At the entrance to the event was, in contrast to
paragraph 1, my first real glimpse of
myself as an old woman. This occurred when
we comingled with our fellow concert-goers-- the cast of “Cocoon”—in line at the door.
“Do we look as old as they do?” I whispered to Fred. He smiled and straightened his shoulders.
We stood for a short time to have our tickets scanned,
not by a tough bouncer-type man searching for pot or explosive devices, but by
an elderly woman they lured from her regular job of rewriting voter names in “old-lady”
cursive at the voting poles.
“Things sure have changed a lot since my last pop concert,”
I reported to Fred. My last rock concert
was in 1983, in Detroit, MI, and the ticket collector searched my purse and
padded me down.
In my seat, I lost myself again, youth recaptured, as
Huey entered the stage to the heartbeat at the beginning of “Heart of Rock ‘n
Roll.” With the lights out in the
darkened theatre, it was a magical night.
We sang, we hooted, we enjoyed ourselves at the expense of our mortified
12 year-old daughter who glared at me like I’d grown a 3rd eye every
time I turned to her with my arms waving.
Then they played “I Want a New Drug” and flashed the
spotlights on the audience. WHOA!! 50
shades of grey!! I felt like I was
standing in a cotton field. We looked
like the matinee audience of the very last “Peter, Paul and Mary” PBS-televised
concert...or a retirement planning seminar. The hairs on our heads shone like 500 silvery christmas bulbs.
And so it went. Dark
theatre-young again; Lights shining on the grey-fluffy dandelions …DOH!—old
again.

Young. Old.
Young. Old.
It was maddening.
At some point half the audience rushed the stage and I
was wondering what Huey was thinking.
There was something strange about a bunch of 50-80 year olds standing at
your feet. Was he cringing? Was he glad he had all his hair? Their gnarled hands stretched up to him like
they were in a Charlton Heston blockbuster and Huey was God.
Maybe
it was their time to go and they WERE reaching for God.
Ahh, but what a way to go.