So the big day came and I was off to Willard Airport to pick him up. We picked up Harry and immediately took him to Kam's for a press conference. It was in the basement of Kam's believe it or not and the local radio and TV stations were crowded in to hear the news. The mayors were there with their bright gold keys to the city and the proclamations were delivered. Harry had to leave for a minute to call President Carter. As I said earlier, Carter named him to a President's Council that day and Harry called into the announcement.
We had Harry for the day and we used all the time. First he went to Garcia's Pizza. Back in the day Garcia's was near the corner of Wright and Green where Coco Mera is now. Harry put on a blue denim Garcia's shirt and sold "Gutbusters" for $2. All proceeds to World Hunger Year. Ralph and Joe Tomato were there and enjoying every second of having Harry selling pizza in their store. After 30 minutes we went to Record Service. For the younger generation, Record Service was on Green Street across from what is now Subway. They sold real vinyl records and had a few hundred Chapin albums for him to sign and sell. Harry's record company manager made sure we didn't run out, and even brought us a few hundred albums for give aways later in the day.
Next stop was the Red Lion on Third and Green. The Red Lion still stands today, although it's much different than the old days. We charged a special admission there and Harry sang a song or three. And then we went across the street to the White Horse. There was a hamburger special there and Harry signed autographs for a fee. All in all we raised about $1500 in two and a half hours.
It was 5:30 and time for dinner. We sold raffle tickets to local sororities and had a special drawing the night before the show to announce the winner. Our National President, Ken Potter had flown in from Oregon for the event and he was going to pick the winner.
A quick aside here. About 3 days before the show Harry's agent called me and said he needed to know where Harry was going to be for dinner to put on the itinerary. I told him that I didn't know as we were going to pick the winner in two days. Well, he had to know now, so I had to "pick the winner."
So...I looked at the total tickets sold and from that determined that Pi Beta Phi was the winner. Pi Phis was only a block away from the Auditorium and it would make it easier to get Harry to the concert on time. So, Pi Phis won! It made it somewhat awkward the night of the drawing as I had to tell our National President to "randomly pick Pi Phis" from our batch of tickets. But he covered me well!
So we went to Pi Beta Phi for dinner. The lovely ladies of Pi Phi sang a serenade or two to Harry. And Harry leaned over to me and said, "go get my guitar so I can sing back." I raced over to the Auditorium and announced "I need Harry's guitar!' Of course the UI security team thought I was a lunatic, but one of his stage crew recognized me from my back stage ventures and said, "he's ok, he's a friend of Harry's."
So I took the guitar back and Harry sang to the women. They sang back, he sang, etc, etc.
In fact I looked up at the clock and it was 6:55 and we only had 5 minutes to get back to the stage for the real concert.
Harry put on a great show. He brought his entire band for the concerts which he rarely did at benefits. I remember Harry's brother Steve complaining because he didn't have a Steinway piano, and "how could a university as big at the UI not have a Steinway available," but that was the only complaint. Between shows we had set up an appearance at Kam's. Because the concert had sold out we worked out a deal where both shows were simulcast into Kam's. And Harry was going to arrive and sing a few songs between shows.
So we head out of the side door of the Auditorium to walk over to Kam's. Now picture 1800 people in line on the UI quad waiting to get in a show at 9:45 PM. Harry and I were walking by and Harry, always the jester, says "hey what's going on here?" Someone answered "we're going to a Chapin concert. Harry said, "he sucks, don't waste your time." And someone yelled "it's Harry....!!" So we start running full speed to Kam's to get away from the crowd.
We got back in time for the second show and afterwards had the band and Harry of course back at the fraternity house. At about 3 in the morning, Tom Kappelman and I got Harry into the back seat of his car and drove him to O'Hare.
We raised about $25,000 for World Hunger Year that day. In today's world that would probably be in the neighborhood of $150,000. And between the pizza slices, and the t-shirts sold, and record albums signed, touched a lot of people on one great day.
I suppose that the moral to this story is that it's ok to have a dream and follow it. Harry dreamed of a world where every person had a food to eat for every meal. Not because of food drives, but because people were taught how to raise and care for food and the land. A few years later Harry died in an auto accident on his way to a benefit concert. For me, Harry planted the seeds of always giving back. No matter what the cost was to you in time, or effort. I have tried to fertilize those seeds my whole life.
As Harry often said, "Keep the change!"
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