Old-People Watching

Last Friday, Amy, one of the girls I work with (we started on the same day and work in Marketing together) very sweetly invited me to go with her to see her cousin play in a jazz quartet. His quartet’s name is the Goodburgers (reminds me of the Kenan and Kel days – which may or may not be the point) and apparently they all go to some special music school in New York. Amy said her cousin plays his guitar around fourteen hours a day. This was her way of justifying us driving to Columbia, TN to see him (which I never actually minded in the least, but poor Amy felt like she needed to justify it ‘in case it sucked’).

Anyway, we met at Amy’s house (she invited another girl from work as well) and, after meeting her absolutely adorable Goldendoodle, Franklin, we rode together to Columbia, TN. Out in the middle of BFE, if you ask me. And I’m sorry all of that rhymed. It was very unintentional.

We pulled up to the address given to us and the one Tom Tom said we should be at and realized we were at an American Legion.

Um. What?

We were expecting a bar because her cousin said they had a “gig.” When I think of ‘gig’ I think of ‘bar.’ But we went inside anyway, walking past the group of very old men outside practicing their instruments on our way. When we got inside, we automatically realized we were the youngest people there. By about a hundred years. And we were under-dressed.

Well, at least we didn’t have to pay that $10 cover I thought I saw mentioned on the Facebook group.

We found some chairs, sat down, and watched her cousin play about three songs. They were actually pretty great! They sounded like they’d been practicing together for a while. And quite a few of the elder people got up and did some couple-dancing, which was really fun to watch. Eighty year olds make for great people-watching (no offense, Granny!).

After the Goodburgers’ set was finished, Amy played the mom card disturbingly well by taking pictures of her cousin and his group that played with him. She even got a close-up of the awful earring he was wearing that we only saw when he turned to the side. It looked like a tooth of some sort… We tried to figure it out later but failed.

We left about as quickly as we arrived and decided to go back to Nashville to an actual bar and have an actual drink, Amy apologizing the whole time, which was very unnecessary but cute all the same. I actually had a good time watching the old-school dancing.

In the car we established two things: one being that the set we’d just witnessed was not a gig, but more of a recital, and two, that we will not dance like those people did when we get older.

I mean, it was pretty cool to see the older generations ballroom dancing because no one dances like that anymore. Sarah mentioned that she wished she knew those dances because one day we’ll be old and we won’t know how to dance like that. I had never thought about that before. Those dances actually require you to remember steps instead of just grinding on one another. I just figured when we get old we’ll be out there dancing to the Wobble and the Electric Slide, just like we do now. They thought that was funny, but I was completely serious. Why would it be any different from now when we get old? I don’t think a distaste of rap (or knowledge of new dance steps, for that matter) comes with age. I’ve grown up with it and I fully intend to keep listening (and dancing) to it!

All in all, I thought it was a fun, educational night. I’d happily do it again!