I will never forget one kegger party in particular, ever.
I was 18 years old and living with my Maternal Grandparents in Coos Bay Oregon.
5 guy’s I went to High school with all had a birthday within one week.
One of them came up with the bright idea of having a keg party to celebrate them all at once.
They picked a public park outside of Coquille Oregon out in the country.
Cherry Point Park if I remember correctly. It was about 25miles or so away.
Right in the middle of July so the weather was perfect.
My Grandfather actually had bought a piece of property just a couple miles up the road before you got there so I knew how to get there.
I didn’t have a car at the time and got a ride from one of my friends, who just happened to be one of the Birthday Boys.
We got there on a Friday evening.
These 5 guys had spread the word and took up a collection to buy the beer.
They were wildly successful and there were TWENTY TWO kegs of beer sitting in pickup beds, on ice in big water troughs and stacked up in a row in the little creek there.
I knew it was supposed to be a pretty big party but I was blown away.
I had taken my sleeping bag, a good sized Bong because we were all stoners back then and a tiny little one hit bong that fit inside of a coat pocket because it was a handy little sucker.
I had also brought about a half a carton of Marlboro’s.
There was already a shit load of people there and they just kept coming.
We all started partying, people were blasting Rock and Roll out of their cars and shit and the party just kept getting bigger.
I couldn’t tell you how many times I got drunk and passed out but it was several.
I partied until I was partied out on Friday night.
I woke up on Saturday and immediately started right back in.
Meanwhile, more people, including a bunch of Bikers that one of my friends were pals with showed up.
What I didn’t find out until later was that the buddy I got there with had decided to go with some other guy back into town for something and had gotten into a head on wreck somewhere between the park and town.
Nobody got killed but all involved wound up in the local hospital.
About an hour after I heard about it, three Sheriff cars pulled into the park and all hell broke loose.
People running around all over hiding weed and trying to hide.
I ran over and stuffed my Bong inside my sleeping bag and got yelled at by a cop but he had his attention diverted before he could single me out.
Absolute bedlam.
This was late Saturday afternoon and by then there was probably a hundred and fifty drunk people inside that park, including the Bikers.
Half of them were under age like me.
The cops told everybody to line up, legal age in one line and under age in another.
They started reading us the riot act and then one of them made the mistake of telling us that they were going to confiscate the beer.
Oh hell no you aren’t.
150 drunk and rowdy people versus maybe eight cops with no back up?
First one of the Bikers took a couple steps forward and then the whole crowd surged forward,
Every one of those cops put their hand on their gun and started looking for a place to go.
Realizing they well might have to shoot their way out, the Big Kahoona Sheriff made a snap decision that more than likely saved a lot of bloodshed.
He told his guys to back up and told us that in light of the situation, they were going to leave the beer, not run anyone in and let the party continue on the conditions that nobody was to drive anywhere until they were completely sober.
They knew damn good and well there was weed all over, not to mention about a hundred underage drunk and rowdy kids but it was absolutely the smart thing to do so off they went.
The party started right back up and everyone was all excited that they were going to leave us alone.
I went back over to my sleeping bag to retrieve my Bong and when I opened it up I found three more stuffed in there!
Apparently other people saw me do it and took advantage of the situation.
I partied until I fell down again Saturday night and when I woke up Sunday the party was still going but it was toned down a whole lot.
Shorty after I woke up and grabbed a beer it dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten anything since Friday afternoon.
There was food there but I was too busy drinking.
About mid morning I decided that I had had about enough and then I remembered that I didn’t have a ride home.
I spread the word and pretty soon I got hooked up with some guy I had never met before who said that he was heading back to Coos bay and I was welcome to tag along.
He had about a 64 or 65 Buick, mid size, I couldn’t tell you what model except that it was a two door and it ran.
I threw my sleeping bag in the back seat and piled in.
He seemed to be sober enough to drive and we started in talking about the party and such on the way.
We mad it back to Highway 101 and started North back to Coos Bay.
I was still about half loaded but even back then I was an alert co pilot.
