Everyone's got their "happy thought". You know. Comforting little memories you
revert back to when you need them? Well this one's mine. Sorry to be recycling old
material but I just keep returning to my first Doobie concert as if it were yesterday.
Starting dream sequence.... (wavy pattern appears on screen):
Peace was everywhere in the summer of 1974. There were peace signs, peace fingers you
made by folding your ring finger and pinkie under your thumb, and peace in the minds
of every Doobie fan that evening at Jeppeson Stadium. I can still smell the grass.
Both kinds. I can still feel the warm late afteroon sun on my halter-topped
shoulders. Pulling out a green and white striped ticket stub from my Hang Ten pants
pocket, I read the words, "The Doo---". The rest had been torn in half. I couldn't
believe I was here! My first concert! And not just any concert, THE DOOBIE
BROTHERS!! "Strawberry Fields" played blissfully over the speakers as I waited
impatiently for the concert to start. I tried desperately to be cool and stifle an
over-zealous giggle rising up in my throat. Huey Lewis and the News were the opening
act and at that time, none of us had a clue what success was to befall Huey later on
in the 80's. "My God," I thought, " After this band's off the stage, I'll !
be paper airplane-throwing distance from Tom Johnston, Jeff Baxter, John Hartman,
Keith Knudson and, that Pat Simmons!" I now feel sad when I reflect back on that
memory knowing that I was at one of the last concerts Tommy played before he flew back
to California, sick. It breaks my heart to know he was probably up there sick and was
singin his lil heart out on that stage for us anyway. The thick black plywood boards
making up the front of the stage seemed a mile high. I did a ballet jump trying to
touch the surface of the stage. Nice try, little girl.
I wish now that I could remember the complete set list but after the concert started,
everything was a blur and a whirlwind of colored lights,oozing Doobie fog and dancing
in circles on the cool green grass under the preglobal-warming Houston sky. JIJA, Eyes
of Silver, Road Angel, Without You, China Grove and the Cheat the Hangman Reprise
rocked Houston's east side that night, rattling windows as far as the famous Rice
hotel. The music was loud. Very LOUD and wonderful. When I got home that night, my
ears were ringing so intensely, I couldn't even hear my mother say goodnight.
Clutching my "Vices" program as if it were a throw blanket, I laid my head down on my
pillow and softly sang myself to sleep. "tell me whatcha waaant and I'll give you what
ya need..."
Here and along the way, there have been other happy times and thoughts. My wedding
day with my wonderful husband, the birth of a baby(who is now the same age as I was at
that concert), a grandbaby, my college graduation, and the dance contests my husband
and I have won. But my Doobie memory stands alone because it is something I
experienced, not something I did.
And so, Doobie Brothers, as you rock down the highway this summer and you get tired on
the road, let this encourage you; somewhere along the way, you will become part of
some other fan's "happy thought". Maybe not as good as another Grammy, but an award
just the same.
Once a Doobie Always a Doobie,
Cinderella
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