We were a bunch of drunk divorced dads hoping to reinvent ourselves. We were cops, managers, scientists, salesmen, computer geeks, and hopeless philanderers. We were the Chuck E. Cheese misfits trying always to exceed the two-beer limit at our kids’ birthday parties — shit pizza, the earsplitting screams of OPKs (Other Peoples Kids), and marathon skee ball competitions to see who could collect the most prize tickets for their urchins. It took us years to divest ourselves of the cheap plastic detritus those tickets bought.
We had found each other and we’d found music. We formed a band. Then we formed different bands. There’s a genealogical tree of the bands that each of us belonged to. We played in bars up and down from Cambridge, MA to Portland, ME, but mostly around the thirteen mile stretch that made up the New Hampshire seacoast. And it was glorious. My favorite gig was Market Square Day in Portsmouth where our kids could dance in the street in front of us. We had the Daniel Street venue, right outside the Daniel Street Bar — the then diviest joint in Portsmouth. Its denizens had been drunk since 9AM and stumbled out to greet us for our 11AM set. Our kind of people.
Things changed. Just about everyone got coupled up again — for better or worse — and along came a new brood of kids, new careers, and (for some of us) bigger bellies). Some are still playing music and some of us are literally watching the dust settle on the overpriced guitar(s) that we really never learned how to play that well. When I say “we” I mean me. Those that still play out are actually really effin’’ good. Originals or covers, they are fantastic fifty-somethings. Graying, balding, and still rocking.
Our first round of kids are adults now, some with families of their own. The second round (for those of us that went that route) are in, or approaching, the surly and stinky teenage years. For some of us, our per-capita divorce rate exceeds the national average. For some, it took a while to truly find the right fit.
What hasn’t changed is our collective love and affection for each other. This despite petty feuds, geographic distance, worldwide pandemics, and poorly chosen Yokoesque girlfriends. So we try to get together and catch up, and for most they converge on Brian and Karen’s house in Worcester, Vermont each year. There, they’re greeted by Vermont’s verdant hills, a picturesque swimming hole, Karen’s homegrown, farm raised food, and a persistent blue cloud of legal, equally homegrown, pot smoke.
Tim Deal 