funny story
Way back in March, my husband came to me and asked if I’d like to see James Taylor at the Hollywood Bowl in May, for my birthday. I was so touched, because I know that Dave is less of a fan than I am. I thought that I had seen James Taylor live for the last time several years ago, so I agreed that it might be fun. Dave said, “Go ahead and book the tickets.”
A couple of weeks later, as his birthday rolled around, we were standing in the kitchen with our daughter. David shares a birthday with her husband, and Meredith’s birthday is four days later. David said, “This year let’s just celebrate Ben and Meredith’s birthdays. I don’t need one.” Meredith and I looked at each other and said, “Good. Because we have nothing for you.”
David acted incensed and said, “I got you James Taylor tickets, and you have nothing?”
Now to be clear, I got the James Taylor tickets. We all laughed. But after he left the room, Meredith said to me, “We have to find Bob Dylan.” Bob Dylan has always been one of my husband’s favorite performers, though he hasn’t seen him perform live since 1965.
I actually thought that Meredith would find out where he lives, and we would drive by his house. She’s quite the detective when it comes to locating celebrity homes. But 20 minutes later she called and said, “Mom! Dylan is performing in Michigan on September 15. You have to go!”
That date coincided nicely with the approximate time for us to leave Epworth, and our dear friend Thanne had recently moved to within six miles of the venue. We ordered the tickets and made our plans.
The Outlaw Music Festival also included John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson. As David pointed out, the combined age of the performers was almost 250 years. When we learned that the concert was starting at 5 PM, we figured that the audience would be our age, and that we’d be back at Thanne’s apartment at the senior living facility by 9 PM. We should have done more research.
The first thing we noticed was that at 5 PM barely any of the seats were filled. A warm-up group came out to perform and they were loud. But we whipped out the earplugs that our hostess Thanne had offered us the night before to drown out highway noise when we were sleeping. We never used them for sleeping, but what a God-sighting to have them for the concert!
By 6 PM John Mellencamp came out to perform, and he went on for quite a while. I started to suspect that this wouldn’t be as early a night as I had hoped. I checked on my phone for the set times and found out that Willie Nelson (and family) wouldn’t even be starting their set until 9:40 PM! We would never make it.
When Bob Dylan came on with no introduction, no fanfare, and began to sing, we couldn’t understand a word coming through the over-amplification. We didn’t even wait for the end of his set to head home. And it was a good thing, too. If we had stayed until the whole venue was emptying out, we would have been in the parking lot with 15,000 other concert-goers. We would probably still be sitting there in traffic two weeks later!
Instead, we happily drove home in 20 minutes and watched the end of Masterpiece Theatre with Thanne. It’s good to be old.
Love, Liz
“Nothing lasts forever
And your best efforts don’t always pay
Sometimes you get sick and you don’t get better
That’s when life is short even in its longest days…”
John Mellencamp
