Riders on the Storm: A Ghost on the Highway

The Doors: Riders on the Storm

Some people move through life like thunderheads on the horizon—distant, restless, always shifting. But my dad was different. He was the steady hum beneath the storm, the rhythm of tires on wet pavement, the deep voice in the night that never wavered, no matter how hard the rain fell.

My dad was a man of his word. The kind who paid his bills on time, who didn’t just make promises—he kept them. A man of sharp wit and deeper thought, a seeker of truth, fascinated by the mysteries hidden beneath the surface of things. He found poetry in the unexplainable, wisdom in the wind. And when he spoke about Jim Morrison, it was never just about the music. It was about the man, the mind, the myth—about how Morrison felt things, how he saw the world through some strange and shifting lens, haunted by visions that never quite let go.

I remember him telling me the story—how Jim Morrison, as a little boy, came across a wreck on the roadside, how he saw Native Americans lying hurt or dying, their spirits rising into the night. Morrison swore he could feel them enter him, like ghosts passing through his skin, like echoes of something far older than he could understand.

I don’t know if my father believed in ghosts. But he believed in what lingers. In the way places remember us, the way music carries us forward, the way a storm never truly passes—it just moves on.

And now, I feel him in the rain.

In the hush before the thunder.

In the sudden crack of lightning splitting the sky wide open.

In the songs that play when I need them most, like a hand reaching through time, like a voice saying, I’m still here.

There were things he never said outright, lessons he taught without ever needing to explain. That life is a storm, unpredictable and relentless, but you ride through it. That some things aren’t meant to be controlled. That the road never really ends, not even when you reach the last mile.

My dad understood something most people never do—that life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about riding through it. Finding beauty in the wreckage, poetry in the downpour, light in the disaster.

And he did.

He weathered every storm life threw at him, steady and certain, carrying on even when the road was rough, even when the rain blurred the horizon. He wasn’t a man who needed maps—he followed his own path, let the music guide him, trusted that wherever he was going, he’d get there when he was meant to.

And now, he’s somewhere I can’t follow.

When I was little, my dad had a small engine repair shop, and I spent more time there than most kids probably would. I’d walk up from our house, my dog trotting beside me, pushing open the door to the scent of oil and metal and something distinctly him. In the office, there was always a cold drink waiting for me in his mini fridge, usually a Yoo-hoo, like a quiet acknowledgment that he knew I’d show up.

On the wall, above the scattered notes and work orders, was a tack board cluttered with papers and reminders—but right in the middle, pinned with a pushpin, was a Little Mermaid valentine I had given him.

On the bathroom door, staring down at me every time I walked past, was a life-size Jim Morrison poster. It was just part of the place, like the music playing from the old stereo, like the hum of machines in the background. Like my dad—steady, unshaken, carrying the things he loved with him, always.

He didn’t just love The Doors—he studied them. He read Morrison’s poetry, dissected his words, traced the weight of each lyric like it held some hidden map to understanding the world.

Those books—Morrison’s ramblings, his visions, his wild-eyed American prayers—they were passed down to me like an inheritance, pages worn from time and touch.

And maybe that’s why I think the way I do.

Why I can’t just listen to a song—I have to pull it apart, turn it over, find the marrow of meaning inside it.

Why I still get lost in words, in poetry, in the rhythm of things unsaid.

Because my dad wasn’t just passing down books—he was passing down a way of seeing the world.

I can still see him behind the wheel of his Bravada, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other tapping in time with the music.

That car was more than just transportation—it was a constant, a thread running through time, a vessel of memory still moving forward even after he was gone.

It’s the car I learned to drive in, the car my brother still sometimes drives today, as if some part of our dad never stopped rolling down the highway.

And the musict—The Doors were always playing.

My entire life, the voices, the words, the wild poetry were the backdrop to long stretches of road, to childhood, to growing up, to the moments that linger between dreams and waking.

Now, they are the soundtrack to memory, the echo of my father’s voice in the wind.

And every time I hear Riders on the Storm, I feel it—the presence, the movement, the knowing.

He’s out there somewhere, still driving, still rolling through the rain, still riding the storm on the other side.