Happy Columbus Day! Daddy's Corner...

 I guess you'll have to ask my editor - way way back in time - Charlotte must have been, what, Annie, 7 or 8?  We took her and some of her friends to "Frozen on Ice."  You've seen the ads for the tour since, like, forever.  Basically "Disney on Ice" but at the time, cashing in on the "Frozen" spectacle.  So let's say she was 7.  Annie, that work?  Yes, all of us piling in the car, excited, laughing, the girls all talking a mile a minute.  Find our seats, everyone is seated, a little popcorn, a little soda. . . and life is good.

 

Flash forward to October 13, 2024.

I escorted Charlotte and her friend into the city to see a band they liked, "Rex Orange County" (probably somewhere in the tomes of this blog, there's a report of Charlotte, me, and Marina seeing them like 18 months ago, and probably somewhere an entry about us waiting in line for 2 days just to meet him.  But I digress).  And I couldn't help but notice how, in those 7 or 8 years of attending a show with Charlotte, how much might change.  No piling into my car like in the old days.  No, we need to take the railroad and transfer to the subway. . . much cooler than piling out of dad's car. . . No talking a mile a minute like in the old days. . . instead both of them staring intently at their phones and occasionally looking up at each other and laughing.  No simple popcorn and soda . . . we've upgraded to sweatshirts and hoodies.

And the topper. . . no fighting over who gets to sit near mom and dad. . . in fact, dad, why don't you not attend this concert?

And there it is. . . so I escorted them to the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, then was told I could leave. . . Ouch. . . 

But on the bright side. . . I must have walked half of the Upper West Side and had a lovely tour of all the brownstones. . . stumbled across a folk band playing music in Central Park so sat and listened for a while. . . Found a delicious pizza spot that I just happened upon. . . 

And at the end of the night, when we all met back up on the street corner and got ourselves on subway back to Penn, and eventually on the railroad back to East Rockaway, they had those same exact smiles on their faces as they did at Disney on Ice so many years ago.