Honk!

I’m all about visuals, but during this Boston trip, sounds have led to adventure. So when Dave, Paul, and I heard the sonorous blatt of tuba and trombone as we headed home at the end of an evening playground romp, we changed course to investigate.

A jostling, foot-tapping, dancing crowd, drawn as we were, had gathered in yet another playground near Davis Square. Dave lifted Paul onto his shoulders and we inched in and angled for a better view.

The musicians were a motley group of older men with graying hair pulled back in ponytails.  Most wore black shirts, shorts and socks, and we bobbed and swayed along with them.  Heavy on horns and snare drums, they played a loose New Orleans jazz that flowed into a jerky Arabian accompaniment for the belly dancers.

Belly dancers!  My heavens! Three women in garish, burgundy harem garb tapped finger cymbals and gyrated gleefully in unison.  Ample, naked, midriff flesh rippled, as trained, while two apparent acolytes followed the lead of their seasoned mentor, a middle-aged gypsy with flowing raven tresses.  They spun and gestured, their penciled eyebrows arched, scarlet lips upturned in come-hither smiles.

 “Wow, Paul!  What do you think?” 

What was the child to think?  And could he hear me over the tinny din and eager applause of the crowd? From his perch on Dave’s shoulders, he watched intently, his face impassive, his gaze unwavering as the women wiggled and tapped their cymbals.  

    

The music wound down, and the dancers shimmied to the side. In a quick, smooth transition, the Dead Music Capital Band took their place.  Yes, their faces were painted skull white, and yes, fake blood dripped from a hatchet in one musician’s head, but their extensive horn section and bass drums produced a powerful, swelling, fill-your-chest-with-joy volume of sound.

 We’d grasped that Halloween in the offing would explain the blood and skeletal affectations, but still….”What’s this all about?” I asked a woman near me.

“It’s the Honk!” she said. 

Oh, that explains it….

“The parade is tomorrow!  Starts at noon from Davis Square!”

Well! As we wheeled Paul home to dinner and bed, he stretched out and relaxed in his stroller, satisfied by the evening’s entertainment. We still had no idea what was going on, but sure as hell, we would be at Davis at noon!

At 12:00 on the dot the next day, the three of us joined thousands of other enthusiasts on the sidewalk on Mass Ave.  Paul was back at his station on Dave’s shoulders, his expression still inscrutable, which seemed about right given last night’s introduction.

By now, Dave and I had Googled the Honk and learned this was the 12^th anniversary of the “Festival of Activist Street Bands.”  Last night, the message had not been the focus, but this morning, the full array of Boston’s diverse population and social consciousness was literally on parade.  Stilt-walkers, cyclists, floats, and bands marched or danced or wheeled on by, exuberantly proclaiming solidarity with groups and causes close to home (a faculty walk-out) and across the globe: climate change, clean energy, Black Lives Matter, LGBT rights, peace on Earth, Dreamers, and Freedom for Tibet.

Lady Liberty was well represented in green foam headdresses and large-scale statues, her promise of equality and welcome deeply meaningful for this city of immigrants, for this country of immigrants.  And my heart was lifted, in these troubling times of competing fears and worries, to see so many people out creatively declaring their commitment and concern.

While Paul remained transfixed more than overjoyed, we delighted in directing his attention to the startling mix of outrageous fantasy and the comfortably familiar portrayed in vibrant costumes, crepe, and papier mache.  “Look Sweetie!  What’s that?”

“Ephalent!” 

“Yes!  An elephant!”

 “And look! Butterflies!”

“Butta-fies!”

“Yay!  Whoa! Check it out, Paul!  A dragon!”

“Dragon!”

And so, in being with our grandson, led by our senses and open to opportunity, we happened upon the Honk with its belly dancers, bands, community … and dragons.

         

  

Summer Reflections Part I - Ripples

Sunlight glinted on choppy wavelets tinted neon blue through my sunglasses.  My fingers were curled tightly around a strap across my seat.  Soul light, I leaned close to Joanne as we zipped, jolting and smacking, across the water.  Over the buzz of the Jetski’s engine, I yelled, “Look at us!  You and me and our four fake boobs!”

With her long white hair twisted into a loose knot on her head, joy emanating from her face, she grinned back over her shoulder and called back, “Survivors!”

 

It had been years since Dave and I spent time with Charlie and Joanne.  We’d met in 1988 when our sons Tucker and Jake became friends.  Back then, Joanne wrote a column for the Greenwich Time and was re-decorating her house.  I was into quilting, crafts, and animal rights.  Our husbands loved playing guitars together, two aging hippies strumming Rolling Stones and Beatles songs.  Hm.  I say “aging,” yet we were still in our thirties.  Ah well. 

A lot has happened in the intervening years.

Dave and I moved to Easton.  Terrorism took out the Twin Towers.  Joanne got breast cancer.  Charlie had a heart attack.  Our kids grew up and moved on to their own lives.  I got breast cancer.  Joanne and Charlie moved to New Hampshire.  And finally, over the 4^th of July, we were able to accept their invitation to visit them in their now not-so-new home.

One afternoon during our stay, I sat on the dock with Jake.  His cousin Lauren was eager to rent a stand-up paddleboard.  “You better try it early on,” he said, “before the boats and Jetskis make it too rough.”

I scanned the crests and troughs of  water circled by pine-fringed shores and the mountains beyond.  A few boats dotted the lake, but surely not enough to stir the surface to this degree.  “But those boats are so far away…” I said.

“Yes.  But you know how it is when you drop a pebble in still water,” Jake said.  “The ripples just keep on going.”

Ripples.  I have always loved the possibilities, literal or not: a line in a book that resonates and leads to a new direction.  A random observation that sparks an idea and generates invention.  Small acts of kindness or valor that change lives or a world.  My friend Joanne, struck with cancer, coming through it, and helping me make it through my own…and now the two of us, jubilant together, sending ripples cascading in our Jetski’s wake.

On the morning of the 4^th of July parade, along with Charlie and Joanne, their kids, their kids’ spouses, their adorable granddaughter Abbey, and assorted siblings and cousins, we staked out spots with blankets and chairs under a spreading maple on the lawn of an antique colonial.  Nearby, an old retriever, the coppery fur of her muzzle gone to white, panted in the scant shade cast by her human companion’s beach chair.  

Vintage cars, fire engines, farmers on John Deere tractors, a troop of little girls in gauzy skirts and fairy wings, and, on roller skates, an aging majorette in spangled attire, glided past, some tossing candy to the small children who scampered to the road with hands outstretched.  

A skinny scrap of a guy in a straw boater and patriotic vest stood among his fellow WW II vets on a float draped in red, white and blue bunting, and lip-synced Jimmy Durante songs.  With the cock and shake of his head and a distinctive fake nose, he had Jimmy nailed. 

A convoy of vintage WW II vehicles rolled by followed by a float bearing the old men who’d once driven them.  I thought of Uncle Jack who, during his service in North Africa, drove an ambulance much like the one cruising past.  Dave’s father, Colombo, served in Italy in that war, and the third brother, Uncle Phil, was posted in the Pacific.  Miraculously, they all came home, but Cam, their sister, said of Jack, “He was too sensitive for war.  He never spoke about it when he returned, and he was never the same.”

“Always remember the soldiers,” Colombo once said to my daughter Casey.

With pride and a tug in my heart, I ran to the roadside to take pictures knowing the three brothers would have gotten a kick out of this day, and out of the role they played in giving us this opportunity to celebrate; extraordinary ripples from the sacrifices of brave old men - once brave young servicemen – waving as their floats drove by.