Jason

There is this quintessential local kid. I don’t know maybe he exists everywhere but I haven’t traveled around enough to know for sure. This particular kid is in his twenties. He’s hippie-ish and possibly has ironic facial hair or eyewear. He’s earnest and hard working. He’s developing an app or playing in a band or starting some sort of green business that involves bicycles. And his name almost always starts with a J.

Bob and I call that kid Jason.

This isn’t a pejorative. It’s a shorthand joke between us.

We’ll say, “I went to the Apple store and got Jason to help me fix my iPod.”

Or, “I was at the coffee shop and guessed who waited on me? Jason.”

If the kid’s name really is Jason it makes it that much funnier.

Yesterday we spent the day at the Rivercity Bluegrass Festival.

For most of the afternoon we sat in the main ballroom. The audience in there was dominated by cotton tops.

After dinner (at Hooters. I can now say I’ve been to Hooters and had a girl in tiny orange shorts serve me a hamburger in a room with 11 giant TVs showing football) we went to the downstairs stage. The audience down there was more mixed but a lot more young people.

We saw the Infamous Stringdusters who were really good. Bob leaned over to look at the program in my lap. He said, “How many Jasons do they have?”

I’d already checked this out. I said: They have a Jesse, a Jeremy, a Travis and TWO Andys. Also, a Chris.

I highly recommend a day at a bluegrass festival. Even if you think you won’t like it. Nice crowd and great music. Way back when I first met Bob I mentioned to a friend that we’d been to a bluegrass how. “Bluegrass?” she said. “It must be love.”

Then she met a bluegrass man. The man is long gone but she’s probably at a bluegrass show right now.