Each summer the town of Granville sponsors a set of Concerts on the Green, the "green" in this case being an area on the Denison campus adjacent to the music building, the art museum, and a smaller performance hall. Last Sunday evening twelve Kendal residents took the Kendal bus up to nearby Denison to be entertained by Teeny Turner and her blues band. Because it was a warm evening, we chose to set our folding chairs up in the shade of a stand of large trees. The boxed suppers that Kendal supplied were light and delicious – cubed ham, sliced pineapples, bean salad, a cookie, and cold water. The amplified music was a treat. And why not? Evening is a great time of day for listening to doleful love songs, as performed by a seasoned singer and a fine band. They were lively reminders of the great American blues tradition.
But the evening offered other pleasures too. Across the broad expanse of sun-splashed green separating the audience from the performers we could watch children play. Apparently oblivious to the music, they kicked soccer balls about, kept large plastic balls aloft, tossed frisbees at various targets, ran races, tussled on the grass, all the while laughing and shouting and doing what kids do. Nor were adults shy about participating. To one side a father helped a son learn how to throw and field a baseball. Off to the other side three young women swayed from side to side as they waved their arms to the hypnotic rhythm and patterned harmony of the music. Across the sprawling middle of the green a mother tugged kids about in an old-fashioned red wagon.
As you know, many of our visions of past days that were supposedly quieter are just concoctions of an unwarranted nostalgia for what we would regard as more communal times. And I will make no great claims for the deeper significance of our Concert on the Green. But for a few happy minutes it was possible to envision oneself in the world of Norman Rockwell. That's not a bad take-home result from an evening of music.
