Dr. Dog at Americaplatz

Last night I made my annual journey to Musikfest. I’ve been making the trip since I was rolling around in a stroller. Only difference now is I can finally weave through the beer tent and fill up my mug.

After dinner at Sal’s on New Street in South Side Bethlehem, I crossed the Fahy to the North Side–Fest territory. Mike and I stopped at the Aw-Shucks corn tent for an ear, filled up my mug, and walked to Americaplatz for the Dr. Dog show.

Mike and my mug!

Every year I always seem to think the teens get worse. I much prefer going during the day anymore. From boys wearing “Man Whore” tees to girls in stilettos and mini skirts (why would you ever?!) and the instigators starting fights, it just doesn’t seem fun anymore. I try not to let it bother me. I’m there to have a good time and to enjoy the free music.

On the way back down from Americaplatz to Main Street, I passed an elderly woman who was sitting chatting to two others on the porch of a beautiful Colonial. We smiled at one another and I wondered how many generations have passed through the home and what she thought of the Musikfest crowd.

To end the night, a remarkably intelligent girl, probably 17, spoke loudly into her cell and said, “I’m down in the area by all the food stands.” Yeah, I’m so sure the person on the other line knew exactly where she was. I left with a laugh, crossed the Fahy to my car, and felt satisfied that I had gone to check out the scene.

It occurred to me as I was riding into work this morning–using my steering wheel as an interim guitar to the sounds of Poison’s Don’t Need Nothin’ But a Good Time–that my generation grew up in what I’d like to call the Sweet Spot. Our music reflected these times. It was, quite frankly, just fun and happy. I think this revelation actually began taking root last night while I was watching the coverage of Michael Jackson’s tragic death.

His music was the keystone for our “Let’s have fun,” “Party all the time,” generation. I concluded that our music– as pop-y and unsophisticated as some of it was–could have been a result of our generation not having the threat of war hanging over our heads. Unlike many generations before us, the boys in my high school and young men of my college era were able to totally focus on building a life. There was no talk of a draft and no major political or foreign conflicts that would denote the prospect of a protracted war in those days. How idyllic.

My son, however, has known nothing but war or the threat of it since nearly the day he was born in 1990. It seems the world became a different place in the blink of an eye. In 2001, when he was 11, he reacted to the 9-11 attacks with a steely, sad, and eerie Teflon-like resolve, as if he weren’t surprised at all that the world could offer up such a nasty dose of hatred-based reality. His music— in all its chaotic and thrashy glory, definitely reflected the frenetic, uncertain times he grew up in.

I began playing my “happy music” around the house. I now know that he thought I was nuts as I bopped around the kitchen to Van Halen’s, Dance the Night Away. I thought by some crazy osmosis I could make things all right for him—that he might actually like and start listening to my music. Of course, that did not happen. Today, at 19, my son is an extroverted, opinionated proponent of social reform. He carries a chip on his shoulder and a catalog of Rage Against the Machine songs on his iPod.

While my iPod has some current music on it, it is mostly full of my idyllic ditties. I will always wish that my son could forge ahead as we did–totally oblivious to real world issues–banging our heads and spinning each other “right ‘round, baby, right ‘round.”

God, those were good days.