Published: May 08, 2008 06:09 pm            

Now & Then: May 7, 2008

Beach music brings out the Baby Boomers, especially when it's free.

Asheboro's latest season of concerts at Bicentennial Park has expanded to four Fridays as well as four Sundays. Kicking off the campaign last Friday evening were The Entertainers, who wowed the crowd with a variety of hits spanning the '50s and '60s, and a smattering of more recent ditties.

The city has gone all out this year, even providing an ample wooden dance floor on the grass in front of the stage, suitable for shagging. After the initial period of timidness passed, dancers filled the floor for most of the songs, especially when The Entertainers played the Electric Slide and other line-dance favorites.

My wife Ginny and I dragged a couple of grandkids kicking and screaming to the concert. Mariah is 12, right at the age at which being seen with adults is considered, like, you know, so lame.

Her brother Chance is 7 and was more interested in hanging out on the railroad tracks next to the park. He found three railroad spikes and pulled up a number of weeds before he discovered that some of the music was cool.

"Hey Papoo, I've heard that on the radio," he told me of a particular number.

It was actually Chance who decided going to the dance floor was something to be desired. But he wanted his Sissy to go with him.

Mariah held back, as any self-respecting sixth-grader would at a party dominated by a class of people with gray hair and wide middles. However, her spirit of showmanship got the best of her and she finally accepted Chance's invitation to dance.

Even Ginny got into the action, going up late in the concert when dancers had formed a circle and were circumnavigating the floor to the beat of a select oldie-but-goodie. I was content to listen to the music and take snapshots with Mariah's little digital camera.

"Why don't you go up and dance?" Ginny kept asking me. "You're a good dancer."

"Because I make enough of a fool of myself in the paper," was my response. I wasn't about to make a spectacle of myself, ‡ la Elaine Benes of "Seinfeld" at the infamous office party.

And I wasn't able to conceal my oft-displayed identity the way some of the Boomers did. Not that they dressed in a way to hide their appearance. It's just that their looks had changed so much since the music blaring from the speakers first came out on 45 RPMs.

One man walked up and called me by name. I had to search his bewhiskered face for a moment before realizing that he and I went to school together.

I had seen another man I thought looked like a classmate of ours. My long-lost friend confirmed that, yes, so-and-so is here.

It's funny how old songs, which we heard for perhaps a few weeks during their time on the Hit Parade and we haven't heard in years, are instantly recognizeable. But we don't recognize the kids we spent time together for several years in the most intimate of settings.

The years may camouflage our hair, skin and bodies, but the music doesn't change. We took possession of the music 40 or 50 years ago and it still brings out the same responses. You can tell by the Boomers brave enough to show their shag moves. But our bodies have morphed - not unlike that 45 left in the back of the car on a hot summer day.

At least the concert reminds us we were young once.



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, can't wait to see The Tams on May 18.

        

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