The second stop on our little tour was Sidetracks in Chesterton, Indiana, opening for our friends the Bunk.
I knew a youth leader who refered to the kids from Chesterton as "Cheesetownies". That sort of high picthed youth leader banter that keeps the smaller puppy kids who yelp all day yelping all the more.
For the record, I need to say in my teen years, I attended only one youth retreat in my life, through the Episcopal church Northern Indiana. I loved it. It was a life defining 2 1/2 days. I did not grow up in youth group culture.
When I was 14, we were still Catholic and our Parish tried to start a youth group. We only had one meeting, a party on Hollween. We ate snacks and watched "Psycho." The Alfred Hictchcock thriller. For days thereafter, I took short nervous showers.
A few years later, when I was 17 and we left the Catholic Chruch. Our famliy went to Christ Church Episcopal, a chruch plant, that eventually closed. But for a time, I would go to youth group there. It would be me, my sister Sarah, Carrie (the pastor's daughter) and sometimes a kid named Skarski. His first name esacpes me. The small numbers never stopped us from doing anything. The unspoken agreement was, "Well, its only us...and we know each other, but let's do the thing we came to do anyway." This, in retrospect, has helped prepare me for Indie rock shows.
NOTE: on the extremely thin chance someone from a Happening reads this, they will know I have very perfunctorilly described it and have done it no justice. Perhaps this is good, because it might perseve the sanctity of it, if I have not defamed it.
Through this group I learned of the Episcopal youth right of passage weekend called "Happening." For a weekend you remove yourself from culture and electronics. At the door we turned in our watches and walkmen (this was 1995, no one had cell phones) Over the course of it all, we were presented with activities, talks and such about key aspects of God's Unconditional Love and the Life He has for Us. We were in several in groups of 5.
We named our group "The Bob Ross Memorial Society." The public television oil painter had recently passed away. I'm not sure if many people outside of Indiana knew who he was. He urged his students to paint "happy little trees" he spoke in a very soothing tone of voice. He had a huge white guy 'fro and goatee. I used to watch him long before the weekend, but to find people who knew of Bob was very life affirming. There was a night trust walk, we burnt letters. We had a 'love feast' where you couldn't feed or drink yourself or ask to be, you had to do it for others.(and let it be done for you) We wrote letters to ourselvs that would be sent later in the year. We wrote confessions on paper and burned them in a bon fire. We were in a huge old mansion turned into retreat center. My bed was in a gable on the third floor up a creaky stair case. The second morning I woke up and liked it, away from home. I wished so hard that this was my real bed.
To top it off, it was the height of a glorious September Indian summer weekend.
The theme for the weekend was a Latin word, "Caritas" which translated is charity but more to the point "unconditional love." We were told we had to have unconditional love for one another just as God loves us unconditionally.
But then there was Charity, the girl. She was from Fort Wayne and to me was both the embodiment of that Creed and my ideal crush. After the weekend, we became pen pals. She told me if I wrote her, it would take her a while to write back. Within a week, however, I sent her one, she sent me one and I wrote back. We sent letters a couple times a month for like the better part of a year. I saw a few times at planning sessions for the next Happening. (which sadly did not take place in march of 96, but in sept and due to college I couldn't go) (ok, yes, I'll acknowledge that they took the name from the gathering of hippies to do acid in the 60s.) By the time I was in my first semester of college, also sadly, our letters petered out.
After our Sunday brunch, we had kind of an open mic time. They had a handful of karaoke tapes lying around. I remember this guy Jeff and this girl did a hilarious deadpan/ atonal version of "A Whole New World" from Aladin. I acted on an impulse. I dashed up the stairs and grabbed my copy of Steve Taylor's "Liver" from my camo backpack. I sang, with the tape, "Finish Line" for about 50 people, through a stereo. It was a rush, a huge rush. I felt so emotionally and spiritually high - so loved and welcomed and appreciated. I wanted to share my favorite song with them. I was greeted with cheers and people telling me I should be in a band. It was, technically, my first rock performance. (althought it would be a year before I play guitar and sing something I wrote, but that's ANOTHER story altogether.) Grandma and Grandpa Adamson gave me ride home. It was an hour away. I was so happy to see them at the closing Eucharist. I got a red cross on a red thread. I wore it a lot to school for the rest of the year. Now it hangs in my studio. I think I'll go dig up some of those letters now...
oh, I didn't say anything about the gig. The room was loud. I think we played well at the end of our set. Sparse attendance. First gig in my new boots. There was a cool mural of a train crashing through the wall behind Monroe's head. Laid back.