Chapter 4: Lynryd Skynyrd

Chapter 4: Lynyrd Skynyrd

After spending the time with Matt at the ZZ Top concert, I knew that our friendship had become legit. We had been close during high school, but after graduation we had pretty much gone our separate ways. At that time, I thought it was just a friendship that had pretty much come and gone like my others before. But after I had lost him and then called him out of the blue and everything pretty much went back to normal, it was impressive and real, our friendship had gone through the test of time. It was then that I knew we were true friends.

After we had spent time together at that concert, I knew that I had some concert tickets for an upcoming concert as well, Lynyrd Skynyrd. As Matt took me home after ZZ Top, I took this time to ask him to go to the next concert as well.

“I had a good time tonight.” Matt said.

“Don’t expect some sort of kiss man.” I said. “Not after you had that full mouth of puke an hour ago.”

Matt punched me in the arm. “No, I am serious. I really had a good time. I appreciate you thinking of me when you needed someone to go with you. I have missed spending time with you.”

I was touched by his comment. I had felt the same way, but really did not know how to put it into the words without sounding a little strange. I was really glad that Matt decided to say it first. I really did not want to sound awkward. I really did not think he sounded awkward though. I was impressed by how he handled it.

“I am just messing with you Matt. I really had a good time too. I’m really sorry that we have sort of lost touch with it other. I meant to stay in touch.”

“I understand. It gets tough keeping in touch when you have so much else going on. I mean we each have our own lives to worry about. Sometimes it is tough to stay in touch and find time to make time for others. Nothing wrong with that. Do not even feel worried about that,” Matt responded.

“It was just cool to hang out again after all this time. It was just like old times. I did not feel we had to play catch up, it just felt like old times again.” I said.

Matt nodded. “I agree. We need to go ahead and stay in touch. Do things more often. You don’t understand how much I needed this night. It really has made me feel focused.”

I took this time to take the opportunity. Matt had said that he wanted to spend more time together. I thought this was a perfect chance and opportunity. “Hey, I have tickets to another concert in a couple of weeks. Would you like to go?”

Matt’s eyes lit up. “Really? Who?”

“Lynyrd Skynyrd.” I responded.

“Heck ya!” Matt yelled as he slapped my back, but he slapped me really hard. I was almost taken aback by the strength behind the force.

“Well, I’ll call you then and we will set things up.”

“Sounds great,” Matt said. I turned to get out of the car and Matt grabbed my arm. He looked at me. “Jeremy. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.”

I tapped Matt on the arm. “I appreciate what you have done too.”

Weeks later, Matt and I were at it again, heading over to St. Louis for another concert. There was a change of location however as we were not returning to the Arena but now heading to Riverport Amphitheatre. The location was different, but the driver had not changed. Matt drove his truck again and we headed to our destination.

The excitement was there. We were excited to be heading to a different location and we were excited because it was just Matt and I. No tagalongs this time. Riverport was a different surrounding as well because it was outdoors. Our tickets were on the lawn, the open area of grass where people just sat and roamed freely. I had been to Riverport before on the grass, but that was for a Michael Bolton concert, and let me tell you, Michael Bolton is no Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I was anxious not only for the concert itself, but the whole atmosphere. I was also a little nervous about the crowd. Each concert had its own type of people involved. We had run into some crazy individuals before, but we had been isolated into individual arena type seating. Here, everyone in the lawn roamed freely as though they were cattle out in the untamed West. Also, Lynyrd Skynyrd just drew a different type of crowd. There was no telling what we were going to encounter, but I really was not that worried. I knew that Matt had my back and would never let anything happen to me. I was the same on his end even though I was not as big or as intimidating as he was.

When Matt and I parked in the parking lot and began to walk to the actual concert area, my anxiety grew. I had never seen so much leather in my entire life! People of all ages, sizes and races were walking in drones to the seating area of the concert. Almost ninety percent of those in the crowd were wearing some sort of leather type attire. Jackets, vests, chaps, hats, straps of all sizes were all throughout the crowd. This was a little unsettling, but I knew in the back of my mind that I should never judge a book by its cover.

