Did I tell you about the time I abandoned a child at Oprah's studio?

I've been seeing blurbs today about the big Oprah finale taking place this evening at the United Center. Got me thinking back to my couple of visits to the Oprah Show years ago. It was the early 1990's. At the time, getting tickets was no problem at all. You called the number. Someone answered. You told them you wanted to go to a taping. They gave you a date. You said "okay" and then you showed up on the designated date. Back then, there was no website to go to so you could get more details or find out if there may be a celebrity guest showing up. I don't think she was even giving things away yet. Your only line of communication was through that phone number, which was never busy when you called.

I went to two tapings, probably in 1992. One time I remember going with my mother-in-law, who raised her hand to one of Oprah's questions during a commercial break. "See me after the show," she told my m-i-l and the two chatted for a few minutes.

The other time, I went with a co-worker, my sister and my niece, who was 15 or 16 at the time. We showed up early as instructed and went to a nearby diner for breakfast. When we got to the front gate, we were notified that you had to be over age 18 to be part of the audience due to the racy content. It was about older women dating young guys and some moms going after their sons' friends. Today, we call them cougars -- and see them all over TV. Twenty years ago, it was "too racy."

Most responsible adults would have left disappointed. Yet, when someone at the counter suggested she could sit in a waiting room while the rest of us went into the studio, we decided it was a good idea. We still laugh about how we abandoned my niece and left her to watch a rerun in the waiting room with a security guard, while we went in for the taping. We can laugh about it now. Looking back, I have to wonder what I was thinking. She was bummed, but still happy to have gotten a day out of school and a chance to be in the building. And years later, she was able to return and see a much better show than we did.

I still remember shaking Oprah's hand on the way out and telling her how wonderful she looked in the peach suit she had on. (WHEN is that color going to come back? It looked great on her.)

Not too long ago, my niece finally got her chance to get in and be part of the audience for real. She sent in an e-mail on a whim and ended up right in the front of a show featuring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. It made up for the crummy circumstances of her first visit.

Moms never get too old to rock

Last week, following a two-day trip to Key Lime Cove and then Six Flags Great America, I had another big day planned. A few weeks ago, I saw that Bon Jovi would be performing at Soldier Field. Since my 16-year-old is a Bon Jovi fan, I offered him tickets as a birthday gift. He was excited and we got a ticket for my sister to go along.

I love that my son loves the music that I grew up on. I know I have Guitar Hero and Rock Band to thank for his fondness of 80's music. If you scanned through his iPod, you'd find that a big portion of the music he has downloaded is from long before he was born. Most of it is from when I was his age. So, in the Bon Jovi concert ticket deal, it was a win-win. I got to spend a memorable evening with my son, rather than buying him a material possession. I also got to see one of my favorite bands from my teenage years. My son would get to enjoy his first concert in a venue that large and would get to see a band he liked as well. I would find out that he was way more familiar with Bon Jovi's music than I was, since he had all of his CDs, including his most recent release, which I hadn't really listened to in its entirety.

It turned out that my sister had a super busy week and when I mentioned the concert to my 17-year-old nephew the week before, he said he liked Bon Jovi, also, and wouldn't have minded going. So, my sister opted for a quiet night and decided to give up the ticket and have us invite my nephew. She dropped him off at my place that afternoon and we headed for Soldier Field. On Facebook, I'd seen many of my childhood friends posting that they had been at the concert the night before or were planning to go to the show that night.

I hoped for my son and nephew's sake, that there'd be more in the crowd than a bunch of 30-something moms screaming over their teenage crush. Seeing that the opening act was Kid Rock, I think he drew a whole different crowd and a younger bunch of fans. I only knew two of Kid Rock's songs when I got there: All Summer Long, which is one of my absolute favorites and Picture, a duet with Sheryl Crow that had been played on the country radio stations and that I really liked, as well. I knew that some of his other recordings were profanity-laced and more on the hard rock/rap side. I was pleasantly surprised by his performance. He sang the favorites I hoped to hear and did a great job on some covers, but even those songs I didn't know, I enjoyed seeing his passionate performance. And then when he started in with jokes about being from Detroit and the hockey rivalry, the crowd went nuts when three members of the Blackhawks brought out the Stanley Cup and Kid Rock raised it up.

Once Bon Jovi came out, I might as well have been a screaming, dancing 15-year-old again. I loved everything about the show and was amazed at how much he put into it, singing non-stop for about three hours. I probably embarrassed my son and nephew a wee bit, but well, that's tough. Why should the teenagers have all the fun?