Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

What a weekend! PorchFest, Mothers’s Day, Red Sox win, Bruins win! It was sure a busy couple of days and now it’s back to earth.

My two sons’ band and a pick up band with my friends and I played at the first PorchFest nine years ago in 2010. This year, more than 200 musical acts performed on porches and in driveways all over the city, on a weather perfect day. Too many to list but just about all and any performing musical configurations entertained thousands of people on Saturday.

Somerville has a history of turning out extremely talented people and Saturday reinforced that tradition in a big way. After taking the fam out for a pleasant Mother’s Day lunch at Assembly Row, I drove from Central St. at Highland Ave. to my home near Davis Square. It’s a ride I’ve done hundreds of times, but never like that. The usual 10-minute ride took me 40 minutes. All along the way I heard several musical acts on both sides of the street. I enjoyed it immensely. So much talent and so, so many people!

Most were drinking beverages out of open containers. Red Solo Cups were in abundance! But what impressed me the most was that everyone was enjoying themselves and acting civilly. Well, most were acting civilly.

I remember thinking back to when the cops would make us dump out our open containers of beer at the corner of Bay State and Kidder Aves or up at the top of Powder House Park where we hung around in our teens. Makes me think of that old cigarette commercial “you’ve come a long way baby!”

Even though I don’t drink anymore I was a little jealous. I turned into my father for a minute. “You kids have it easy today! For crying out loud, when I was a kid we couldn’t walk around with open cans of beer! We’d have to hide the booze under our coat or drink behind the school or down the tracks! Now you just walk around the streets in broad daylight drinking ya fancy shmancy craft beers and silly wine coolers!”

This year, I took the high road. Instead of staying home and guarding my yard against the revelers who turned the last few PorchFests into PeeFests, I planned on being away from my house to avoid any inebriated confrontations. Hey, you wanna pee in my yard and toss your empty tall Narragansett cans in my lilac bushes, God Bless! These days I have to choose my battles carefully. I wasn’t about to waste a gorgeous spring afternoon on Pee Patrol.

I always said that the city should have placed a significant amount of Porto Potty’s and extra trash receptacles around the Ville when they sponsor an activity like PorchFest. Actually, some host families did have some of the convenient outdoor lavs.

Back to the music. It’s nice to see all the talent our rapidly growing community is producing.

Back in the day, starting in the early 70’s we had a little thing called Somerfest. They’d block off the streets and bands and music and theatre groups would perform outdoors – for pay! But there was no public drinking allowed. My bands played in front of each members’ houses and we even played in front of my aunt’s and grandmother’s house.

Disgruntled neighbors took to social media to voice their gripes about the crowds and traffic jams that PorchFest created. I must be mellowing out in my old age because I only got slightly hot under the collar once. After my long ride home on Saturday, a group of young men ignored my friendly horn toot as they blocked my street 10 houses away from my house. When I stopped, and rolled down my window, a boisterous beer holding guy slurred, “What’s the problem man?” I took a deep breath, swallowed my pride, remembered the serenity prayer and uttered through my clenched teeth, “I’m just trying to get home … man!”

It’s a shame that the city can allow PorchFest, Open Studios, Honk Fest etc., yet cancelled this year’s Memorial Day parade. Well that’s enough griping, I promise next week I’ll get back to reminiscing and leave the politics to the “politicians.”