Rock On!

Last night we went to hear my cousin Marty's band, Rockville Station, play the hits of the 70s and 80s at a dive bar in Bethesda. They opened with "I Feel the Earth Move," an apt tune since I was sitting close enough to the stage that I could fill my insides move with each beat.

Once I'd adjusted to this strange phenomenon, I sat back and enjoyed the show. Here were people my age and older rocking the night away with a lead singer belting out the old tunes and, in a break, introducing her parents to the crowd. They were visiting from Hawaii and had to be in their 90s. The drummer, which turned out to be her husband, looked a little like the angel in "It's a Wonderful Life." His face had the same innocent rapture as Clarence's did when he showed George Bailey his vintage copy of Tom Sawyer. But unlike Clarence, he was so intense that he broke one of his drumsticks during a long riff.

Marty, who played guitar and sang, was one of the younger ones on the stage. Who knew he had these talents? He wore a white cowboy-style shirt and confessed before the show went on that he had once dreamed of being a country-western singer.

Here are people following their bliss. They have day jobs, of course, but they also have alternative lives where they can ... rock on.