A Young Man's Fantasy

My sister sent me some pictures from a concert she and a bunch of her friends attended last weekend.  Obviously, neither she or I are of college age anymore...long past actually, but coincidentally, I had shared a college memory with a couple of friends here just a few weeks ago.  The coincidence of her attending this particular concert, and getting pictures taken arm and arm with the headliner.....uncanny.

When I asked my sister if she had remembered my story AND if she had asked the headliner if she remembered, unfortunately she had not.....damned old age!  (and she is younger than I am)

Confused yet?  Here is the story.

I worked my way through college.  I had no loans, no financial aid, no scholarships and no help from home.  A full credit load and several jobs.   I was a janitor on weekends in a residence hall.  I tended bar.  I worked for a couple local farmers.  But, my favorite job was for the University as a manager of Technical Services - Tech Crew for short.  We were behind the scenes for the vast majority of University events.  We set up tables and chairs for banquets.  We worked in the Center for the Arts hanging lights, doing stage set up and the like. If there was an event or show we were there setting it up and tearing it down.  We worked for a wide variety of venues. Small one and two man shows, The Milwaukee Symphony, The Warsaw Ballet, Juice Newton, Meatloaf, Dan Seals, Richard Marx and the most memorable, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

For all these performers we were essentially stationary road crew.  We would unload the trucks and help their crew set up.  Depending on the size of the group, we might set up sound and lights owned by the university and run the sound and lights for the group.  The bigger groups obviously brought their own crew, but they always were happy to have our help and it was an opportunity to learn technique that we could apply to the smaller groups.  I was the only clean cut guy on the crew.  They were all hippies and a good group of guys...I was the boss.

We were short handed for Joan Jett.  After helping them unload and set up, we divvied up the jobs that were not quite as fun as sound and lights.  I drew the short straw for front stage security.  We didn't see Joan until the end of the sound check and she came out on the stage....a very hard body all in black leather.  Standing next to me, she came up to about my chest.  She was a short gal.  Today, she shows her age (35 years later so do I) but then, she was definitely boner material.

On to the show.  I am standing with my back to the stage watching the crowd.  From where I stand, the sound is not great, but Joan works the crowd with all the favorites.  The few times I am able to look back, she is working hard, as is the band...sweating and rocking.  The night is uneventful until the last number before intermission.  Two gals are almost directly in front of me and they get into an argument.  Pushing, shoving, pulling hair and scratching.  A genuine cat fight.  I wade in and get between them and break up the fight, getting a nice fingernail scratch on my neck in the process.  I hold them apart long enough for two of my fellow techies to get there and to separately take them to exits and remove them from the concert.  I backed up to the stage and stood there until intermission.  Just before Joan left the stage, she tapped me on the head with her foot, which startled me and I turned around.  She kneeled down in all her tight black leather glory and told me "nice job there!"  I was floored.  All I could say was "thanks!" and look stupid.

Most nights, after work the bars were usually closed, so we would all walk down the street to a house where several on the crew lived that we called "the house of breakfast."  We had Grain Belt beer on tap and usually ended up leaving around breakfast time...hence the name.

Back to the concert.  Intermission ends and Joan and the band return to the stage and rock just as hard through the second set as they did for the first.  The second set was uneventful for me and at at the end, we followed the usual routine of helping to take down trusses and load trucks with lights, sound equipment, instruments and the like.  Usually the band gets on the bus and they are off to the next gig and the trucks have to race to catch up with them.  As we are loading out, there is Joan Jett smoking a cigarette and watching us with a couple crew members and some of the band.  I don't really remember who else was there because I was looking at Joan (as was the rest of our crew I am sure).  She had changed out of the tight leather and was wearing jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt and was very obviously braless.   It is lucky that we didn't damage anything we were loading.  Being ballsy and thinking about her telling me I had done a good job breaking up the cat fight, on a return trip from the trucks, I swerved over to her and asked her to come have a few beers with us at the house of breakfast.  She said, "Sounds like fun.  Where is the house of breakfast?"  I explained it to her and we finished loading out.  The whole time I am thinking, "Wow, I talked to Joan Jett and her rock hard titties!"  Now, I was pretty realistic and realized that she was just being nice, but it was still a fun fantasy to think that she would come drink beer with me!  And who knows!  Maybe my prowess breaking up two girls scratching at each other had her interested in more than just my beer!  A fun fantasy, but I knew better.

Anyhow, at some point during the load out, Joan disappeared and we finished up the job.  We all walked to the house of breakfast for a few beers.  A couple of the guys were giving me some shit and could not believe that I had the balls to ask her for a beer.  They were laughing, but I know the admired me asking.

So, we are sitting at the bar in the house, drinking ice cold Grain Belt beer and laughing and joking as we always do when in walks Joan Jett and I think her road manager.  You could have heard a pin drop!  I jumped off my stool and got behind the bar and gave them each a cold beer (in the cleanest glasses I could find).  We made some small talk.  They drank some beer.  I had a boner.

After a couple beers, a couple of joints got passed around (believe it or not, I always passed on the pot....no interest...it did nothing for me).  Everyone was laughing and then Joan brought out some coke...that was the end for me.  The fantasy ended at that point.  She hung around for another half hour or so (by that time it was approaching 5AM) and she said her good byes and left.  Before she left however, she did come over  to me, gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek and said, "thanks for inviting me kid, it has been fun!"  Off she went.  There I stood, again with a boner.  She called me kid....I was (and am) only about 4 years younger than her.  It didn't matter, I was still drooling.