He was busy trying to keep the rig between the lines when we go around this corner and here sits a State Cop.
He wasn’t speeding or anything but I looked over and told him that we were going to get pulled over.
Bigger than shit the cop pulls out behind us and gets behind us.
He followed us for at least a mile and flipped the lights on right before we got up to an old weigh station and pull out.
He asks for the usual license registration etc. and then tell this guy that the reason he pulled us over was because the back license plate was all muddy and he couldn’t read it and there was something leaking out of the back onto the road.
He wants to see what’s in the trunk.
So this guy gets out, I get out and all three of us walk around to the back of the car.
This guy pops the trunk and I shit you not, the entire thing is full of ice and beer.
All the way across and right to the top.
The ice was melting and the water is running out the ass onto the road.
Then he asks if we been drinking and wants to know how old I am. By this time I gotta piss like a ruptured goat but now he wants to search the car too.
Bigger than shit he finds the Bong and I ‘m thinking I’m going to jail.
You have to remember this is 1978 and the cops are DEATH on weed back then. Plus, this was a STATE COP.
Then a miracle happened.
He told me to put the Bong in the trunk, tells the guy to dip a rag in the ice water and clean his license plate off and we are free to go!
No breathalyzer, field sobriety test, nothing.
I tell the cop I really gotta take a leak so he tells me to walk up behind some six foot tall pine trees on the hill right next to the car so no one can see me.
While I’m standing there I remembered that tiny little pocket bong that he didn’t find because he never searched us personally so I stashed it behind another little tree just in case.
After that he told us to drive safely and let us go.
Somebody was really looking out for my narrow little ass that whole weekend.
This guy driving takes me right to my Grandparents driveway and drops me off. Nice guy, I never saw him again.
Of course I caught some hell from my Grandma for being gone for three days but I was good to go basically.
Remember I told you that my Grandfather bought a piece of property not far from that park?
3 weeks later we went up there to do some improvements.
On the way home I told him I had to piss right before we got to that same weigh station pull out. I got out, took a piss on the same tree and reached over, grabbed my tiny little bong that was still sitting there and put it in my pocket.
Nice. I miss hijinks.
Sigh … the good ol days.
Coming home from a party, a guy I worked with was driving. He was a jerk at the party, one of the type that get mean when drinking. I had finally talked him into leaving.
So they we were getting pulled over by a deputy. He bolts out of the car to go argue with the deputy. I stayed in the car for a couple minutes then came out to clock him if need be.
Amazingly, the dep asks if he’s been drinking. I guess dep had to get it on record. The jerk starts to spout off when I interupt. I say we’ve been drinking alright but I am okay. The deputy says we can go only if I drive. Away we go into the night but with that idiot yammering on and on until he passed out. Dep didn’t even do a field test on me. Had me promise to be safe, that was it.
The dad of a friend in Crescent City was the Sheriff. His uncle was the high scool principal. Funny, the deputies treated him like a favorite kid brother. However, the uncle was ruthless, always acting like every kid is a truant and needs whipping.
Anyhow … good memories.
I didn’t do pot though. I did once and it made me feel so weird that I thought never again.
We borrowed a boat and motored across the lake to resupply drinks ahead of the big delivery coming later. We buy a couple 12-pack plus a pint of Jack for me.
We speed outta the harbor and make eye contact with the Sherrif on the dock waving us in for our wake. Busted like 40-year olds 3-sheets to the wind.
Sherrif says to buddy, Didn’t you run that auto repair shop in town couple years ago? Yes & yes he’d given a good price for work done.
I offered to drive and off we go.
Barely beat the main delivery back to Bass Lake campground, laughing like only 40+ party-goers excell at.
Keggers at the county park way up Smith River out of Drain where I grew up, Phil…’bout 5 years ahead of you. State cop probably let you go because he had heard about the County guys getting chased off and was ‘amused’…Department rivalry ya know. Figured you were part of the winning team and gave you a pass.
Lived in Coos Bay/North Bend for a couple of years about ’86 or so…on Lockhart I think.
