Diary of an Innkeeper

Sunday was my first real day off all summer. George did breakfast and I made the 3 1/2 hour trek down to my old hometown Nutley, NJ to meet up with my 3 best friends from high school - Cheryl, Debbie & Darlene. We are still friends after all these years. 34 years! How could it be that long. Are we even 34 years old?? I feel like I'm 18. Well mentally anyway. Sometimes my body feels like I'm 70. So, on a spontaneous whim we decide to go to The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ to see our old childhood crush, Peter Frampton. Could it get any better?? Best friends/Jersey Shore/Peter Frampton! Perfect!

We arrive and go to a boardwalk restaurant for dinner before the show. Beautiful weather, outdoor seating, so many laughs!! It was great seeing the girls and laughing about old times. We arrive at the show around 8:30. We manage to push our way to (almost) the front of the crowd. There's just a few heads in front of us. Annoying, bopping, swaying heads. I feel old going to the concert, but after a few glances we realize we are actually on the younger side of the spectrum of these concertgoers. Peter comes out and if you haven't seen a recent photo of him, he looks, well, a little different than you may remember. What would the opposite of "aging gracefully" be? Well, that is what he is.

He plays for about 45 minutes when he begins to get annoyed at a technical difficulty. Obviously and outwardly annoyed. Flapping his arms around, stopping the music, cursing, WTF, Peter! After one more song, he puts down his guitar storms off, and leaves the crowd wondering. Several take out their lighters. Is this the way an encore works these days?? Hmmm. Odd. Still not coming back. After about 10 minutes we see the roadies packing up. Is it over? No. He didn't say Goodbye/Goodnight/Thanks for coming! He'll be back! The crowd's getting angry. Maybe we should leave. Yeah, let's just go. We see his tour bus and decide we can't leave until we tell someone that we are upset. Cheryl asks some roadie guy "Where's Peter?" Like we are going to summon him over here and give him a talking to. He says he doesn't know, but we see a movie playing in the tour bus through the window. Hancock. Maybe he really needed to finish this movie. We tell the roadie man that we are upset and that Peter should have at least said Goodbye and Goodnight. He seems to agree. We're sure he will relay our message.

Oh well, who cares. By this time we are all tired anyway. Debbie and I agree that we didn't want to stand up anymore anyway. We're too old for this. It was our last Frampton hurrah. He is a crochety old man now. But an awesome excuse for four old friends to get together to reminisce. In another month we get the chance to be together again - our 30 year reunion. And another chance to be 18 again. For the 30th year in a row!