A Hippy Party, in the Suburbs?

I’ve not posted anything in a long while. This is largely because I have not been traveling, per se, and I therefore have not thought that anything I have been doing was worthy of public commentary. Then a friend asked me if I would please send the pictures that I took of the women with the lighted Hoola Hoops. It was at that point that I remembered that perhaps some people would find a story about going to a party in an affluent and conservative suburb of Knoxville with a bunch of people hoola hooping could be mildly interesting to some people. I got a few cool pictures of women twirling stuff with lights.

After a while I got pretty good at a technique that involved using the flash combined with a long shutter (this one is 2 seconds).

Did I mention that there was a keg and a live band playing what they described as trance music? The music laid back, but apparently a bit louder than the neighbors might have liked. These neighbors must have been very concerned about interacting with those hosting the party because rather than saying “Hey! Could you crazy hippies turn down the racket?” they called the cops. That’s right, I may be 48, but I can still find my way to parties that have kegs and visits from the police. The hosting couple met the cops near the top of the driveway. It seemed apparent that the cops would rather not have to file a report. I would like to provide a full report on what the cops had to say, but they seemed fairly non-confrontational. I overheard one of them say “. . . I don’t have to live here,” which I took to mean something like “good fences make good neighbors.” The band shut down. The cops left, and we all went inside.

Here’s our hostess, the queen of the hoola hoop.

And here’s one last picture of the party. Just look at all of those red cups.

Apparently my life is not as boring as I thought. I have done a few other interesting things, a few of which may be worth a post.

If you’re interested in more photos of the lighted hoola hoops, you can see them on Picasa or Google+.