Party in a firehouse

It looked dark from the street, the firehouse on Chestnut Street. Surely we were in the wrong place, or in the right place at the wrong time, or -- heaven forbid -- just wrong. But shadows were moving in the driveway off to the side, and it turns out the entrance was around back.

Every firehouse in New Jersey seems to have a bar. News to me. This was a pretty big one, big enough for 50-60 comfortably, which was good, cuz that's how many there were. This being the great Garden State, half of them were kids, and they were swarming around the institutional folding tables and chairs. There was kids food (hooray!) and adult food (the usual suspects), juice boxes, beer, and, eventually, seltzer. And there was Liz from Branford, whom I hadn't seen in almost 20 years.

At some point in time, somebody put on Marvin Gaye, and a bunch of 7-10 year old girls were out there doing the bump, prancing around. It was beautiful. Adults were dancing too, but who cares, except when they were dancing with kids, and it was pretty sweet.

Ahh, the joys of density. I don't remember parties like this from growing up, when kid and adult life were so neatly intertwined. It felt downright, dare I say it, European, like one of those cinematic hoedowns at some imagined Irish community center where they all laugh and sing and a few people get tipsy and every giggles at them for being so silly.