After I played tonight, and was pulling my guitar and fake books from the car on a rainy night to take inside, I was reflecting on how much my parents - my mother in particular - enjoyed watching my concerts in high school and college.
I don't think they missed any of the jazz competitions that they could drive to in high school - they didn't go to the Reno Jazz Festival in 1979 but they did pay for my plane fare to fly to Reno and play with the rest of the band (that's all they could afford to do... in 1979 $300 was a lot of money for a pink collar film editor to cough up for a plane ticket. When I was cleaning out Mom's house I found some of my Dad's bi-weekly pay stubs from the 1970s. He did not make very much money. I'm amazed we weren't eating beans and weenies after looking at some of the stuff that I found).
When I went off to UNI freshman year, they made nearly every concert, including one where they drove the 100 miles up, in the dark, and the fog, and frickin' freezin' rain - to see me play in Jazz II for a grand total of 20 minutes, and then after the concert I dumped them because "Hey, I have a date!"
Most of the jazz competition season in Iowa still takes place in the throes of winter, which means you're driving to some college campus at the crack of butt on a Saturday morning, with temps often in the single digits or worse. We were lucky in that we rarely rode in a "regular" school bus or packed into our friends' and parents' cars. Junior year, one of the kids in regular band had a parent that was licensed to drive a bus, and he just happened to have access to an old Greyhound bus the Des Moines Police Department used for various events, and that we were "free to borrow" for the cost of the diesel fuel to fill it up.
It had the reclining seats and was a hell of a lot more comfortable than your average yellow 1940s suspension technology death trap masquerading as a school bus. Anyway, we'd show up at jazz festivals all relaxed and fairly well-rested compared to our counterparts that were stuck in the yellow spine/and/soul crushers. Senior year, our conga player, Sam, joked about how when "we get off of the Police Bus we should get out in chains and shit."
That bus *was* nice, and warm and comfortable. Sometimes, my folks would ride in the bus, and sometimes they'd follow in their car, along with some of the other parents. I remember hearing someone whine during jazz band class (which was 6th period at the end of my day - kind of a great way to end the day - which started with the torture of regular band and classes in between that I had to pay attention to in order to graduate) "Are the Carsons (referring to my parents) coming with us *again*?"
Hey, they only had one child - me. So in my totally unbiased opinion, I think they were entitled to tag along.
We took that bus down to Wichita, Kansas one year for a jazz festival at Wichita State. The competition was the same weekend as the early Spring dance, Spree. Well, since none of us were going to Spree, they kind of celebrated it on the bus... not that I would have gotten anyone to go with me to Spree anyway. But, thanks to Linda and Kelly, at least I had two girls who weren't embarrassed to be seen with me at a dance so I wasn't totally dateless in high school (although I surely was one of the most socially retarded persons ever).
Anyway, thanks Mom and Dad, I sure as hell missed you tonight, and I'm sorry I dumped you back in 1981 for some floozy whose name I can't remember, although I'm sure she was a perfectly fine human being.
(Man, its getting dusty in here)...
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