The Police Concert and Canning

Earlier in the week, I read that The Police were coming to Salt Lake on Saturday, July 19th. The Police being the 1980s supergroup that I loved, that our band covered many songs over and over again, the band that I saw perform live twenty-five, yes, twenty-five years ago. I was but a wee lad, but my two older brothers were there, as were several friends. We went in the big blue van that my parents still own.

Unfortunately, Saturday was also my dad's 50th High School Reunion for Logan High School. He was on the committee to make it happen. That should be capitalized. The Committee to Make It Happen. My involvement included incidents such as this: it's Friday afternoon, four o'clock at work, and he asks me if we can put all of the documents and pictures into a DVD format to watch on a DVD player for the reunion, just so that they can see what they're going to get. Hmm. Fortunately, Windows Movie Maker was pretty easy to figure out, our computers at the office are powerful enough to make it quick, and even adding music wasn't hard. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was bigger. Mom and dad were all tied up instead of being available to babysit my four, yes, four, children. This ruled out taking my wife on a date to see The Police. I'm not sure what we would have done with the suckling three month old babe -- taken him with us? The issue was moot.

I turned to my friends. Most were on vacation all week. One was around, though usually gone. So, I asked him. He thought he might want to go, but since he's gone all the time -- well, you know family obligations and such. Besides, he's in the bishopric, and you don't want to go to bishopric meeting on Sunday morning with bloodshot eyes smelling like pot. "It was the people next to me, man. I swear!" "You mean Brother Laurence? The one who got in the car accident on the way home?" (More on that -- no I didn't get in a car accident on the way home -- it will become readily apparent why). He and his wife had signed up for the stake canning assignment in Ogden all afternoon, so I would have picked him up at the end of that, and gone on to SLC.

As you can guess, his schedule was too full, and couldn't go. Saturday came and I mowed the lawn. I was hot, so I took the fam to get some Jamba Juice courtesy of one of our vacationing neighbors who paid us to water their lawn in Jamba. Mmm. Jamba Juice. Then we went to the high school before the reunion to see how it was setting up. Dad drove his corvette and parked it near the entrance. Five years in Utah and he's finally driving the car again. He has joined the Corvette Club of Utah after I got their card when my kids and I them at the Promontory Point national park. (My boys must have instinctively wanted to see the Corvettes -- either that or they were behaving miserably -- I can't remember which). I didn't realize that there was a canal running through the school, but the children had an hour of fun there. When we were finished and going to the van (mini), the crowds were a comin'. It's kind of weird to see a bunch of people the same age as your parents, all from the same place, all at that same place fifty years later. I did see Kip Thorne, but not Quentin Cook. I wasn't going to hang around like a groupy, that's what The Police concert was for.

I got home, laid on the couch, and tried to think of anyone else to go with. The thought of going by myself wasn't very appealing. Maybe I could have called Masha on my cellphone and shared the experience with her? Might as well stay home and listen to the record, uh, mp3 like I'm doing now. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a call came. It was my friend. Had he gotten a new dispensation from his wife? Well, no, not quite.

Apparently, forty people signed up for the canning project, but fourteen showed up. Could I call around, gather a van full, and come down? I called around, and no one was home. But, see, I already knew that, because I couldn't get anyone home to go to a concert. You think I could get anyone to go can green beans? I don't think so.

Finally I called one neighbor who just got home from like an eight-year sojourn -- well, maybe a few weeks. He said, oh great, I've been calling around too, I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes. He's the stake executive secretary. He had better success than I did. Of course, his people wouldn't have gone to The Police concert, though he would have if I'd planned ahead I'm sure. I didn't even ask. Brother Lorrigan, who is the Elder's Quorum President in the other ward, (I was his counsellor before the ward split) would have gone had I called him, well, he and his wife were in the van too. I wish I'd thought of him. Regardless, I'm glad I didn't have to drive.

