In the 90’s I was a big country music fan. My love of this particular genre of music brought me to a vicarious situation in 1998.
My girlfriend at the time and I went to see Garth Brooks at Freedom Hall in Louisville, KY. We got the tickets extremely cheap ($36 each). They were almost the best seats in the house, 3rd row center. If it weren’t for the drunk girl in front of us who lost her bladder control and the crazy guy with his extremely large cowboy hat, I think it would have been an amazing concert.
But the story only begins here. While leaving the concert that night, I had a seizure while trying to merge into another lane of traffic to leave the parking lot. Most of what I remember after that is quite hazy to this day. I do remember several specific things though. I came to in an ambulance in the parking lot, after leaving an area hospital we arrived by cab back to my truck. I then had my unlicensed girlfriend drive us back home.
She didn’t know how to get back home, so I set her on a path and napped while I could. When we got onto Highway 37 I told her to, “stay on this highway.” Needless to say I woke up and saw Bedford Junior High School and she had a puzzled look on her face, not knowing where she was.
If you can imagine, this is the memory from just one night. Imagine the memories I have held within the 500+ 35mm negatives I just finished scanning for my mother. I recently asked her for the negatives and pictures from that night in question, as I have a blown up picture of the concert. It is damaged and I want to replace it, but with a good quality piece.
Instead of just giving me what I had asked for, she gave me everything she has. My mother hasn’t made the switch to a digital camera yet, she prefers a disposable 35mm for now.
To some people what I’ve done is just a waste of time, but to me I’ve just preserved the memories of an awkward time of my life. It covers a time span of about 3 years, 1994 – 1997.
Once I’m done cropping and restoring I’m going to burn these to a DVD for my mother to keep. I’ll keep what I want and upload them to flickr.
“If it weren’t for the drunk girl in front of us who lost her bladder control and the crazy guy with his extremely large cowboy hat, I think it would have been an amazing concert.”
That is one amazing sentence!