Summary of the summer so far up to this date:
The summer starts with the last day of school, in my opinion. So this is where I start: June, 7, 1977. The last day of school, like usual, is and was a hell of a day. Bright and early in the morning we smoked pot in the car on the way to school. Mike Bechtel, Mark Jones, Tom Seiler and myself. Good pot. I don't care for pot that much but it is alright for before school. The day was basically boring as usual. The asshole seniors didn't do shit. Being afraid they wouldn't graduate. Ha!
After school the fun started. Mom and Dad were away, so we went to our house and drank. We had about a case and a half of Cinci, a case and a half of Labatt's, and twelve of Molson Golden Ale. Ahhh! We all had about four beers, went to L.C.'s and had grease burgers, which were then puked into the sink (by Strayer (Dan) only). We then moved our party into the woods with my huge cooler. Brad Jacobs even came with his eight of Schmidt's. After drinking for awhile back there, we started for Parker's graduation party, and we met Behr (Paul Behrendson) on the way. The tall, lanky senior gave us all a ride (crowded). We arrived quite early. (All loaded already.) I brought a gallon jug which was filled slowly and emptied quickly as we sat around a table and sipped the Rolling Rock on tap. It got dark and more crowded. We got more loaded. The music was good. Four big speakers on the roof. We all took No-Doze to keep us awake and we kept on going.
Finally it was real late and everyone was leaving and Bill Jacobs arrived, just off of work at “Town and Country” with a tapper of Falstaff. Somehow we finished that off quickly. And now being the only ones left, we retired to the woods. But we did not retire yet. In fact now came our party, the fantastic book burning ceremony, which I don't remember too well as I stood and watched my algebra book (which I purchased that day for a dollar) burn while I stood zombized with another beer in my hand. We all crashed then, I playing my recorder for a few minutes (Supertramp's “Fool's Overture”) and Geisler not one of the regular gang, either, looked for his contacts which he lost in his drunken state. The next morning we were all a little sick. Joe Fresch ate an Oreo and threw it up. We all went over to Parker's house and cleaned up all the shit.
I worked a few weekends during school and I started in the summer on June 12, Sunday. [At Cedar Point, Breakers Hotel] After a week of work, I had worked in every section of the hotel, but now moved pretty permanently to “C” section, the newest one. I work with Britt Jewett, as I did last year. He is OK because he is funny though kind of lazy. I also work with Mark Laws a typical St. Mary's pussy. I can tolerate him though because I know he can't help being an asshole. He thinks he's doing a lot of work, but all he does is bullshit work like repairing the cabinets and cleaning spots on carpets and walls. Must be going for ass kissing, pube faced Mills' job. I also worked with 20 year old Tim McKinney a lot. Tim is hard to figure out, at first I thought he was an asshole trying to be cool. He probably is. He does have some good points (everybody does). But all he talks about is fucking girls. I was running down Milan Road one morning (an early six miler) and I saw Tim and a maid sitting in a police car. He had run into the back of a truck on the way to work.
I described the people I work with quite a bit and I will describe my friends in greater detail as I get to them in daily writing. I've been running quite regularly, in the mornings. I will continue to increase my milage throughout the summer.
The big event of the summer is the Pink Floyd concert. June 25, Saturday. We left at noon. Four of us, Mike B., Tom S., Mark J., and I. Originally seven of us were to go. Coker (Joe) was the last dropout, just before we left (probably because his “wife” Beth Schoepfle). We got to the stadium with little trouble. We sold Coker's ticket quickly to some big, ugly dude for fifteen bucks. It was great waiting outside the stadium. All those freaks. What an atmosphere. “Acid, downers, I got acid and downers for sale.” One idiot was waiting for the door to open and beat his head violently into the door about 20 times. When we got in, the stadium was so small it seemed. We got good seats right under the edge of the overhang. When it rained we stayed dry while it got wet five rows ahead of us. It got very crowded (a record, 83,199) but it was amazingly quiet and well-behaved. Pink Floyd were great. They had a fantastic light show with a 40 foot screen up above them. They had fantastic fireworks, complete with “raining” sheep. They had big helium balloons of pigs and such. They had fantastic music and a quadrophonic sound system that blew my mind. We all smoked quite a bit but that was unnecessary. They started out with a jet flying over low and “Sheep” from their “Animals” album, which was the best album I had bought so far in the summer. They also had two encores. We had a hell of a time getting out, and home. Driving around Cleveland, lost at two o'clock in the morning was weird, all that traffic and trash. We made it home, though, three in the morning.
Monday night (27th) Tom and I went out and bought a twelve of Stroh's and went to Beth Kromer's house sitting on the front porch and drinking. That was pretty fun, just sitting and talking. Also there, besides other girls, were the R.J.'s (Rookie Junkies), Hand, Winkel, Downs, etc., who were a lot of fun like usual as they smoked pot and sat around and stared (note the sarcasm). Tom and I then drove Kim Kevesdy and Suzi Brian to get more beer. We got Labatt's at Town and Country. This excellent Canadian beer was only $1.81 a six-pack.
We left at about 11 o'clock. I then went over to Agsten's (Jim) house where he waited with Dan Stayer. We drank more beer and slept in the trailer. We set our alarm for 3:30 but awoke at six. Quite disappointed, I vowed to try again. Wednesday night we did it again, this time going to sleep by 12:30. The three alarm clocks woke us at 3:30 and we rode into town. It was a weird and great experience. We saw an alleged drug deal, and were followed around by one of the participants. We failed at stealing the “Wildman Street” sign, but so what. We then locked up our bikes at the post office and walked around. I had Mom's old 35mm camera and took many pictures. Even from atop the Goodwill building at sunrise. We also took a scenic trip to the top of the Feick Building. All in all it was a great bike trip.
On the Saturday of July Fourth weekend I went to Kelleys Island with Tom. We sat around and relaxed, ate a lot, and went swimming (3 times!) I got a good sunburn or tan. I got the rest I needed to keep my sanity, this being only my second day off all summer. It was also fun riding around in the Barracuda convertible.
I forgot to mention the big storm, Thursday June 30th. We were at the mall, mesmerized in The Gold Mine game room, while a mini tornado devastated parts of the mall. We walked out to see the ceiling falling in, in places, and wires hanging down. It was quite shocking. Water was dripping in all around and some temporary walls fell in. It was really weird. Jim and I were furious we didn't have our cameras. We were put out into the storm and witnessed much more damage. Mostly trees mangled. Also, driving home I saw some of the weirdest and brightest lightning ever, and it really freaked me out.
Well, that may summarize the summer thus far, but I'll leave a blank page in case I think of anything I forgot. —RR
