we indebted ourselves with. Because we were pretentious English students, we called ourselves The New Beats and read On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s 1957 “scroll” of tracing paper taped together and later printed. Though most often inebriated, I recall enjoying our discussions despite not remembering the fine details of said discussions. The beer totally ripped, though.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels between the renowned, Americana, road novel and this renowned-to-me, Americana road record. Aaron West and Sal Paradise, both despondent souls, yet containing enough vigor to traverse The United States east to west and then some.

So when this girl gets back from college for the summer, we hit a music festival that took place in an old high school with no AC. (If you know, you know). While there, Dan Campbell, who maintains his West persona on and off-stage at these shows, scribbles the initials of his Long Island counterpart onto records, t-shirts, and flasks alike. West wears a Buffalo Bills shirt on stage and I often wonder if Campbell feels any sort of way about it as a real-life Eagles fan. (I do know that whenever the Detroit Lions lose a big game, Campbell posts on his Instagram something like he’s not That Dan Campbell So Please Don’t Send Death Threats). 

Anyway, it’s in his merch line that I’m able to ask if On the Road played any inspiration in the record. His answer was something along the lines of not consciously, but probably in the way that literature often permeates our subconscious. I nod, stoked that I could ask him a question about his craft. The girl I like doesn’t laugh at me anxiously tapping my fingers as I speak to someone whose work means so much to me, and she buys Routine Maintenance on vinyl for her own collection. The same asphalt gray variant I’ve got.

They skip in different spots.

A couple of weeks later, this girl comes over before work to hang out for a bit before our shift. We talk about whatever, and I kiss her during “Wildflower Honey” because I am a sad romantic and kissing during “Just Sign the Papers,” the aforementioned divorce song, would have probably been a bad omen. Years later, despite this memory, we agree that if we had to pick a “skip” song on this no-skip album, it would be that one. And I am sorry about that.

This is a letter for my partner– we fell in love at a distance. The soundtrack of those first few months was this post-divorce, emo, folksy record, and I would not change a thing about it.

This is also a letter for the character of Aaron West who, after years of turmoil, received a bittersweet “ending” to his career in “Dead Leaves” from 2024’s In Lieu of Flowers, and cranked out delightfully devastating songs with an ever-crescendoing band alongside him. In the entirety of Aaron’s discography, three LPs, one EP, and then some, I could never predict where the hell the narrative was going to end up.

Dan Campbell has gone on to say, and I’m paraphrasing again, that he isn’t planning more AW20 songs, but that he also wouldn’t close himself off to anything that comes to.

So if the Bills ever win the super bowl, I’ll be keeping an eye out for at least an EP.

Sam is a librarian in the Midwest where he earned his Bachelor’s in Creative Writing and Film Studies. His Master’s in Library Science is from Kent State University. You can find his various writings like fiction and book reviews floating around the internet in places like Ghost Watch and Booklist alongside his regular contributions to the website Youtini