Youth @ MindSay

There was this lovely woman, kind, very kind in fact, who did anything and everything she could for those around her.  She cherished her friendships and relationships, taking great care to let those she knew in her life that she loved know that they were of extreme value to her.  She didn't have worldly wealth, but she always helped out, held doors, offered a helping hand wherever she could. She gave of herself, when she could, wherever she could. 

She did this with the most attention for her Mother, a wonderful woman who had become a widow 15 months earlier.  She did this out of love for her Mother, the woman who gave her life, her Mother, her confidante, her best friend, the one person who loved her unconditionally since birth, someone who never judged her even when she did things that were others thought were foolhardy or risky.  Her Mother who always took the time to talk to her, to listen to her cry, to just be there for her, day or night, no matter what.  This was reason enough.  However, she did this most especially because of the vow she made to him on his death bed.  "Take care of Momma for me" he struggled to get out in his raspy voice.  The voice had been ravaged by tubes and surgeries.  6 weeks of laying there having gone through every indignity possible, and he fought every one of them, all the while telling them he loved them.  Telling them how much he would miss them, how special they were. 

He Died, leaving a sadness within their hearts.  They all grieved and gradually all moved on.  She struggled as the go between with her siblings as they disagreed on any number of things that needed to be done, some regarding the worn down home they all grew up in, some regarding their Beloved Mother.  She listened as she was talked to like an old dried up spinster with no life who should get a life and not spend so much time with her Mother cringing inside realizing that they don't have a clue just how close she was to her Mother.  She felt sad thinking that he would not ever know how wonderful Mom was because he never took the time to ever really listen to her, or to get to know her as a person beyond the "Mother" that she was.  She was an incredible woman, funny, sweet, loving and kind this Mother of ours.  Strong beyond belief to have endured a lifetime of pain, with a faith in humanity and God that sustained her on her darkest days.  They didn't know her at all!  But I do!  And I won't give her up, not because of selfish reasons though.  Not because I feel like my life is somehow being cheated.  Not because I have no time for me (I have as much as I need/want).  Not because I need friends my own age as I have been told!  I won't give her up because of my love for her.  I won't give her up because of my respect for her thoughts, opinions and feelings, and most importantly...

 

I won't give her up because of that Promise! 

I will take care of her Dad!

I PROMISE!

I am frightened by the young, their lack of what I consider to be...basic education and the ignorance of their own history.  And I'm not talking about ancient history either.  Two cases in point.

 

1.  A young woman of 19 at work - doesn't know what 'Columbine' means to most of us.  Doesn't know what Oklahoma City was.  Thinks that a 'zinger' is a candy bar.  Is firmly convinced that New Mexico is not part of the United States.  And yes, this young woman has graduated from the local highschool.

 

2.  Another young woman at work of 25 who has 3 young children - brought me a handful of 'funny money' the other night, perturbed that a customer would leave her a 'fake' tip.  She didn't recognize them as US currency.  They were Kennedy half dollars.  She'd never seen one.  Didn't know who John F. Kennedy was.  I was happy to exchange them for paper dollars.  This young woman also graduated from highschool (tho not the local one) and is admittedly one sandwhich short of a picnic....but REALLY!

 

Neither of these young women have decent grammar....making such basic mistakes as not knowing the difference between 'you're' and 'your'.  Using the incorrect 'stare' for 'stair', 'there' for 'their'.   Perhaps its due to the fact that they both text constantly and proper vocabulary isn't necessary, I don't know. 

 

The breakdown of education frightens me.....I fear greatly for the young, fully cognizant that these will be the ones who are changing my bedpan and giving me my medication in the old folk's home.  I guess I will just have to text them....*sigh.

 

 

WARNING:
the following blog is likely to be long-winded, gushy, and in general, not very interesting.  There will be VERY LITTLE substance to it.  If this does not appeal to you, don't read it.  If you want to live vicariously through me ... I'm the least interesting person you could pick to do so, but go nuts.