We arrived in Ogden and canned with, by and large, the stake leadership. I stacked boxes of green beans with my stake president. I didn't ask him if he and his wife wanted to go to The Police concert. I think they would have liked to go too, but the hour was nearly upon us and it was largely too late. When one of the cannery employees came looking for one of his counsellors, who was more in charge of this project than he was, I helped her find the counsellor. I could have told her that the stake president was right here, ask him, but I didn't feel like making him make a decision based on little information. He was there as an emergency worker, just like me. Someone had called asking whether we needed more workers, and whether they should come down. We were, in fact, by this time overstaffed. So, I found the counsellor's wife (they are in my ward), who led us to her husband. I took over his job of sweeping green beans that spill out of the boiler. It was outside, albeit shaded), and next to a boiler. I was glad when he returned. I was starting to wonder. He's a rancher, so he's used to that kind of heat, right? I went back to my cushy job in the air conditioned building stacking boxes with the stake president. I'm sure there's a lesson about delegation and how you should take delegated issues to the delegatee rather than the stake president whenever possible (that's what I did), but really, I can't be bothered with such lessons. I was at a cannery when I would rather have been getting ready for The Police concert.

In retrospect, the cannery may have been the opportunity I was seeking. I could have driven myself and asked around. If I had promised a free ticket, I probably would have been able to go. I knew I'd be tired and hungry, so I had already given up, really. When the call came earlier in the afternoon, I gave up, if I hadn't already. I submitted, didn't argue, my fate had been sealed.

When I got home, the Jamba neighbors were back. After my breakfast-styled dinner (bacon, eggs, french toast, orange juice, chocolate milk) -- I had been working after all -- I called Jamba John and asked if he wanted to go to The Police concert that started fifteen minutes ago in SLC. He'd been driving all day, but he was tempted.

When Masha was putting one of the other kids to bed, I had Nikolas sitting beside me in a chair flailing his arms and grunting trying to get me to look at him while I tried to read an article about The Police in the Deseret News. He'd had enough and simply started crying. I could tell what he was saying to me. "Who cares about this old band when you have me to look at and smile at? I'm new." So, I held him up and smiled at him, and he smiled at me. Lots. Until he started crying again. Then he pooped big time and he was happy again. I put him down and smiled at him. His mom can change him. I went to the cannery instead of The Police concert.

He's right though. When I seriously contemplated seeing three grey-heads on stage, it simply magnifies that twenty-five years ago, The Police were THE supergroup. New Wave was cool. The 12" LP was a thing too look at, to touch, to experience. If I had known they were coming to Salt Lake a month or so ago, I could have planned ahead, and a group of us could have gone and had a good time together. But the scheduling necessity itself simply says OLD. Obligations, duties, responsibilities. Meanwhile, a bunch of old duffers with no responsibilities whatsoever were partying downtown at their 50th high school reunion at Logan High (by evening they'd migrated to the Coppermill for dinner and events). So, let's keep a little perspective here. By the way, someone called ahead asking what the dress code would be. I suggested that they should say, well, Kip Thorne will be wearing sandals, and Quentin Cook will be wearing a suit, so you decide. But, anyway, the perspective is this: trying to muster a contingent to see The Police from among family men with responsibilities is oldness, but not as old as that reunion crowd.

August will be the last Police concert ever. There will be no other reunion. This was it. I read the Deseret News review of the concert this morning. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700244672,00.html

They only performed for an hour and forty minutes, leaving out some of the songs I would most want to hear, including songs from Synchronicity. It would not quite have been the walk down memory lane I would have hoped for. And besides, they would not have been the supergroup they were when I saw them in 1983. And if you read the first comment on the article, parking was terrible, and I probably would have gotten into an accident.

I saw Sting at Park West in 1993. He performed some Police songs. Maybe I'll catch his act again someday. There's no going back, but sometimes it would be nice to spend a few hours there. Or, in the case of The Police, an hour and forty minutes with Utah-quality event traffic control following. An awful lot has happened since twenty-five years ago. One of them is that I can be cajoled into going on a canning assignment when I'd rather be at a Police concert. Since there will be no next time with The Police, all I can say is that whatever I want to do, I need to plan it way in advance. Although I'll probably just be taking my kids to some tween star concert with their friends, so maybe I'll take the canning assignment.

I hope they enjoy their green beans.