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 The Legion Hall (excerpt from Got To Make It!) Weeks after the band first played together we set up our amps as the people gabbed out there in the boomy Morton Grove Legion hall. The folks had each found a wooden bench to sit at for the weekly family-style fish fry. I always hated those family-style sitting arrangements. They were so cozy, they always seemed fake or forced. I remember standing up on this little stage with musty old velvet curtains and feeling nervous as shit. I thought for a second that this whole band thing was a big mistake, I was so nervous. I could feel my knees knock, like I was graduating from Park View-my grade school, across Harrer Park from the Legion Hall-all over again. What the hell was I doing up there in front of all these people? After all, we weren't the Beatles. The audience wasn't screaming at us. They were just chatting away out there, sort of an echoey hum, intermittantly clinking their glasses and chatting. Basically ignoring us. That is, except for the real little girls who were screaming-boy, I thought that was a big deal-not really. Then they would hush up and eat their fish sticks like they did every other Friday night. After a minute or so, in the middle of a fish stick, they'd leave their chairs and run up at the foot of the stage and scream some more. I bet they really couldn't care less, except they were competing with their little friends, seeing who could shreek the loudest. I was getting more nervous just standing up there waiting, even though we hadn't played a thing. And I kept feeling like I had to pee. |