So, this Friday, as I wrote about many posts ago, was Hoodwink.  The Hoodwink Festival is kind of an off-shoot of this 2-day concert called The Bamboozle; easily 100 bands sharing 4 or 5 stages in East Rutherford (Giant's Stadium) New Jersey, rockin' out and giving the kids a good time.  I was unable to go to the actual Bamboozle, because I would only be in NY for this one weekend and wanted to see many people  (plus, kind of expensive), but I decided to go with a friend to the Friday night event.  This is because when I saw it advertised in January, it said 'Badfish covering Sublime', and they're the most famous Sublime cover band out there.  The other selling point was 'New Found Glory covering Green Day'.  Um... can you scream amazing?  Green Day have been my favorite band since I was going into 4th grade, the summer of 1994.  I do not like this 'Know Your Enemy' song because it reminds me too much of American Idiot, which was too much of a departure from 'Green Day' for my liking, but I still cannot remove Green Day from the position of 'favorite band'.  I've seen them in concert thrice, and have cried thrice when they've left the stage because I didn't want the show to end (judge all you want).  New Found Glory in the last year/year and a half have moved VERY HIGH up on my 'music I like to listen to' list, so them covering my trio after the botch attempt to see them perform in September....yeah buddy, it was ON.

Friday morning when I awoke to leave for NY (oh sick days), I went online, and discovered it was NOT just those 2 illustrious bands playing at the show.  Here's a sample of some of what was promised to me via the internet:

• State Farm Stage:

• Push Play covering Muse
• Set Your Goals covering Dave Grohl
• Bayside covering NOFX
• Sum 41 covering Metallica
• Badfish featuring Todd Forman covering Sublime

• MLB Authentic Collection Stage:

• NeverShoutNever! covering The Beatles
• We the Kings covering Jimmy Eat World
• Boys Like Girls covering Coldplay
• New Found Glory covering Green Day

• The Break Stage:

• Inward Eye covering The Who
• Mercy Mercedes covering Midtown
• Forever the Sickest Kids covering Avril Lavigne
• The Ataris covering The Misfits
• Anti-Flag covering The Clash

• Passion Brand Clothing Stage:

• Dubious Pastry covering Radiohead
• Cartel covering New Found Glory
• The Cab covering Queen
• Danger Radio covering Britney Spears
• brokeNCYDE performing a "Crunk'd set"

Don't know who some of those bands are, but... pretty darn cool, eh?   So I get to Long Island, where I'm staying that night and where my concert buddy lives, and she goes, 'oh, I'm not able to go.  I don't feel well'.  I felt bad, because I was staying at her house and she's one of my best friends on the planet, but... this was 90% of why I came down.  So I decided I was going to go to the show, calling everyone I knew to see if they wanted/could be my date.  No dice.  Believe it or not, not many people were free to come out to a show in New Jersey at 5pm on a Friday afternoon THE Friday afternoon I was calling.  Hmm.  But I've gone to shows alone before, I figured I could do it again.

I get to Port Authority to take a bus, the same bus I've taken to many a show.  Except, I don't know where I used to get the tickets from.  On the escalator, I hear these 2 girls talking about 'missing the first set', and we start talking and they agree to be nice and let me chill with them until we get to the bus. HA HA HA, that bus doesn't run from Port Authority anymore; it now leaves from Penn Station (aka, where the Long Island Rail Road had dropped me off half an hour prior).  So we scoot back down there and meet up with one of the girls' friends, and eventually, get ourselves to NJ.  Show started at 5, and we got there just before 7 (in time for Jimmy Eat World's cover).

