Last weekend, I was sitting in the stands at Cabre Gym, gazing down on the Ken Rochlitz court and awaiting the tip-off of a basketball game.

I was meditating, but not about anything in particular, although I may have been wondering why every gym can’t have nice comfortable seats like those in Cabre Gym. Alternatively, I might have been wondering why I was sitting in one of those seats, since I don’t really care much for college basketball, and we have chairs at home that are much more comfortable than the one I was sitting in.

But this essay is not supposed to be about college basketball, nor did I plan to write about the seating in gymnasiums, so I should get back on message here.

Anyway, there I was, sitting in the stands, roaming the world in my mind when somebody passed me a note. I was surprised, because, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever passed me a note during a basketball game. In fact, I hardly ever have a note passed to me, no matter where I am.

The note suggested a topic I should use in this column. I often receive such suggestions, just not in notes. I consider those suggestions, but I don’t often use them. They may be perfectly good subjects for somebody else’s column, but don’t fit my vision for this column, the style in which I write or both.

The suggestion I received Saturday, though, was similar to one given to me a dozen years ago that I did use. In fact, the two suggestions are similar enough, that I can recycle the response I used then.

The first came from the mother of a basketball player at one of the smaller schools around here. She wanted me to write that the team should play nicer music than the loud rap recording they warmed up to before each game. This time, the request was for a column asking why they play such loud music during lulls in the action.

Well, I disappointed that first lady with the column I wrote, and this column will probably disappoint the lady who passed me the note last Saturday.

Now, I have to admit that I’m a sort of dinosaur when it comes to music, so the notes blasting through the gym were quite loud. Not only that, but the genre of whatever they were playing was one of those I don’t understand or appreciate. In fact, I find them annoying.

My age is no doubt the reason for my antipathy to the music, especially since it was being played during the pregame warm-up before a basketball game. You see, when I see guys warming up to play basketball, my mind flashes back to a Wyoming Cowboys game I attended with my dad in 1948 or 49. While the Pokes were shooting layups, the band was tootling away on the “National Emblem March.” Ever since then my ears believe the only appropriate thing to play in that environment is the “National Emblem March” or something like it. It sounds silly, but I sometimes space out the music that’s playing and listen to my inner stereo system play something by John Phillip Sousa.

But the young people who are playing the game weren’t around in 1948, and they may not recognize that march if they hear it. They have their own ideas about what music is appropriate when they are out there shooting jump shots before the game.

As for the volume, I can say it was too loud last Saturday, but if they had been playing a John Phillip Sousa March piece at that same volume, I might have found it perfectly acceptable. After all, a march is supposed to be loud, so the Marines on the other side of the parade ground can hear it and continue to march in the proper cadence. Besides, I’m not averse to cranking up the volume on music I like, especially if the selection that’s playing has soft passages. Why should kids be any different?

In short, whether any music is appropriate often boils down to what generation of listeners is hearing the music. That relativity applies to the volume, as well. To my mother, for example, Elvis Presley at any volume was too loud and too vulgar. To me, although I wasn’t a big Elvis fan, his recordings were what I expected music to sound like. That’s just the way things are when it comes to music across generations.

So how loud should the music be while we’re waiting for the game to start at Cabre Gym?

Well, the music I heard Saturday was impossibly loud, but it was the music of this generation of college students, and those same students were the ones playing the game. Granted, many of us in the stands were members of older generations who didn’t appreciate the volume, but if you think about it, we wouldn’t have been there if those young people hadn’t been playing the game.

The game belonged to those young people, so it’s appropriate to play their music, and to play it at the volume they prefer.

I’ll just have to crank up my inner stereo and space out the loud music with something I like.

Try that trick yourself.