Unprepared...

The only thing you truly own is your opinion, desire and willingness to do both.



The most recent Father’s Day tornado back home in Billings, Montana seems to be carrying a serious amount of weight in the shoes that protect my feet from the hot pavement. I’ve become permanently fixed to YouTube watching videos of how a bad kiss from Mother Nature ripped through a section of town that hosted an entertainment shrine called The Metra.



My daily writing this morning featured smeared ink over the memories of catching Kiss in concert for the first time. What about the night Ted Nugent stuck his music in my ear and cranked the volume to earthquake mode? Mom’s innocent comment about a funny smelling scent in the air at a Willie Nelson show still makes me laugh.



I was there when the Metra opened introducing semi-pro hockey to a section of Montana that was starving for something more than cattle, sheep, cornfields, sugar beats and Bears and Broncs high school football. The Metra was big news to our city of barely 60,000…it was our link to the famous…after all the closest we truly had gotten was the birth of Dave McNally who played pro baseball with the Baltimore Oriels.



Marlon Brando once came to town to film Missouri Breaks. Wild Bill Cody and Calamity Jane raised hell in the 1800’s and the Yellowstone Valley proved to be a really cool hangout for Lewis and Clark.



Once The Metra went up…it seemed like the rest of the world began to catch up.



Tornados hit buildings and outhouses everyday…but something changes in your personal life when the landmark taken out is connected to the physical presentation of your current being. Who didn’t dream of riding a crazy bull with 13 inch horns for 8 seconds or being up on that larger than life stage kick starting a tune that’s become a national anthem?



I used to think rock stars instantly forgot where they’ve placed their footprint until I met up with Rick Nielson from Cheap Trick who not only knew of The Metra but spouted out the dates he and the gang had invaded our Montana ranches. The group Kiss wrote firmly on the inside sleeve of their album, “Who else would play in Billings, Montana?”



Emails and Facebook responses have poured into my computer screen like chocolate meeting a mountain of ice cream. You quickly learn that each of us has a favorite place that didn’t make it to the final dance of the celebration. The incredibly romantic bed and breakfast I spent my first night of marriage in is now a Spa. Very few of the radio stations I’ve performed with are still standing including the ever popular shell that once housed KOOK, a quick cruise down South Billings Blvd and the core of unforgettable broadcasting history sits firmly centered in the middle of a bright and rich cow pasture.



Letters have shared the romantic tales of churches where vows were peacefully delivered, outdoor concert stadium where backstage passes were never required just a heart deeply in love with the artists who pulled their bus into your town and started to jam.



Coliseums and football stadiums are imploded to make way for new heroes…I was on the air when the night lights went on for the first time at Chicago’s Wrigley Field and The Charlotte Motor Speedway. The one thing we continue to forget about, the days that leap from calendars are created to endure change.


We had just left the Summer Olympics in Atlanta when things suddenly went wrong. The Carolina Panther’s nearly won a Super Bowl but a costume malfunction kept our team from earning the rights to hosting one of the most watched closest games in NFL history.



The only thing you truly own is your opinion, desire and willingness to do both.



They’ll probably rebuild The Metra creating a new generation of fans who’ll arrive with friends and take home a lifetime of memories. Guess this is part of the growing up process…all things eventually pass…unless you’re the Coliseum in Rome, Rainbow Row in Charleston, the giant redwoods of California, a statuesque castle on the shores of Europe or a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of the bench inside the gymnasium at Riverside Jr. High.



You always hear of people wanting to locate a machine that takes you back in time…because most can’t handle going forward. Adam Sandler’s film Click was extremely too real in the way he was forced to endure the expected in an un-neighborly way. We spend way too much money as it is on items that keep us in a past we’d love to change but end up rearranging until you meet someone from high school who puts it all back in place.



The greatest thing about music…name a band and the average person can tell you exactly where they saw it performed live. Name a baseball or basketball player and the nose bleed section will be cranked up with who hit what in this inning while stuffing the basket with that ball at least 400 times.



Ticket stubs, beat up cards, uniforms, autographed pictures, 45’s and cassettes are the keys that unlock the doors to a past we impatiently designed and its during the wake of a brand new day that life sucks in a gut full of air and before it can blow it all out…you’re reminded of that special moment you said, “I’ll never forget this the rest of my life.”



For a split second you hold onto the memory as if it was your mothers hand only to fade slowly into tomorrow.



arroecollins@clearchannel.com