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Kennewick, WA
By Milt Abel | June 29, 2010
| June 29, 2010Kennewick WA
Spent the weekend in Kennewick, Washington. I had Thursday, Friday and Saturday night shows in a converted rock ‘n roll club called Jack Didley’s located in the ‘Historic’ Downtown section of Kennewick. There isn’t much evident history in this part of town, there’s a handful buildings which are slightly older but nothing obvious to set them apart. Maybe the little signs demarcating the neighborhood are referring to the kind of history that ex-lovers talk about when they tell friends, ‘so-and-so and I have a history.’ Or maybe someone lost a set of keys and don’t want anything disturbed until they’re found. But as far as historic in the sense of significant buildings that depict an era…? Those must have been destroyed when Australia invaded us and razed most of the Pacific Northwest. That never happened, did it? Well, downtown Kennewick doesn’t have any history either, so there you go.
A unique road trip for me for a couple reasons. I don’t do night clubs much anymore, and I brought my 15 year-old son, Noah, along for the weekend. A rare overlap of both my wife and myself being away from home brought the necessity of bringing my son. My two daughters have shown the maturity, or at least played the part well enough, to allow my wife and I to leave them alone with the house and that responsibility. My son has not. Leaving my son with the only his sisters to answer to would be like leaving a lit lantern next to some dry hay in a windy barn -or some other colloquialism that infers it’d be a bad idea and would most likely lead to trouble. Maybe not, but why set the lantern down when you can take it with you to Kennewick.
My fifteen year-old son is a good kid, he just acts like not a good kid, sometimes. I don’t know what to expect from a 15 year-old boy when he’s out of school for the summer and most of his friends can drive -he entered the school system a year younger than most of his classmates. My wife and I describe him as a cross between a feral cat, because he only shows up to be fed or sleep, and a Russian politburo chief, because he can be surly and imperious even though we’re all supposed to be comrades at the house.
He was good company over the weekend, despite the fact that we could find nothing to do! There was some sort of car show that all the locals were talking about, but we have an annual car show that shows up fight down the block from our house for a couple days every summer, and we find it to be a yawner -though who can sleep when the owners of a blown 327 Chevy consider mufflers to be a nuisance, and happily crank up their monster noise-makers when another starts his. Can’t be outdone. It’s like barking dogs, all making noise and the reason for even starting long forgotten.
To make up for being bored out of our minds, and dragging him along -he would have much rather stayed home with his friends, I indulged him. If he wanted to run to the store and get a Gatorade, we went. If he wanted suntan oil, though the sun can burn you nicely without any help, we picked some up. By late Saturday afternoon I felt I couldn’t keep up the pace, and when he asked for some Jamba Juice I said, “son, life isn’t all running from one pleasure to another, there’s got to be some deprivation.” He said, “Dad, We’re in Kennewick.” “Good point”, I said. We couldn’t find a Jamba Juice.
So eager to get home and out of super-small hotel room with the faulty roll-away bed we took off right after the show Saturday night for the 3 and 1/2 hour drive back home. To drive at anytime after 10pm I need some assistance. My son talked me into getting those five-hour energy drinks you see at all the convenience stores and truck stops. Those things work. Not only was I able to drive until 2:30 in the morning, I stayed up and watched TV until 3:30 tehn got up at 7:30 and started doing yard work. Even in my sleep the dreams rushed.
Here’s a photo of Noah’s bed when it jack-knifed in the middle of the night and cause us to sleep in the same bed like two of the Three Stooges.
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