Thoughts While Watching the Municipal Band Concert on my Anniversary

The Grandview Park Bandshell.  Lots of folks sitting
behind us and to either side of us.

- This is a PERFECT night for an outdoor concert!  It's the last concert of the year, and I bet it's the first concert they've had this summer where the temperature was under 90.  So glad hubby suggested this.

- A mother is sitting on a blanket right by us with the most adorable little baby.  Probably just under a year old.  Almost makes me miss the baby years . . . or look forward to the grandma years.

- I'm looking at the program -- I don't recognize a single song until the "Ultimate Patriotic Sing-along" at the end. Hmm.  Maybe I'll recognize them when I hear them.

- A couple just rode up in front of us on their bikes.  They lay their bikes down, got out their folding chairs, and the woman took off her shoes.  She's walking around in the grass in her socks.  I'm not sure why that seems odd to me.

- And speaking of that grass, it is so dead.  I'm grateful tonight for our sprinkler system, or we'd be trying to sell our house in the near future with a dead, brown lawn.

- I still don't know any of the music. It's all good music, but I don't know it.  And that baby is still dang adorable.

- I love this bandshell.  Everytime I'm here, I think about how awesome it would be to go to a Shakespeare in the Park production here.  Or to be in one.  A couple summers ago, I was in a Shakespeare in the Park evening in the Rose Garden, right behind this bandshell.  That was cool.  This would be cooler.

- Some poor lady behind us is having a coughing fit that won't quit.  I hope she's okay.  I wonder if I need to offer her a mint or something.

- My knees hurt.  I must be getting old if I can't sit through an hour long concert without my knees hurting.



The results of drought in Iowa.

- Aha -- a medley of movie music.  I know most of these.

- The host, Dave Madsen, told a Sven and Olie joke.  I think he tells at least one at every concert.  Until these concerts, I'd never heard a Sven and Olie joke outside of Lindsborg.

- The fountains spouting out of the front of the stage are very soothing.  A fen shui thing, I guess.  Maybe we need to invest in one of those little inside fountain things.  And oh my gosh, this baby is too adorable to stand!!!

- The Ultimate Patriotic Sing-Along ends with "God Bless the U.S.A.".  One image always pops into my head when I hear this song.  The gulf war started the last day of the first semester of my first year of teaching.  The next day was a teacher work day.  Everybody was listening to their radios, watching TVs, talking about the war while we finished our grades and got them in.  I vividly remember walking into a fellow teacher's quiet, empty room where she was sitting at her desk with the radio on beside her.  This song was playing.  And she was crying.  It's hard not to cry when I hear this song.

- And the concert's over.  This is a darn good group of musicians for a volunteer municipal band in a not-terribly-big city.  An enjoyable evening . . . a nice way to celebrate 23 years of marriage.