My last family vacation came during the summer of my junior to senior year. We had headed out West and happened to stop through the area that had the largest Harley Davidson rally in the world, Sturgis. At the time, I knew little about such a rally, but all I knew was there were all sorts of Harley Davidsons and leather everywhere. My father at one time was a biker in a Harley gang when he was in high school, he felt right at home. My mother on the other hand, even though she dated my father during his Harley Davidson rebel years, was a little more uncomfortable. All of those around her reminded her of the evil hooligans that my father had once hung around and called his friends. My younger sister Angie and I were the only ones that decided to go on this family affair. My twin sister decided that she was too cool to go on a family vacation anymore. In my opinion, she never was really too cool at anything, but I loved her and still love her for who she is today.

Anyway, we went to all sorts of locations while we were trekking out West. The Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and even Deadwood were some of our historic stops. Everywhere we went there were bikers. Bikers galore! Both my dad and I were in heaven trying to take in every bit of scenery we could. My dad trying to capture some of the essence from his younger days and myself just wanting to be a part of something that cool. I felt as though I was a bit of a part of the group sporting my mullet of magnificence and acting like I was as tough as anyone else.

Well, I remember pulling into a hotel to stay the night. My dad had no reservations and had not realized that Sturgis was going on at the time. Finding a hotel in the area was pretty much going to be near impossible. But amazingly we did find one. The first hotel that we stopped at, dad went in to ask about available rooms and I tagged along with him. We were really trying to have some final father and son moments before I would go into my last year of high school. Dad was never that strong at such events, he really tried, but he just did not have that much of an approachable personality. After all, he was a cop and had a cop attitude and demeanor pretty much all the time. He was a bit intimidating as well and talked almost all of the time in his cop voice. The fact that he worked odd shifts did not help the development of our relationship either. He would work long days and then come home about the time us kids were thinking about sleeping or ourselves at work. Or he would work midnights and then come home to sleep most of the day away. So it was not easy to develop a relationship with him because of the fact he was gone quite a bit. But he was not gone out of choice. He was gone because he was working to support his wife and kids. I always and still do respect him for that dedication. He took a great deal of crap during his time as a police officer. It was not easy for him.

Anyway, we both went in together hanging out like the best of buds to check on available rooms. When dad approached the counter, no one was around so he had to ring a bell. He slapped down on the old style bell you would see in an old style café restaurant. A man moved from a back room and came to the front counter.

“Can I help you?” He asked.

Dad nodded. “I know this sounds like a stupid question and I pretty much know the answer before I even ask it, but do you have any rooms available?”

The man was trying his best not to break out in laughter. I could see my father’s face turning a bit shade of red. Again, taking one for the team, his family.

“Oh man, you must be from out of town.” The guy said shaking his head. “Did you happen to see those thousand or so motorcycles out there? Sturgis man. The biggest bike rally in the country. And you my friend have stumbled upon it. I have been booked solid since last year. Sorry, I do not have a thing left. And I am even sadder to say that you probably will not find anything within a fifty mile radius either. Were you planning on staying in the area any more?”

My dad nodded. He had planned on taking us to the Custer’s Last Stand battlefield the next day. Dad had always been a huge fan of the guy. The only thing I remembered about him was that he had made some huge mistake that not only killed him, but his men as well. Dad, however, thought the man was a military genius and had studied him for a long time. Seeing the place where this guy had lost his life in battle was one of the main reasons Dad had planned the trip. I could tell he was thinking about that when the man was talking to him. My father was growing more and more disappointed.

“Yeah. We were planning on it.”

The man then eyed my dad in a funny way. “You look really familiar.”

My dad nodded. “I hear that a great deal.” The truth was that he did hear that a lot. But mainly that was back home in the Southern Illinois area. Dad had appeared several times on television for the State Police and people would recognize him out in public. But we were out in Wyoming. It was pretty doubtful this guy had seen dad on the local Channel 3 news at ten.

“Where are you all from?”

“Near Mt. Vernon, Illinois. Just north of Carbondale.” No one ever knew where Mt. Vernon was unless you pointed out Carbondale or St. Louis in proportion to its location. Many people had been through there for gas and food unaware, but often they did not recall its geographic location.

