4th of July, part 2 (or, my mom said what?)
Beware of language ahead. But, given the circumstances, it was appropriate.
Mom and I did end up walking down to watch the fireworks. We haven't done that since 2011. I'd been noncommittal earlier in the day, but since we can't see the show that well from the house anymore, it's better to go there. Plus, the community band was due to play, and it would be nice to see them. Mom had asked when to leave, and I'd said about 8, 8:30; it was maybe 10 to 8 when she said to me, we're leaving at 8! Okay, great, guess I'd better finish getting ready. I'd been putting a bag together, so it was just a matter of going faster with that (I was under the impression we'd go at 8:30, really) and then making sure to hose myself down with bug spray. I think we left at 8:02. Mom just wanted to go while it was still light outside.
Oh, my mom. She's still not all that bright at times. Like, we get down to McKee and Western, and there's a guy in a safety vest that anyone should recognize as being someone there for safety, given that it's a decently-traveled route on the 4th. Mom actually had to ask why he was there. Mom. Seriously. Use your brain. And when we walked past him, I said hello. Mom asked, do you know him? No, mom. It's called being polite. And really. If we'd known each other, we'd have greeted each other by name. I realize that I am socially awkward, but come on.
Once we got down to the park, mom wanted to check out the food booths. The lines were pretty long and mom had eaten before she came, so she actually didn't buy anything from them. I was just amused because there's a former teacher at my high school--whom one of my friends had a crush on back in the day--who no longer teaches and now runs a hot dog stand. Oh, if Judy could only see him now. Meanwhile, just because mom spent no money on food does not mean she spent no money. I'd seen in the paper that they came up with Batavia Monopoly (likely Batavia-opoly) and there was a booth talking up the game. Mom signed up to preorder one. I hadn't mentioned it to her before because I knew it would be at Windmill Fest, which is next week. I remember reading off what the game tokens are to dad; there's one of our mayor, and I think a bulldog, and the one that confused me was something called Bruce the Spruce. We have a random named tree that's famous? Really? I hope it comes with an explanation. Meanwhile, dad was stunned that NONE of the tokens was a windmill. Hello, we're the Windmill City! I wouldn't doubt that windmills are incorporated in some other way, but I was too busy scouring the sample board to see what you could buy (Western Avenue is one of the streets, I believe) to pay attention to where the windmills were. It sounds like they'll get delivered sometime in the fall. I was a little surprised they didn't have the games ready to go, but I guess they want to see what the interest is before making them en masse.
The band ended up being down a little ways, toward the curve in the road and south of the church property across from the park. There's a parking lot right there, and we managed to find an empty, grassy spot off the lot…right next to the scenic port-o-potties. Better, for a little while there was this guy sitting near us who was VERY into the music and would sort of sing along at times. Oh…kay. Like, I know I'm a music nerd, but it was different. He eventually wandered away, but he would randomly call stuff out that didn't quite make sense. Whatever. You enjoy the concert in your own way, I suppose. Now, my high school band director, Mr. Heath, normally conducts the band, but he goes out of town in the summer. There is a second conductor, and it's someone who was a couple years ahead of me in school who now teaches at a high school in the greater area. I wonder how that is for him, conducting a band literally in the shadow of his old school. Overall, the band sounded good, and even though we didn't get there until 8:30, 8:45 all told, we still got to hear them for over half an hour. They kept going until maybe ten minutes before the fireworks went off at 9:30. Phew. There were chairs set up near us, in the opening to the lot, and there were a few little kids right there. One of them made me smile, because he wore an American flag shirt, and he'd gotten a popsicle, and it was one of those rocket pops in red, white, and blue. His popsicle matched his shirt! Funny. Surprise--once the band finished and the members dispersed, the director joined them. Holy crap. That's his family.
The fireworks overall were good. However, we discovered one flaw with our seats: We were facing the sound tent. This was where any announcements were made, so it was the "stage" essentially, but it happened to perfectly block any of the lower fireworks. Boo. Anything higher was fine, and I don't know that we could have gotten closer, so it worked out. I was also really, really happy I'd brought earplugs. I don't like loud noises, and I know one year we were basically in front of a speaker, and that is not a good thing. It was while we were walking back that I pulled the earplugs out and was excited to hear things normally again. This year's theme was heroes, so there were a lot of songs related to superheroes, like the themes from Superman and Wonder Woman (the old-school '70s theme, which now is totally dated in terms of lyrics; I'm not sure I've ever really heard them before). There were also songs with "hero" in the name or otherwise mentioned, plus all the service songs for the military. I was impressed that it was basically one continuous musical number, especially past the first few minutes. There really wasn't a break like in past years. Not complaining; just something I noticed.
We had an incident on the walk back, one that made my holiday. We're on Western north of Wilson, walking with hundreds of other people. There's this group of teenagers behind us, very closely behind us, and they're the type that swears to be cool, and at one point someone calls one of the guys a dickhead. They're so close that they're stepping on the backs of my shoes, and they end up nearly pulling mom's shoe off her foot. They apologized, but mom ended up saying something like, you really are a dickhead. Holy crap, mom. Sometimes she annoys me, but sometimes she's really amusing. Teens don't expect a woman in her 60s to call them that. That set them off--there were lots of exclamations and "She got you!"s and that sort of thing. Heh. I don't doubt that my mom and her friends were much like this band of idiots back in the day, so I turned to them and went, behold your future. By this time we were pretty close to McKee, and we could see the traffic person letting a group ahead of us go while holding back the cars. Oh, rats, are we going to make it in time? The guy lets mom and me cross, but asks the group of teens to hold back; I think they'd backed off a bit from us after the incident. Rats--we lost them. Mom was still paranoid that they'd catch up to us, and I think she started walking a little faster. Luckily we got home without any further incident, about 10:30, and that was our great adventure.
