Every year, somewhere around the end of June, like it or not, I took 2 weeks off to try and clear my brain of the issues and clutter from the year before. All of the instruments had been cleaned out, everything had been counted and put away, new instruments had been ordered and new music had been written. Most summers for the past 35 years, I have come to the upper peninsula of Michigan to the shores of Lake Huron (where I am now). It is quiet and peaceful and the urge to throttle some kid to death for doing "another" stupid thing is lessened by the absence of kids. I would come with a computer to work on drill design so that I did have something to express anger over in the absence of the aforementioned kid.
You would think that summers would offer a break from the social services based approach that I have always taken with regards to students. After all, I AM loaning them back to their parents for 2 months. Nevertheless, life happens. Sometimes the quiet of summer relaxation is shattered by a very serious occurrence. Joseph Park taking a header off of Liz Noonan's car and spending a huge hunk of the summer in ICU comes to mind. At those moments, while rushing to the hospital at midnight, the fact that it is summer break is inconsequential. At other times, when your once and future life comes tromping through what was otherwise a peaceful summer evening (these things always happen at night), all you can do is laugh. And so.....
Way back in the day, I had a Junior class of which I was quite fond. With one or two notable exceptions, they were all law abiding and low maintenance. They were a very close knit bunch who tended to make group decisions. I am not naive enough to believe that none of them had ever partied before (see the notable exceptions rule above). But now that summer had arrived and they were all rising seniors, what better way to commemorate the occasion that with a "Party at Beau's".
Beau was Beau Brady and, while he may have been one of the exceptions (or just exceptional), it would be unfair to blame him for most of what transpired that night. You see, Beau was out of town with his family. However, being the supportive and ever caring friend that he was, Beau loaned his house to his friends for a party. All of the participants told their parents that they were staying at the home of another participant. With that as a cover story, a number of them descended on Beau's house for the party of the century. Legend has it that there were hundreds of folks there but I place the number in the vicinity of 20. Legend also has it that there was a live band but my guess is a cassette enabled "jam box". There were no hard drugs and my guess is the alcohol counted out to 3 six-packs of wine coolers for 20 kids.
At some point late in the evening the cover story fell apart when one parent called another parent's house to ask their kid a question. Remember this was pre-cellphone. The conversation went a little like this:
Parent 1: "Can I speak with Susie?"
Parent 2: "Isn't she at your house with Jennifer?"
*** cue ominous music ***
After a few more phone calls, the parents discovered that all of the missing kid's cars were parked at Beau Brady's house. Bear in mind that had these kids not been in band, they would have never been caught as their parents would not have known each other. My band booster president at the time, Craig Schmidle, called my house at about 11 p.m. on a wonderfully quiet summer evening and the conversation went something like this:
Craig: "Do you know what your children are doing?"
Me: "During June and July they aren't mine, Craig."
Craig: "Still, they are all over at Beau's and........
Craig went on to describe how the parents came to figure this all out. They were now all headed to Beau's house to catch their kids in the act. I told him to have a nice night and I would see him at band camp. Here is how the next half hour was described to me the next day.
Several of the parents went to the house, pointed their car lights at it, began honking their horns and demanded that their kids "Come out of there at once!" If you are a 17 year old holding half of the first wine cooler you ever drank, you are now in free fall panic. Kids started climbing out windows, hiding in closets, running through backyards. Rats off a sinking ship. As far as I can tell, everyone got caught. Then would begin the lying and back stabbing that comes from the thought process, "God, just let me get through this and I will never do a bad thing again!"
The next day, Jennifer Shaw and Susie Schmidle called me to let me know what happened. Jennifer and Susie were best friends and their parents had forbidden them from seeing each other for a period of time that was somewhere between the end of the summer and when hell froze over. This is where the social services part kicked in. They were allowed to attend band functions. Because of this, we had LOTS of band functions during the next 2 months. Many times, those band functions were only attended by Jennifer and Susie. Sometimes those band functions took place at a movie theater or a restaurant. About the time band camp began, most parents forgot they were mad and life moved on.
Just a piece of another uneventful summer. The most enduring legacy of that whole event was the expression "Party at Beau's!" I know this because, several years after this bunch graduated, I heard a drummer leaving a ball game one Friday night shout at other drummers "Party at Beau's!" Ain't education a wonderful thing?