The man looked at my dad is if he had just told him that dad thought the guy had two heads or something. “Did you say Mt. Vernon? Mt. Vernon, Illinois?”

My dad shook his head a little confused by where this all was going. “Yes.” He answered a little uneasy that he had found some sort of psycho freak in front of him that might kill him and then take his wife and children out into some desert region and then eat them. Okay, so I am taking this pretty far here, but I am keeping an eye on my word count and this excessive type of description is really helping me out right now.

“You did not happen to go to the high school there in town did you?”

“Yes.” My dad answered, again not sure if he was doing the right thing by revealing so much information to a complete stranger.

“What is your name?”

By now, dad realized it was not going to hurt anything by revealing his name to this crazy man. If he did prove to be crazy, my dad had one of his police issued guns in the red Ford Taurus out in the parking lot and he felt he could get to it in time if needed. “Charles Mays,” he answered bluntly. I thought I watched him glance at the door as he answered. Maybe he was checking and judging the distance to the door, then the car, then his gun. Maybe it was just my imagination. Yeah, it probably was just my imagination running wild.

“Charlie Mays!” The man said sticking out his hand. He proceeded to give my Dad his name as well, he ended up being some guy my dad went to high school with and they had not seen each other since they had graduated. I can not remember the guys name off the top of my head, but I do remember my dad recognizing him from then on. Luckily for us, luck was on our side and the guy, since he had a personal connection with my father’s past, always kept extra rooms available for such surprise occasions. He decided to go ahead and give us one of these rooms and for even half off what he was charging everyone else! My parents still to this day go and stay with this man when they travel out West. They are sort of cheapskates at heart.

So, I know you are wondering by now, just where in the heck are we going with this section of the story. How did we end up from a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert to a family vacation years earlier during the Sturgis rally? Well, here is the connection. That evening when we got settled into our hotel room, I decided to take a quick walk down to the corner of the hotel. I had seen a Mountain Dew soda machine down there and I was extremely thirsty. The only things my parents packed to drink were diet sodas and I really would rather drink my own urine than to voluntarily succumb to such torture of the taste buds.

I got my soda and was heading back to the hotel room when I noticed a group of bikers sitting in the parking lot of the hotel in lawn chairs and grilling some items on a small portable charcoal grill. My curiosity got the best of me and I walked over to strike up a casual conversation. These guys looked rough. Dirty men dressed all in leather, some studded. All had some sort of long type hair, piercings, and Harley memorabilia upon their persons. But as I talked with them, I found out that most of these individuals were just what they called weekend warriors. They were about as tough as my twin sister in reality. Most of them were doctors, lawyers, or held some other type of suit job. The leather clad outfits was an opportunity to step away from the common everyday norm they were a part of and live an alternative life style looking and feeling tough. I was feeling really at home with this group of people and they even offered to cook me an extra bratwurst when my mother’s voice came from the balcony above.

“Jeremy!” She yelled. “Get in here now!”

I told my new found friends goodbye and headed up stairs to the room. Once inside, my mother started ragging on me about hanging around with dangerous strangers. I did not have the heart to tell her that those dangerous strangers as she called them were really the pillars to modern society. I just let it go, chuckled, and went to lay on one of the beds with my Mountain Dew. Similar in case with the crowd at the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. They were clad in leather, but most were not really the part, they were just playing the part.

So there we were, ready to take in the experience that was Lynyrd Skynryd. Matt and I made our way through the sea of leather towards the area that was the lawn. Picture this, what appears to be an area set aside for nice good wholesome picnicking, but take away the family style environment and add a bunch of cowhide, long hair, women with long arm pit hair, and a bunch of cigarette smoke. That is basically the scene that Matt and I set our eyes upon. Again, we were a little worried at first, but pumped full of adrenaline we were ready to experience what the whole concert scene had to offer.

