One of my best friends Ashlynn emailed me to tell me that Creedence Clearwater Revisited was coming to St. George. The CCR concert I went to when I was in high school was one of the craziest things that ever happened to me. Here is the story:

When you grow up in a medium-small town like St. George, Utah there are always rumors that a famous band is coming to town. (Celebrity sightings are rampant too but that is another story for another day.) One day circa 1995 I heard a rumor that Creedence Clearwater Revival was coming to St. George. I didn’t believe it until I heard it with my own two ears on Sunny 93.5. CCRevisited is different than CCRevival. The “revisited” one has a John Fogerty imitator because the band broke up when they had a dispute. Well the other members of the band weren’t going to let a small thing like losing the lead singer who has a distinctive voice and singing style stop them from being rock and roll stars. So they hired a guy who sings like John Fogerty and continued playing the hot tour circuits. Anyway, my friends and I got our tickets because we were not about to miss something THIS HUGE. Plus I had a lot of hippie friends who listened to their music so we were there to show everyone how much WE really understood the music.

Before the show started we managed to get up close right by the bouncers. Standing next to Ashlynn was a formidable older girl. She was stocky had big curly hair and was wearing very short cutoffs. Standing next to her was her skinny boyfriend. As the concert got going we noticed the big hair girl kept elbowing Ashlynn really hard and then turning away as if it was an accident. Since I was standing behind both of them I could see what was going on I tapped the girl on the shoulder and very nicely asked her the obvious question, “why do you keep hitting my friend?” The girl then shoved me repeatedly and yelled “Do you want to f#@% with me?” Her boyfriend then started freaking out and saying (in a scared voice.) Don’t f#@% with her, man.” I assured her that no, I did not want to f#@% with her I simply wanted to know why she kept hitting my friend. She then elbowed me right in the face and knocked me to the ground. I was all dizzy and I don’t remember all the details of what happened next. But the next thing I knew a security guard was escorting me out of the building and I was trying to explain what happened. He called me a liar and then said “you were the one kicking her”.

I went home so mad. I hate injustice and so for the next five years I kept replaying the incident in my mind and wishing I could have beat the crap out of that girl. (Forget that she had ten years and 100 pounds on me.)

Ok, so here is the cool part. Fast-forward to the year 2000 when I was going to school at Utah State. I was over at a friend’s house and Katie Goodrich was there. I didn’t know her well but she was a friend of my older brother. To understand how cool this is you have to understand how petite and small Katie is. Anyway, we were all sitting around talking and Katie said something about how I got beat up at the concert and how she kicked the girl in the back. I didn’t understand her. She then told me about how she was at the concert too and she had just climbed up on the stage to crowd surf when she got pulled off by a security guard. She was turning around to try to get back up when she saw Jared Stanley’s little sister get knocked to the ground. So without thinking too long she grabbed the shoulder of the guy standing next to her and kicked the big hair girl right in the back!

When I heard this I was ecstatic. I couldn’t believe it. The story had come full circle. Finally, I could give up my unending quest for vengeance because Katie Goodrich had kicked the girl.

Now here is the really crazy part. When Katie was in the MTC some random guy came up to her and asked if he knew her from somewhere. She told him she was from St. George and he stopped and said, “Did you ever go to a CCR concert?” She told him yes. He said,” You grabbed my shoulder and kicked some girl.”

So anytime I feel something is really unfair I like to think that somewhere out there someone like Katie Goodrich is grabbing a guy’s shoulder and kicking the jerk in the back.