A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 18

This is the 10th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story: Two elderly men went missing. They were found at the world’s biggest heavy metal festival.

Hordes of headbangers amassed in Germany for the world’s largest heavy metal festival — among them, two elderly men who apparently left their retirement home to rock out, police said.

Authorities said the pair went missing from their retirement home in Dithmarscher, a rural district in Schleswig-Holstein, and were found to have traveled about 25 miles to Wacken Open Air, a days-long festival not far from Hamburg.

Peter Berndt, a spokesman for the Itzehoe police department, said the two men were thought to have made their way to the festival by foot and public transport, though it is unclear when exactly they arrived in Wacken and how much time they spent at the festival.

Authorities told the Deutsche Welle that retirement home personnel had alerted police that the two men were missing.

The men — who were not identified by authorities — were located “disoriented and dazed” at the Wacken at 3 a.m. Saturday, police said.

“They were then taken to the medical tent on the festival site and were sent back by taxi at around 6:30 a.m.,” Berndt told The Washington Post on Monday. “We had to explain to them why they had to go home — but in the end, they went back voluntarily.”

This story brings up a variety of movie associations. There is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, specifically the sequence in which McMurphy breaks the guys out for a fishing expedition.

Or the 2007 movie The Bucket List: Two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.

Or the wonderful little 2014 road comedy Land Ho: A pair of former brothers-in-law embark on a road trip through Iceland.

Notice anything similar with these three stories? They star males. So my take: It’s a pair of females who break out of the old folks home and head off to Woodstock 2019. Turns out, they attended the original Woodstock in 1969. In fact, that’s where they met (let’s call them Pearl and May). They went their separate ways, got married, had children, became single (one through divorce, the other’s husband passed away), reunited several years back, ended up lovers, and got married.

Let’s add this wrinkle. Pearl is in advanced stages of Alzheimers. She is at her most cogent when she listens to music. This is an actual thing witness the documentary Alive Inside:

May gets it in her head the two of them are going to break out of the facility (Pearl is in a lock-down section for those with dementia) and they are going to make their way up to Woodstock to see the reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, their performance at the festival in 1969 Pearl’s favorite memory from that historic event.

It’s a road trip. The pair’s adult children, while well-intentioned, provide a threat as they pursue their parents once they discover what their plan is. And, of course, there is the music festival itself with two aged ex-hippies impressing the hipster crowd with their stories, dancing, and singing.

There you go: My eighteenth story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!

Here are links for all the previous posts in this year’s series:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17

Each day in April, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in RESPONSES to hear YOUR take on this story idea. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.