The first overall way to survive a concert at Riverport, especially in a lawn setting, you have to pick the right spot. If you do not take the time to pick the right seating arrangement, then you pay for it in the long run. Most people head out into the lawn seeking out the Holy Grail of concert lawn spots. What this usually consists of is an area of grass that no one is sitting at. Though this seems like a good idea especially coming from an individual who has never experienced that which the great lawn can hold, it is truly one of the greatest mistakes that a concert goer can make. Though you pick an area that no one else is sitting at, it is guaranteed that every spot of green is going to be filled up by the time the opening act is over and the headliner hits the stage. Unless of course you are there to see some boy band like New Kids on the Block or Backstreet Boys, then you pretty much are safe for the rest of the evening and it is guaranteed that the only conversations and company that you will experience will be the bugs and crickets living in the grass around you. As Led Zeppelin once stated, “Ramble On” and I know that I am pretty much doing that right now so I am going to try and get back on track right now.

Back to the seating situation in the lawn area of a concert. Though finding an empty location early seems like a positive thing to do, one must consider the element that is not under their control, the jerks that are bound to sit next to them. Trust me, as long as there is air to breathe and concerts to attend there are going to be the jack monkey fans out there that are the most annoying people on the planet. In order to avoid such a catastrophe from wrecking your evening of entertainment, it is a good thing to seek out a spot of grass that already houses some concert goers. You want to seek out individuals that seem fun, but at the same time do not seem like they are going to cause you to leave the concert halfway through and go play in traffic within the lanes of the nearby interstate. Trust me, it will eventually happen and sometimes there just is not anything you can do about it. But if you can take control of the situation, do so. Empower yourself in any event possible.

Matt and I were not experienced enough to know this at the time. Having only really gone to a few concerts we did not understand the etiquette and the rules of the lawn and its domain. I had been to a few concerts like I stated earlier in this document with my girlfriend, Bryan Adams and Michael Bolton. But my first concert ever was Metallica and that pretty much gave me the experience that I needed. Matt on the other hand had not been to a real concert before the ZZ Top one that I had taken him to prior, unless you want to take into consideration the Oak Ridge Boys, but I do not so I do not expect you to. Anyway, I was a little more experienced in the concept of concert survival, but I was taught in the way of the arena style concert, not the open air lawn concert. Though I had experienced the world of the lawn during a Michael Bolton concert, Bolton and Skynyrd are night and day. I had a feeling that this concert was not going to have all in attendance sitting down the entire time swaying back and forth and hugging one another. It just was not going to happen. But Matt and I sought out our precious spot of green and found it. The very top of the lawn, the very center. Perfect view of the stage, the big screen videos, and everyone in attendance. We were in for a surprise.

Sitting down, we took in the atmosphere again. Everyone was beginning to file in and find their seats. I do recall that Skynyrd did not have an opening act that evening. They were there flying solo and we knew we were in for a treat. Soon, the sun was going down and everyone in the audience started to chant for Skynyrd, including ourselves. Before we knew it, the lights were down and they were taking the stage. It was awesome!

As far as the concert itself, it was pretty uneventful, but do not get me wrong, the music and the stage show was fabulous. But nothing of real story wide significance will be included here. It really comes from things that occurred away from the stage itself.

It is the golden rule that one waits to go to the bathroom when the performers decide to play some new song from their new album. This night was also such a case. Lynyrd Skynryd had just released a new album and they were wanting to devote some playing time to expose everyone to some of their new tracks. When we heard the famous lines, “Okay everyone, we would like to take this time and play you something from our new album that hits stores in a few days. It’s called (fill in appropriate song title here). We hope you like it!” Then you see the nomadic trips to the bathroom as half of the stadium completely files out. The other half waits patiently until the first half returns and then they too take a pee break. It is tradition for an act to do this. It was also tradition for Matt and I to make a break for it with the first crowd, neither one of us really having the largest bladders in the world. Mine I think was smaller. My family always use to joke that my twin sister and I were born splitting a whole bladder because neither one of us were known to be able to hold our urine. Matt and I got so good at sensing the bathroom set that we could beat everyone to the bathrooms. This time, however, we did not have that experience under our belts so we had to become part of the cow herd making our way to the bathroom.

Now here is one of our experiences that is very important and informative for you readers out there. If you ever go to a concert or you are planning to attend a concert you will need to head this advice. So pay attention to the following details.

