Tuesday Night Live

We really enjoy our wonderful neighbors, no doubt about it. One couple, Chuck and Reba, have children who attend gymnastics camp with our children certain days of the week for a certain span of time this summer (you can tell that I'm not the parent in charge of shuttling our daughters to and fro their summertime activities). Reba and Susan together escort their young charges, and while doing so today, they made a plan for our families to meet up tonight and walk to Young's Park to the Phil Patterson Memorial Bandshell for Tuesday Nite Live at the Bandshell.

Arts on the Prairie sponsors a summer series of free public performances at the bandshell situated at the top of a large hill in this park, which happily is just a few blocks southeast of our house. Chuck and Reba had loaded a wagon with blankets, lawn chairs, and snacks for the kids. We had a blanket, sweatshirts, and lawn chairs of our own. Their three-year-old son Jack pulled the wagon while six-year-old Madeline visited with Hillary as they led the pack of us on our walk.

Tonight's performer was Todd Pechtl, who (the program told us) uses the stage name Neo Briggs and is available for private parties, weddings, and funerals. (Funerals? This guy sang Journey, Johnny Cash, Three Dog Night, and Clearance Clearwater Revival!) He sang solo with no one and nothing else on stage but a CD player to play the prerecorded background music to which he sang the lyrics. Hmmm. He was a fine enough vocalist, but he mostly served as background noise while Chuck, Reba, Susan, and I visited and the girls ran around the park playing with Madeline, Jack, and several other children whose parents or grandparents had dragged them to the concert.

The performance lasted about an hour-and-a-half, after which we walked back to Chuck and Reba's and had snacks: bowls of ice cream for the children, and salty, crunchy snacks and adult beverages for the rest of us. The kids play together often and get along great, and we always enjoy visiting with Chuck and Reba, who have great senses of humor and are generous folks. Chuck is a jack of all trades and is going to come over to fix one of our underground lawn sprinklers because, yes, doing so used to be one of his jobs, and he still has scads of equipment for that profession. Well, of course you do, Chuck; why wouldn't you?

Here are some picks of Todd/Neo, the bandshell, and the girls at the concert:

Chuck and Reba put all the kids' Kool-Aid in Jack's sippy cups for ease of transporting and for prevention of spillage while at the park. Chuck thought I should take a pic of nine-and-a-half-year-old Suzanna using a sippy cup for potential future blackmail or humiliation . . . a high school graduation slideshow, perhaps? a wedding reception?

Poor Todd/Neo and his sad little non-space-taking-up CD player . . .

The crowd looks a little sparse, but it really wasn't; people were just sitting off to the sides and behind us.