Last night I took  Dad to the Glenn Miller Orchestra on the prairie, leaving home at the last minute after waiting to hear if the steady rain would cancel the concert.  We took jackets and snacks and a flashlight, the equipment loading being a large part of the entertainment for the engineer. 

At Conner Prairie, we found a place in the grass near the stage, right behind the expensive seats at tables, and made camp.  We sat in folding chairs under Dad's huge umbrella, propped on my leg or on the chair.  The damp and the gripping cramped my neck, but the discomforts all faded into the glory of Dad's pleasure.

I watched him revel in the familiar music, Moonlight Serenade and Pennsylvania 6-5000, to which he cheered and joined the band's refrain of chanting.  He turned to me after each solo to say, "I could hear that!"  

We both took pleasure in the swirling couples dancing on the apron in front of the bandshell.  I followed one young man and his various partners all evening, mesmerized by the way that the music moved every part of his body, sliding and swinging in every fiber.  He embodied the music as his feet flew and his hands danced through the jitterbug motions. 

I lost myself in the pairs of dancers, each anticipating each other's moves as if to shout out the long years of dancing together.  Their celebration of  dancing that life without stepping on each other's feet filled me with the longing for a partner and the regret at the years of solitude.

Dad said once, "I can't dance anymore."  I asked him if he had danced like those swinging couples and he demured, saying that he had danced slow but never that jitterbug.  Couldn't move that fast.

I asked Dad where he learned all this familiar music.  Was it at high school dances?  On the radio?  On records?  How did he know which records he would like?  He said, "There were dances at Purdue.  In high school, they all just came over to the house to listen to music."  I think it was all his older sister Phyllis' friends that came to visit, the ones that he made corsages for. 

It was my mother's birthday.  At one point, Dad turned to me to say, "It's the 28th.  What does one do?"  I struggled with a lame suggestion of flowers on graves or in church, but I was thinking, "You're doing it."

Dad stood up immediately at the end of the first set when the band leader asked all veterans to rise for a tribute playing of the Navy Hymn. His compliance was surprising as he rarely accepts accolade or attention, and especially for his army air force service.  He was a conscientious objector until Pear Harbor, and after graduation, he enlisted so that he could choose a branch that would not require him to bear arms.  He looked around at all those who stood with him, and seemed to feel a part of the moment. He rarely feels a part of any group.  This was  magic.

  He cheered and clapped at each familiar tune.  The band leader asked if anyone was from Michigan, and Dad called out, "Kalamazoo!"  Sure enought, that was the next song. He grinned wide at the familiar strains of a soaring sax or a clean shrill clarinet, soloing right into the mic so he could hear. 

He asked me once if there were any middle aged couples dancing.  I think he meant of his age.  He considers hmiself at 87 to be middle aged. When an 86 year old friend of the band was recognized for his birthday, Dad looked on as if they were honoring some old guy. 

I feel his disconnect.  I periodically have to stand in front of a mirror and repeat to myself, "I am 57 years old."  My soul is not.  Only my body.  I get that from my Dad, maybe.

As the second set wound down, there was a commotion in the Sunday School Class group seated at the tables in front of us.  At the same time, a red light pulsed behind the stage.  Dad commented on the light and something about no lightning with the storm.  I told him I thought it looked like a police car light. 

It was an ambulance whose paramedics trucked behind us with a stretcher, started an IV, put on an oxygen mask, and wheeled away an elderly gentleman, followed by a gray wife leaning on the comfort of friends.  He was awake and talking to them, so I told myself that he had had a bad spell but was recovering.  We watched the ambulance scream up the road as we were leaving.

Dad did not see anything but the need to clear out the chairs to make a better path for the paramedics, the crew of bulky, muscled, iconically sturdy young men obviously needing Dad's help. 

As we left the concert, Dad commented wryly on his slow walk.  "I don't know why I'm so slow.  Women even pass me.  I used to walk faster." Dad covered my hand with his to hold the umbrella together with me.  He said, "I've never held hands with an umbrella."  He doesn't often express sentiment, certainly not gratitude or affection.  I felt loved in that silence. 

I saw my Dad walking away from the big band toward the far off parking lot, and felt my soul swell with song, with gladness and relief, that he was getting there on his own two feet without the scream of the sirens.

 We were good last night, In the Mood. I love you, Dad.