Riverport. Great place but awful bathrooms. The main problem, the have the Piss Fan. Okay I know that some of you are saying right now, “What in the heck is a Piss Fan?” Well I am going to tell you. Primarily this just hits you male readers out there. I really can not tell you if a Piss Fan occurs in the women’s restroom. I really have not been able to check that out for myself. From other reports from females however, the Piss Fan is only part of the male gender’s restroom.

Urinals are lined on both sides of the restroom, usually about ten or fifteen on each side. At the end of each ten or fifteen, there is a huge fan mounted on the ceiling. Now, this item is really there for the circulation of fresh air. I understand that it is important to have such a device, after all, some restrooms can stink pretty badly after a while. They put these there thinking they are really helping everyone out. What they are not thinking about however is what the breeze does to the restroom itself.

Okay, simple physics here. The fan is pointing down at the floor and at the urinals themselves. Men are peeing into the urinals with strong streams of urine. There is a little space between the men and the urinals themselves. The breeze is hitting not one, but all streams of urine as it blows throughout the restroom trying to circulate some fresh air. Do you picture what I am getting at here? If not, check this out.

The fan is blowing the man’s urine next to the fan on the man next to him and then a combination of both on the next man and then a combination of all three on the next and so on and so on. Pretty disgusting right? Well, the side thing is the first time I experienced the famous Piss Fan, I was about halfway down the chain of command and honestly thought the moisture that I was experiencing was water coming from the fan. I thought it was one of those silly cooling fans like you see at Six Flags that all the kids jump through and act like idiots. Yeah, it wasn’t. It was a breeze of warm pee! Needless to say, after I found out what this was, I realized that the only way you could escape its grasp was to get to that first urinal first. Or, you had to use the porta potty outside. Or you could use the stall. But even the stall was not guaranteed a safe spot.

Later on in the concert after Matt and I had disgustingly realized the origin of the water spray in the restroom, we decided to become stall guys. We went around the corner to the side area that housed the stalls. Again, they were pretty much set up as five on each side. If you got there early you were lucky to get one, but as the night went on there really was no telling what kind of shape the stall was going to be in or how smelly it would be.

Matt and I sought out a stall during one of the pee session sets and they were all full. Matt walked up to one and tugged on the door to see if it was locked. Now, I know I was raised with pretty much normal people, but I thought everyone knew that when they went to the restroom in a public place, they should lock the door before they decided to do their business. Well, Matt being raised pretty much in the same area figured on the same concept. He gave the door a slight tug to investigate if it was locked. If it was occupied, the door would not open and he would move to the next one. If it opened slightly, then no one was inside and it was free to the next participant. Well, Matt gave the stall before him a slight tug and the door flew right open. Squatting on the toilet in front of him with his pants down to his knees was some Harley Biker dude with a Santa Claus beard. Matt quickly shut the door.

“Sorry man,” he said, his face turning red. “Did not know you were in there.”

“It’s okay.” The voice came muffled through the stall door. “There is room in here for you if you want.”

Matt looked at me. I looked at him. Suddenly the Piss Fan did not seem that bad after all. We both ran to the other side as quickly as possible.

Besides the bathroom capers, one incident that stands out actually happened out on the confinements of the lawn. Remember, we had staked out what we thought was the perfect lawn spot. No one had picked it when we showed up and we were dead center where we could see all action on all fronts. Well, by the time the concert had started, we had some odd guests accompanying us. We also did not take into consideration the big tented area at the top of the hill. When we had sat down before the concert had begun, it was empty. We did not think anything of it. Now, the tent had transformed and had become one of the largest attractions of the evening besides the music going on on stage. A beer tent! My advice right now to all of you readers out there, if you can avoid sitting, standing, or whatever it is you do at a concert, near a beer tent do so.

That evening, I believe we encountered everyone within the lawn area at that beer tent. I have never seen so much alcohol consumed in one location in my entire life. I guess Matt and I would have actually thought we had discovered the Holy Grail of lawn seats if we had been drinkers, but like I stated earlier, neither one of us really drank so it pretty much was more of a nuisance rather than a plus.

