Remember the day better than I remember the night. Why? This day was my one and only party I ever hosted during high school years: my 18th birthday party.
In 1976, the legal age was 18. I was determined to tell the world! Or least the citizens of my hometown. How Dad agreed to this party, which really was a keggar with 2 barrels of beer. Once Schlitz and the other Pabst Blue Ribbon....I’ll never know!
Dad could have gone to jail.
However, I’m ahead of the story.
The day itself was kinda quiet. We got the kegs. Even a sheet cake which had my name on each square. OK. In grade school, that’s how my mom bought my treats every year.
Outside of that, Dad just kind of moseyed around. Kinda quiet as I recall.
Later on, he admitted he thought nobody would show up and he would have to sooth my broken heart.
When a classmate surprised me with a delivery of 3 ½ dozen red roses around 5:30, Dad knew it was ON! No broken heart here as Dad jumped to hydro-drive. Dad fixed sloppy joes and said, “We’re gonna have a party!” And I still have the card with everybody's name who chipped in for the roses!
Around 7pm, my chums and I sat in front of my house—waiting.
No cars.
Maybe I would have a broken heart after all. Then a classmate drove by and said, “There you are! We weren’t sure where you lived!”
Within about 15 mins the convoy was in place. Stream of headlights headed to my house.
And the rest was history.
How many kids were there?
Enough that all the beer was gone in gone in 90 mins.
If there were less than 100 in attendance, I’d be surprised.
My dad, step-mother, and her sister were there every minute.
And the night....
Well, I remember getting spanked by a classmate a nd we broke the chair.
Kids everywhere. Some pretending they shot baskets in our kitchen.
Even now—all these years later, my party will be brought up in conversation.
And how cool my Dad was.
How Dad admitted to some classmates it would have just killed him if I’d decided to move to Arizona after my mom died when I was 13. My aunt, in Arizona, was my mom’s oldest sister, and I was quite close to my cousin. So my dad asked me if I wanted to move there and I shot back, “Don’t you want me here?”
Dad said that knifed him as I cried in his arms. I never heard another word about moving again.
As I grew older, Dad and I would chat about that night, Dad always said he’d never seen so many white kids in his life and he just KNEW he was going to jail.
Poor Dad. He thought those that would show up would be at least legal. He didn’t expect the whole town and some not so much.
Was it smart to throw a party like that? Of course not! Dad didn’t want to deny me a memorable anything and fought the “NO” he wanted to say about the beer, but I was legal now. Dad didn’t know and I wasn’t wise enough to even think to tell him not every party go-er would be 18.
Oh, and did I mention the police did patrol our street? To look back, I really did put my dad in a pickle. He thought his baby was just having a little get together. Dad enjoyed I had fun and the kids too, but he just knew he’d be hauled off one of those times the police patrolled the street.
We’re blessed nothing happened (back then you think nothing WILL happen) and like I said, my classmates still talk about my 18th birthday party, after all these years.
It musta been a great party—like I said, the day I remember, the night, well…
I made sure my hometown citizens knew it was birthday!
If I had kids—no way would that have such a shin-dig.
However, in 1976, it seemed like the thing to do.
