Nothing Beats a Spearhead Show

My friend Sandy took this picture of Michael Franti at last night's Spearhead concert.  I've been to many Spearhead shows, but last night was very special because we got to bring the kids and Dad.  It was the perfect opportunity; the show started at 6:00 PM, it was an outdoor venue and kids 12 and under were free!  We met up with a bunch of friends at the concert and had a blast.  Going to a Spearhead show is something akin to a religious experience.  Those of you who have been, know exactly what I mean.  Franti and the band have so much energy and talent and they sing about love and peace and all that good stuff.  Most people can't help but dance and smile and laugh and jump and, with the exception of one show I went to in Northampton, the crowd is usually really sweet and into the vibe and treating each other like sisters and brothers.  This was especially true last night.

The real highlight for me was bringing the kids (and even my dad, though I didn't put him on my shoulders) right up front.  I can't really remember the first time I got right up to the stage at a concert, but it's something I like to do at most shows I go to and it always thrills me.  (When I was pretty young, my folks brought me to see B.B. King.  I still have the guitar pick he handed me at the end of the show and clearly remember the excitement of receiving it.) I like to see the band play their instruments, watch their facial expressions and be deep in the stew of sweaty dancing hippies.  Last night, Harper was mostly content to stay at our staked out spot, which wasn't too far back, but not right up at the stage either.  She came up front for a little while, but found it too hot and crowded.  While we were up there, she said to me, "something smells awful" and I told her, "that's just marijuana, Honey." Anyway, she had a great time dancing in our spot a bit further back with some of our friends and her grandpa who also preferred the less crowded area.  And while she was watching the opening act (Vermont's own Bread and Puppet) she caught a glimpse of Michael Franti doing yoga back stage!

Our friends Michelle and Fritz came to the show with their daughters Lily and Hazel.  Lily is 8 and absolutely wanted to be up front, so with her parents' permission, she and I spent a bit of time right at the stage.  She was so cool, bravely navigating through the tightly packed crowd and staking out her spot at the stage.  She didn't want to leave that spot and jumped and danced like nobody's business!  I was so proud of her and felt very privileged to be with her for her first Spearhead experience.  On a second round of bringing kids right up to the stage, Patrick joined Lily and me and the two of them jumped and flailed around and were in absolute ecstasy.  Pat's fist was pumping in the air and he just looked SO psyched!  The other adults around us were very sweet about letting them squeeze in to get a perfect view and letting me stay close to guard them.  And Lily got to high five with Michael Franti!  I told the kids not to worry, that they'd be able to hear again in a day or so.

I was reminded last night how much I love dancing barefoot in a grassy field with a bunch of hippies.  Anthony Pollina, the Progressive candidate for Governor, was there and Neil and I were reminded of  those Vermont festivals we used to go to where you'd ALWAYS see Bernie Sanders.  Anyway, my hair was completely soaked with sweat, I kept wiping my face on my shirt, my feet were filthy and it felt like nirvana.  I couldn't stop dancing and jumping, even when I had a 50-60 pound kid on my shoulders or in my arms.  So my body is kind of tired today.  Ad to that this humidity, and my 13 mile run this morning was pretty brutal.  It was nice, however, to end it with a jump in the Passumpsic River at the bottom of my hill.  That was a pleasant shock to the system.

My final thought on last night's concert: I wish I had a picture of Henekis dancing up front.  She hung tough there most of the night, even as others of us came and went with and without little kids.  Part of the joy of the whole experience is dancing with the people you love and seeing the same happiness in their faces and bodies that you're feeling your self.  For me, that was epitomized by Henekis.  She's beautiful.

Netdahe and me

This is a picture of Netdahe, me and Henekis in the Freedom Old Home Day Parade in 1981.  I think that means Dahe was 4, I was 10 and Henekis was 1.  I've missed one, maybe 2 Old Home Day Parades in my life, when I was in Wyoming.  I don't think my cousins have missed any.  In the background, on the right side of the picture, you can see Champ.  He's wearing a yellow shirt.  I believe that's our gram on the other side of the road, in a white sweater with her back to us.  Isn't Henekis adorable?  She still is.

This is another shot of Netdahe and me in the parade.  Our Aunt Deb (who is married to Tommy and is therefore the daughter-in-law of Champ) is a real juggler and was really in to clowns back in the 80's, so she did our make up and taught us to juggle a little bit and we were clowns!  It was super fun.  Notice that Dahe is juggling one ball.  And look at his socks!

And here's Dahe and me when we were even littler, at camp.  I have a funny memory that sticks with me about Netdahe when we were kids. Somewhere between the years of this photo and the ones above, I had this stuffed Snoopy doll that I loved very much.  You could buy special outfits for it.  My daughter, Harper, has inherited Snoopy, but he only has his blue footie jammies; I don't know what happened to his other outfits, like the baseball suit.  Anyway, Dahe always wanted to play with my Snoopy, but I wasn't really interested in sharing him.  One day at Camp, I look out the window and see Dahe walking around the yard with a small suitcase.  Sticking out of the closed suitcase was a little Snoopy foot!  Busted!

