Springtime, and you've only got to go to know | MARK HUGHES COBB

Inveterate jerk list No. 4,137:

1. Creator of near-invisible Xs on ever-playing videos that scroll down with you, to the end of time.

2. Unmufflered redneck monster truck drivers eating 10 minutes and several acres of lot to back into a space, but utilizing zero time to return shopping carts seven feet to a corral.

3. Little Bunny Foo Foo. Seriously, man. Stop with the bopping.

4. Event planners who don't check everyone else's calendar.

5. Complainers who whine about too many things to do.

OK, scratch 4, as there are only so many days and dates, and 5, as I'm not really troubled by a smorgasbord. A wee bit bothered so many options fall on the same times and days, sure, but that's a first-world, 21st century problem.

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Or at least the 21st century of the past, what, year and a half? After pandammit shutdowns, who's complaining about loads of stuff to see and do? Three years ago this month, we were finding out pretty much everything we enjoyed, indoors at least, was shuttered, or operating within extremely strict limitations. Even outdoor events faded away, including the entire Tuscaloosa Amphitheater spring-summer-fall season, the Druid City Arts Festival, the Kentuck Festival of the Arts, A-Day and others among them.

Why, talk was, things were so awful there might not even be football! Gridironmageddon.

For moons, Tuscaloosans labored under the delusion fall was our sole crazy-busy time. And, fair, we still do park roughly again as many tailgaters outside Bryant-Denny Stadium as in, seven weekends a year, to amass roughly double the Druid City's population (an estimated 101,129 in 2019).

If, for some bizarre reason, no one from within Tuscaloosa went to games, or the ring-around tailgating phenomenon, that would mean a visitor influx overnight tripling our numbers, filling up all these hotels that seem to have grown like weeds — but fancy weeds — from Saban-enriched soil.

And yes, an estimated $20 million or more boost per football weekend could eventually add up to real money.

Yet spring, though boasting no one event that draws anything like six-figure crowds or eight-figure millions of dollars, still ripples with life and livelihood. Folks looking to put on a shiny show, the better to raise spirits and funds, settle on idyllic weeks in Tuscaloosa that remain above freezing and below-beastly: Average temps of 67 high, 42 low in March; 75 and 48 in April; 82 and 57 in May. In coming weeks, look for The West Alabama Food and Wine Festival, Death by Chocolate, Five Horizons' Sunset Supper, blues and folk music festivals, commencement celebrations at the University of Alabama, Stillman College, Shelton State and the like.

This week alone, you can experience an original requiem debut by the Prentice Concert Chorale, celebrating 50 years; vaudeville-style comedy, jazz and tease acts from the Pink Box Burlesque; the sixth Tuscaloosa Heritage Festival, celebrating Japanese, German, African and Hispanic cultures; comedy, theater, Easter egg hunts and the two-day Druid City Arts Festival, with live music, kids' events, visual arts and more.

March three years ago, as Tuscaloosa scrambled to find a new, functional normal, local restaurateur Craig Williams noted how shutting down in spring would slam businesses. By his figuring, Jan. 15 to May 15 presents the most consistency. “There’s so much going on downtown; it’s one of the more profitable times of the year," he said. "Springtime we really depend on, to have some normalcy."

Football plays into year-round normalcy with the spring practice A-Day game and its fan-centered weekend. Last year's 31,077 seems light compared to 2007, when curiosity about new kid Nick Saban sent A-Day numbers to 92,138, nearly filling the 100,077-seat Bryant-Denny Stadium, 10th-largest such venue in the world.

Attendance stayed high through glory days with Mark Ingram, Greg McElroy, Trent Richardson and T.J. Yeldon, but novelty may have worn off — or fair-weather fans may have sailed — as numbers dipped into the 70,000-ish range, until 2020, when counters registered zero. 'Cause duh.

There may have been crowd-avoidance and distancing hesitation at work when A-Day returned in 2021, with just 47,218, and clearly, even fewer last year. This year's A-Day rolls up April 22.

Healthy as those events can be for the city's income, there's a different layer of love around events designed for Tuscaloosans as much as, or more than, for visitors.

It hasn't been long enough for complacency to set in, just two years since the most excitement in town could be found on the Riverwalk. The often-quiet, rarely-crowded stretch turned high-traffic wacky: Walkers in their pods practiced keep-away/respect the distance dance moves, trying vainly to introduce pooches to the state of stay-away/don't paw strangers. Relief came when studies showed dogs couldn't carry the coronavirus. Slobber contact enabled.

"Her Majesty" sounded bizarrely often, even for this longtime Beatles fan: At 23 seconds, it's perfect for hand-washing, long as you add a mental guitar thump-flourish at the end.

It was two years ago in March when I lined up with dozens of other carfuls into a pair of neat rows outside DCH. After a swift process, registered, marked and stuck in less than 20 minutes, there came a pause. We were handed timers — in plastic bags — to count down 15 minutes, to ensure no allergic reactions arose. The radio played a familiar lilting piano refrain as I saw golden-pink-orange dawn rays glint in my rear-view mirror, bathe down on the lot.

I breathed deeply, for what seemed the first time in a year, and wrote my first fan email, taken up by that simple moment, to Scott Shannon, avuncular long-time voice of the True Oldies Channel.

"Hey Scott: I've enjoyed your show for many years, but early this morning, while I was waiting in line to get my first Pfizer vaccine shot, Aretha's '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman' came on, and it felt like you and the queen of soul were helping the sun to rise. Thanks for what you do, for continuing to be an actual live voice, a human connection in an age of impersonal media, surfing the airwaves."

I mean, come on, I'd basically only been touched by dogs for what seemed like forever. So it's a bit goofy. Sue me if you didn't express similar heartfelt geekout to someone around or about March 2021.

It took a month or so before it really felt like the world was truly re-opening. I was planning a driving getaway with faraway pals who'd also vaccinated and boosted. Coffeeshops, diners and such eased back into gear.

In May 2021, DCAF returned with a bang, for two hot days I'm pretty sure nobody minded sweating. Smiles split faces like watermelon-slice cartoon mugs. Folks who'd been maybe-huggers came at you with bear-like ferocity, though a shade more gentility. Those two fine days in Government Plaza, the DCAF felt like many Kentuck Festivals past, where you seemed to bump into everybody you'd ever liked.

What does DCAF have that other arts festivals don't? Well not much, aside from a history of enthusiastic backer-creators, from its founding Creative Campus Initiative (an incubator at UA, sadly no longer around), who held a lightly-attended one-day event in 2010, centered on the old City Fest lot, and since then, a more conducive time and place.

(Insert "You know you're an old Tuscaloosan when you still call the Embassy Suites site the City Fest lot" joke here, along with "Yes, I know it's technically Jack Warner Parkway, but no, it's River Road" kicker.)

This weekend's 2023 DCAF is Friday and Saturday; it's free, it's family friendly, and it's smack in the center of downtown. Do folks actually go for the artists, or the musicians, for the kids' stuff or the food trucks? Maybe.

Or do they go because it's spring, it's gorgeous — when tornadoes aren't threatening — and pretty much everyone you want to know will be out there?

You've only got to go to know.

Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com, or call 205-722-0201.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Springtime, and you've only got to go to know| MARK HUGHES COBB