Fast forward 20 years and my mom finds out he's doing a show not too far from each of us, and asks if we should go together (because it's not AS weird when a 24 year old man goes to a children's event with his 54 year old mom). Well, first off I got turned around. My GPS took me to a party store that was a couple buildings down from the church he was performing at. I found a Baptist temple, but that wasn't the Catholic Byzantine I had to find. Well after drying around a little, and my mom using her yellow Jeep as a flag, I found my way.
We go in, buy our tickets, and tell the ticket sellers how I grew up with The Donut Man. Partially out of excitement, and also to let them know why 2 adults are going to a children's concert without children. We sat in the back to not draw too much attention, again, because 2 adults without kids at a kids concert. We sat down, trying to remember some of the old songs, and hoping he sings some of those old songs. Getting hyped.
Then he came out on stage. He was still very energetic, still looking very similar to the VHS, and still able to do the songs with silly voices. He sang a bunch of new ones that we didn't know, but we still participated doing the call and repeat and hand motions. But then he sang some that we did. When he started talking about Joshua and Jericho, my mom got excited. She remembered this one, and we started singing along. Then he started talking about mustard seeds, and we both got excited. Then when he started talking about David, and how he got in trouble for praying, I got excited, because I really liked David in the Lion's Den song. And then he ended it with Run Peter Run, a song about "you will deny me 3 times before the rooster crows" Peter, a song we REALLY loved back in the day. Needless to say, we got into it, and had some trouble containing our excitement. There was also a thing where he asked the audience "do you help your mom and dad?" I raised my hand, and mom wasn't raising hers. I grabbed her elbow and said "you help your mom and dad" and she said "right, I help my mom and dad A LOT."
Then after the show, he did a meet and greet for the kids and families to meet the man on TV and get pictures. He was very friendly and personal, asking about people's family and talking about his. Really friendly. Then when we got up we told him about how we watched him 20 years ago on VHS and how we really liked hearing the old songs. Then he talked about how great it was singing the oldies and having people that remember them. I even got a picture with him.
Now as I was driving there, I saw a video store on the other side of the street. I thought "I should stop there on my way back." At first I thought it was a "purchase store," but no, it was a "rental store;" and not just any rental store, like an "old school blockbuster" kind of store. They had everything divided by genre, movies and TV shows for sale, games, an anime section, and an adults section behind a curtain. It was like walking into the past. Oh but there's more, they had CRT's hanging from the ceiling, and a VCR behind the counter, and the computers had gray CRT monitors. I didn't rent anything, but I bought some PS2 games they had for sale, for $2 each. I don't know if they were worth $2, but any extra I paid was the price of admission to experiencing this living fossil.
So that was my awesome experience. A real "blast from the past" kind of day. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
