For a Minute We Got it Right at the Place Where We Hide

If you’re driving home from my daughters’ daycare you hit Linwood Park at St. Clair and Victoria after about two minutes of driving. I’ve loved this park since I was in high school. In high school it was the smoke cigarettes watch the sunset park. In college it was the bring girls, get freaky and still smoke cigarettes park. There’s a big field and some sports fields. We started going there with the kids, and my oldest started calling the park “The Place Where We Hide” because there is legit forest in the back of the park that I had never noticed in my cigarette smoking days. And because of where it sits in St. Paul it’s the best place to watch the sunset. My youngest daughter Sadie has learned to appreciate sunsets and Hanukkah all in the same two week period and it’s beautiful. Just yesterday on the ride to swim lessons everything lined up and I had one of those rare perfect moments in my life.
Climbing up St. Clair my daughter says “look at that daddy, that’s the most beautiful blue. Isn’t it the most beautiful blue daddy?”. She was right, the sky was beautiful, with those thick, paintbrush drawn lines of cloud that reach across the sky without taking up much of the real estate. We advance maybe fifty more yards and Sadie exclaims “and look at the orange, look at that orange, it’s amazing!” She was right, it was amazing, that type of orange that looks like it won’t be orange for long. Orange in nature is always temporary and at that moment it was glowing. I was listening to the Current and I had already been marveling at my co-worker Mary Lucia. She’s always a joy to listen to, but you get the feeling like somedays she’s DJing for you and only you. Everything she was playing was hitting me perfectly. At that moment this tune from Gang of Youths came on called “Tend The Garden”. I’m a sucker for a great first line that just arrives as if me and the singer were in the middle of a conversation. They open with this one: “I was young, it was the '60s, you see”. And it’s a one beat pickup plus one measure before the lyric comes in. The song is the least epic song by them that we’ve played on the Current and it’s easily the best. The song’s coming out of the speakers and me and my daughter are admiring the sunset, and for a solid three minutes I’m just smelling the roses cause this moment is perfect.
Ever since my brother got into music I wanted to be a part of the music thing. I’ve wanted it to a be career, to be the center of my life. That’s gone surprisingly well for me. I’ve gotten to play bass all over the country, record records at world class studios. And for me, I had an aspiration to be a part of the story of Minnesota music and I can comfortably say I’ve achieved that. It feels wonderful. But, finding a way to stay being a part of it, while raising a family, while making a living, it’s hard. I will announce the opening and closing of venues on the radio without an honest chance at spending an evening there. I have little children, my wife works full time, I own a trivia company. I want to be a part of the music thing and I know to do my job at the Current well I have to do that. But hearing Gang of Youths and remembering that I interviewed them at the Current reminded me I am a part of this music thing. The Midwest rep for the label was in the studio, he even took the time to call my boss and tell him he thought it was a great interview. So it helped me feel great that I have some tangential relationship to helping Gang of Youths be a part of the story here in Minnesota. They were great to interview, sweet, caring and obviously destined to make great waves. My dog Warren could’ve interviewed them and they’d still be opening for the Foo Fighters and making awesome songs called “Tend the Garden”. But I did the interview. And I’m a part of the music thing. And I’m a dad. And the sun is setting and my daughter knows the sunset looks special at the place where we hide. The song changes, the sun sets, we are five minutes late for the swim lesson, I have to shop for Thanksgiving, the butcher can’t get me beef ribs for Hanukkah cause they’re too busy with Thanksgiving, I’m afraid people will stop having children cause the world is melting and people are plowing through parades and murderers like Kyle Rittenhouse create danger and then “defend” themselves from it. But orange in nature is always temporary and at that moment it was glowing.