By SCOTT SAALMAN
Scaramouch
It wasn’t until I parked the car in our garage following last night’s soul-stirring Santana concert did I realize I had driven home barefoot, unwittingly leaving my favorite flip-flops at the venue.
No, I hadn’t been drinking.
I don’t drink at concerts.
- I can’t afford the $22 mixed drinks.
- In 1964, I was delivered eight months into my gestation period. Due to my preemie status, I’m convinced a few dots failed to connect in the kidney unit; hence, I am cursed with the 1:3 rule – three trips to the bathroom per each bottle of beer consumed. At that rate, I’d miss most of the act I had paid to see.
- I prefer to arrive home afterwards still wearing everything I chose to wear to the show. (Apparently, this bullet point no longer applies since even sobriety doesn’t guarantee returning home with shoes on.)
My favorite flip-flops and I have attended a lot of concerts together, great concerts, many at the very venue, Deer Creek, where I had apparently deserted them.
This morning, I announced that I was returning to Deer Creek before going to work.
“Just buy a new pair,” Brynne said.
“I’m not buying new flip-flops when I know exactly where I left the old flip-flops.”
Unable to sleep, I had retraced our steps from the emptying venue to our car. As usual, finding the car proved challenging. We could probably improve the post-concert car hunt process if we simply split up and searched in opposite directions … but then we might lose each other. How horrible it would be to return home after the show sans wife – losing my flip-flops was bad enough.
Once we found our car – I swear the parking lot people moved it to an entirely different section during the show – we decided to watch the lot empty a bit before battling for position. Waiting, I kicked off the flip-flops, sat side-saddle in the driver’s seat, rested my bare feet in the grass, and peeled an orange, watching the peelings fall to the grass between my flip-flops.
“I’m sure somebody already found your flip-flops,” Brynne reasoned. And again, she suggested, “Just buy new ones.”
“You would go back if you left your favorite shoes there.”
“I’m pretty certain I will never forget my shoes at a concert. Mainly because I keep them on my feet.”
“The venue is only five minutes away. What’s the harm in trying?”
I have always joked that the real reason I proposed marriage to Brynne was because she lived only five minutes from Ruoff Music Center, or as we (and almost everyone else in Indiana) continue to call it, Deer Creek, even though it hasn’t officially been Deer Creek since 2001.
The Deer Creek name has had amazing staying power. Even the Doobie Brothers’ Patrick Simmons referenced the name this summer during their 50th Anniversary show with Michael McDonald, saying something to the effect of, “Didn’t this used to be Deer Creek?” much to the audible approval of the Deer Creek diehards. The audience was as ecstatic as if “Black Water” had just been played.
Sometimes I see people at a Ruoff concert with an I STILL CALL IT DEER CREEK T-shirt. I wish I owned one. I’m unsure how the Ruoff people feel about the Deer Creek name still floating around. It has to be a bane of corporate branding. That I STILL CALL IT DEER CREEK T-shirts are allowed inside the venue tells me Ruoff must be pretty cool about it, though.
Here are reasons why I believe we cling to Deer Creek despite the venue having been renamed three times over:
- It’s a way to demonstrate affection for our fond live-music memories since the opening of the venue in 1989.
- It’s easy to remember. We of the Deer Creek Generation are fast approaching, have reached, or have surpassed middle-age, thus our memory tapes are thinning in the short-term recollection department while, weirdly, our long-term memories remain fairly secure. Shut up. There’s no way the venue was ever called Verizon Wireless Music Center.
- Seen any I STILL CALL IT KLIPSCH T-shirts lately? Enough said.
- Ruoff is difficult to say, without linguistic guidance. No matter how many times I try to say it, I put an “h” between the vowels: “Ruhoff.”
A time will come, I guess, when Deer Creek – the name – will disappear. The Deer Creek Generation is approaching an irreversible endangered phase (next stop, extinction – ALL ABOARD!). Think about it, when was the last time you heard a concert old timer shout out the annoying “Free Bird” request at non-Lynyrd Skynyrd shows? Those guys have already met their expiration date.
I assume younger generations currently refer to Ruoff as Ruoff, despite their parents or grandparents calling it Deer Creek. Decades from now, they might fondly refer to the venue as Ruoff and wear their I STILL CALL IT RUOFF T-shirts even though by then it might have undergone more name changes.
For now, though, it’s officially Ruoff, but I still call it Deer Creek.
By the way, I found my flip-flops in the grass between Sections 2 and 3. I knew they were mine because of the orange peels. Plus, they fit just right when I put them on. I hope to wear them to many more Deer Creek shows … but first things first … where the hell is my car?
Contact: scottsaalman@gmail.com. Order Scott’s books on Amazon. See Scott perform some of his funny stories at Hamilton County’s first-ever Will Read and Sing For Food benefit show at Schoolhouse 7 Café at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 11. Guest musician is Jason Wilber, who toured with John Prine for a quarter a century before Prine’s death due to COVID. Admission: $10 per person. All proceeds go to Humane Society of Hamilton County. Outdoor show. Bring lawn chairs.