Well, I got a baby’s brain and an old man’s heart
Took eighteen years to get this far -Alice Cooper “I’m Eighteen”
I can’t think of a much more potentially dangerous condition than four teenage guys riding in a car with almost no brakes and then adding a case of beer to compliment the occasion, and that’s just what this story is about. It’s was my 18th birthday, a time in 1972 when authorities deemed I was old enough to drink while still too dumb to cope with the many consequences. Today, just celebrating my official entry into Old Codger World, my 65th anniversary on this planet, I thank God for his grace in allowing me to tell a story a lot of people never get to tell because they’re dead and long ago buried. This story could have easily ended that way for all of us and does for far too many teenagers who mix booze and gasoline.
To begin, we pulled a fast one on Alice Ashton, and this wasn’t easy as she was one sharp authority figure who wore two hats when were all seniors. Like a lot of professionals at small schools Alice had multiple major responsibilities, one as school nurse and the other as truant officer. Alice knew every excuse known to us for missing school and cut through bull like a spoon through yogurt. It took months of strategy to trip her up.
For a good illustration of Alice’s acumen, the year before my mom and dad made what may be the worst parenting mistake they ever did, and that was leaving me home alone for a week while they attended a convention in Atlantic City. If Dad were alive today, he’d underline this assertion, one he told me about almost daily for months afterwards, the constant reminders due to a combination of the disaster scene my poor parents observed when they arrived home and weather conditions later.
As for the party, memory, for some weird reason, is sort of foggy, but I do recall Mark Dibble inviting everyone at the Oasis over for cocktails and then a house full of strangers many nights. At some point in the beer haze a local comedian tossed both of my brother’s hamsters at Frank Peters’ face as the prankster yelled, “Look Frank, rats!” which scared both the hamsters and Frank. Took us two weeks to recapture and calm the hamsters, but Frank was fine just moments later, enjoying the joke a lot more than my brother did.
After three days of beer fueled insanity my bother vanished, secretly hiding out with our dog in the camper outside. I was about to report him missing when I discovered his whereabouts, and even back then, understood his motives and had some sympathy, but that still didn’t alter my plans or slow the party down in the least.
Most observed a ritual throughout the week long beer orgy, one very familiar to anyone who lived the lifestyle. Every night as the the beer supply began to dwindle, hoarders took cans and buried them in the snowdrifts around the house to assure a private supply, and then being bombed forgot about the hidden treasure.
When the spring thaw started, each interval exposed a new lawyer of ice cold beer, which my dad collected like gold bars, always showing me each new batch of cans and then never forgetting to tell me about regretting his own stupidity for trusting that I wouldn’t operate a 24-hour bar and grill in his absence. Even through the beer had been frozen solid for more than a month and now flatter that the tires of my junked out field car, Dad, just to spite me, drank every one of those beers, not buying any more until early summer. I knew better than to touch one and still suspect he counted them every night, just waiting for me to try. I was grounded until the Carter inauguration and had to paint half the interior of the house, but still thought it was a pretty swell week, all things considered.
But Alice got wind of the party on day two. I learned this when I called in sick to school Monday morning and described the terrible ailments I was sure would keep me bedridden for the rest of the week.
“Was it a six pack, perhaps?” Alice responded, so I knew I’d been busted, but wasn’t about to blow the next four days of debauchery. “In for a penny, in for a pound; if you draw a good hand, play it,” I reasoned.
Miss Ashton, as we all addressed her, had an intelligence network rivaling the CIA and probably better. Nothing happened in or near Cambridge without her knowledge, births, deaths, minor social engagements, you name it, if you wanted information about anyone, Miss Ashton had it. She knew every hiding place for school skippers, had deep knowledge of all the usual suspects, and total awareness of the patterns of their deception. She’d long had our crew pegged for what we were, likely to try almost anything we thought we might get away with.
The plan was very simple, as most good ones are, and involved a great loophole for seniors. All of us were allowed excused absences to make college visitations. Knowing we would never be granted a free pass together, we asked individually for the same date, my birthday on Feb. 18, doing so over a two-month period. As we planned, Alice never made the connection, until the morning of our escape when the absentee list was printed. Upon looking at the sheet of paper with my name along with Lou Davis, John Virtue and Terry Dwyer, Alice instantly knew she’d been tricked, but by then I was walking out of the West End Market with a case of Schlitz, a bit disappointed at not being asked for ID.
Plan B called for us to make it impossible for retribution later. We’d asked for permission to visit Adirondack Community College, and by golly, we were going there to prove we did. At this point, we had what amounted to a “get out of jail card” making it almost impossible for anyone to cry foul, a situation that delighted all of us and added to our exuberance. Of course, there was some problem explaining the rolling beer party, but our teenaged brains did not calculate this factor. I have vague memories of talking with Tom McMorris, then a student at ACC, while we were there, and asking him to witness our presence should we be questioned later, but that’s about all I can recall of our “tour” of ACC.
By the time we made it to Hudson Falls a big part of the case was gone, so we got another one for the return ride and planned celebration later of my father not yet shooting me as he frequently promised he would for reasons I understood but seemed powerless to change.
Somewhere on the way back to my house, a loud clunk and then the charging light glowing indicated another of the every-half-hour problems my despicable Corvair provided daily. It belonged in a junkyard long before I owned it and now had brakes working on only the right front wheel. Coming to a full stop required intense planning as well as application of the emergency brake a quarter mile in advance. Given favorable wind conditions and advanced scouting from whomever rode shotgun, the car was almost as safe as a Kamikaze.
We found the generator resting on top of the engine. I’m not sure who came up with the idea, my best guess would be Lou as he was the most skilled backyard engineer among us, and somehow we managed to use my belt to tie the generator back on to the broken bracket where it miraculously held until we pulled in to my backyard about a half hour later.
I do know for sure it was Lou who provided musical entertainment. John had the papers to apply for his learner’s permit but had yet to pass the written test, and also happened to have a copy of the NYS handbook everyone receives when applying for a permit. He wanted to study on the way to ACC because we briefly entertained stopping in Ft. Edward to let John take the test, figuring if he could pass it drunk he might be allowed to drive that way, but eventually decided this wasn’t a great idea, as much as it appealed to our sensibilities at the time.
For reasons unknown, Lou thought setting the manual to music was a good idea, so he proceeded to play mom’s piano while singing the text he put up on the ledge normally holding mom’s sheet music.
“You must come to a full stop at each and every stop sign and then proceed with caution,” Lou sang with many refrains about other laws that never sounded so inspiring. I often attributed Lou’s musical lesson to John finally passing his written exam, but my hands-on instruction about to start might have been helpful too, but nearly killed us both. (Click here for the conclusion of this story.)