However, the people watching was fabulous. Besides using the new song sections of a concert for bathroom breaks, one can pass the monotony of a new crappy song by people watching. It is amazing what people will do or say at a concert event. Especially if they are filled to the brim with liquid courage or other illegal substances. Well, it appeared that evening that every other spectator in the area was filled on such items except for maybe Matt and I. Matt and I did stupid and silly things on our own power and on our own grounds. These people however outranked us in the abilities and extremes they were going through. Matt and I for a moment began to fear for our safety. Then we heard it. A chant was coming from over by the corner of the fence.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Matt looked at me and gave me the “What the heck?” look. I gave him the “Should we check it out?” look. He replied with the “What the heck.”look and we departed.

As we approached the fence, we had no clue what to expect. The crowd had become to accumulate and people were chanting at a ferocious pace. “Go! Go! Go!” We proceeded with caution as the fence grew closer. We both nuzzled our way in trying to find an opening in the ocean of bodies before us. Finally succeeding in finding an opening, I grabbed Matt by the shirt and pulled him to the fence with me. That is when we saw him. The poor guy.

Before us stood a man, or what appeared to have been a man at one time before he had become addicted to some sort of substance that had ate away most of his body. He weighed about 50 pounds wet and his hair was stringy and hung down to his waist. He was clad in a leather vest on top of a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt that judging by the faded material and the fact it was as thin as a plastic sack from Wal-Mart, it had come from an original Skynyrd concert. The sad thing was the man was on the opposite side of the fence and he was making his way up the largest hill and incline I had ever seen in my life. Another sad thing is I think he actually thought he was on the right side of the fence, and everyone else was on the wrong side.

The whole thing was mystifying. I watched the man as he progressed up the hill, step by shaky step. Based on his steps, I could tell that he had succumb to some sort of alcohol or illegal substances before hand. There was no telling what this guy was actually seeing at the moment. All I knew was he was making his way up the side of the hill, reaching out for something. Then I saw where he was headed.

At the top of the hill right in front of the center of the chain link fence was a small sapling of a tree. My unnamed individual was reaching for this area, probably to sustain his journey and make sure that he did not tumble back down the hill. Suddenly I had ownership in this strange man and his quest. I wanted him to succeed. I needed him to succeed. I turned to Matt to say something, but I could tell he was caught up in the moment and the quest of the man as well. His eyes were upon the scraggly gentleman as well. Then I saw the words form on his lips as well as he resounded the chant that was filling the night air. Coming so loud and a part of the lifeforce of the crowd itself that it was actually beginning to drowned out the music and sounds emanating from the stage behind us. It seemed that everyone at the concert had begun to realize what was going on in our little area of the lawn seating. Everyone on the lawn that could make their way to the location of the man and his quest had moved to join in. We had all become one and were sending out our energy to help our fellow concert goer reach the young sapling.

“Go!” The crowed chanted.

“Go!” Matt added.

“Go!” I found myself screaming.

We all watched chanting as the man moved foot by foot, step by step. Suddenly I got the image of Frankenstein from the classic black and white films as he arose from the power of the lightning and began to walk stiffly for the first time. That was how this man was moving up the hill towards the tree. Both his arms were fully extended reaching out for the sapling. Closer and closer and grew to the destination. Ten feet. Five feet. Two feet.

“You can do it!” Someone screamed from the crowd behind us and we all cheered. Everyone, though now looking back it was pretty odd and stupid, was caught up in the moment and excitement. Go. Go. Go.

The man was in grasping distance. He reached out with his left hand for the tree. His fingers were close, but missed connecting with the thin wood and he tettered backward a little. He extended his arms out and flailed them wildly as he tried to regain his balance. For a moment I feared he would not be able to counter the force of gravity and I would have to stand and watch horrified as he rolled and plummeted to the bottom of the hill below. But the man definitely had some bent up intestinal fortitude and regained the balance that he had lost. He reached again for the tree, this time not making the mistake of just using one arm, he used both and outstretched them as a child would reaching for its mother searching for a bottle or breast during feeding time.

