Señora and I decided to have a wild couple’s night out, something we had not done for quite some time due to COVID. We have gone out to dinner a few times, always attempting to dine outside, but we went absolutely crazy Saturday evening. First we went to one of our favorite restaurants in the metro area, a Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Grand. As always, they came through, and we both had a very enjoyable meal.
St. Louis has an iconic folk music venue, The Focal Point. The term folk music seems to be morphing into the category of roots music, but a rose is a rose. We are both big aficionados of this style of music and we make a point to go to the Focal Point a few times a year. It is not a bar, club, or restaurant, but truly a listening room for enjoying good music. The venue has been struggling a bit with the pandemic, and they have not been booking touring acts. Until last night they have been having their concerts out back in the parking lot…a bit of a different experience.
The performer was a local musician, Jan Marra whose blurb on the Focal Point’s website sounded interesting. How to describe Jan? Her music was fine, but it did not blow me away. What did strike me was that I felt I needed to send Jan one of my Curmudgeon certificates. And yes, curmudgeonry is not gender specific, despite the standard dictionary definition of a curmudgeon as a crusty or grouchy old man. She also seemed to find her age problematic. From her appearance, but mainly from her patter – she spoke of high school in the late 60s and college in the early 70s – I put her around my age of 69. I understand her discomfort a bit, I at times, wonder how I got to be so freaking old. Her day time gig for the last 17 years was billed as a musical therapist; she goes to various nursing homes to play her music. Watching her perform after this discovery, it felt a bit like a foreshadowing of my future.
When we first got there I noticed a very large and mellow dog, sporting long white fur, being a bit on the overfed side, and from all appearances old enough to fit into the Focal Point crowd. Shortly after Jan started her set, the dog entered stage left, making me think perhaps it was her dog. The dog wandered amongst the amp and microphones before plopping itself down directly before my front row seat, and proceeded to stare at me with doleful eyes.
I almost immediately recalled a company golf scramble I played in years ago when I worked at Rheem Manufacturing Company in Ft. Smith, by gawd, Arkansas. One of my fellow programmers was “fortunate” enough to have the company president on his team. Joe was much brasher than I would have been, and upon passing a male dog licking himself vigorously, he asked the head honcho of our corporation if he knew why dogs engage in such activity. Of course, the time worn answer is… because they can.
In my mind I begin hoping this well fed canine would do the same. I was rooting for the comedic element. I was hoping the man would slip on the banana peel. I begin to channel my inner Mark Twain imagining what a tale I could make of it, the performer trying to be professional, ignoring the dog’s self-pleasuring, the audience attempting to be adult, suppressing their amusement and failing. But alas none of that was to be, the dog, which actually belonged to the folks running the venue, finally exited as it had came, stage left. I was later to hear its owner call it Jeannie, giving me to doubt it had the necessary apparatus for a robust and zealous licking. My jumping frog could not have jumped if it had wanted to, in Calaveras County or St. Louis County.
After all this excitement, Señora and I made it home by 9 o’clock.
Sounds like a fun evening out.
Son, you were born 100 years too late.