Last weekend my daughter and I attended the Carie Underwood concert at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra nestled in the Berkshires near the border of Massachusetts and New York. It was Carrie’s first time at Tanglewood. My daughter has been there a handful of times, the first being a day-long July 4th celebration in 2000 when she was six years old. As for me, as we wandered around the tranquil and picturesque grounds last Saturday and ate our brown bag dinners on a patch of lawn just outside the Koussevitsky Music Shed memories flooded back across 46 years to that very same patch of lawn and my first visit to Tanglewood in July 1980.
As I described in a previous post, that Barry Manilow concert at Tanglewood was the first “pre-date” with my wife – following her sophomore and my junior year in college. “What’s a pre-date?”, my daughter asked. Consider it like the pre-season NFL games that just ended – similar in many ways to a real game, but clearly different and it doesn’t count in the standings. After a second pre-date in Boston a week or so later, we began dating in mid-August and were married almost exactly four years later in September 1984.
Today, as we celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary, I find myself recalling our memorable visits to Tanglewood over the years.
The Music of Our Life
Our second trip to Tanglewood occurred seven years later in July 1987. The King’s Singers, an acapella group from England who were all the rage, were performing. It was our first summer back in Massachusetts after beginning our marriage in Minnesota. This outing was planned as a fun day with my sister and her husband visiting from Chicago – great music and a chance to share some memories and replace others from the 1985 Thanksgiving weekend they spent snowbound in our apartment in Minneapolis. (Fun fact: Two of my three Thanksgivings in Minneapolis featured a major snowstorm.)
As it turned out, they canceled their vacation, the first indication we had that their marriage was in trouble. Instead, we attended the concert with my parents. Front row seats in the Chamber Music Hall, close enough to smell the wine on the singers’ breath. A great time was had by all. The Tanglewood concert was the second of three memorable concert outings we shared with my parents. The first was a free1982 performance by Up With People and the Boston Pops at the Hatch Shell in Boston – a show where we followed my father to a spot up front in the reserved “alumni and family” section (just look like you belong as we walk by the state trooper). The second was a 2005 Holiday Pops concert at Symphony Hall in Boston featuring the Von Trapp Family grandchildren.
There were the weekend trips to Tanglewood for the live broadcasts of Garrison’s Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, and the time our “note” was read on air in the return from intermission. Keillor and APHC brought us back to our days in Minnesota, where the shopping malls closed at 5:00 on Saturday and a big night was parking near the end of the runway at MSP and watching/feeling the planes come and go.
There was Film Night with the Boston Pops featuring John Williams, a throwback to our first Pops concert when we were dating and John Williams was conductor of the Pops.
And, of course, there was James Taylor, as is nothing more iconic and says summer in New England than James Taylor, at Tanglewood, on the fourth of July. Well, nothing perhaps except the night JT welcomed Taylor Swift to Tanglewood as a guest artist.
But speaking of the fourth of July…
That’s Peter
In 2000 we made our to Tanglewood for a daylong family Fourth of July Celebration featuring a clown, acrobat, Hurdy Gurdy complete with monkey, face painting, and culminating with an evening concert by Peter, Paul, and Mary – favorites of mine since the 60s and our six-year-old was a big fan of Peter, Paul, and Mommy kids’ albums and specials.
Now, it was a long day, so we passed the time with a “Where’s Waldo?” type game of saying “That’s Peter” whenever an older, balding, gentleman would walk by – which was quite often. A good day was had by all. Fast forward, after the concert and fireworks, we inched our way through traffic back to our hotel in Pittsfield. As we sleepily made our way from the garage to the elevator, I looked over at the reception desk and said to my wife, “That’s Peter!” – and it was. Totally out of character for her, Lisa rushed/gushed over to him. A smile, a hug, and an autographed ticket were followed by a gracious Peter serenading our daughter with I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly as the elevator made its way to our room on the twelfth floor.
Becoming Peter
As we strolled around the grounds of Tanglewood on Saturday evening, it occurred to me that I am now older than Peter was that July 4th night in 2000.
A lot of time has passed. Painted wings and giant’s rings made way for other toys. Actually, as I gaze around the room here, there are still a lot of painted wings and giant’s rings…
But that Love Story that began in 1980 when we Made It Through The Rain to Tanglewood for our first Barry Manilow remains strong with chapters left to write.
Well then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life?
For if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?
Oh there is Love
There is Love
Embrace the Absurd 