Friday, October 7, 2011

One rockin’ dad!

En route to the Mets meet in the van on Friday, sophomore Doug Ainscow was riding shotgun. Doug is a great kid, we love having him on the team -- but he is a very quiet, hard-working and unassuming young man who doesn’t say much.

A prerequisite of riding shotgun is keeping the old man in the driver’s seat (that would be me) engaged in conversation – or at least tolerating the habit of listening to sports talk or NPR. So it was nice that Doug initiated the conversation by asking me what I thought of the B-52s. I told him I was neutral on them – I liked their music but not enough to actually own any of it.

Then, Doug launched into a great story about the B-52s and his dad, Bill, who is a HUGE B-52s fan. As you will see.

Mr. Ainscow was up for Family Weekend last week. In a major coup, somehow Marist Student Activities got the B-52s to play a concert in the acoustically challenged (but spiffy and new) McCann Arena on Saturday night. Mr. Ainscow, being a big fan, already had tickets to see the band in New Hampshire, but he could not resist seeing them two nights in a row.

Here’s something else our fearless dad could not resist: After the rockin’ show in McCann, Mr. Ainscow snuck around back to the band’s tour bus. In his hand, he had a 1978 album cover – for those keeping score at home, “albums” were big pieces of vinyl that we used to listen to on antiquated equipment called “turntables” – that he was hoping to get all the band members to sign. Apparently, they were delighted at their old fan’s persistence and signed the album for a clearly delighted dad.

Memo to Mr. Ainscow: Nicely done! And, keep rockin’ on …

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