Show = amazing.  These girls are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NICE.  I figured they'd do their own thing at the show after we got in, but they were taking me by the hand and telling me stories and joking around and....aww.  I love concert friends.  They're definitely social places, so getting to be with people is a lot better than being alone at them.  Even if the girls you're with are slightly inhebriated and getting some strange looks.  I had the time of my life.  I saw:
--Jimmy Eat World cover band (good job)
--Queen cover band (eh...not so much; butchering, song-shortening, not Freddie's voice...)
--Avril Lavigne cover band (part of it; the girls I was with really wanted to dance to it.  wasn't awful, was...Avril Lavigne songs.  And they didn't even FINISH with an Avril song, like 'Boyfriend'; they were like "uh....we're gonna play a Sum41 song because Derryk is here and he's her husband" which is kinda a lame cop-out, but it was so fucking fun to rock out to "Fatlip" that I didn't give a damn.
-- Britney Spears cover band (the first 2 songs, mainly because they were near the porta-potties and we were DYING)
-- Metallica cover band (impressively good job.  ROUGH crowd, but also very enjoyable.  Maybe because Metallica is enjoyable?  Even though that was when it was POURING rain out, you couldn't have paid me to go inside)
-- Green Day cover band (see below)
-- Sublime cover band (totally worth the wait of not seeing them before Friday.  They were AMAZING)

When we walked in, I heard wafts of the 'Dave Grohl' cover, as they were playing 'Nevermind', and I was sad I missed the Beatles, the Who, and NFG's covers.  I was also pissed that NOFX, the Clash, and the Misfits were all being covered while I was across the lot at another stage, but overall, GREAT SHOW. 
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Obviously, though (if you read above the 'bands I saw' listing), the best part of my night was Green Day being covered by New Found Glory.  We started out near the middle-front of the crowd, but then we left.  I had no idea why we were leaving, but we did.  Had to call one of the girls we were with who had been separated.  She wanted to go check out another band.  I did not.  We agreed to try to meet up at the candy tent (did I not previously mention they were handing out free candy all night long!?!?!) after everything was over, and I nodded and DARTED back into the crowd.

My love for New Found Glory grew exponentially on Friday night.  They played GOOD Green Day; REAL Green Day.  I mean, obviously Basket Case and When I Come Around were floating in there (love those 2 songs) and they ended with just Jordan and Chad playing 'Good Riddance' (cliche, but enjoyable).  And they also played 'Long View' and 'Welcome to Paradise', which are good songs, and certainly popular songs (why they were played), but by no means anywhere NEAR 'the best songs Green Day has ever put out'.  Nope.

But then they played things like 'Jaded' and 'Geek Stink Breath'.  I swear to the Lord above, they played 'BRAT'.  Have you ever uttered the phrase, "OMG, I luuuuuuuuuuv Green Day"?  If you don't know the words to 'Brat', you should take those words back.  'Brat'; 'Burnout'....even the semi-popular 'Waiting', 'She', and 'Nice Guys Finish Last'.  Thankfully, 'American Idiot' didn't show up.  At least 3 of the songs were introduced as members of NFG's favorites:
'Armatage Shanks' (Chad)
'2,000 Light Years Away' (Steve)
'J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)' (Ian)

and my love for them ....wow.  They picked such great songs, and then did a stupendous job playing them for the crowd.  I tried to videotape the whole show, but I was singing and dancing and juping much to much for it to be anything but a blur and mumbles, but ... I could EASILY do that every night the rest of my life and not get sick of it.

L.O.V.E.

gotta make a plan
gotta do what's right
can't run around in circles if you wanna build a life
but I don't wanna make a plan for a day far away
while I'm young and while I'm able all I wanna do is ... <3

My day was good. In Math, we had a small test - not a pushover, finished it in less than 20 minutes. Then I read a few more pages of Hamlet.

In English, we went to an Easter assembly my school held. It was pretty good.

In History, we did some more research on prohibition in the 1900's - answered a few questions.

And in Computers, Becca, Sam, and I were competing to see who could finish wordsearches the quickest. I won one, out of like... Eight. xD Hilarious moments, though. :3

I went to Youth tonight. Saw Myles, and everything - and then my Youth Pastor, Ryan, chose ten people to reenact the Easter story (the crucifixion). I was Pilate, and people said I sounded REALLY mean. xD
Oh, and Anna, Myles' co-worker, mentor, and tutor is currently trying to cope through a recent divorce with her husband that had just became official this week. As she said it, I knew she was close to crying. She also has a very little girl, as well. Anna is such a warm-hearted, good person, even though we aren't that close. So, please, just keep her in your thoughts...

But, whoopie, I have four days off. I'm going to savour this time greatly. :33