Mom and I did end up walking down to watch the fireworks. We haven't done that since 2011. I'd been noncommittal earlier in the day, but since we can't see the show that well from the house anymore, it's better to go there. Plus, the community band was due to play, and it would be nice to see them. Mom had asked when to leave, and I'd said about 8, 8:30; it was maybe 10 to 8 when she said to me, we're leaving at 8! Okay, great, guess I'd better finish getting ready. I'd been putting a bag together, so it was just a matter of going faster with that (I was under the impression we'd go at 8:30, really) and then making sure to hose myself down with bug spray. I think we left at 8:02. Mom just wanted to go while it was still light outside.
Oh, my mom. She's still not all that bright at times. Like, we get down to McKee and Western, and there's a guy in a safety vest that anyone should recognize as being someone there for safety, given that it's a decently-traveled route on the 4th. Mom actually had to ask why he was there. Mom. Seriously. Use your brain. And when we walked past him, I said hello. Mom asked, do you know him? No, mom. It's called being polite. And really. If we'd known each other, we'd have greeted each other by name. I realize that I am socially awkward, but come on.
Once we got down to the park, mom wanted to check out the food booths. The lines were pretty long and mom had eaten before she came, so she actually didn't buy anything from them. I was just amused because there's a former teacher at my high school--whom one of my friends had a crush on back in the day--who no longer teaches and now runs a hot dog stand. Oh, if Judy could only see him now. Meanwhile, just because mom spent no money on food does not mean she spent no money. I'd seen in the paper that they came up with Batavia Monopoly (likely Batavia-opoly) and there was a booth talking up the game. Mom signed up to preorder one. I hadn't mentioned it to her before because I knew it would be at Windmill Fest, which is next week. I remember reading off what the game tokens are to dad; there's one of our mayor, and I think a bulldog, and the one that confused me was something called Bruce the Spruce. We have a random named tree that's famous? Really? I hope it comes with an explanation. Meanwhile, dad was stunned that NONE of the tokens was a windmill. Hello, we're the Windmill City! I wouldn't doubt that windmills are incorporated in some other way, but I was too busy scouring the sample board to see what you could buy (Western Avenue is one of the streets, I believe) to pay attention to where the windmills were. It sounds like they'll get delivered sometime in the fall. I was a little surprised they didn't have the games ready to go, but I guess they want to see what the interest is before making them en masse.
The band ended up being down a little ways, toward the curve in the road and south of the church property across from the park. There's a parking lot right there, and we managed to find an empty, grassy spot off the lot…right next to the scenic port-o-potties. Better, for a little while there was this guy sitting near us who was VERY into the music and would sort of sing along at times. Oh…kay. Like, I know I'm a music nerd, but it was different. He eventually wandered away, but he would randomly call stuff out that didn't quite make sense. Whatever. You enjoy the concert in your own way, I suppose. Now, my high school band director, Mr. Heath, normally conducts the band, but he goes out of town in the summer. There is a second conductor, and it's someone who was a couple years ahead of me in school who now teaches at a high school in the greater area. I wonder how that is for him, conducting a band literally in the shadow of his old school. Overall, the band sounded good, and even though we didn't get there until 8:30, 8:45 all told, we still got to hear them for over half an hour. They kept going until maybe ten minutes before the fireworks went off at 9:30. Phew. There were chairs set up near us, in the opening to the lot, and there were a few little kids right there. One of them made me smile, because he wore an American flag shirt, and he'd gotten a popsicle, and it was one of those rocket pops in red, white, and blue. His popsicle matched his shirt! Funny. Surprise--once the band finished and the members dispersed, the director joined them. Holy crap. That's his family.
The fireworks overall were good. However, we discovered one flaw with our seats: We were facing the sound tent. This was where any announcements were made, so it was the "stage" essentially, but it happened to perfectly block any of the lower fireworks. Boo. Anything higher was fine, and I don't know that we could have gotten closer, so it worked out. I was also really, really happy I'd brought earplugs. I don't like loud noises, and I know one year we were basically in front of a speaker, and that is not a good thing. It was while we were walking back that I pulled the earplugs out and was excited to hear things normally again. This year's theme was heroes, so there were a lot of songs related to superheroes, like the themes from Superman and Wonder Woman (the old-school '70s theme, which now is totally dated in terms of lyrics; I'm not sure I've ever really heard them before). There were also songs with "hero" in the name or otherwise mentioned, plus all the service songs for the military. I was impressed that it was basically one continuous musical number, especially past the first few minutes. There really wasn't a break like in past years. Not complaining; just something I noticed.
We had an incident on the walk back, one that made my holiday. We're on Western north of Wilson, walking with hundreds of other people. There's this group of teenagers behind us, very closely behind us, and they're the type that swears to be cool, and at one point someone calls one of the guys a dickhead. They're so close that they're stepping on the backs of my shoes, and they end up nearly pulling mom's shoe off her foot. They apologized, but mom ended up saying something like, you really are a dickhead. Holy crap, mom. Sometimes she annoys me, but sometimes she's really amusing. Teens don't expect a woman in her 60s to call them that. That set them off--there were lots of exclamations and "She got you!"s and that sort of thing. Heh. I don't doubt that my mom and her friends were much like this band of idiots back in the day, so I turned to them and went, behold your future. By this time we were pretty close to McKee, and we could see the traffic person letting a group ahead of us go while holding back the cars. Oh, rats, are we going to make it in time? The guy lets mom and me cross, but asks the group of teens to hold back; I think they'd backed off a bit from us after the incident. Rats--we lost them. Mom was still paranoid that they'd catch up to us, and I think she started walking a little faster. Luckily we got home without any further incident, about 10:30, and that was our great adventure.