If I may continue the Queen theme from yesterday: Is it just the world I’m in, or can you mention a line from “Bohemian Rhapsody” in any crowd of people and start an instant sing-along?

And has this been the case since the song was released in 1975? I, of course, trace the habit to a somewhat more recent source: Wayne’s World. But then, that’s my era. Do not let us get started on the time I played Garth in a high-school skit. Ex-cellent!

Anyhow, this past summer I went to a minor-league baseball game in Vermont with a whole gaggle of family members. I’m going to say there were twenty of us, though it’s possible there were more. My parents, five of my siblings, and various partners and kids.

This is really, really minor league ball, in a lovable way, and the city provides old school buses to shuttle the crowds between the ballpark and a nearby hospital that provides free parking. So after the game — a loss? a win? I mostly remember trying to keep Jr from poking the young woman next to us — we collected ourselves, slowly, and went to wait in the dark outside the stadium. There was just that wonderful feeling of a late-August evening, tired Cracker Jack-stained kids, dirt underfoot and the promise of a sunny day tomorrow.

We were among the last group of stragglers waiting for the last bus of the night, and when at long last it appeared, I sang out quietly, “I see a little silhouette-o of a bus.” A couple of my family members chimed in: “Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?” Before you knew it, eight or ten or twelve of us were belting out the song, pure joy and madness rising into the night sky.

As the bus pulled up and our song wound down, I heard someone mutter, “Geeks.” I don’t know whether it was a family member or a stranger. Either way, I fielded the accusation happily. Ah, summer.

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