And here is Dahe and me last month after running the Vermont City Marathon.  It was Dahe's first and my third.  We ran the first half together and then Netdahe cruised on ahead.  It was a lot of fun and neat to have my little cousin calling me periodically to ask me running and training questions.  If you know Dahe, you know that he has a lot of energy.  He's not going to run Montreal with me in September because he is building his house.  He's pretty much building it by himself and that won't allow much time for training runs.  I'm pretty sure he basically dug the foundation himself with a shovel.  That's the kind of guy Dahe is.  He's really cool and someone I admire and love to spend time with.  He swears a lot.  I figure having someone like Dahe around is good for my kids, who otherwise have a pretty sheltered life.  My cousins help them have what I call "edge".  

Here's something ironic about this picture:  The dog belongs to the people we home exchange with in Burlington.  His name is Champ!

There's an old family story about Netdahe and Henekis playing and realizing that their cousin Zoe didn't have any brothers or sisters.  They thought that was a real shame and decided they would be my brother and sister.  Isn't that sweet?  I still think of them that way and I'm grateful that they let me pretend they're my siblings.

"Down with Wayne!" --The Far Side

This is Wayne and little Henekis at Camp.  Must be more than 25 years ago as Henekis is now 28 (???really???is that right???).  Anyway, Henekis is Shani's older sister.  They were born on the same day, January 26, nine years apart.  Shani and Henekis are very close and laugh together in that way that makes you wonder what the heck they are laughing about, but also fills your heart with gladness.  

But back to the picture.  Wayne is married to my mom, Cindy, and is also basically my dad's best friend.  They (Dad and Wayne) drink wine together and talk way too loud.  It's hard to know how to describe Wayne (but notice his digital watch; very trendsetting, for the day), but I love this picture as a description because whenever Wayne acts like an idiot or says something stupid, my mom likes to say, as a joke and with a shrug of her shoulders, "He's nice to the children."  And ain't that the truth.  Wayne (aka Waynie-boy) and I have battled for my mom's affections and argued about everything under the sun for as long as I can remember.  But it's true that he's nice to the children.  He's always been nice to me.  Even when we've disagreed (that's an understatement!) I've always felt respected and never doubted his love or loyalty to me, my mom or anyone else in my family.  Even my dad!  Waynie-boy is a pretty great and generous guy, despite the fact that he's a pisces.  He's one of those people you just know you can turn to whenever you need to. I could go on about my third parent, but then this would turn into one of those blogs where the blogger does nothing but say how lucky s/he is and makes you want to vomit.  But I really do love Wayne.  And I can't imagine a better step-parent.

Now this baby in his arms, Henekis, well I have a thing or two to say about her, but that can wait for another time.

More about Champ

This is a letter my Champ sent to me when I was seven years old. You can actually read it if you click on it and make it bigger. It's pretty funny. I have some other letters I've saved from him, too. They crack me up. And they make me feel grateful for my status in the family as oldest grandchild (with apologies to my cousins). Champ died when I was 18, so I have lots of pretty clear memories and some nice letters.

And this is Shani about a year after our Champ died. I lived with Shani and his 3 older siblings (more about them later) from late August of 1989 until around 1993. Our mothers are sisters (Cindy and Sally), the first and second oldest children of Champ and Grammie Robin (more about her later, too.  For now I'll just mention that she is AMAZING and my hero). Sometimes I say that Shani was my first baby because I really enjoyed helping to take care of him when I lived there. I carried him around in a snuggli and fed him pickles and he was the apple of my eye. He's 19 now and has been living in NYC for a year. I'm just as impressed with him now as I was then, but isn't this the cutest darn picture?

And here is Shani at my Summer Solstice party on Saturday.  

Remembering Champ

This is my Champ at the house I grew up in, in Lexington, Massachusetts.  We had Christmas there one year. I don't really know what he's doing in this picture, but something about it and the way he looks reminds me of my Uncle Tommy.

I like this picture of Champ.  He usually had a cigarette going.  And a beer.

This is my gram and Champ. They were divorced at the time of this picture.  Seems like they were usually divorced, but also living together most of the time.  It was complicated.  Champ was complicated.  And not always as nice to my gram as he could have been.  But I won't get into that or people in my family will get upset.  Suffice it to say, they loved each other very much. 

But this blog isn't going to be about my Champ.  It's going to be about me and the other children, grandchildren and great grandchildren he sired and all the other people in my family.  It seems to me that a lot of our strengths and weaknesses, both as individuals and collectively, can be traced back to Champ.  And he was a genealogist! How about that?!

It's kind of like the toast my dad made at a family wedding many years ago (not the toast he made at my mom's wedding where he said, "take my wife...please", though that was clever, too).  He compared our family to the Holy Roman Empire and remarked that someone once said the HRE was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire.  Dad observed that in the Stoddard family, many folks aren't actually Stoddards and we're certainly not holy or an empire, but, "here we are."  The toast may have only been funny because it was back in the day and most of the people at the wedding were stoned (not me, I was a little kid).  But the truth about this group of people we call family is that only some of us are connected by blood.  We're a pretty eclectic conglomeration of folks connected mostly by something else.  Something hard to name, but very beautiful.  

This is me making a stupid face.