Dobbs Town
01-11-2004, 09:43
Lemme tell you a story...and you can feel free to tell one of your own, though it doesn't have to be nearly as long-winded as mine.
When I was twelve I went on a weeklong camping retreat in Eastern Ontario put on by two Unitarian youth groups. Things started getting a bit dull at night towards the end of the week, and when word got around that Eric Burdon and the Animals were performing a show in a town some fifty miles off, it seemed like a natural to pile a bunch of us into a hatchback and go off in search of diversion. I should point out that I was the youngest person in the car, with everyone else more or less over the age of majority.
I was a precocious twelve-year old, but also naive. When we arrived at the venue, a licensed roadhouse, it never occured to me that I might be carded, as I'd never been to a licensed venue before. I looked older than I was, though I was easily somewhere in my teens.
Getting in proved no trouble at all, most likely because I just blithely walked in like I was supposed to be there. The band was great, apparently on a reunion tour, and the show went long into the night. I spent most of my time dancing and singing along with all the great old tunes, and trying to talk to some local girls. At one point, one of my fellow campers, the driver, came up to me and said...something...to me (I couldn't make out what he was saying, the music was too loud), and I just tried nodding my head to mollify him.
What I didn't know was that he was asking me if I'd be the designated driver for the ride home. He'd noticed I wasn't drinking any beer, and figured I was just broke and making the best of the situation. Oops. So, unbeknownst to me, everybody else in our party made plenty merry at the roadhouse bar, while I was dancing up a mean sweat over by the stage.
After a few encores, it was time to go. I was feeling really tired, and the cold night air was making my limbs feel a little stiff. I was naive enough not to notice just how inebriated some of the others were at that point.When we were all getting into the overstuffed hatchback, the driver said, 'Hey! don't climb in the back! What are you doing?' I had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured, hey, if he wants me in the front seat, I've got no problem with that, it beats the cramped backseat!
So he hands me the car keys and I just stood there while he piled himself, amongst others, into a passenger seat. Suddenly his drowned-out words and pantomime-racecar driver routine back in the roadhouse became crystal clear in my mind. And so was my predicament.
Here I was in the parking lot of a roadhouse at 2 in the morning with a hatchback stuffed full of seven or eight drunken Unitarian hippies, feeling sweaty, tired and dehydrated, I'm twelve years old, and the only way I'm getting anywhere near to taking a shower and crawling into a warm, snug cozy sleeping bag is if I take those car keys, start the car, and drive us back 'cause I was sure as Hell not letting any of the drunks drive.
I asked (ironically) one of the oldest people there for his driver's license, as he looked the most credibly like me. I told them I'd left mine at the camp, and should we be pulled over, I'd prefer to have some sort of document on hand rather than have to engage in any lengthy discussions. I was really feeling beat. And here I was, about to drive someone's car. And so, we were off-!
We'd made it about halfway when the sardines in the back seat demanded and got a pit stop. We were in the middle of nowhere, on a rural highway running between fallow fields, so I just stopped, and soon there was a line of three or four guys all standing looking away from the highway, obluting in that way only men can. That's when the police cruiser pulled up along behind us.
The one cop shouted himself hoarse at the merry band of tinklers, who were suitably apologetic, while the other asked me for my driver's license, which he gave a cursory once-over. I joked and made small talk about the show, how I was looking forward to some shut-eye back at the camp, etc., which seemed to satisfy him.Seeing how the others were all intoxicated though, he had me get out and do the walk-the-line test, and made me follow a pen with my eyes, until he told me to get lost and not to overcrowd a hatchback like this on their bit of road ever again (with much wagging of his finger)!
The next night around the campfire, someone asked me what was my favourite beer, and I said that I didn't know, that I didn't drink, which was met with some guffaws. I unself-consciously said that it's hard for a twelve-year old to have the chance to develop much of a palette for beer given that it's nearly impossible for a twelve-year old to get!
There was only the sound of the wood crackling in the fire for a while after that.
Well, there's another one for you. Maybe it wasn't as much fun as the one about the kite and the airport radar, but...it actually happened. And I was never actually caught doing it (not by the barstaff, the cops, my parents, or even the adult advisors on hand at the camp), other than by my own admission, after the fact.
