"Baby, I asked you not to put my leather pants in the washing machine!"

In Mike's head head, the performance by his band (a band he had only recently started with his two cousins and the guys from the machine shop) would be flawless. In reality, it was one of the saddest moments in musical history.

He had just bought new strings for his bass, and he laid out his flame button-up shirt. It was a big day in Indiana's Glendale Township, and the shirt would certainly bring that point across. His thinning hair was nowadays often hidden behind a filthy Harley Davidson bandana, which he actually ironed for the occasion. Disaster struck a few days before the actual performance. Vicky, his wife of three years (who can be seen sporting a fantastic baby back pack), put his leather pants (which he still only half-jokingly referred to as "my rock pants") in the washing machine, along with baby Madison's soiled linens. The pants, though Vicky didn't know this at the time, had not been washed since the summer of '86. The pants became brittle, shrunk a bit, and thereafter reeked of baby urine. But the show went on. It had to. Though the audience didn't much care for the music (it was a small get-together for his parents' 50th anniversary), the band plowed ahead through a set of mind numbing mid-tempo musical swill, the likes of which had not been heard since the Kiss solo albums. The kids made a large poster (for "Ma-Ma and Pap-Pap") which completely covered the drummer. At one point, the practice-sized guitar amps drew too much power and blew a fuse. But such is the price of rock. Mike did his best Steve Harris, machine gun pose towards the end of the song, and disregarded the unenthusiastic responses of the elderly audience. This was his day.