My most enjoyable Saturday evening ever?
By The Horse
@TheHorse (205216)
Walnut Creek, California
March 19, 2017 12:51pm CST
How can an oldish fart in his 50s have his best Saturday night ever when he went to College, went to concerts, had wonderful dinner dates at Thai restaurants, went to parties, etc.? Simple. I don't like large crowds and was never a big Saturday night person. Most of my happy joy moments have been on quieter evenings.
Last night we (the Diablo Rhythm Wranglers) played a gig at a new (for us) venue in Benicia CA, a medium sized old river town. The "vibe" there was incredible. There were adults and children dancing the whole night, and the terraced seating meant every could see us well and was engaged.
One little girl kept bringing up requests, and we were able to do most of them. Finally, she said "My daddy wants you to do Wagon Wheel," which is a popular Dylan/Secor song from days gone by. I told her "I know the chorus, but your daddy's going to have to come up and help with the verses."
To my surprise, he came up, sang the verses, I sang harmony over him on the choruses, and we pulled it off pretty darned well! During break, the little girl came back up to me and said,"Do you remember me? You showed me how to play bass at the Walnut Creek Farmer's Market!"
I wound up having a conversation with her, two of her sisters, and her daddy, all about music. At the Farmer's Market gig, I had recommended to her that she start on guitar and take up bass later on. Daddy had said that guitar lessons are a bit too expensive. But it turns out that they have a piano in their house. So I gave her a quick piano lesson using two beer bottles as C# and D# to show her where C was on the piano. She was excited and followed my finger movements for a C-scale on our imaginary keyboard.
The second set was as fun as the first, and then we got to sip wine, eat our tri-tip, and chat further with the people there. I haven't felt that much of a sense of "community" in mean old California in a long time.
Is there a sense of community where you live? Do you have certain evenings that stand out as unusually fun? I'll remember this one.
18 people like this
17 responses
@inertia4 (27961)
• United States
19 Mar 17
Where I am currently, no, nothing like that. No one where I live do anything like that. And being NYC, I would have to go to Manhattan and spend a fortune to have a good time. Things around here have changed. Wish there were some of those old rock clubs still around.
2 people like this
@TheHorse (205216)
• Walnut Creek, California
20 Mar 17
@inertia4 I don't really like shows like American Idol. In the "old days," musicians worked their ways up from dive bars to stardom. Today, we have jive money "musicians" getting record contracts because of TV, while there's less and less quality entertainment at small venues. Jazz at Pearl's in San Francisco, where Ms Horse and I used to hang out, is gone like a train.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (157481)
• United States
19 Mar 17
Oh that sounds fun, family friendly fun at that. We used to sit in grandma's back yard and Uncle would play and we would sing. My little cousin and I would dance on upended wash tubs. I also had fun evenings at the small Christian college I attended, especially on a snowy night when we would light the fireplace in the dorm and sing and sing.
2 people like this
@divalounger (5849)
• United States
20 Mar 17
I bet you will remember this one! It sounds like great fun--what instrument do you play--bass? Acoustic or electric?
1 person likes this
@divalounger (5849)
• United States
20 Mar 17
@TheHorse I have not--how do I find you?
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (205216)
• Walnut Creek, California
20 Mar 17
@divalounger I'll just link you to Pancho and Lefty (a Townes Van Zandt song), and from there you'll be able to find Susy and A Moth Song, which are originals.
2 people like this
@LovingMyBabies (85127)
• Valdosta, Georgia
19 Mar 17
That is so awesome! It sounds like it was a wonderful time. =) I'm glad you had a wonderful evening.
The best evening I ever had was spending it as a family at home. It was on the 4th of July. My husband and I played cards, we all had a bon fire, and we watched fireworks together as a family that were going off across the street from us. =) It was a wonderful evening!
1 person likes this
@LovingMyBabies (85127)
• Valdosta, Georgia
19 Mar 17
@TheHorse It was! It just so happened that I planned a date night at home for my husband and I-forgetting that it was the 4th of July. So the fireworks was the perfect ending to a good date. =)
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (205216)
• Walnut Creek, California
19 Mar 17
@LovingMyBabies Sounds great. I enjoy fireworks, especially if there's kids around, as they "ooh" and "aah."
@TheHorse (205216)
• Walnut Creek, California
19 Mar 17
I'll attach one of a song we did last night that had people slow dancing. This is my "solo" version, though. You may have heard it before.
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
20 Mar 17
it really depends on where and how, he might be able to find a highschool student who could start teaching her, or a video guide.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
20 Mar 17
@TheHorse pretty much, so many ways around it, and not all lessons are that pricey, just depends on where and when, heck a senior home could have some chances in it
@snowy22315 (169584)
• United States
20 Mar 17
You know who else is doing a version of Wagon Wheel? None other than Darius Rucker? Have you heard it?
@vandana7 (98718)
• India
20 Mar 17
Long ago...kinda every full moon day they used to have a talent show of children in the family ...(not our family...dad's former family friends relatives)...so it used to be a really large group food would be brought and served and children would sing, yeah...attended a couple of them, then the matriarch got cancer, and kinda...it stopped.
@BelleStarr (61047)
• United States
20 Mar 17
No sense of community where we live but that does sound like a wonderful evening.
@Marilynda1225 (79571)
• United States
19 Mar 17
What a great Saturday night for you! I'm more of a home-body and haven't been out in ages for some Saturday night fun. I'm just an old fuddy duddy
1 person likes this
@Morleyhunt (21737)
• Canada
19 Mar 17
Where I live now there is no real sense of community. I couldn't name too many of my neighbours and most of them wouldn't recognize me if they bumped into me somewhere else. It's a rural area and everyone pretty much keeps to themselves. This seems odd as the rural area we lived in 20 years ago had a real sense of community...we all knew each other...helped each other when things went wrong. Celebrated when things went right. I still miss that community.
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (205216)
• Walnut Creek, California
19 Mar 17
I think I long for a sense of community. We DID have it in the neighborhood where I grew up in Chicago. And I had it with my fellow Grad Students at UCSB in Santa Barbara. I make an effort to create my own community here (my neighbor kid friend and his mom; the Thai restaurant where I order Tom Kha Gai to go twice a week), but it doesn't happen naturally like it used to. Even the Indians, bound together by Culture, I would think, don't talk to each other much in my apartment complex.
@andriaperry (116860)
• Anniston, Alabama
19 Mar 17
Yes I do but they have been a while.
See I am not the only one that listened and learned from your words. 
1 person likes this
@jstory07 (134267)
• Roseburg, Oregon
20 Mar 17
That sounds like you had a good time. That is what I always like to hear. Someone having fun.
@JudyEv (325339)
• Rockingham, Australia
20 Mar 17
That would have been such a buzz. We've sometimes really nice evenings round a camp-fire while camping. A fire draws in campers from all round and again there is a lovely sense of community.
