If You Keep Reliving Your Youth, Does That Make You Young?

Ummmm no. Let's just answer my own question right off the bat. I have been quite lucky to have some opportunities to relive my youth lately, but my back and my knees are telling me I can only do it sporadically and I have to be careful not to break a hip while pretending to be young.

A couple of weeks ago, I got to see one of my favorite bands, Ministry, performing an album from over 40 years ago. Last night I didn't go back quire as far in the DeLorean. I only went back to 1995, with a brief stop in 1992.

Last night I was able to see, The Poster Children, the most popular band from my stay at the University of Illinois way back in the early 90s. Several of my college friends joined me on this trip in the time machine. What really made me feel old is that one buddy brought his 20 year old daughter. She was the same age we were when we were in the mosh pit enjoying our real youth and listening to The Poster Children. While I was talking to her, I had to repeatedly stop myself from starting sentences with "back in my day...".

The show was fantastic! The band has always had an original sound that combined some grunge elements with punk and wit. My favorite song by them is 1992's "If You See Kay". OK. Read that title a few times... I'll wait. Get it? Pretty clever for 1992. Because they were always so raw, last night's show sounded like it could have recorded in the basement of a U of I bar back in 1995. It's hard to sound rusty when you never tried to sound polished. What was truly amazing is the energy they brought to the stage. The two leads of the band, Rose and Rick were a couple way back in 90s and they are still married today. Seeing a nearly 60 year old woman jamming on her bass while she bounced around and threw her signature long curly hair around was quite a site to see.

Although I loved the show and hanging out with my college friends, I think the real highlight came when I visited the merch table. Since I love the band's music and them on a personal level, I wanted to support them by buying something. As I was looking at which T-Shirt I should get, I noticed the persona selling the shirts was kid who was about 20 years old. I figured he had to be one of the band member's kid so I asked him if he were related to any of the bands. He said yes so I asked which one. "I'm Rose and Rick's son. My mom Rose was just here selling shirts, you just missed her."

This blew me away. I could not imagine getting to show my kids that I used to be cool (and I certainly wasn't as cool as The Poster Children". This kid got to see people screaming and yelling for his mom and dad. He got to see that they could still pack a room and rock it. Later on, when there was no line, I got to go back to talk to the kid. I wanted to make sure he knew just how cool his parents are. I shared a couple of stories of shows I had seen them perform. We talked about their music and their performances. But what I really wanted to tell him was how nice his parents were. They were a pretty big deal at U of I back in the 90s, but they never acted like it. They were always so cool to their fans and treated us more like friends that customers. His mom always walked up and down the line of people waiting to get into their shows. She chatted with everyone no matter how cold or rainy it was outside. And then she would go inside, strap on her bass and let it rip. His parents helped me and my friends create so many great memories and I wanted him to know that.

Did he think I was some drunk, babbling, crazy old man? Probably. But hopefully one day he remembers something that crazy old man said about his parents and he smiles.