Summertime around my neck of the woods is looked forward to with great anticipation, and nature usually doesn’t let us down. This year was what I would consider a pretty great summer.
I’m fortunate to live on a lake, so the summertime is especially precious to me. Even as I’m getting older the memories of past summers fill my mind with anticipation. Here in the state of New York the seasonal transformation is spectacular. The world comes back to a fresh growing season after lying dormant for a frozen winter.
As do people. When I was a kid the family used to go from the sweaty suburbs of Hartford to the Connecticut coastline. “The Sound” my parents called it, Long Island Sound, where you could see the lengthy stretch of southern New York from the beaches of Connecticut.
I was pretty damned sure at an early age that England didn’t look all that far away. I could see it on a clear day right from the beach. My siblings, being the ever-so-supportive group that they are, encouraged me to be the first man on earth to swim the Atlantic Ocean to England!
Oh the beach! Nothing brings back olfactory memories than salt air and a mixture of tanning potions; hot sand and the sound from the waves. What is it about this combination that so appeases the human senses? These memories stay with you, become a part of who you are.
But is this always a good thing? Do we expect too much the older we get? Is it an accumulation of fond memories that makes us hyper critical when things don’t turn out the way we remember them to be? I’ve found it to be true that you seem to remember the good times, even when those good times were filled with hardship, separation, loneliness and despair.
I’m talking from the perspective of a man that is coming up on fifty years old. I still have the same inner perspective on the world as I did when I was much younger. And I’ve always been cynical, not morbid but saw the world as a place that needed to be lampooned, made fun of, and jeered at. With humor of course, I always was a wise-ass.
I served in the United States Army for three and a half years in the eighties. I was far from home, in Germany, and that’s a pretty good distance for a young kid that’s far from being a world traveler. The Army was a hard life; it was hard, rigid, disciplined work every single day.
The three years I lived in Germany was definitely one of the highlights of my life, so far anyways. The Army was filled with days of getting up at 5a.m. for a 6a.m. formation outside in every kind of foul weather. This was usually followed by P.T. (physical training) which in the Army is no step aerobics, I can assure you that. Then there were daily room inspections, shitty food, field exercises, etc. Even during peacetime the Army really pretty much sucks.
But all I remember are the good times. The friends you make in the military are like no other friends you will ever encounter in your life’s travels. It’s no myth. My buddies would not only get my mail for me if I missed mail call but they would open the letter, usually from my mother or an old girlfriend, read it out loud, pass it around, and for good measure sometimes they even wrote back! And I didn’t mind at all. It wasn’t like we were family; we were much closer than that. I was so proud to have these guys as my friends, real true friends, they could do no wrong.
The good old times.
I wonder how many of these “good old times” I’d experience in the Army today. I’m sure I wouldn’t last a week. There would be no spectacular traveling through central Europe, no concerts in Frankfurt, no Porsches on the Autobahn and no New Years Eve in a different landmark European city every year.
That would suck.
So, are expectations molded by past experiences? I tend to think so. Just look at High School reunions. Has anyone ever looked forward to seeing an old friend, a close friend, only to have their expectations obliterated when the friend is no longer the person you knew? Someone you expected to greet with a big hug results in a cursory limp handshake. Golly, that’s not like High School. He used to snort speed in class and then we’d go out and throw empty beer bottles at street signs for laughs. Not that I was expecting this kind of behavior, don’t be ridiculous.
But why pretend that it never happened? We had a great time and most important – we were kids. Kids are more or less expected to do crazy shit. Always have, always will. That hasn’t changed, hell, just look at your kids. Or if you don’t have kids you’ve probably been up to some kind of crazy shit lately, you can’t fool me (DMI).
Are you still enjoying rock concerts? Going to see live music has always been my absolute favorite pastime. I started out seeing Jonathan Edwards at the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, CT when I was probably twelve or thirteen years old. I’ve been to hundreds of coliseum sized concerts and probably over two thousand gin mill gigs.
I’m so hyper-critical about going out at this point I’ve all but given up on it. There’s always something (usually someone) that’s bothering the shit out of me to the point where I can’t just relax and enjoy the music.
When it comes to live music I’m pretty sure age has a whole lot to do with it. Last year we went to see Dickey Bettes play in a large theatre type of venue. I had a seat near the aisle because I like to drink beer. Unfortunately the security is spread out thin, it’s usually a pretty classy place (go figure) so they don’t just kick the shit out of you and throw you out in the street like in the good old days if you fuck-up.
So the band is wailing away, just fantastic, when I notice a giant drunken warthog dancing way too close to me on my left side. It was a female hog, a sow if you will, long past her prime. She certainly wasn’t shy about dancing in front of everyone as she was making a spectacle of herself. I’m pretty sure that if this had been thirty years ago I probably wouldn’t have minded at all. Of course thirty years ago I'm betting she may not have been soused with sour mash, forty pounds overweight, and had all her teeth.
Not anymore, man.
My memory of concerts stem from seeing the Allman Brother at the Beacon Theatre in NYC, my absolute favorite venue. My wife was with me, we were not yet married, and we were on a date! I remember she was wearing a black rock-n-roll t-shirt that had only one shoulder strap, very sexy, and we were having a ball interacting all night with the people around us.
It was like a big party, everyone had a great time. Nobody was talking loudly while we were trying to hear the music. Remember the music? There were none of these assholes holding their asshole phone-cameras up in front of your face. You could still get away with having a smoke if you were so inclined, and the beer didn’t cost ten dollars for a warm plastic cup full of flat beer.
It’s not that I expect that kind of scene anymore, but common courtesy is a thing of the past. I personally blame these goddamn cell phone cameras for most of the problems. These idiots (you know who you are) don’t care if they are spoiling your view all night as long as they get a nice grainy, static, unwatchable video clip. Who cares about the hundreds of dollars you shelled out for your ticket?
So I think this is a prime example of my previous experiences shaping my current expectations. I’m going to see Roger Waters perform “The Wall” concert in October. He is supposed to be recreating the original 1978 concert of which only about ten performances were ever done, stateside anyways.
I was at one of the original “Wall” concerts. It was the most incredible show I’ve ever seen, bar none. I’m looking forward to this new show with great anticipation along with a nice big dollop of angst! But this time I’m bringing back-up, my friends are huge. I pity the fool that holds a cell phone up in front of my face that night.
We’re going to party like it’s 1978 all over again.
Of course this time we’re not going to run out of gas at 2a.m.
Selah.
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