Concert in the Park

Last Thursday night we treated ourselves to a concert at the gazebo in Speedway’s Meadowood Park. The TomKats, a blues-rock cover band out of Muncie, entertained a crowd of around 300 with a rollicking two-hour set. Children played and danced while their parents and grandparents chatted and noshed, and surprisingly few people hunched over their electronic devices.

Soon after the set started a boy about five stepped in front of the bandstand, transfixed by the blues he was hearing, and started playing air guitar. A girl about eight left her family of nine In front of us and joined him. As soon as she left, her mom and dad started using her chair as a table for pizza boxes, cups, and napkins. She started an air blues guitar solo, too. More children gathered, fascinated by the blues.

We all toe-tapped to some great medleys–-
“I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”/“Theme from Gilligan’s Island”
“R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.”/“That’s What I Like About You”/“Coconut”
“Hiway 69”/“Maybelline”/“Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”
“Werewolves of London”/“Sweet Home Alabama,”
and many others.

The old Hank Williams/George Thorogood song  “Move It On Over” was a big hit with the kids. One song popular with the older set was “White Castle Blues,” which included the lyrics “Gonna eat them sliders, gonna pay your dues,” and the group easily medleyed this tune with “Hey Joe.”

“Tennessee Whisky,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Sweet Home Chicago,” “Takin’ Care of Business,” “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” ’Work with Me Annie,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Further on Down the Road”–-all the songs played by the quartet went down very well. A trio of girls used sticks for guitars, then flutes, then back to guitars, and a little brother joined them in dueling guitars for “Roadhouse.” Mindful of their young audience, the TomKats changed the lyrics to “Roadhouse” to “Well, I woke up this morning, I got myself a Kool-Aid” and earned appreciative chuckles from parents and grandparents.

A young woman was holding a five-month old when the baby dropped her pacifier on the grass. The mother, also tending a two-year-old as she stood chatting with a friend, nonchalantly picked it up and gave it back to her. “The dog licks it all the time,” she said. No problem.

Many people seemed to know each other, from the neighborhood, or from church, or from meeting at concerts in the park. When we received a few inquiring looks and smiles as if to say, “Do I know you?” we just nodded to the music and smiled back. We’re regulars at the park, too.

The audience was scattered enough that parents could keep their children in sight even as they ran around. It was good to see little ones romping barefoot in the grass, untethered. The nights I best remember from childhood are summer ones-–roasting marshmallows over the embers in the grill after a cookout, catching lightning bugs, playing “Kick the Can” and “Ghost” and running the streets long after the street lights came on. I can still see my dad sitting in the screened-in porch reading the newspaper as moths fluttered around the lamp, the hot humid day settling down into a cool evening.

It was a good night for those children to make memories, too.

Here is a link to the TomKats on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/tomkats

Our Trip to the Super Bowl…Village

February 2, 2012
It’s strange to walk down the middle of the downtown streets I’ve known all my life, streets that normally see the most traffic of the city. Familiar landmarks are still there, but look completely different due to the Super Bowl decorations and temporary structures. We can stand in the middle of Pennsylvania Street, in front of Conseco—er, Banker’s Life Fieldhouse. We can hover around the Old Spaghetti Factory on Meridian. It all feels very surreal.

A young father pushing a stroller with twins in it points to a Madonna banner. “Look, girls! Madonna is going to sing at the game!” He gets two yawns. Phineas and Ferb maybe. Or iCarly. Now, that might excite them.

A hulking black man in a brown work jumpsuit is handing out CDs, accompanied by a band mate with a canvas bag crammed full of CDs slung over his shoulder. Very shrewd. Here is an international, moneyed audience that just might take the CD back to the hotel and pop it in for a listen. It made me think we could take advantage of the annual event held in Speedway and pass out true crime CDs to crowds at the track. “Interested in local history? Would you like to learn about Indy’s first serial killer?” Hmmm, maybe not.

Further on an official helper in the familiar blue-and-white scarf is answering questions and distributing fan guides while a gray-haired woman nearby hands out fliers. It turns out she wants to save my soul, not help me locate restrooms. Also a very shrewd move, staying within the distribution-perimeter of an official worker—she appears to be sanctioned and gets spill-over protection from the security guard standing close by. The proselytizers always show up at big events like this. If you go to Georgetown Road the night before the 500, you will encounter a young man bearing a full-sized cross trudging up and down between 25th and 16th Streets, begging you to repent your sins.

An older gentleman with a guitar and harmonica takes the stage on Meridian St. With uncut gray hair, flannel shirt and old jeans, he looks like a relative of actor Steve Railsback. The crowd of young people with babies is unsure what to make of him, especially when he launches into a strange rendition of “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” His next song is an original one, he says after finishing to scattered applause, but we don’t wait for it. No need. He’s on the big screen TVs everywhere you turn in the Village.

About a hundred people are standing in front of a shoe store. What event is this? Is it free? Soon the crowd surges forward and a hundred cell phones are raised high. Is it one of the Mannings? Tom Brady? No, it’s the Mile-High Messiah. Tim Tebow and his entourage walk quickly away from the crowd. No autographing Bibles today.

A series of screams makes us turn to the west. It’s the zip line. The screamer is a young man hanging upside down the whole way. People stand in line for as long as 8 hours to be hauled 800 feet 96 feet above the street. T-shirted young men in a tower pull the lines quickly hand-over-hand. Wait a minute. A girl is stuck on line #3, close to the tower at the end of the line. A worker gears up and climbs out to her. He rigs up a tether line, then monkey crawls back to the tower. As the workers haul her in she waves to the crowd below. “It was fantastic!” she burbles to her rescuer. Ah, it’s a meet-cute, not a lawsuit. Good for him.

People everywhere are sneaking cigarettes. My favorite is the girl in the pink trench coat nervously smoking one in an alley on Monument Circle. Who is she hiding from? Or is she anxious about a rendezvous? She looks like a spy in her trench coat (although it is a memorable shocking pink), hair in a French roll, dark eye shadow, miniskirt, and heels. What kind of intrigue is going on in Indy this weekend? The passing of international secrets? Scientific formulae? Dr. Who plots?

I am amazed at the number of young parents with babies. Well, you got to start them early, like Archie Manning did. No babysitter available? Or they’ll get one later, at the hotel, before they go out for the evening. Or maybe this is a family outing. We used to take Eoin everywhere with us, too. A little boy throwing a temper tantrum in front of the King Cole Building makes me smile, too. Been there, done that.

John asks if I want to see a taping of Jimmy Fallon—there’s a crowd in front of the Circle Theatre waiting for tickets. Naw, that’s OK, I tell him, we’ll just tape the show tonight. Meanwhile a small jet keeps buzzing Monument Circle. Is it an AWAC sentry? What’s going on? Is there a threat? It’s circled over a dozen times now but other people don’t seem to notice it. We duck into Arby’s for lunch, cross our fingers it doesn’t crash nearby, and call it a day.