One Lone Happy Memory

One Lone Happy Memory

For years, as a kid living close to downtown, I got to see something unique every summer: street dances. It was back in the days when most of the major stores were downtown, and one or two days a year in the summer they would block off several streets and sell the merchandise on the sidewalks (thus the term sidewalk sales) and in the middle of the street. One block was utilized just for a band to set up and play. It was always packed! My two older sisters would go and I would tag along (I think they probably hated having to take me, but they did anyway).

However, in 1967, something happened. I was 15 years old. One sister joined the Navy and left town. The other sister got married. I had no one to hang around with. I was living with my aunt and uncle and grandmother in south Lafayette at the time, and I was so bored.

I listened to the radio all day every day. I absolutely fell in love with a song called "Sunshine Games" by a group called the Music Explosion. The lead singer’s name was Jamie Lyons, and I was in love for the first time. Then I found out that they were going to be playing right here in my hometown. OMIGOD! And then my father did something so unexpected that it floored me — he bought me a ticket to the concert!

So off I went to my very first concert. I didn’t care that it was held in the park stadium. I didn’t care that my seat was so high up in the bleachers that I would have needed binoculars to see the group. I was breathing the same air Jamie Lyons was breathing.

My first concert was so wonderful and I got to see him in person. Later I remembered that Gene Pitney opened for The Music Explosion. I really didn’t care. I knew he was a good singer, but I wasn’t there to see him. My heart will always have a place for that song — "Sunshine Games" and the summer of 1967 and the unexpected thing my father did for me.