Tag Archives: town square

Bandstand

Bandstand: (n) a covered outdoor platform for a band to play on, typically in a park.Dictionary B

Summertime in Middle America is a collision of tradition and revision.

Because right in the midst of the Internet generation are the simple pleasures of small towns, gathering a handful of local musicians to hold 25 rehearsals to play 12 songs in a bandstand in the center of the town square, to the delight of the old folks, and an opportunity for the younger generation to meet together on summer vacation outside the confines of the local school.

It is a sight to behold.

The musicians are a little nervous, uncertain of themselves, yet self-possessed with the importance of the moment.

The director has dressed for the occasion and struts around like he’s Leonard Bernstein at the premiere of West Side Story.

And the old folks sit in rickety wooden chairs, turning to one another and conversing about as many inane topics as possible before being silenced by the orchestra tuning up (and never quite achieving pitch.)

The little kids run and play, and the teenagers yearn for dusk, when they can slip away from their parents and investigate the pleasure of one another’s bodies in the alcove of the staircase next to the local library.

It is America.

It is the blending of the old with the new, in some sort of temporary agreement over a poorly performed Sousa march.

It is something we must never lose, although we should never regale it as being more important than mercy and justice.

The bandstand sits quietly the rest of the year, part of the time covered in leaves and on other occasions nearly hidden by snow.

But when it is ready, and when it is time, it encircles the warmth of feelings which can only be expressed by those who awkwardly care for one another.

 

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Acrimonious

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAcrimonious: (adj.) typically in reference to speech or debate, angry and bitter: e.g. an acrimonious debate about wages.

About a mile-and-a-half outside our little town of fifteen hundred souls, there was a location set aside, commonly referred to as “the city dump.”

I’m not so sure those places exist anymore–whether small towns have them. I think we now use landfills, which are similar but much larger.

But about once every three or four months, our family would load up a small trailer and head out to the city dump to get rid of everything that had somehow become displeasing to us.

My mother was always concerned about taking us children out there because we might step on a nail, get lockjaw and die. But I always pleaded to go on the journey because it was a fascinating destination. There was always just a little bit of fire burning close by, with some of the dumped materials ablaze.

And it was remarkable how we could back up our trailer, disconnect it, tip it up, and dump our useless bullcrap into the pile, then re-hook the trailer and drive away with no fear or burden. The trip to the dump was always bumpy, and the car would pull, tugging the rejected items behind us. But the trip back was so much lighter.

That’s the way I feel about “acrimonious.”

Do we ever know if our discussions with one another are truly pure and on point? We may just have failed to go to the garbage heap before we began to discuss.

After all, there’s so much crap that builds up inside us in the process of one day:

  • So many disappointments covered up with a smile.
  • So many dreams we had that we now sidestep because they failed to bear evidence.
  • So much frustration about being told to wait, when patience seems so useless.

And therefore, the least little thing can set us off, and rather than dumping our trash where it belongs, we do it right in the middle of the town square–to the alarm and disdain of the citizens.

I’m not so sure that any Republican or Democrat really knows what they think on ANY issue. They are too busy being acrimonious over old battles.

So even though I was sometimes sad when we threw things away at the city dump because I had developed a fondness for them in their decaying state, I can’t tell you that I missed them or felt any absence whatsoever.

Sometimes we just need to dump before we come back and interact.

If we don’t, we end up scraping our garbage onto somebody else’s plate.