TheBanyanTree: Concert at the Zoo

[Margaret R. Kramer]

There was a whiff of pot in the air and I looked around to see if I could
figure out who was smoking it.  How could anyone get away smoking pot if you
couldn’t even smoke cigarettes in this venue?  But I couldn’t find the pot
smoker.  I haven’t smoked pot in years, but that sweet aroma brought back
memories of other outdoor concerts where you could smoke cigarettes and pot
and no one cared.

Ray and I were seated in the amphitheater at the Minnesota Zoo nestled among
tall trees and overlooking a lake.  There was no sunset this night, because
the air was wringing out the humidity which had built up during the day.
Open umbrellas provided a canopy of color.

Pat Donahue was up first.  He’s a fantastic guitar player with a wide range
of picking from folk songs to blues to jazz to his own stuff.  His fingers
danced on the guitar while sweat streamed down from his head.  The light
rain stopped when he did and the umbrellas were closed and put away.

Ann Reed, a folk singer with a beautiful alto voice, was the headliner in
this very low key concert.  She talked and joked with the audience before
each song.  She was accompanied by a bass player and I loved watching the
eye communication between the two as they worked through their repertoire.

The gentle darkness of summer descended as Ann Reed was singing.  The air
didn’t feel quite as thick.  The trees on the other side of the lake became
tall shadows.  The audience edged closer together.

We were mostly a middle aged crowd.  Some of the women had big thighs and
big bellies and other women had maintained their youthful slenderness.  The
men had graying hair and were wearing bright colored tropical shirts and
long shorts.  But the men were few and far between.

This was a women’s crowd and a lesbian crowd.  Since I live a very sheltered
life, going to work at a conservative and boring insurance company, coming
home, playing with my grandsons, and working out at the gym, I don’t see
people who have different lifestyles very often.  I’m way too entrenched in
the suburban middle class way of living.

I didn’t even know what lesbians were until I was in college.  The it dawned
on me my two favorite high school English teachers were lesbian partners on
the sly.  Now my son tells me it’s common for high school girls to have
“lovers.”  Gosh, I barely knew what heterosexual sex was when I was in high
school!

I had a lesbian couple as roommates in college.  I went to a few lesbian
clubs.  I’ve known lesbians in the workplace.  Not a big deal.  But it seems
now every woman in the world is bisexual or had some kind of lesbian
relationship but me.  I’ve never even had a smidge of a relationship with a
female, not even a kiss.

I think about it sometimes, because maybe I’m missing something that’s
important.  But when I really think about having a sexual relationship with
a woman, I shudder inside.  It’s just not for me, I guess.  I must be at the
far end of the heterosexual continuum.

So I settled in comfortably with this predominantly female audience.  When
Ann Reed said something about being outside in the dark on a summer night
with a lot of people and that this was a “kum by ya” moment, I thought, yes,
that’s what it was.  I had a memory rush of summer campfires and roasting
marshmallows and singing songs and watching for the first star.

And I thought besides being the only female in the audience who hadn’t had a
sexual relationship with another female, I was probably the only one who
didn’t have a tattoo.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
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