CDs, no matter how much you may like them at one point in your life, will inevitably be forgotten and stashed away. You pick up new ones, fight with the tight plastic wrapping and rock out to the latest sounds.

While the new ones are the same size and hold the same amount of music, they don’t come with one thing the old ones all have–memories.

I defy you to put in a CD you haven’t listened to in a few years and not think back to the time it was a mainstay in your rotation. Think about the car trips it gave a soundtrack to, and the people along for the ride.

Lately I’ve been bringing one of the old favorites to my car each morning. Between my morning and evening commutes, there is just about enough time to get through the whole disc.

After listening to a dozen of them, I have yet to experience one that didn’t bring me back to when I first hit play. With most of them, this is the first time I have played them in my current car, which I’ve had for five years now.

One thing is clear–the current ride has a FAR better sound sytem than the 1993 Pontiac Grand Am I drove in high school and the first three years of college.

But the Grand Am was the beginning for CDs from bands like SR-71, Incubus, Lifehouse, Beastie Boys, Good Charlotte and Barenaked Ladies. It was also the ride responsible for transporting my carpool cohort from Copper Crossing (our neighborhood) to Oakton High School and back.

There were four of us–Myself, Kristen, Becky and Dave (or David if you like). I think I picked everyone up in that order, though I just spent five minutes trying to remember that detail from something I did at 6:30 a.m. in 2000-01. It’s the most logical order based on where they lived, so I’ll assume that’s how I did it.

The music seemed to be sort of my choice, but it quickly became clear that there were some favorites among my collection, and others that weren’t quite as welcome in the CD player. I can’t even begin to describe how many times we listened to SR-71’s album “Now You See Inside.” Ditto for Lifehouse’s “No Name Face.” Not that I was complaining–they were my CDs after all.

But poor Dave. He was more into bands like MXPX, The Get Up Kids and of course, JEW. You haven’t heard of JEW? Well neither had I until early on Friday morning. Fridays were Dave days–that meant he could pick the music and we had to listen. It seemed like a fair system for someone who didn’t complain the rest of the week and even gave up any desires to sit in the front seat.

So there we were, sitting in Dave’s driveway as he settled into the back. I reached my hand back to receive his chosen disc. It’s label? JEW. Naturally, I asked about this mysterious band only to be chastened for not knowing the now-ubiquitous Jimmy Eat World.

In the afternoon, I’m confident I dropped off Dave first, then Becky and finally Kristen. I know this for a fact because of SR-71’s song “What A Mess.” It was by far Kristen’s favorite, and it was the soundtrack for the 30-second drive from Becky’s house to hers. She didn’t have to ask if it was OK, or even the track number. Once Becky got out, my stereo went “beep beep beep” the appropriate number of times to get us to track No. 3. Sometimes we’d even skip forward to the chorus, since, you know, 30 seconds isn’t that long.

I bet even Dave remembers the words to that song. Maybe I should get him a copy–only $8 on Amazon right now. A small price to pay for those memories.