Things have definitely moved on

"It was too baby-ish, Grandma," said grandson yesterday after the Fred Penner concert to which his other grannie and I had taken him at the Jack Singer Centre. 

Whoa!  The kid's five, OK almost six, but I thought he would get something out of it?  "Is it over?" he said after every number, fidgeting around and bumping up and down in his folding seat.  "Can we go to your house and watch a movie now, grandma?"  His three-year-old sister got more out of it, but not much.  "I have to go pee," she predictably announced after assuring me she didn't have to go before we took our seats.  Such are the joys of taking kids to concerts, where that genre of entertainment has obviously gone the way of the dodo bird.  . 

Granted, Penner is about a hundred years old and his nursery rhymes are obsolete, but I thought they would enjoy it.  (Just googled him and he is only 70, but looks much older thanks to the ugly, white beard he now sports.  Man, if I look that old, shoot me.)  The hand games and sing-alongs went over, but I think I was the only one in the audience who knew the words to "Ugly Duckling", one I learned in the fifties.  I grew up watching "Howdy Doody", but it was all so long ago when times were so much more innocent.  When I started singing along to 'Duckling', grandson looked at me in wonderment, as if I had lost my mind, or crawled out of some prehistoric cave.

The people who were really into it were the parents who had grown up to Penner in the eighties.  They were cheering and clapping and waving their arms with gay abandon, as they recalled their own pre-handheld-device childhoods, when Fred, Mister Rogers, Mr. Dress-up and The Friendly Giant reigned supreme.

The walk through downtown Calgary from the car to the venue and back was an eye-opener for me, as well as our sheltered grands, as we picked our way past desperate street people (sadly, mainly natives).  I pulled my sleeves down to try and hide my jewellery because I was at once fearful someone would rip the gold off my arm, and a bit ashamed of my well-to-do accoutrements in the face of such desperation. 

But the main point was an outing with The Two Grannies -- a first for us.  She is such a lovely, spirited woman, it's a treat for just the two of us to share a few laughs.  Here we are, post-concert.

(One of my dear mother's jackets, which I kept.  Still honour her by wearing some of her clothes.)