Mother Nature was in an official mood this year, waiting until the first day of summer to give us traditional Central Valley summer weather. And a Thursday trip to the corner of Eaton Avenue and Holly Drive for the Music in the Park series seemed like the perfect way to thank her for the blowing Delta breeze and newly arrived balmy evenings.

So I packed my trusty laptop, grabbed a folding camping chair, picked up the greasiest fast-food burger I could find and headed to Lincoln Park as soon as work was over.

The Delta Wires were a few tracks into their blues set by the time I staked out a spot on the lawn, but that’s one of the great things about this event — there are no ushers to turn you away if you don’t make opening curtain.

I wasn’t the only one to make a fashionable entrance, but most folks had the good sense to enjoy the grooving jazz act from the top. The park was carpeted with blankets and chairs in a giant semicircle around the familiar mobile stage.

If you’ve never been to one of the free — another reason to love this event — summer concerts in Lincoln Park, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a bunch of half-comatose just-left-work commuters staring at a few strumming musicians.

Because, when I was there, the park was moving. It was alive. It was buzzing.

Giggling kids in tank tops and denim shorts darted between the aisles and piles of adults. Toe-tapping adults talked, laughed, ate and drank — with a surreptitious nip from a wine or beer bottle sprinkled in to keep it interesting. Young entrepreneurs hawked cinnamon-sugar treats that made me wish I hadn’t blown my cash on a McCholesterol Special. Ice cream vendors tried to tempt my sweet tooth. The odd football, soccer ball and baseball dribbled by. And dogs occasionally kept time with the music.

That, of course, was just in our stage-centric semicircle. The playground behind the stage teemed with children and parents blowing off summertime steam, and further out on the grassy fields, middle schoolers darted after a soccer ball in a game that looked pretty tempting — even for a guy who to them is an old geezer.

Not even the trees were unmoved, dancing to the Wires’ rhythm in a fresh, cool wind that seemed shot straight from San Francisco.

Taken together, it’s a heady vibe of good clean fun, summer nostalgia and community. Come to think of it, the scene I saw Thursday is something Norman Rockwell might have painted had he lived in a different era.

And no wonder. If there’s a better way than Music in the Park to spend a weeknight in Tracy without actually spending anything, I can’t think of it.

So hats off to the Tracy Arts Commission and city of Tracy for organizing a place for the community to come out and play. Lord knows, right now we need every excuse possible to throw a party — and until July 23, we’re promised one every Thursday.

If you want my advice, take advantage of it while it lasts. Get a few friends together, ditch the computer, bring a greasy burger and start Friday a little early.

At least you know the music will be good, which isn’t always the case with karaoke at the local dive bar.

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