Hangin’ With the Bluehairs but Still Young Enough for a Flashback

I tagged along with my mother on the senior citizen bus that went from the Ventura Senior Center to the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night.

Times change. There was a period (also known as “most of my life”) when I wouldn’t have been caught dead riding with a busload of Bluehairs to a public event.

But as Howard the driver navigated our bus through the 6 o’clock traffic near the Vineyard offramp in Oxnard, my only thought was that I wouldn’t be caught dead driving my own car to L.A. on a Friday night.

Cliches change, too. Although I would describe myself as an apprentice Bluehair, there actually wasn’t a Bluehair on the bus. Most everyone was in shades of gray or Loving Care Medium Ash Blonde (my personal favorite).

These days, the Bluehairs are all in middle school, anyway.

One cliche is still valid, though: There were definitely lots of little old ladies in tennis shoes on that bus. We all had our laces tied, too.

Although I don’t yet qualify for the senior citizen discount at the early bird matinee, I’m edging close enough so that the occasional teenage ticket clerk will say diplomatically, “Uh, you’re not old enough yet for our, uh, senior citizen rate, are you?”

Which is why it felt so deeply gratifying to be one of the younger people on the senior bus Friday night. By the time we hit the Conejo Grade, my mother’s peers were calling me a cutup. I think, or maybe I fantasized, that one of them even said, “What will you young people think of next?”

It was a tonic, because a mere two hours earlier that same day, the assistant manager at Vons had a bit too respectfully told me, “Aisle three, ma’am,” when I inquired as to the whereabouts of the Doan’s Pills.

The show we were headed south to see was the Bowl orchestra performing Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway show tunes, especially tunes from “Oklahoma.” This was mom’s first visit to the Bowl. She had phoned all her sisters back in Missouri to tell them we were going.

It was a balmy July night. Our seats were fairly high up, but in the center, with a sweeping view down through the wooded glen to the Buck Rogers-era futuristic stage. The HOLLYWOOD sign was visible two canyons over. Before the overture began, distant sirens occasionally wailed, and the pulsing red lights of 747s coming in for landing at LAX streaked across the horizon. There were even Klieg lights high above, and the huge neon cross hovered over the canyon on the right.

As I sat there, trying with all my might not to sway or hum or even mouth the words to “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” I remembered the last time I’d spent an evening at the Hollywood Bowl, that time with my husband. It would take some digging back in the Bowl’s archives for the exact date, but my guess is it was a July night 30 years ago.

The Mamas & The Papas were the headliners. That night, too, I tried not to hum or mouth the words--then it was Mama Cass singing “California Dreamin’.”

The unusual aspect of that evening was that Jimi Hendrix actually opened for The Mamas & The Papas. And much stronger than my recollection of Mama Cass’ clear voice is what Jimi did at the end of his set: He bounced around that stage and slammed his guitar on the apron of the stage so many times that it turned into kindling.

I had never seen such a thing. I felt embarrassed for him, sure that The Mamas & The Papas would never let him open for them again. I thought I was witnessing a temper tantrum, not a seminal performance of the future of rock.

It’s possible that was the last time Jimi ever opened for anyone, and I doubt he played the Hollywood Bowl again--he wasn’t a Bowl kind of guy.

Now he is dead, and so is Mama Cass, and I don’t feel so good myself, just thinking about them. I can’t imagine either of them as the equivalent of a Bluehair, riding on the senior citizen bus to a concert.

Still, I guess they would rather have ridden along with us on Friday night than not ridden along at all. But I’m not sure.

I am sure that they would have worn the shoelaces on their tennis shoes untied.