Hell, my dad allowed my brothers to have keggers at the house. 1/3 acre lot, with a pool and all fenced in. Buy-in was $5 or $10, only problem was I got put on bathroom detail as I was underage. And the fuckers would eat my pizza if I didn’t protect the damned thing like I was Gollum or something.
Cops were cool about it, just no drunk driving, party stops at 4am.
And, yes, the mid 70’s. And this was in Satellite Beach, just south of Cocoa Beach, Fl.
I’m getting a hangover just reading about it. —ken
The last paragraph is the killer. It’s amazing we survived being teenagers. I look back at all the stuff I got up to and say “dang they arrest people for that now.”
Such a great story. Those were the best years to be young!
Lot o cops were decent back then and remembered their youth. First keggar I was 15. Cost me 10 bucks to get in
I currently own a ranch not two miles from Cherry Creek Park. The park has been closed for several years, and is in disrepair.
I remember visiting a buddy on Long Island, NY in 1978. This was during the Rockefeller drug laws and you went to ‘jail for life’ for a roach. He was on the lacrosse team where he went to school so most of his friends weren’t tightened down all the way. We were drinking from campus and then house to house using his ’67? Malibu
( the Blue Death ). Somehow we were now on our way to a strip club all the way out on the island when one of the genius’ in the back seat grabs the steering wheel from his hands and the car hops the curb and screws up something underneath and a tire.
We pull over at the end of a plaza by a fenced garden store under the lights. A security guy comes by and we explain we need to change the tire and he’s all good. Minutes later the cops show up and think we’re jimmying the fence with the tire iron. So now it’s guns drawn and we are up against the glass windows. We always park under the lights when robbing a garden center. The cop says he is going to find drugs in the car and he is literally throwing beer cans out of the way which are knee deep on the back floor as he tears the car apart looking for weed. Jokes on him, we’re dry. As I’m looking at lawn furniture and rakes in the window all I can think is my mother will kill me. Cops made my buddy drive a straight line and took our licenses and after a half hour let us go. Live to party again.
Grew up with a kid who used to.do hand stands for the cops when he got pulled over and asked to do a field sobriety test.
“Craig, do you think you can walk a straight line”?
“I can do it on my hands”.
“Well, I’d like to see THAT”.
I still laugh my ass off thinking about the looks on the cops faces. Legend.
Grew up in Bloomington in a bucholic subdivision along nine-mile creek. At about 12 years old (1972) we started noticing alot of cars parked in our neighborhood streets and had no idea where all the people were. So we had to see who was encroaching on “our” woods. We went down there and found dozens, sometimes a hundred or more people having “keggers”. It was a new term at the time. One dollar ($1.00) would get you a beer glass for all you could drink. 12, 13, 14? They didn’t care. They just wanted to get their money back. I puked more times than I can count down in those wood. Lost my (you know what) and did it many more times. We had named places down there like Munchkinland, the Meadows, and the Bluff. Cops could hardly ever find us. It went on for years.
For a time, we were even schlepping kegs across Shepard Road in broad daylight and had keg parties down in the St. Paul caves. Ah, the memories of a misspent youth…
I don’t remember.
Folks, it is stories like this that we in Europe love to hear. This is the ‘freedom’ we really love to hear about. We know DC sucks but we also study your Constitution and base our hopes on that basis.
Remember, we have nowhere else to escape to. Don’t worry. I’m a Mick and I’m bloody well staying. We’ll clean up our own crap.
Don’t Mind Me might be interested in you, he is part from your parts… I know we need to take care of own problems, these invaders are only here for the benefits. That is gonna change. Mick: Slang: “Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term for a person of Irish birth or descent.” I am proud myself for wearing that…
God Blessed the Irish and Irish,
Dingle has a pub with the last name of my ancestral brethren. Dad and brother have been there, sadly not I, yet
Thanks for the flashbacks. I was remembering the dozens of parties that I attended/hosted before, during and after my 9.5 years in Uncle Sam’s Alcohol Friends, back in the 80s and early 90s., as I read this.