Okay, okay.  I'll buy some tickets, but you can't make me go.  We'll

send some employees.

I went to the first Pops.  I sat in the front row of the cheap seats

and had a great time.

After that, we avoided the entire crowd thing.  Then, when Fahey and

Formaggio started marketing Pops Picnics and the parties became an

in-crowd thing, I started breaking out in hives.  (Which I was able to

treat by myself, thank you, with a mud polstice).

I don't like the event, although I will admit that I benefit from it

and, with the current state of medical insurance on this island, I know

that we need it.

When I was much younger and thinner, my mother dragged us all into the

Esplanade for the Pops concerts.  We went to the Fourth of July, but

also one or two of the other ones (there used to be a series of them

back in the Arthur Fieldler era).  We would wait all day for the

concert that night.  And the Esplanade was strictly first come, first

served.  If you arrived at four in the morning, you got the best seat. 

I like the idea that, in a democracy, everyone is equal up to the point

of exertion.

So, my first problem is that the Pops Concert is decidedly not

egalitarian.  The rich folks pay up and sit in the dainty white folding

chairs up front, after sipping mint juleps and eating cucumber

sandwiches.  The rest of us sit in the cheap seats squinting and eating

Henry's Subs.  I don't like the heavy class division on Nantucket and

the Pops Concert embraces it.

Further, it is a sop to the wealthy.  Many of these same drunken folks

send thousands and thousands of dollars to candidates who hobble the

health care system.  Or they vote on boards that strip employees of

health coverage.  Or the invest heavily in companies that make a lot of

money out of providing drugs, drug coverage, or health care in

sub-standard ways.  So, Mr. and Mrs. Barnett pay for the $2500 seats to

be with their friends while they cash the dividend checks from Bayer or

Pfi_er, At their seats, the chat with Bill Frist about that legislation

that caps damages from mercury in children's shots.  Hypocrisy Pinball,

to the tune of "She's a Grand Old Flag."

Second, the Pops concert embraces that other Nantucket hobby...socking

it to the summer folks.  It's part of the free ride mentality.  We

stage this huge fundraiser to make money for the hospital, which we

use, by hitting up the folks who use it once in a while during the

summer.  Why can't we foot more of the hospital's bill?  Why aren't

more islanders insured?  Why do all of our kids have cars and we go on

vacations to Bora Bora, but our employees have to depend on charity for

basic health care?  Why can't we pay our fair share?

I know the answer.

Health Care in America is all messed up.  Why doesn't the Pops do a

fund-raiser for some new cruise missiles?  The Pops Concert is a very

small part of a very big problem.  And, since we can't solve the big

problem, we can solve a small one on our island.  The Pops Concert has

doubtless saved tens of lives and made hundreds more more enjoyable. 

Those saved lives make it worthwhile.  But can't we at least ask the

big questions?  Why the &$#@ do we need it?