Where have all the young men gone ...?

To be out and about on a pleasant evening is a pleasure all by itself.  There was no way I was going to waste an unusually awesome spring evening.

I picked up the copy of the New Yorker, which I planned to read while sitting in the car and overlooking the cityscape.  Water bottle, cellphone, and wallet. The garage door was opening as I realized that I hadn't had dinner yet.

I drove up to the Taco Bell and waited behind a Pontiac Trans Am with its distinctive growl.  After I placed my order, the voice through the box said "2.97 at the window."

We have to wonder how healthy the food will be when I am able to buy three items off the menu for 99 cents each.  The Pink Lady apple that I picked up at the grocery store the other day was about 75 cents.  For one apple.  And here I am getting a dinner for $2.97?

I reached Skinner Butte.  It was a busy, happening place.  I wasn't the only one with the bright idea to enjoy the twilight from up there.  And was I happy to slide into a parking spot in between a monstrous pickup truck and a sedan.  Within a few minutes after, the place was packed with no parking space at all.

I finished the food with an enormous sense of guilt.  As if I were doing cocaine in a public park.

More and more people were streaming in.  Perhaps they had even hiked up the butte.  It seemed like the entire town was up there.

The strangest thing was this: there were very few men.  And, even among the few men that we were, it didn't seem like there were more than a couple of young men.

The overwhelming majority were young women.  Young women in groups of threes and fours and fives and sixes.  And they were all loud.  Loudly having fun. Yelling and screaming in delight.

The monstrous pickup had a sole occupant.  A non-white, like me.  Out of his vehicle came the sounds of country music.  But, that was drowned out by the loud pop music from the sedan, in which the three young women and the only guy were sitting and singing (in their atrocious voices) and waving their arms away to the beat of music that even I knew.

I stepped out to take in the air and the festive environment, and to admire the city lights against the slowly darkening sky.

Life is wonderful, indeed.  The wonders come in different colors, sounds, shapes.  That day, it was the gorgeous spring evening, spent on a butte overlooking the city, with a whole bunch of pumped-up people.

Very few men, however.  And that was strange.

When I was younger, back in India, very few young women were out in the public.  We young men had to compete against each other to get their attention. What a contrast to that was this experience.  Perhaps this particular evening was unusual.  But, given that this is a college town, and with colleges increasingly dominated by females, it is quite likely that it was not all that unusual.

As I walked around, I was impressed with the society in which I live where young women could feel so free. Atop one car were three young women chatting away.  Sitting on the top of a large SUV were a bunch of young women.  Another group of women at the observation deck taking turns posing for photos.  Against all the horror stories of women and girls being raped and beaten up when in the public space, to see young women having such fun was reassuring that the world is quite ok, really.

The breeze picked up and the flag fluttered.  The land of the free it certainly was that evening at Skinner Butte.