A COOL APRIL NITE'S TALE

There is nothing like the fresh aroma of car exhaust and cigarette smoke to remind you that you are at Cool April Nites. A Redding tradition, I have been looking forward to it all year. And, as I suspected, I did not come home dissappointed.

Was it the cars, or the people from high school that I saw? No, I would definitely say the highlight of my evening was watching the interesting characters at the event.

As we were walking the half mile from Mistletoe to Churn Creek I found myself full of anticipation and excitement. Upon that walk I stumbled into several things. Ofcourse there was the old couple who put giant orange cones around their driveway so that no one would park there. Their driveway was facing the road and they were ENTIRELY too far to see anything, yet, curiously, they had their lawn chairs out and their sunscreen applied. I thought it was peculiar at first, until I realized that they had specifically sectioned off their driveway in order to people watch the hundreds of characters walking past their home (no doubt to immediatley go blog about it).

Then there were the millions of spring bugs that decided to grace us with their presence- what fabulous timing. And those brilliant vehicles that appearantly didn't read the 102 signs that said the road was closed and continued on obliviously.



But nothing was as entertaining as an Anderson resident by the name of Bill. Stumbling at an annoyingly slow pace in front of us, Bill was leisurely walking his GIANT, man-sized dog. Taking time to smell the flowers in people's gardens and looking inside parked car windows, he was clearly a little off. He happened to be walking with a posse of rather odd looking blokes. One of those blokes, a man wearing jean cut-offs and combat boots that had both seen better days, we will call "Ed". Ed stopped to let his Giant man-sized dog pee in someone's front lawn while Bill began to stumble onward. It was at this time that I began to really giggle. Bill started swerving right into the street. Ed called out, "Bill watch out, don't walk into the....." and while he said those words, Bill launched head-on into oncoming traffic. How he managed to not get hit, I still don't know. But Bill was still oblivious to the fact that he was even in the street (who knows maybe he was unsure if he was even in Redding.)



Onward and upward Bill and Ed continued being dragged by their Man-sized dogs. They finally found their "spots" in the street about 4.5 inches from where the cars were showcasing their gloriousness. The dogs peed, the men drank, and we stared. So there we were, our prim and proper little family sitting amongst Bill and Ed and all the pickup trucks with couches in the truck beds. And then just as we sat watching the scores of glistening cars filling the streets, and the cold beers being passed around, we heard a familiar song. "God Bless Texas" blasted in the tailgate party behind us complete with 40-year-old half naked women dancing to it.



It was as if Redding was saying, "Welcome home".



Cool April Nights, I missed you.