With a wave of a baton by LA Philharmonic conductor Thomas Wilkins, the Hollywood Bowl re-opened to a completely sold out crowd on July 4th weekend. The only real acknowledgement of what had kept us all apart since 2019 was in two words.
"Welcome Home."
For me, this was the last piece of my pandemic puzzle. The final connection to a normal world. It was remarkable how everything simply fell back into place with an Independence Day Hollywood Bowl. The patriotic offerings in the first half of the show. The usual salute to the Armed Forces. And the second half of the evening being supplied by a rock group from previous decades that would appeal to a 50-plus crowd and perhaps result in a torn meniscus or three. In this 2021 case, it was Kool and the Gang or whatever amounts to the V2.0 of that musical group. When they concluded with "Celebration," it suddenly, for me, was more than the 1986 victory song of the New York Mets.
And, of course, the usual fireworks.
It all seemed to be right where they left off. In 2019. Good friends enjoying each other's company. Great food. Dancing in the aisles.
I surveyed the crowd. Very few masks. Virtually no social distancing. Two rows away, I saw three people passing a bottle of wine between them. Obviously, folks in a respective bubble. Or not.
As I did with the almost sudden return to full capacity baseball at Dodger Stadium, I questioned what we had just gone through in 2020. Essentially house arrest. The Hollywood Bowl also returned to its jam-packed glory virtually over night. The parole board had met and let 15,000 people go free all at once.
Yep, I continue to say....Hmmmmmm.
Again, don't get me wrong. I know it was all legit. I have friends who were impacted in some fashion by the Chinese virus...yes, I said it. But the sudden return to normalcy still is startling to me. I truly wonder if the response we endured as a nation was overkill. I mean, in Los Angeles, we used to be daily sermonized by some glorified registered nurse named Barbara Ferrer who resembled Benjamin Franklin on a bad hair day. She was the epidemic's poster child of death. The stern third-grade teacher nobody wants. Listening to her, I was convinced we were all doomed.
Oddly enough, I saw this very woman several weeks later on my church grounds as some musical organization she is part of was meeting. You can't miss the look. Ben Franklin in drag. Well, there was this human sword of Damocles running around the facilities. Maskless. Gleefully hugging others.
Yep, she was suddenly back to normal, too. Like the rest of us.
I thought about that again as Kool and his current Gang sang "Hollywood Swinging." With people dancing shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip.
Hmmmm.
Dinner last night: Steak and salad.
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