What Really Happened Between Me and Mick Jones in the Elevator

It's not everyday you find yourself on an elevator with a rock and roll legend. Particularly when the elevator is located in a town with a population of 1,895 people -- a town that until just a few years ago didn't even have an elevator.
But, there I was having a nice chat with Mick Jones, the lead guitarist and founder of the band, Foreigner, while on my way to my room on the 8th floor of the Island Resort and Casino in Harris, Michigan on a recent Friday night. He was going to the 11th floor, where I also stopped, because while fumbling for something profound to say to Mick and the muscular man with him who appeared to be his bodyguard, I forgot to press the button to my floor. I don't know what my husband's excuse was, but he neglected to press the button, too.
I haven't gone to a lot of band concerts in my life. I saw Sha Na Na and Dr. Hook in the 70's. (Anybody ever hear of them?) Because I had my first child when I was 17, I sort of missed my rock and roll groupie window. When all my friends were rocking to Foreigner, KISS and the Grateful Dead, I was rocking babies to sleep. I never had a chance to follow bands or go to concerts, and was never very good at learning and remembering which bands played what songs.
These days I frequently return to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I spent a good part of my youth and where my children were born. A recent trip involved plans to attend a Foreigner concert at the casino.
"Great show," I blurted to Mick after the elevator doors closed. I had recognized him from behind as we waited for the elevator because I had just seen him rocking on stage an hour earlier from the 16th row. I nudged my husband and pointed.
"Thank you, " Mick replied in an English accent and nodded graciously. He was wearing a designer scarf and his hair was professionally done. Not something you see too often in Harris.
Three other people were on the elevator -- one woman and two young girls who were staring at their iPods. None of them apparently realized they were in the company of rock and roll royalty standing directly behind them.
While on stage Mick had commented (twice) on how treacherous the plane ride had been flying out of a New England nor'easter that morning.
"I'm glad you all made it here safe -- your plane ride sounded pretty iffy," I said.
I didn't hear his response to that because the woman standing behind the two young teenagers suddenly bellowed, "I HAVE TO GET OFF!" when neither of them looked up or stepped aside to let her off when the elevator stopped at the 5th floor.
"I bet you guys feel like you're really in the boonies out here," I said, grasping for conversation as the elevator started moving again.
"No, not really," Mick said. "It's actually been very nice here," he said with a smile.
The two girls got off next at floor 6.
"Well, it was a pleasure," I said, prematurely -- because it was then that I noticed we were sailing past the 8th floor where my room was located.
"Oh, we missed our floor!" I said.
"Oh," Mick said. "Yes, you have to push the button," he pointed helpfully.
My husband finally lumbered over and pushed the button for floor 8.
"It was nice meeting you," I said to Mick and his bodyguard as they departed the elevator on the 11th floor.
"Yes, very nice meeting you, too," he replied.
"Have a good night."
"Thank you. You too."
Insert sound here where Charlie Brown just got the football pulled away from him by Lucy for the zillionth time -- mwah,mwah,mwaaahhh.
D'oh! I could have said so many other things! I realize that now. And from the way Mick acted, I think he might even have been interested. I could have started with the fascinating fact that I once lived in Harris, part of the Potawatomi Indian reservation, for 8 months when I was 13. It's a long story but it involved my mother and a torrid love affair with a guy who was supposedly on the run from the mafia and was looking for a place 10 miles off the end of the earth where he would never be found. That would be Harris. The casino didn't exist at that time, and my older sister and I used to skip school and hide in the woods right across the street from where the casino now stands. Oh, yeah, and there was the time we ran away from home, back to Wisconsin, after only one month of living "in the sticks" as we called it. And my sister never came back , but I did -- and that Harris was the most god-awful, loneliest place on earth to be when you're 13 and missing your friends, your first love, and your older sister. Yep, I could have told him about the day I was walking down the railroad tracks near my house during that long winter I lived here and a train came up behind me in the distance and the snow was so deep that every time I jumped off the tracks I sunk in up to my hips. After a few panicked attempts to escape the train tracks I came upon some snowmobile tracks from a snowmobile that had ridden up to next to the railroad tracks and had packed the snow down enough to hold my weight and I was able to scamper away from the train in the nick of time. Yep, happened just over there on the other side of the highway, I would have pointed. Not to mention that the house we lived in just a half mile from here down Highway 35, burned down after we moved out and is now the location of the new Harris Fire Department.
The closest neighbor lived a half mile away. But, as I recall, during those seemingly endless months in Harris, I always had a radio. And I don't know what even worse kind of isolated hell on earth would have enveloped me during my 13th year in Harris if not for the songs that came over that radio everyday. Many of them, I know now, were sung by you.
Yep, I could have said all that to Mick Jones. I know he would have been fascinated -- probably would have invited me up to his suite to hear more, maybe asked me if I wanted to party him and the rest of the band, or help them with some song lyrics they've been struggling with, and then probably get invited backstage after their next concert...
Hmm, maybe that groupie window hasn't completely slammed shut yet.
But those elevator doors did.
Love you, Mick.
Call me.