Thomas Memorial library Foundation Logo

Supporting Thomas Memorial Library

What’s a Grandpa to do on a Summer Night in Cape?

and for generations to come

What’s a Grandpa to do on a Summer Night in Cape?

Six pm, think I’ll passon today’s perilous news.Too early for an ice cream.
How about some music
On TML’s lawn
Soothe the stresses
Open up the senses?


As the song goes,
“You gotta laugh a little
Cry a little, and Let the clouds
roll by a little”

It was easy to do on the green
With that crisp ocean breeze
Oldsters, youngsters
and those in-between
Moved a little closer to one another
Wrapped in blankets and quilts too


The Modernistics played some Masters,
Crosby, Ellington and Charles among them
Cool notes, hot playing, silky vocals kept
hands tapping and heads bopping.
Some whistling and tap dancing mixed in
widened eyes and broadened smiles.
Audience young and not so young were
transported to a place in time where
“You could wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream your troubles away”.

This Thursday in July
Started the same as many
Clear skies, beach gear
Errands to run
Yard tasks to finish
Same old, same old
But as the day morphed
to dusk and the concert began,
families traveled back
decades, generations
(Music is magical you know)

And rediscovered old memories
created some new ones
by sitting on a library’s lawn
in the center of Cape town.
As the sun set in the summer sky
notes and lyrics followed us home,
lingering through the night.

Joseph Capobianco is a retired Maine resident who loves to read, garden, and write poetry. He reads poetry at the Thomas Memorial Library.

Skip to content