50+ Lifestyles

Just Saying…

By Q.C. Jones

It’s Summer and We’ve Got a Lot of Catching Up to Do

Speaking purely from a calendar perspective, summer is an annual event. However, I feel the Pandemic poltergeists placed a powerful vex on my last two summers.  The Summer of 2020 resembled three months in solitary confinement. The sun was shiny, the weather was summer-like, but being a social person, I was distanced from everyone except my lovely bride and the few neighbors who drove by my front yard prison cell.

You remember 2020. No events, no parties, no picnics, and constant public service announcements on social distancing, and keeping your mask firmly attached.  The closest we had to any social reaction was yelling to the next-door neighbors from the other side of the driveway. My wife and I took to spending pleasant evenings on the front porch. A few neighbors drove by and rolled down their windows a socially respectful inch – just enough to ward off Covid germs – and held short conversations reminiscent of the scenes from some black and white prison movie.

As the summer rolled along, we even held a few “backyard zoom parties” with our similarly imprisoned friends. Armed with tablets, a group of friends would gather in their respective backyards and decks then dial-in for the typical kinds of summer conversations separated only by the world wide web and the tempered glass screen of their computer. We exchanged Covid recipes and special adult concoctions of the season. We all wondered if our alcohol consumption was going to somehow protect us from the lung damage of the virus and put a serious dent in our otherwise healthy livers.

The Summer of 2021 was better. A few events took place, but we carried some distant dread of contracting the virus. Remember the second, third, and maybe even fiftieth wave?  Music festivals, fairs, and other events started to come back from the dead but were still seen as potential super-duper spreader events.

I was fully vaccinated by summer, safe from the virus, but not safe from bicycle wrecks. I have been riding bikes since age five, and in my dare-devil childhood had some powerful crashes. Remember the time worn tale of little boys showing off on two wheels?  It goes something like this, “Look mom, no hands.” Followed by a crashing sound. I had my share of those. But never in my life did a crash result in anything worse than skin abrasions and iodine covered “road rash.”

Last summer, your pal QC Jones spent about a third of the summer nursing a broken clavicle (aka shoulder). This and a few other injuries came compliments of my bicycle wreck. While none of the injuries were life threatening, they did poke a major hole in my summer. But enough of this whining.

Let’s take a moment to conjure up, list out, and plan all the cool things we should be doing over the next three months. Quoting motivational guy extraordinaire, John Maxwell, “Without a plan, you’re going nowhere.”

This summer I plan on going lots of places. Here is my list:

Bass Street Landing Summer Concert Series.

These are free Thursday night concerts put on by the Moline Center near/off 17th Street and River Drive.  I specifically want to see Wicked Liz and the Belly Swirls on July 15th.

Celebration Belle. 

We live on one of the most picturesque bits of the Mississippi. Conversations with my European friends always includes a chat about the beauty of the Upper Mississippi. They always ask me if Americans take excursions on this famous river. This year I am going to do a dinner cruise.

Steam Wheelers and River Bandits Games. 

I love watching sports. I always talk about making a game. Stepping back, it has been three years since my last visit.  Next cheap beer night you might find QC Jones and company engaging in some sports fan action.

Mercado on Fifth in Moline.

This collection of vendors, food trucks, and entertainment has been going on for years and I am ashamed to say that I have never been. I am told the music is great, the food better, and that I might be able to practice my Spanish.

Stock car races.

The Quad-Cities has a couple of tracks.  When I was a teenager, I used to go as often as I could.  I always feel a rush of adrenaline when the cars thunder around the track.  Dangit, I am going to cross this one off my list soon.

Ride the Channel Cat. 

The Channel Cat water taxi connects the Quad-Cities via the river. Hopping on the boat in Lindsay Park is one of the best low-cost adventures on the planet. I have a grand-son who loved his inaugural ride something like four years ago and a cute little red-haired grand-daughter who has yet to make the trip.   Anchors away.

Just like Santa, I am making a list and checking it twice. QC is going to pack three years of living into this summer.  I hope you do as well.  Let the summering begin… Just saying.