I remember the second time I got drunk. 1973, age 16, a junior in high school. And, as usual, my pal Red was the instigator.
Red and Chuck used to play golf at this ritzy golf course in a nearby town. The golf course was closed for the winter because, well, you can’t play golf when the greens are covered with snow. But, according to Red, there was a bar in the middle of the course that was boarded up for the winter and was loaded with booze. And Red had discovered there was a window in the back of the building that was unlocked (Red was always on the lookout for opportunities for mischief like this one). So Red suggested that we sneak into the golf course in the middle of the night and steal as much of the booze as we could carry. Chuck and I both agreed that this was a magnificent idea.
So later that night we drove to the golf course. Chuck parked his car on the outskirts of the course and we walked up the snow-covered greens to the bar. The back window was indeed unlocked so we climbed in and jumped down into the room. It was pitch dark in there and our eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness, when this shadowy figure suddenly darted towards us. It was a dog, a big German Shephard. “Holy shit its a guard dog!” hissed Red. We all froze in the spot as our sphincters clenched up our throats. For a second we thought the dog was going to rip our throats out. But the dog just quietly trotted by us and cowered harmlessly in the corner. Some guard dog.
We grabbed as many of the bottles of hard liquor behind the bar as we could carry, plus three big kegs of beer. Then we climbed back out the window with our haul and hauled ass down the snow-covered greens. The kegs were too heavy to carry so we were rolling them down the snow-covered greens. I will never forget that surreal image as long as I live, its permanently imprinted in the mind’s eye of my memory. Those kegs rolling down the snow-covered greens, and me, Chuck and Red joyously chasing after them.
We jumped into Chuck’s car and made our getaway. We were euphoric at having pulled off the crime of the century. We couldn’t believe that we had actually pulled it off!
But now we had to figure out what to DO with all that booze. We certainly couldn’t take it home. We decided to drop it off at the local “hippie house” on the outskirts of town. My 19-year-old older sister lived there with her hippie boyfriend and about 7 or 8 other hippies, Deadheads, stoners, and greaseballs that rented out the rooms in this funky old house. That hippie house was often party central for many of the local high school kids. It was considered scandalous by the local townspeople, this bizarre “hippie commune,” and it was the source of constant speculation, gossip and outrage as to the goings-on at this notorious “hippie house.” Drug parties and orgies and satanic rituals? God only knew. Mostly it was just a bunch of bored potheads lazing around on the sofas watching TV.
Anyways, we were greeted as conquering heroes when we showed up with all that booze. The problem was, we had forgotten to also steal some taps for the kegs so we had no way to get the beer out of the kegs. Finally, some genius suggested that we just drive a big stake into the keg. Which seemed like a magnificent idea, so thats what we did. A geyser of beer exploded out of the keg all the way to the ceiling, I guess because of the air pressure in the keg. So everybody grabbed pots and pans from the kitchen to catch the fountains of beer flowing down from the heavens. It was an incredible moment. Like winning the World Series and dousing eachother with champagne. There are some great photos of us all toasting eachother with pots and pans full of beer.
In retrospect, I certainly don’t condone stealing, or being a reckless 16-year-old idiot. But that was a triumphant moment for me. And I didn’t have too many of those during my high school career. So what the hell.
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Acid Heroes 