When Lynyrd Skynyrd Came to Town.

In early 1974, an unknown band from Florida became famous almost overnight when “Free Bird” became an instant southern anthem. With a monster hit song, the album “Pronounced Len-nerd Skin-nerd” kept selling out everywhere.

Word quickly spread through Jonesboro that Lynyrd Skynyrd had been booked to play at the Strand theater and there were less than 1000 tickets for the concert. That’s all the Strand would seat. I was lucky. I was able to buy two tickets before they sold out. The five dollar tickets were simple, cheaply printed tickets in black ink on white card stock.

I didn’t have a steady girlfriend at that time, so I didn’t know who I was going to ask to go with me. I ran around with a collection of kooks ranging from my best friend Boo to Griff, to Winston to Mitzi. I heard Mitzi didn’t get a ticket, so figured I’d ask Mitzi to see if she wanted to go. It would be fun, but when I called Mitzi it turned out that she had a date for the concert. I promptly sold the second ticket for a tidy profit.

The next morning Mitzi called me back and left a message with Mom. Seems Mitzi and her date had an argument. She was now able to go with me to the concert.

Uhoh.

There was no way I was going to be able to buy another ticket anywhere. No one was going to sell a ticket to see Skynyrd. I held my single ticket in my hand, and looked at it. I felt that card stock. I looked at the cheap printing. Suddenly, the clouds of despair parted, the angels sang and the trumpets blew. I had a moment of inspiration, a sudden epiphany if you will, and it was a great idea.

As my father used to say, nothing grips a sixteen year old boy’s brain quite as tightly as a bad idea.

The concert was general seating , so I resolved to ‘create’ another ticket using white card stock from a laundered shirt and a black felt tip pen. Using all the tricks I had learned in Art Class, I created a replica ticket that was nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, with ‘nearly’ being the operative word. It took some work, and a lot of practice but my replica ticket turned out pretty good. It should work, I kept telling myself as if I were trying to convince myself.

Finally the night of the concert arrived. Mitzi and I stood in the long, cold line to enter the Strand. It was early March, after all. I gave Mitzi the real ticket and I planned on using the ‘replica’. It was a long line. We stood there shivering for what seemed to be hours before they finally opened the doors and began taking tickets up. It was a simple arrangement. They had one of the front doors open, and a guy at a card table taking up tickets by tearing them in half. He kept one half, and gave the other half back to you.

With each step closer to the ticket taker, my confidence in my replica ticket receded as I grew less and less certain of my prospects for successfully gaining entry to the concert. I looked at the replica in my hand, and somehow now, standing in line, it appeared much less convincing than it had appeared at my desk at home. Though reasonably similar at home, the difference in the card stock of the original ticket from the card stock from the replica ticket was now glaringly apparent to my hand. At home, they felt the same, but here, as we stood six people in line from the ticket taker, there was a clear, obvious and unmistakable difference. My ticket was no longer an outstanding replica. It was a lousy fake, a counterfeit, and I was pretty sure that they put counterfeiters in jail for a long time. In the 9^th grade we had toured the Craighead County Jail. Having already experienced one visit to the jail by virtue of my Science Fair experiment, I was quite certain I did not want to go there again. I knew I would not do well in jail. Despite it being a cold March night, I was now sweating, sweating like mad.

When we were only two people away from the ticket taker, I was getting light headed. I had to fight to prevent hyperventilation. Mitzi was trying to carry on a conversation of sorts, but I was trying to conceal my absolute panic from her. She must have thought I was having a nervous breakdown. I was sweating profusely. There just is no way to conceal the absolute terror I was experiencing. In mere moments, I was certain that I was going to be tackled by huge cops and dragged away kicking and screaming to jail for using a counterfeit Lynyrd Skynyrd ticket.

We stepped up to the ticket taker. My heart was racing so that I thought it might burst from my chest. My head was spinning. I was breathing as if there was not enough air on the earth, and sweat was rolling down my face. Mitzi smiled and handed her ticket to him. I heard it as he tore the ticket in half. The sound of the tearing of the ticket was, for that moment, the only sound that cut through the low murmur of the conversations going on at the moment all around me. The tearing sound was crystal clear. It seemed to echo in my brain. He gave Mitzi one half of the ticket and she waltzed into the lobby of the Strand. It was now my turn. As I handed the guy taking tickets at the desk my fake ticket, I was more than a little nauseous. I noticed my hand shook as if I had suddenly developed a bad case of Parkinson’s disease. I forced myself to smile and look at the ticket taker.

Holy cow! I knew this guy. He was an older guy I knew from swim-team, and he was as stoned as it is humanly possible to be.

He took my ticket. He didn’t even glance up as he tore it in half and gave me my half. I entered Valhalla.

Mitzi and I found seats in the balcony near the fire escape. Sitting there waiting for the band to start, I reflected on what I had just done. It was not lost on me that I was now a criminal. I began silently repenting my criminal ways. I solemnly resolved then and there to abandon my life of crime and return to the straight and narrow. Just then, someone nudged me. My heart stopped. I looked over expecting to see the long arm of the law there to drag me out of the Strand, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a grinning friend passing me an illegal smile. I paused for a second, briefly reflecting on my recent and most heart felt repentance of the criminal life. I smiled.

I looked down at the tiny stage. The band was walking onto the stage. As I slowly exhaled, I had another thought.

Maybe a life of crime isn’t so bad after all.

You know you want to. Just click the damn button.