One of Don Rivers Dating Horror Stories

I am very fortunate to have been married to a wonderful and beautiful woman for over 25 years. It is very nice to be out of the dating scene; but I used to be there. I was stood up more than any man in history (it seemed.) I also had some really bad dates. There is nothing like a being stood up or like what happened in the following story to completely blow a man's ego.

I was seeing a beautiful beautician here in Lake Charles. I was completely smitten so taking it slow was cool with me (to a point ... keep reading.) You may remember the sold out Rick Springfield concert here in 1984. I was the emcee so I will tell that story first then the bad date story (they are related.)

I had just arrived in Lake Charles and was working at Bayou 104. I was told that I would be bringing Rick Springfield up on stage. When I walked on the stage the whole place went nuts and I though "wow .. this is a popular radio station ... I've only been here two weeks." I was pretty blown away. I talked about a couple of station promotions and introduced Rick just as planned. The next Monday I was on the air and got a call from a young girl on the station request line. She told me "the only reason people clapped for you is because they thought you were Rick Springfield." Ego blow number one from the concert. Now on to the date.

So I took my date backstage to meet Rick. I had learned through the years that girls would go out with me just to meet the bands and then dump me when the concert was over. I thought this was different. We met Rick and each stood on one side of him to take the picture. The rest of the evening went just fine.

About a week or so later I was going to take the same girl to see the Jacksons Victory Tour. This was a huge tour with Michael and the rest of his brothers all on stage. I went to her house to pic her up and there it was ... the picture from the Rick Springfield concert. There she was on the right and Rick to her left ... but she had cut me out of the picture! Ego blow number two.

I started to just leave; but then she came out of her bedroom and looked like a million bucks. I went ahead and took her to the concert but certainly had gotten the message from the photo. Now you know just one of the reasons why I would laugh back then when I would hear rumors that I was a "lady's man."