“Go!” Everyone continued to chant. A smile was forming on the guy’s mouth. He was actually enjoying this moment. His time to shine. His fifteen minutes of fame. He was drawing the energy from the crowd and harnessing as his own pushing himself towards the sapling. He stretched, reaching for his destination. He pushed for one last grasp at the golden tree. Suddenly he was there with connection. Everyone cheered in victory.

And just as everyone cheered in excitement, such everyone fell in silence. As the strange man made connection with the sapling, he must have put too much weight on the tree itself causing himself to loose his balance again. Instead of falling backwards, which I knew would lead to his certain demise, he fell forwards and landed on his face. Everyone fell silent. It reminded me of game five in the NLCS series of 2005 where the St. Louis Cardinals were on the verge of being eliminated by the Houston Astros. It was the top of the 9th and the Astros were one out away from sealing the fate of the Redbirds and heading to the World Series for the very first time. They had their dominant closer Lidge on the mound who had been responsible for pretty much shutting the Cards down throughout the season. Everyone was up and dancing in their seats. The plastic was up in the locker rooms and the champagne was chilled and ready to be popped open. But Albert Pujols did not think it was a good night for a celebration, Astro style anyway.

With two on, two out, and down to his last strike, Pujols awaited the pitch from Lidge. I was standing up in my bedroom, the only one still awake in my home. I was going to go down with my team, supporting them in the good times in the bad. I remember holding on to both my Cardinal rally band as well as the silver cross that hung around my neck. I prayed. The pitch was made. The Astro fans celebrated and then the ball came to the plate…

The rest is history. Pujols smacked the ball well over 400 feet sending the series back to St. Louis and sending the Cardinal fans such as myself into a frenzy! What I remember being the most satisfying thing about the moment was how the blast sent the erupting crowd into complete silence. Pujols was quoted as saying it was deafening one minute, and then the next it was so quiet that he could actually hear his footsteps as he rounded the bases. It was fabulous! Though the Cardinals did not fare much better when they got back home, getting defeated and sending the Astros to the World Series anyway, it still was one of the greatest Cardinal moments in my living history. And besides, the Astros were swept by the White Sox in the World Series anyway. Justice was served in my opinion.

Just like the Pujol’s blast, when our nomad missed the tree and fell on his face, the eruption of silence was just as deafening. Then, as if they had just turned the channel to their television sets, everyone turned around and returned their focus towards the concert forgetting about the drunk on the grass behind the fence. It was sort of sad. We had seemed to connect as one. Everyone seemed to have actually cared about the individual on that side of the fence and then just as quickly, they had abandoned him. I looked at the man. He did not budge. I really hoped he was alright. I remember approaching the fence and looked to see if I could tell if he was breathing or not. I remember seeing his chest rise up and down and became a little relieved. Then I noticed some security crew approaching up the hill from his side. That is when Matt and I let our contestant go and turned with the others to view the rest of the concert.

Not much else happened that evening. When Lynyrd Skynyrd came upon the stage to close out with a two hour version of “Free Bird”, Matt and I decided to head through the crowd and towards the parking lot. We started to leave towards the beginning of the song, but then soon realized that “Free Bird” itself was usually over ten minutes in length, that was usually on the radio or CD version. This was live. It was almost certain that the song would go on. And on. And on. And on. And it did.

As we walked through the crowd that night, I began to absorb the classic evening that we had the opportunity to be a part of. The evening itself was filled with all sorts of memorable moments, but it would not have been so impactful had Matt not been there with me. As we passed by other concert goers that evening on our way to Matt’s car, numerous individuals slapped us high fives as we progressed towards the exit. Looking back, this gives me some hope with the status of the world today. Though times sometimes appear bad and it looks like no one is truly getting along, you throw a group of people together with a primary goal and purpose, they come together as one. This evening held true for that concept for me. I was impressed by that evening at the time, but I am even more impressed stepping back and viewing the moment from another perspective with my eyes now. It was a great moment, not just for me and Matt, but I think for Mankind itself.

We made it to Matt’s truck and began our departure from Riverport that evening with “Free Bird” still booming in the background. Even though Matt and I had no clue what the eventual future held for us, we did know and understand that we had created a good solid foundation of memories just from the two concerts we had attended. We also knew that IHOP called our name and we were heeding its call.