The Hawk Road has to be the first to say they're a teenie-weenie disappointed in the overall verdict of the Arena Dance. To clarify, expectations of the night and the night itself were two very different things. Don't we like to see a good scrap or two, a time when a bunch of people get to feel good about breaking it up? Aren't the cops supposed to use these events, especially the Spring ones, to set the tone for dealing with the future months, filled with those hoodlums Old Man Winter concealed so well? Isn't someone's mom supposed to rip her shirt off Hulk Hogan style then wink at her son's best friend? The general concensus is that everyone had a good time but can remember little. Did the police predict this and stay home, knowing that Operation Sedative-In-The-Drinks would stand tall.

But everyone remembers something. There are memories that the whisky erased like chalk, some that are sub-consciously surpressed to avoid a mental melt-down, but there are also those that no amount of forgetting is going to let you forget. The Hawk Road was informed to the evenings' events on Sunday morning, that in reality was still night to most. Skeptical to believe anything outside of euphoric drunkeness occured, The Hawk Road learned of several surprising occurances that surely must point to a cultural shift. To be fair to the "in-confidence" policy The Hawk Road provides, no specific happenings will be cited or villans exposed. That honour belongs to The Clipboard. However, it must be said that some foreign big-toothed monster resides in our shadows and it naggingly draws young souls to cross paths with older ones. "When I was young..." will always be a cultural divide, but inflation does seem to exist in evolution. Silliness is becoming exponentially definable over time.

The old people are doing weird things, too. They're getting tattoos before the cake with 50 erect reapers light their heads on fire; as the old seek out the younger, more fast-paced generation, they seem to get even sillier than the punks who declare they're "all growed up". It's becoming harder to tell what age group defines the distinctions that someone at sometime told us we had to live by. The Hawk Road may be reading too much into it. The reality that every man concealed a pair of pale, swollen, freshly-thawed testicles under his jeans, and that every lady wore as little as needed to stave off hypothermia was enough to resurrect the makings of a high school dance. The rabbits paired off in true Spring fashion, some planned hours before, some sparked at the exit doors. Maybe equality is truly unbalanced, only it is the boobed gender who keeps the secret to a whisper until the very end, when male physical prowess and presence has lost its pull. Everyone gives in and forgets about the struggle to uphold an image; forgets to be grounded to the age group you are supposedly enlisted in; forgets to knock someone in the nose because the girl you were supposed to go home with went home with an even goofier guy.

And true to the ambiance of the evening, everyone had somewhere to go after the main event. The clown cars filled up, and no one was left stranded or walking in the general direction of their village. The Hawk Road can think of only one answer to this overwhelming civility and respect and comradery...

Everyone was too buzzed.

It's only early, and with this winter yawn over, things are surely going to get back to grass roots. The police are going to retract their report about the community they lovingly call Lennon-ville, and we'll be faced with the reality that while we all got along and discovered that Respect and Immersion can become the ingredients to Peace Pie, we're still one of nature's creatures. The first really dumb stance between two rediculous foes could be on us before you can say, "Mother's Day!".

The Hawk Road salutes the event organizers and staff. There was alcohol everywhere...on the soles of shoes, on the bathroom walls, on skin and hair and clothes...you kept your faith and didn't hold back, and 1100 people rewarded you with a successful fundraiser with very few rumours of toss-outs and mischief. The Hawk Road also salutes this sneek peek of fleshy, bra-less bliss that is the the Spring and Summer months; if promiscuity and passion can coax a group this size to wake up clear of knuckle-rash and clear of conscience, then this juror casts this glorious vote forth: "I find the attendants, the neighbours of The Hawk Road, guilty of being horny, and sentence them to a season of flirtation and friskiness. "

The lobsters are crawling, the days are longer, and just having proof that our friend, Cleavage, was there all along; that Cliff can drink water all night; and that we actually can lose control over our senses and not do stupid things...well, that's enough for this Arena Dancer.