CABBAGES & KINGS

Some people like to participate. Some people like to participate by watching and some by listening. Some people like to sit and relax. Last Saturday, down on the Esplanade, there was a time and a place for all three. The Band gave its first outdoor concert of the season.

The Hatch Memorial Shell is well situated for almost everything. Sitting back in a chair (rental ten cents), one can watch sailboats moving around in the water, sky-writing airplanes spelling out "New Blue Sunoco" in formation, little children crawling over their mothers and dropping pieces of their chocolate covered ice cream all over them, or one can just watch the cool breezes whipping the spring fashions into shape. One can feel the trickle of cool beer running down a parched throat, feel the warm rays of the sun hitting lightly protected flesh. One can hear G. Wallace Woodworth and the Glee Club and Malcolm Holmes and the Band.

John Phillip Sousa must have been born on a Saturday afternoon in the spring time, for his music never sounded better. When the Band played "that song about the monkey," the little boy in the second row squirmed off his mother's lap, picked up an abandoned umbrella and started to march. "I won't be a garbage collector after all," he said. An old man took off his black hat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief; his newspaper fell off the chair but he didn't notice.

G. Wallace Woodworth explained to the audience that it wasn't Ki-uga's waters but Kay-uga's waters, contrary to an announcement by the leader of the band. Malcolm Holmes said that it was Bali Hai, just like everybody pronounced it.

At ten minutes after five the concert was over 15 minutes later the chairs were all put away and the crowd had gone. The old man's newspaper, with something about Russia in the headline, was blowing toward the river.