Brilliant … But Bouncy

I Took My Day For Granted.

Yesterday, Bill, Dylan, Shane and I went to a Southern Rock Festival at a local amphitheater.

Bill and I like the music. For the uninitiated, Southern Rock is just a lot of guitars with a fairly steady beat. Most of the Southern Rock groups got famous sometime during the 1970’s, and there haven’t been a ton of new Southern Rock bands born since. So the average age of the typical Southern Rock fan is about 58.

To make matters a bit more interesting, the culture was not one to which the kids had previously been exposed. It’s sort of a “God-bless-America-and-do-it-loud!” crowd.

We were at the concert for about ten minutes when Shane turned to me and said, “I feel like I am four years old and totally surrounded by old people!”

I looked around. The lawn was covered in long-haired and/or balding men with beer bellies and tattoos. Wrinkly women were sporting cowboy hats, cutoff jeans – and heels. The rebel flag had been transformed into an item of clothing on more than one occasion, and nearly everyone was smoking.

There wasn’t a single child in sight.

“Sorry, Shane,” I said. “I didn’t really think about that.” We spent half an hour buying ear plugs for him, as a sort of consolation prize.

A few hours went by. We had seats inside the pavilion (in case of rain) so we sat and watched a few bands. Because of the extremely loud music, Shane texted me to say: “Each band is playing for about an hour. We should be home by 5:00.”

I laughed. While Dylan likes all kinds of music, Shane wasn’t really enjoying it, so he was calculating his escape already.

“I’m not sure it works like that,” I texted back. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Shane and I went off to lie in a remote patch of grass and stare at the sky. We spent lots of time just hanging out together.

“I’ve lost count of three things,” Shane said. “The number of shirtless people I’ve seen, the number of beers I’ve seen, and the number of profanities I’ve heard.”

He didn’t complain, but he did talk a lot about what time he might be able to go home. He calculated and re-calculated. He wondered aloud if he would have any time to watch a video when he got home. He obviously wasn’t a huge fan of Southern Rock, or the venue.

We even left before the final band (although Bill and Dylan stayed) so that Shane could have a little time to himself.

So it came as a huge surprise when Shane got home, took a shower, watched a video, and somehow reflected enough to come up with a bold, personal revelation.

“I think I took my day for granted,” Shane told me. “I wish I had enjoyed more of the time listening to music instead of thinking so much about when I would be going home.”

He’s pretty wise for such a young fellow.