Saturday, September 3, 2011

Parrotheads and Polkas

Where have I been lately, you ask?  Well, not writing on my blog.  But the good news is I have a few adventures to write about.  For starters: concerts: Jimmy Buffet and Gillian Welch.  Different music different venues and different audiences.  But both lots of fun.

Buffet is loud, fun and all –round happy.  Welch is more melancholy and sweet.  Audiences for both are diverse and multi-generational. And we heard both in Cincinnati.

To paraphrase Jimmy, don’t try to describe a Parrothead concert if you haven’t seen one.  And the Parrotheads were out in full force at River Bend and surrounding parking lots.  Along with pirates and beach styles, and all the sorts of festivities you might expect at the infield of Churchill Downs on Derby Day, which is to say sort of a frat party with a beach theme. 

A couple near us, much older man and much younger woman with a youngster in tow, struck us as particularly unlikely Parrotheads.  The child in particular seemed out of place, bored and sort of miserable.  His sleepiness, despite the loud music and boisterous crowd, stirred a long-forgotten memory of accompanying my parents and their friends to German beer halls for polka dances.  I learned the polka as well as a number of other standard dances, twirling on my father’s toes until exhaustion overcame me. Then I and the other kids would find a pile of coats on which to sleep in a relatively quiet corner.  This child had no such luxury as there was no pile of coats or relatively quiet corner. Instead his adult parents/ guardians/ whatever, gave him various electronic devices to try to amuse him while they swilled beer and perhaps ingested other substances.

The Welch concert attracted a different but also interesting mix.  In the smaller Moonlite Gardens venue, mixed groups of multi-eras, some toted babes in arms or trailed toddlers.  The crowd sat at tables and in the balconies, and stood on the floor, clapping and participating in the music.  No less enthusiastic than Jimmy’s fans, the Gillian crowd did not come in costume, unless you count the young women in maxi- or mini-skirts, wearing cowboy boots. 

One young blond in tight jeans invited my husband to dance.  And all I could do was smile and laugh.  You see, she was very young, thirteen or fourteen—months, not years.  She toddled over several times, extending her hand to my spouse of almost forty years, and waited for him to twirl her around in time to the music.  All evening the sweet toddler had been exploring the dance floor, the tables, and everything of interest, followed closely by one or both of her watchful parents.  And just when I expected the toddler to drop from exhaustion she decided to pick a dance partner and start twirling. 

While I have not been writing the last couple of weeks I also have enjoyed a visit from one of my sons and his family, complete with two beautiful young grandchildren.  And I had the fun of helping another grandmother take her toddler grandchildren swimming.  All of that exquisite fun resulted in my need to sleep nearly around the clock for several days to regain some semblance of strength.  


Dorothy’s Idea of the Day
While resting it occurred to me: If we could successfully harness a fraction of the toddler or child energy bubbling forth in our midst we would have no energy crisis.  Maybe we need to rethink the child labor laws.  And also consider which concerts are good for children and which it would be better to leave the children at home with a babysitter.

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