Speaking of being tired, that's where I'm at right about now. Think I'll mosey off to bed pretty soon. G'night...
When I was twelve I went on a weeklong camping retreat in Eastern Ontario put on by two Unitarian youth groups. Things started getting a bit dull at night towards the end of the week, and when word got around that Eric Burdon and the Animals were performing a show in a town some fifty miles off, it seemed like a natural to pile a bunch of us into a hatchback and go off in search of diversion. I should point out that I was the youngest person in the car, with everyone else more or less over the age of majority.
I was a precocious twelve-year old, but also naive. When we arrived at the venue, a licensed roadhouse, it never occured to me that I might be carded, as I'd never been to a licensed venue before. I looked older than I was, though I was easily somewhere in my teens.
Getting in proved no trouble at all, most likely because I just blithely walked in like I was supposed to be there. The band was great, apparently on a reunion tour, and the show went long into the night. I spent most of my time dancing and singing along with all the great old tunes, and trying to talk to some local girls. At one point, one of my fellow campers, the driver, came up to me and said...something...to me (I couldn't make out what he was saying, the music was too loud), and I just tried nodding my head to mollify him.
What I didn't know was that he was asking me if I'd be the designated driver for the ride home. He'd noticed I wasn't drinking any beer, and figured I was just broke and making the best of the situation. Oops. So, unbeknownst to me, everybody else in our party made plenty merry at the roadhouse bar, while I was dancing up a mean sweat over by the stage.
After a few encores, it was time to go. I was feeling really tired, and the cold night air was making my limbs feel a little stiff. I was naive enough not to notice just how inebriated some of the others were at that point.When we were all getting into the overstuffed hatchback, the driver said, 'Hey! don't climb in the back! What are you doing?' I had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured, hey, if he wants me in the front seat, I've got no problem with that, it beats the cramped backseat!
So he hands me the car keys and I just stood there while he piled himself, amongst others, into a passenger seat. Suddenly his drowned-out words and pantomime-racecar driver routine back in the roadhouse became crystal clear in my mind. And so was my predicament.
Here I was in the parking lot of a roadhouse at 2 in the morning with a hatchback stuffed full of seven or eight drunken Unitarian hippies, feeling sweaty, tired and dehydrated, I'm twelve years old, and the only way I'm getting anywhere near to taking a shower and crawling into a warm, snug cozy sleeping bag is if I take those car keys, start the car, and drive us back 'cause I was sure as Hell not letting any of the drunks drive.
I asked (ironically) one of the oldest people there for his driver's license, as he looked the most credibly like me. I told them I'd left mine at the camp, and should we be pulled over, I'd prefer to have some sort of document on hand rather than have to engage in any lengthy discussions. I was really feeling beat. And here I was, about to drive someone's car. And so, we were off-!
We'd made it about halfway when the sardines in the back seat demanded and got a pit stop. We were in the middle of nowhere, on a rural highway running between fallow fields, so I just stopped, and soon there was a line of three or four guys all standing looking away from the highway, obluting in that way only men can. That's when the police cruiser pulled up along behind us.
The one cop shouted himself hoarse at the merry band of tinklers, who were suitably apologetic, while the other asked me for my driver's license, which he gave a cursory once-over. I joked and made small talk about the show, how I was looking forward to some shut-eye back at the camp, etc., which seemed to satisfy him.Seeing how the others were all intoxicated though, he had me get out and do the walk-the-line test, and made me follow a pen with my eyes, until he told me to get lost and not to overcrowd a hatchback like this on their bit of road ever again (with much wagging of his finger)!
The next night around the campfire, someone asked me what was my favourite beer, and I said that I didn't know, that I didn't drink, which was met with some guffaws. I unself-consciously said that it's hard for a twelve-year old to have the chance to develop much of a palette for beer given that it's nearly impossible for a twelve-year old to get!
There was only the sound of the wood crackling in the fire for a while after that.
Well, there's another one for you. Maybe it wasn't as much fun as the one about the kite and the airport radar, but...it actually happened. And I was never actually caught doing it (not by the barstaff, the cops, my parents, or even the adult advisors on hand at the camp), other than by my own admission, after the fact.
Speaking of being tired, that's where I'm at right about now. Think I'll mosey off to bed pretty soon. G'night...