People-Watching At Roots Fest

Last weekend I went to Paola, Kansas for Roots Fest, a little BBQ/music/town festival type of thing. It's right up my alley, between the food (BBQ, cheesesteaks, and chili cheese fritos as far as the eye can I see) music (mostly bluesy, jazzy, soul-y rock, although there was some country and this guy mixed in) and the fact that it takes place in a quaint little town square that's straight out of Back to the Future, sans clock tower.

It's tough to pay full attention to the music when you're constantly glancing out your periphs, waiting for Marty to come flying around the corner on a makeshift skateboard, or Biff Tannen to drive into the back of a manure truck. In related news, I know what I want my next birthday cake to look like. Look at that thing.



It's also prime people-watching time.

>> It's a pretty typical small-town Kansas scene (population 6,000ish), so there's plenty of interesting characters strolling around, but this guy took the cake: a guy in his mid-30's, walking with three small children (he was holding hands with one of them, so presumably they were his) with a shirt that said in huge letters ROB MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIE and on the back THAT'S RIGHT BITCH....YOU HEARD ME. I mean....c'mon guy.

>> New favorite porta potty game: while peeing, I like to start loudly singing a song, some sort of crowd-pleaser that is sure to get people to join in. Songs I tried on Saturday night: the Cheers theme song, 'Don't Stop Believin', and the chorus from 'Sweet Caroline'. Best-case scenario: the song spreads down the row both ways, and everyone enjoys a good sing-along while peeing. Worst-case scenario: it doesn't catch on at all, and as you exit the porta potty, you have to look around and loudly announce "Did anyone hear that guy singing in there? Who was that? What an asshole." Then quickly hustle out of the area.

>> I know that I'm not exactly a bastion of maturity (see preceding paragraph) but I couldn't believe some of these kids who were around 9-12 years old. For lack of a better word, they were just.....dipshits. Like literally running around in circles and scribbling in the dirt with sticks and stuff like that. Was I like that at that age? I hadn't started watching good movies yet, so I know I had no sense of humor, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't laying used popsicle sticks in the sand, then taking off my shoes and seeing how far back I could go before I couldn't jump over the popsicle sticks anymore. I guess there's no way to check. My family never had a camcorder when I was growing up, and thus no live-action memories of Brother and I as little kids, because we'd rather spend our disposable income on guns, and decoys, and copious amounts of ammunition, and camoflauge from head to toe. All that deer meat sure was tasty though.

>> Question for you guys: at what age is it appropriate for us to start calling out punkass kids? There was this one in particular, probably around 14 years old, with his knee-high black socks and sandals, some Little League baseball All-Star shirt on (with the word Buffalos spelled like this) and walking around like he was the fucking Prince of Paola. He walked by me at least 10 times over the course of the night, mean-mugging the shit out of me every time. I had the almost uncontrollable urge to pop out of my chair, rack him up against a tree, and tell him to cut the crap.

But I feel like I'm at an in-between age right now. At 28, I'm old and grumpy enough where I look at these kids with nothing but disgust at how they're carrying themselves...but still young enough where it's conceivable that we could actually fistfight over this (and I would almost certainly lose, since I've only thrown 3/4 of a real punch in my whole life, and this kid's 9th grade football practice that morning was more physical contact than I've had in the last couple months-- unless you count when the opposing first baseman wandered into the basepath as I was trying to stretch a blooper into a double and I plowed into him.)

So at what age are we allowed to start letting these kids know that they're assholes? Or maybe a better question would be: at what age do we command the respect of asshole kids? Is it anytime soon? Not until our 40's? I'm pretty sure when I was 13 years old, if some late-twenties-looking guy tried to curtail our shenanigans, we'd laugh in his face. However, I remember one incident when we were in 7th grade, throwing water balloons at cars and pedestrians, and we hit an older guy walking with his wife, who may or may not have been Central's hockey coach at the time (normally when I say 'may or may not' it's my smartass way of saying it definitely was, but I don't want to come right out and say it...but in this case, I really don't remember if it was him or not) and he came storming into Bergman's backyard, and we dropped our stash of balloons and ran like it was the T-Rex from Jurassic Park or something. We had a healthy level of respect for that dude, only because he was an older guy, and he could bring the thunder down on us, simply by being the age that he was.

(We still tell this story 'round the campfire late at night-- Bergman will never live it down. I was the first one to see a soaking wet, pissed off guy stomping around the corner of the house at us, and I took off sprinting. Everyone else but Bergman took my cue and immediately followed me to freedom; for whatever reason Bergman did not. Despite being the only one of us who didn't throw a water balloon, Bergman was the one who got racked up against the house and threatened. Justice is blind when it comes to water balloons.)

So anyway, at what age do we get to start pushing kids around with impunity? That's what I really want to know here.