But seriously, folks … There is a moral to the story, if you read to the very end.
Last weekend, we combined a full moon, along with the day and evening entering into it, with a harvest moon and its day-into-night when the applicable seasons change.
If you go out on the town, the Hudson downtown, you go less than a block before you see it’s different, and skewed in a crazed direction, even more on Friday — and others reinforced this — the night before the full moon, when the seconds ticked away into Saturday. Bar workers will tell you a full moon has a significant effect on human behavior, especially when combined with other adjoining factors. Gets nutso. But then there is a time to chill. Read about that at the end of this post.
(To those of you on Facebook. I tried using the social media platform, and it ate most of my partially explanatory, without giving it away, teaser I posted, that was referring mostly to football and its related names in a much more broad sense, as well as to the second post below. The teaser clarified that I couldn’t tell the story fully without a whole lotta namedropping and history, especially in the second, following post, so fight through it!!)
So, less than a block heading south, there were a group of young men gathered beneath a building with a sizeable outcropping — it was needed — trying without any applicable gear to scale the outside wall and reach the second floor and get onto the roof. And then get down. Two made it, then had a harder time getting back to the sidewalk, the latter more than the former. I joked with them, and they then were on their way to the busier part of the city, where they would moreso than impressing me, maybe find charming women who would find their own endeavors charming, in a macho versus feminine way.
To wit, even if somewhat flipped: Two blocks later, upon reaching my destination, I soon encountered when she sat at the seat next to me a young woman seemingly with a Brazilian accent, who told me — when I quipped about the soccer game on sports bar TV — that she had an interesting, I thought, pair of occupations. The game that was on was kinda lame, as in typical futbal that is not Super Bowl caliber, she said, and her team plays better. She is its goal keeper, and I think that’s the right term. And she also was flexable, as a standup comedian. The obvious joke was that she could play her game during the day, then write a comedy routine, if she has game, to use before a different audience at night. (Insert joke about Brandy Chastaine taking a shirtless, I just hit paydirt with a goal, slide long before it was popular.)
She must have thought I have game, with my own comedic gag, as she literally gave me her birdie. A small pink ceramic one, and I could keep it from this young and attractive goal keeper. There is another obvious joke here, but you don’t always say what you think, or one thing leads to another, and you may end up getting a penalty kick in the pants: If you take someone’s birdie, do you in a figurative way, dare I say it, take their viginity? Sounds much the same, I thought, but did not go there, take the bait and say it, in a figurative way mind you. I’ll instead say, I was a bit relieved, at age 65, when she said goodbye and headed for the door.
But if a young goal keeper gives you her birdie, even if they fly away, does it mean that you as an older man have (finally) arrived? However, this story has another funny or funky end, like the soccer field netting on each side of a field. She gave another birdie to the bartender, a woman, as it seemed they were being handed away to nearly everyone. So hmm, dismissive of me? Or was she … The nice soccer player had told me on first glance that I should give that comely bartender all my money as a tip, say about $500, so then her birdie … Is such a bird worth $500? Yikes! That’s not in my budget. So onward …
We go to Dick’s Bar, where decades-long bartender Sarah immediately informed me, with a fist bump, about the harvest moon situation, which she has now seen at least a few times. I also was later informed that the full moon would only be present late, after midnight technically, on the 24-period we were now entering into. But also just missing the either solstice or equinox, I forget which, so it sticks.
I told the Norm-like friend at the bar, and a man behind it, beating my chest like Robin-red-breast and bragging just a bit, about my birdie experience. Neither was all that impressed. Being at a tavern for that long, you have seen it all. So Bye, Bye Birdie. The latter was also asked about the status of football, NFL with area teams or Brazilian far afield. He it seemed, was much more knowledgable than I.
This was the weekend of the biggest arts and music festival of the year, and the Sunday to end it was met with a pleasant but overcast day. At noon, the traffic on the end by the entry seemed a little slim, and it was worse on the sidewalks running up to the downtown.
Later, as told at Dick’s on a Monday morning gathering of business people, they had flown to Dallas for a game wearing Packer jerseys, on a plane, there were cheers. Got to a Cowboy-themed gift shop and bar, and all were cheering for The Pack. Then gradually, as the game changed, the tide turned, and the cheers were more Dallas-style.Then someone shouted loudly, and was joined by others: “The Packers suck. Fire LaFleur.” And so it went. Not as consistent as encountering not a goalie, but a Cowboys cheerleader. (I’ve run into three former ones while downtown in Hudson. So the area is ripe for that.)
Went there to Dick’s to say hello to bartender Victoria, of The Cities, who she said became sidetracked while looking out of place, imagine that, with a story about the tender at Sidetrack in Roberts, of all places. But there was here, a small but noticeable handwritten sign that said about the oldest brew in the home state of Wisconsin, Yuengling, in this the oldest bar therein, and maybe beyond, tan and black beer, offered for $2. While supplies last. Probably not long.
I was tired, on Saturday night, and did not go out but I could still hear them very late, finally whooping it up, from my window, as they must have had too many Yuenglings. It seemed that people who had gone out on Friday, rested up with a long nap on Saturday into the early evening. Waking up late, seemingly, they still made last call and had a ball around 2 a.m. But with a cost …
There was calm after the storm of partying and such. For most of the weekend, I was unusually slothlike and doggy and mostly just settled in at my apartment, and it seemed there was a harvest moon reason. Between googled information and my own thinking, it seems this became my version of what’s intuitively called nesting, or for birdies like chickens one might say roosting, as farmers in earlier times had used the light until a later time on that night — more of it available late-season because of the brighter lunar situation — to get last crops in. Then it was time to convalesce and rest, ponder the work well done and be thankful for the abundance of the grain now harvested. Our ancestors were in a mode where unless they were out hunting and gathering, they stayed in and within whatever enclave they had to be away from predators, and it seems this has stuck. Staying put and protected, like a caveman, thus away from the cave bear. So earlier, after sundown, that was the game. Women with a baby at their breast, so to speak, also would thus hunker down, unless they were doing brief stints of picking berries while carrying a child, while twilight still loomed. Men might be an exception, as their was an advantage to roaming, and they might encounter news herds to prey upon. But even that travel might likely be done at night. So our ancestors stayed out in the light and worked, and were well rewarded, then quickly settled in right at dusk.
So stay in the cave. Don’t go out chasing birdies.
(For more of the same, in merchandise, patronize local businesses profiled below.)