A Sons Story About Adam

Quote :

Shawn P. Sullivan: Dad learns he is to Adam Lambert what Lambert is to Kris Allen


I think Mom tried to leave Dad for Adam Lambert.

You remember him. He's the singing sensation who took second place during the season finale of "American Idol" this past spring. I'm talking about Adam Lambert here. Not Dad.

At the time I wrote a column about Mom's obsession with Adam. She watched "American Idol" faithfully, right up through to Adam's loss to Kris Allen, which was not Mom's fault. She called that hot line and voted for Adam more times than I think she has dialed any other number, including that of my memere, whom Mom called every day for decades.

Mom and Dad went to Portland a couple of weekends ago to see last season's contestants of "American Idol" in concert. Dad surprised Mom with a couple of tickets to the show on Mother's Day. Little did he know at the time that he was placing their marriage of 38 years in jeopardy.

What follows I will relay to the best of my recollection. I've heard two sides of the story, both given at the same time, as Mom and Dad talked over each other the other night and provided their version of events. Two other people — our visiting relatives, Jim and Diane — heard this tale as well, but they have since left Sanford to return home to Virginia, so they're not available for corroboration.

Both Mom and Dad enjoyed the concert. After the show, they exited the Civic Center and Mom got word that the "Idol" singers soon were expected to leave the arena to get on their bus, thus providing fans a slim window of opportunity to clamor for their autographs.

As you might recall from earlier columns — one of which Dad wrote — Mom likes her celebrities. We used to call her a "groupie," but, as anyone who has ever read a rock star's autobiography could tell you, we concluded that maybe that was not the appropriate title to attach to Mom. So we settled on "stalker" instead.

There was that time she walked into Bob Hope's suite at the Holiday Inn and got his autograph. Grabbed Liza Minnelli's shoulder. Peeked through the window at Michael J. Fox's farmhouse. Drove around Bangor looking for Stephen King's house. Kissed Jay Leno on the cheek. Finagled her way into a rope line to shake President Obama's hand. She also has written to Oprah in the hopes that she will invite Dad to her show to promote the book he self-published this summer about his experiences with living with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Now she had Adam Lambert in her sights.

She turned the corner at the Civic Center and waited with the other fans for the "Idol" singers to emerge. She chatted a bit with another woman — someone in her fifties — who unabashedly identified herself as a "groupie." Eventually, some of the singers showed up. Mom got an autograph from one of them. Someone named Meghan. Or Mandy. Or Martha. I can't remember. I just know there was an "M" in there somewhere because Mom said that's all the woman wrote for her autograph.

Mom held out for Adam, but he never showed. She asked around and learned he would not be leaving on the bus. Perhaps he was tired — Mom had heard he had had a cold — and did not want to wade through a crushing throng of teenagers and women who thought they were still teenagers. Maybe there was a helicopter on top of the Civic Center waiting to whisk him away.

Disappointed, Mom left the scene.

You're probably wondering where Dad was during all of this.

"I was standing on a street corner," he groused the other night.

Or, to provide more description, he was standing at a street corner, alone, holding his cane with one hand and clutching a light post with another. The guy who made sure to get a handicapped-accessible seat for the concert had now discovered that the apparent after-show party was standing-room-only.

Here's where the details get murky.

Mom says Dad was at that corner all of five or ten minutes. Dad says he was there for an hour.

Mom says the light above him provided safe and ample illumination. Dad said he was standing in pitch darkness, vulnerable to anyone who'd want to mug him for his money or his concert ticket stub as a souvenir.

Mom says it was a pleasant evening, one of summer's last hurrahs. Dad says it was cold, windy and sleeting sideways, with the threat of snow.

I wasn't there. I can't say who's right. I don't even know who to believe when it comes to the motorists who pulled up to that street corner, rolled down their windows, and asked Dad, "How much for half an hour?" Mom says nobody did that. Dad says five did.

In any event, Mom and Dad agree on one thing: It was a long ride home. Dad did not like being stuck at that corner. Mom was disappointed that she did not get Adam Lambert's autograph. Neither spoke during the trip back to Sanford.

But again, I'm not so sure what to believe. I spoke with Mom and Dad the next day and I had to yell and repeat everything three times because their ears were still ringing and buzzing from the loudness of the concert.

My hunch is they both said plenty on the way home, and it's probably for the best that neither heard it.

Shawn P. Sullivan, editor of the Sanford News.
Thursday, September 24, 2009


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