Nearly every 4th of July, for perhaps over 20 years now, I have attended Mick's yard party in which our old crew and families show up. I have to hand it to Mick for eating the expense of these parties but he gets a kick out of them. The costs are typical, the food for the grill, the free kegs and one item he really lavishes the $ on, the fireworks. Last night, he had several 4x8 plywood sheets mounted with 300 mortar tubes wired to go for a grand finale. When shot, it's non-stop bedlam for many minutes. It's such a good show that the cops show up too.
At any big family event, the generations tend to coalesce by their age group. The kids tend to stay with their families but they know this one fact: Their parents and the adults will have more than enough alcohol and soon enough, forget the kids are there. This frees the kids to tear ass through the yards, tables and whatnot with the least amount of supervision. That until one runs smack into a tree which sets off the crying and Mom coming to fix the situation. Fifteen minutes later, they're at it again after hardheartedly being told to “Knock it off!”
The teens are similar except they wander off into two groups. The teen girls form up tight circles where they whisper to one another and fall dead silent if an adult walks by. The teen boys will be about 20 feet from them, in a far looser circle and louder. Occasionally two or three of the boys will shoot obvious love sick puppy looks to a girl in that circle and be immediately caught doing so, by the said girls. The girls circle the wagons even tighter and get even more hushed once they realize one of them is in a boy's sights. Once the DJ gets the music going, all of girls are on the improvised dance floor with the boys circling them, watching. Boys want to see, girls want to be seen. Nothing changes!
Your next group are the 20 Something kids. They are the main drivers of the party. Their parents check in with them in the beginning to figure out who's going where the next day and that's all the supervision you'll see of that. Theses “kids” mix with their own and some are paired off boyfriend/girlfriend. The group took over three tables under the tent and you could easily tell where the “cool” ones where at. It was the table where the prettiest girls were and their loud, overconfident and sometimes douche-baggy guy friends. There's still a lot of “teen” in 20 Somethings. That takes more than a few years to wear off.
I saw this happen and it was kind of funny, proving to me that even if her Dad was there, there was not much he could do about it. A young college aged girl, in the latest NY summer fashion, strutted by us with a nightclub walk that made us 55+ year old guys feel underage. There was a circle of us, perhaps six, all old. We went quiet and our heads, including mine, locked onto her and then track her as she walked by. She had this shit eating grin on her face as well. She knew exactly the attention she was getting. She was the hottest daughter of one of the Dads at the party and made the other Dads/55+ ones forget their manners for a few seconds.
Once the alcohol was really flowing with these “kids,” the boys started hoisting their buddies onto handstands on the keg and shoving that plastic valve into their mouths. The others cheering and egging on the upside down one to keep chugging. Each one they did this too, I swear, once they righted them, had the look on their face like they drank a can of Raid. Later on I saw one get put back on this feet, then fire out his nostrils the very beer he managed to chug down. I've puked out my nose once in my life and it was due to norovirus, not keg beer.
When the boys get like that, they completely forget the girls are there. It's play time and the girls no longer matter. When ignored, they took over a table to whip out their cells and they all glowed in the dark while the boys had their fun.
Where was I? What table was I at....read on.
**
When I first walked into the backyard I was met with a horde of younger folk. I scanned the crowed for someone I could recognize and couldn't at first. I then unconsciously did something I realized later, I looked for anyone with gray hair. I then spotted a bunch at a table near the bar and I went over and there they were, everyone I did know. We are now all between 55 and 62 and are either bald, gray or fat or a variation on all three. Add to that most were sitting, not standing.
And then I realized...we...I...were at that table the old ones sit. You remember that table when you were younger, where the oldies sat! They eat and have far fewer drinks when they were younger and “get tired” and are pretty much the first ones to go home. Years before, I can remember watching one wife yell at her husband, “Ahhh...you're BORING....go HOME...I wanna stay!” At two in the morning, she and I were falling over one another on the fake dance floor that was installed onto the lawn, laughing our asses off. It was blatant and all too public display of infidelity but we were younger, who cares? Having fun was more important vs. keeping a staid, normal public face.
But now...she and I AND her husband were sitting at the same table last night, acting as if none of that happened. We were too old to care I swear.
Here's some snippets of conversations I had with my current oldies...
F. says to me: “Oh shit, It's spinal stenosis...my lower back. Even now I can feel it...I have to make a deliberate attempt to walk, sit or lie down now...I have to think about it before I do it because I'll get shooting pain there! I'm going to hate the surgery but that's all they can do now to fix it”
And this:
I say to Doug: “You had TWO heart attacks? When?”
“Hell, two in one year, last year, right before covid hit...guess you didn't know!”
Or this...
I ask, “So how old's Julia now?”
“Oh..24, she just got her Masters from Dartmouth.”
“Twenty......four?” I say with some shock. “But when I saw her she....”
I get cut off by being reminded I haven't seen her since she was 15.
There was far more talk about health issues, retirement planning and down sizing current homes. Gone was the silly drunkenness, staying there till dawn and eating enough to make a rhino puke. I think I had five beers total in five hours and six BBQ ribs. When I was younger, it would've been a 12 pack of Yueling, shots and watching the dawn light up the river.
At 1 AM I felt my legs becoming sore, I was “tired” and I wasn't even buzzed anymore.
Hey, I still enjoyed myself...but now we're all at the Oldies Table now.
How the hell did that happen?
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