Rockin The Cotton Bowl

Beach Boys 2015

I had a talk with France.  I told him that I was seeing someone besides him.  I assured him that it wasn't serious that I liked this other person and liked him as well.  I let him know that I wasn't interested in choosing between them.  I left it up to him.  I would still go out with him if he wanted to go out, but I would also be seeing the other person.  I did tell him that I couldn't and wouldn't be available to go out all of the time because of my kids; I wasn't just going to dump them somewhere so I could go out.  He said that he wasn't crazy about the changes and he would have to think about it.  Fine, you do that.  And then he acted like a wounded brat at work for a couple of weeks.

Downtown Dallas was growing and changing.  The place where I parked my car changed to a monthly only facility and raised their price.  I had to find a new place to park.  Lucky for me, the underground parking at the new city hall had just opened up.  The building's upper floors were not completed yet, so the underground parking was not crowded, and it was cheap.  The first morning I parked there, the guy that supervised it was amicable.  He was a nice guy.  Every morning when I
drove down the ramp to park, he would greet me with a big smile and chit chat.  He introduced himself, and we were on a first-name basis.  After a few weeks, he just started letting me park for free.  Hooray, that was right up my alley.  It was so nice to get in the car and not blister your butt on the boiling hot car seat.  Plus, the place had security all over.

France was still aggravated with me.  He would come into the back room and ask me how my love life was.  I would tell him that it was great and then ask how his was.  "Not so great."  And then he would leave.

Officer Daniel was doing just fine.  Cute as a button and sweet.  I could laugh with him, with France,
not so much.  And now the supervisor at the garage was hitting on me, which I didn't want.  He then asked me to a concert to see the Beach Boys and Chicago at the Cotton Bowl.  I told him I would have to think about it.  But I REALLY wanted to see Chicago.  It would just be too bitchy to go out with him just for that.  Wouldn't it?  He bugged me about it for days, and I kept telling him no.  And then one morning, when I pulled in  the garage, he said, "Guess what, I bought the tickets for Chicago."  Oh hell.  I asked him why he did that, and he said he did it so I would go out with him.  I told him that I was kind of involved with someone and that if he still wanted me to go, it would only be to see the show, no strings attached.  He said that was fine.  Well, okay with me then.

I told Daniel that I was going to the concert and how I was going.  I asked him if that was bad, and he laughed and said if he was me, he would do the same thing.  He said he would do the same thing to go out with me if he was the guy.  He said he didn't have enough seniority to work any special events like concerts, but many of the guys from his sub-station would be working it.  He was going to tell them to be on the lookout for me.  And then he laughed, but it wasn't his normal laugh.  It was kind of a Snidely Whiplash laugh. (From the old cartoon Dudley Doright.)  I responded with a, "Really?  What's with the evil laugh?"  And then he laughed his normal laugh.

Ron, the guy taking me to the concert, told me that we had pretty good tickets,  dead center, low close to the ground seats.  (I remember that they were pretty good, I could see the faces and expressions on every person's face.)  I was getting very excited about going.

May 3, 1975, Beachcago Concert in the Cotton Bowl, Dallas, Texas.  I was about to lose my mind.  Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys was my favorite band hunk.  He was the only guy in the group who lived the beach life.  He surfed, he sailed, and he was a bad boy.  Drugs. Booze and women were his game.  And he was only a handcuff away from me reaching him.  But I was a mom; I couldn't be too stupid.

It was boiling that evening, with no breeze and high humidity.  The sun was still beating down on us when the show started.  And it was right in our face.  How could you not sweat?  Everybody was sweating, the crowd and the bands.  It could have been one odiferous event, but it wasn't.

I was so excited that I forgot that I was with somebody.  Well, I warned him.  I did make a point of looking at him every once in a while and touching his arm.  He seemed happy.  Cool.

The Beach Boys opened the show.  Every female was going nuts.  California Girls was awesome.  We wished we ALL could be California girls.  Every song they sang resulted in us rocking the house.  It was a good thing that the Cotton Bowl was all concrete and metal.  Anything else would not have survived.  They were just great.

When Chicago came on, it was awesome.  They have so many instruments used in each song, and it just blew the crowd away.  I fell in forever love with them; their style and musicality are unique and untouched by others.  Not long after this concert, their drummer committed suicide, but I don't ever remember hearing a reason for it.  It did change their sound just a little bit for a while.

The end of the show culminated with both bands on stage together.  Jan and Dean were also on stage, if you know who they were.  The handsome one of the two had been in a severe car wreck years earlier and was never the same mentally.  Ironic, their biggest hit song was Dead Man's Curve, and his accident mirrored that song to a "T."

It was an awesome show.  After it was over, Ron and I stopped and ate a very late dinner.  We mostly just talked about the concert.  After we ate, we went and picked up my kids, and he took me home.  I gave him a peck on the cheek and thanked him for taking me.  I told him that I would see him Monday morning, and I closed the door.

I stayed in musical euphoria for a couple of weeks.  It prompted me to go to Peaches, a local record store, and buy 2  new albums, one from each group.  I played them over and over and over.

That night has been a perfect memory of my single days over the years.  In 2015,  I saw the Beach Boys live again.  In 2015 I also saw Chicago in a smaller venue, and their sound was amazing. I acted just as bad at those shows as I had 40 years earlier.

Chicago still reminds me of Daniel every time I hear them.  It's a good thing.