The Pope's Donuts

My wife Carla says I told her they were crullers. I say they were donuts. But no matter because the pope was involved. The real pope. And he had his pope mobile with him. Allow me to explain.

It was 1987, a year that looms large in the legend of my short and fractured trumpet playing career. That year I did more playing than ever, including several productions with the San Francisco Opera orchestra. But the biggest gig of the year by far was playing for the pope.

On Friday, September 18^th, Pope John Paul II said mass for over 70,000 people at Candlestick Park. Let me stop for a moment to add a few thoughts about the Candlestick, which was thankfully torn down after the Paul McCartney concert in August of 2016—which Carla and I attended. The concert was brilliant. As for the venue, I completely hated it. Candlestick was the worst major sports park ever built in the worst possible place. Its proximity to San Francisco Bay guaranteed dense fog and cold during the summer. Night games for the Giants were like camping in Siberia. Winter jackets, fuzzy hats, and sleeping bags were required. If cold weather gear was not donned, great suffering would follow. Unknowing out-of-towners frequently perished. During some night games it was so foggy at times that the outfield—and outfielders—would disappear. How they managed to track fly balls is beyond me.

But I will reserve my utter contempt for the Stick because of one day. On that day, October 17^th, 1989, the place did not fall down. The Loma Prieta earthquake, that rocked the Bay Area for the better part of 20 seconds before the start of the world series game, did not topple the massive concrete mess that was Candlestick. So the 48K-plus people there for the game, including your humble author, lived to tell the tale.

The pope-apalooza was two years before. I had been hired for a brass choir by a local contractor. We would accompany hymns during mass and play a few tunes for the prelude as well as the postlude music. The tunes were easy and the rehearsal a few nights before was basically a run through.

San Francisco was one of several stops on the pope tour that year. The papal entourage had flown into Monterey the day before where, among other things, his holiness met with Clint Eastwood. I wonder of Clint gave JP a copy of Dirty Harry. Afterwards, the the party headed up to the City. There tour continued with a mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral--which I always thought looked like a giant washing machine agitator--and a stroll near the Golden Gate Bridge. The next morning the pope was to say another mass at Candlestick for what would be the largest gathering ever at the venue.

As memory serves, Carla and I went out for dinner the night before and enjoyed a bit of wine. The next morning dawned foggy on Russian Hill both inside and out. I picked up donuts and coffee at a place in North Beach before getting on the now also-torn down I480 freeway and heading to the park.

The band was to assemble at 8:00 at a specified gate. No surprise security was tight. Actual secret service men were everywhere. They were easy to pick out. All were about 6’2”, 220 pounds, and seriously bulked up. They wore conservative business suits, aviator mirrored sunglasses, and one ear bud for communicating with the mother ship. You could easily approach any of them and chat. Nice guys, but you knew behind the shades they were constantly scanning everything around them. And no doubt they were packing heat and would have instantly shot anyone who got out of line.

The band had to go through three security check points to get down on to the field where the set up was about a hundred feet from the stage. At the last check point we were required to open and place our instruments, cases, music, and anything else we were carrying on the ground. A secret service guy pointed to my large styro cup of coffee and bag of donuts. “Those too, sir,” he said with utter seriousness. Normally I would have responded with a wise ass quip. Not this time. Several large German Shepherds were then brought over from another part of the park. The dogs proceeded to sniff through everything thoroughly, including my coffee and bag of pastries. After a few minutes, the green light was given by dog noses and the forces of security. We then collected our belongings and made our way to the set up.

From there, it was a matter of warming up bit and a long wait. Thankfully, I had my large coffee and fried sugar bombs so life was good. It was also an actual sunny morning at the Stick, which meant it would get hot later during the mass.

By 9:30 the place was crammed. I’d never seen so many people in Candlestick. A few minutes later we started to play our pre-game tunes. Shortly after 10:00 a roar erupted from the crowd. There, at the far end of the park where the Beatles had made their last ever exit from a public concert 21 years before, the popemobile and security people slowly made their entrance.

The Popemobile was a Dr. Seuss-looking affair that was in reality a Mercedes SUV with a large bulletproof plexiglass chamber on the back. Inside stood his holiness, bedecked completely in white. Cruising at a maximum warp speed of 5 MPH, the Popemobile made its way around the perimeter of the stadium before circling back for the stage. Inside the papal bubble his holiness waved at the crowd, which in turn went bonkers. There’s nothing like a huge horde of rabid Catholics. Now I know how the Romans felt.  

Finally, the soul train pulled up next to the stage. His holiness exited from the big custom rig and made slowly his way up on to the stage with the help of several assistants. Then mass began promptly. John Paul was miked up so easy to hear—but not easy to understand.  He sounded exactly like Boris Karloff as Dracula. He was, after all, Polish, so had a thick accident.

From there, it was mass as usual with our banda accompanying a huge choir on the hymns. At half time the pontiff sat down to take a quick breather and then delivered his sermon in lilting Frankenstein. I really don’t remember the gist of the sermon because it was hot by then and I was out of coffee. The donuts were gone too. Afterwards, John Paul did the consecration thing and then personally handed out communion to about a hundred lucky contestants. Then it was time to clean up and get out of Dodge. As we started playing the closing hymn, another roar erupted from the crowd as his holiness made his way back to the Popemobile surrounded by assistants and security people. Then the big unit made another circuit around the park with the pontiff waving to the admiring throngs. Once outside the park, secret service escorted his holiness into a heavily armored limo. In minutes, he was at SFO boarding his chartered jet, called Shepherd One.

No surprise it took me an hour to get out of the park and back to the car. Delirious Catholics were strewn about everywhere. But eventually I was on the road headed home; tired, hungry, and still a bit hungover. But I had actually played for the pope. And that’s not something you do every day.