Before we get started, I want to thank you guys for your help yesterday. I’d forgotten some of those stories, and was laughing my ass clean-off. “Grandma can be quite arduous…” Hilarious. What a fantastic, fully-realized gang of kooks.
Yes, they’re the gift that keeps on giving. And they’ll be staying with us for a full week this summer. Have I mentioned that? Apparently it’s true. Nancy and the gang will be here for six nights in August. Six!
Stay tuned, and make sure you’re subscribed to the mailing list… Six nights might generate two or three secret updates. Heh.
Our oldest youngling is on his way to Washington DC as I type this. He and most of his class will be hitting every main tourist attraction in the city, in less than 48 hours. The itinerary is insane; I almost had to lie down after reading it.
I went to DC in sixth grade, with the school safety patrols. We, too, blitzed all the main monuments, the Smithsonian, Arlington Cemetery, etc. We saw a ton of stuff, and I can’t remember much about any of it.
Only three things from that trip, which happened in 1975, remain vivid in my mind. And none are related to the White House, or the Capitol Building.
The first: Stevie Wonder was staying at our hotel. He was in town to make an appearance at some sort of demonstration, which also featured Muhammad Ali, I believe, and eventually devolved into violence.
We were told that Stevie would be arriving at the hotel at a certain time, so we hung around the lobby, hoping to get a look at him. I mean, he was one of the biggest stars in the world at the time, and it was all very exciting.
So, we stood there like idiots, and a limousine finally pulled up. Several large bodyguard types got out, and one of them opened a door on the car. And the worst Stevie Wonder decoy in the world emerged…
The dude looked like Grady on Sanford and Son. He was wearing dark glasses, and pretending to be blind: stumbling around and whatnot. We were a group of sixth graders from West Virginia, and even we were rolling our eyes at this pathetic attempt.
After the poor man’s Stevie Wonder passed through, the hotel staff shooed us away, and we never got to see the real deal. Wotta rip-off.
Another vivid memory: A bunch of us bought keychains in a gift shop somewhere, with real, operational cap guns attached. They used red, plastic caps, which we also purchased. And these were a source of much amusement…
Inside our hotel room (a very fancy-pants place, I might add) we started shooting the guns into our pillows. And after every mini-explosion, there would be a yellowish brown spot left over on the pillowcase. And we thought this was the height of comedy.
By the time we were finished, all of the bedding looked tie-dyed, and we couldn’t stop laughing about it. And the concerning part? I’m still laughing, in 2010. That’s the part that should probably worry me a bit. But, of course, it doesn’t.
And finally, the most vivid memory of all…
Both mornings we were herded into a cafeteria somewhere, just completely filled with unknown kids, approximately our age. It was pandemonium, and incredibly noisy.
And I remember watching a large black woman standing in front of a tray of drinking glasses. They were packed tightly, shoulder to shoulder, and she was pouring orange juice into them, in one continuous motion.
She wasn’t pouring juice into each glass. Oh no. It was just being dumped all willy-nilly, across the entire tray at once. So when we were served our juice, some glasses were half full, and others only contained a couple of ounces. And, of course, the glasses were sticky as all hell.
I don’t remember much about the Lincoln Memorial or the Supreme Court, but I remember that orange juice scene like it happened yesterday.
The picture at the top of this update was taken on our DC trip in 1975. As far as I can tell, I do not appear in it. But it’s all distorted and psychedelic, for some reason. So who knows? I swiped it off an ex-classmate’s Facebook page.
Dig the crazy Gilligan hats we were forced to wear! It’s so they could keep track of us, of course, and I probably still have mine somewhere. I never throw anything away.
And now the obvious Question of the Day… Did you ever go on any overnight school-sanctioned trips as a kid? Did anything interesting happen? Use the comments link, to tell us all about it.
And I’m going to call it a day here, my friends. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
See you next time!
no one? can it be?
Just you Dorothy!
Yeah – twice they carted us off in high school to DC to march in the “Right To Life” parade. Afterwards, while I went to the Smithsonian to browse, everyone else went to Constitution Avenue for the strip clubs.
And oh yeah – THIRD! (I hope)
4th ???????!!!!!!!!!!!
5th-Got nuttin else on trips.
3rd ish.
8th grade (1990) our class senior trip was to a mall in pittsburgh, a pirates game, and then an overnight in a nunnery.
the mall was the biggest mall any of us had ever been in and about half my class purchased two live crew, as nasty as you want to be, which was pretty quickly confiscated. a bunch of catholics from marietta, ohio can;;t be trusted with such nonsense.
i’m not sure what i got, but it was better than two live crew. oh, they were cassettes, too.
the pirates game, against the braves i think. two teams i hate now and couldn’t care less about then were playing. It looks like it was actually montreal. anyway, the weather almanac says it was a low of 48 deg, but i’m pretty sure it got down to about 38 there by the river. of course we were all in shorts, it was june 1st fuck rice cakes.
the highlight was seeing some poor beer seller tumble down the stairs, possibly on ice, and lose all his product. we laughed, but we were eighth grade dicks.
the next day we got up early, like 7, for a tour of the nunnery. what eighth grader is asleep early on a class trip? it sucked. i don’t know if anyone hooked up. there were only 4 girls in the class and 12 boys.
the next year i was in public school. vern and teddy turned into people we would just see in the hall. i convinced chris to take the college prep classes with me…..
wait, that was stand by me.
Not an overnight but a long day trip to Philadelphia in 7th grade. The US Mint was the coolest part. My mom was a chaperone and brought a COOLER full of shit. I was a very popular kid that day especially since mom brought those old pounder bags of M&Ms. Even the bus driver was in love with her!
<10
I MUST know where the bunker cam photo is from.
We went on a high school band exchange trip across the border down to the finger lakes region of New York. We billetted for most of the time with host families (welcome in to our house, stranger, here are my daughters)…but on the last night we stayed at a lakeside resort that was situated on a cliff that was about 60′ higher than the beach.
Access the beach was by either a wooden staircase or a dirt driveway that sloped down at about 30 degrees, ending near a beach front fire pit. One of funnier guys (he works for the government now, go figure) found an old BMX style bike and was terrorizing people for hours with it. We built a substantial campfire (uncontrolled bush fire in the general area of the fire pit) and it wasn’t long before we were able to convince Evil Kenevil he needed to jump over the fire.
The NON fatal attempt was pretty cool as he raced down the hill as smooth as a Disney Monorail for about 200′ and slammed on the brakes to stylishly skid to a stop just before the pit of flaming death.
Now suitably powered by testosterone, verbotten shots and beer, goading (what, who, me??) and ODing on being the center of attention, our hero sped down a second time, just as smooth. Was he faster? Was that possible? He piloted his rocket to his appointment with infamy like he was running late.
I’m not sure the exact sequence of emotions on his face but I think it was excitement, exhileration, trepidation, fear, awareness, horror and then pain…. and then humilation as at the last second he suddenly became a sentient being again and self preservation kicked in. His last second too late braking meant that the bike, the superhero and all of our hoots/hollers and laughter combined as one with the fire in a great rolling sumersault of hilarity. As he lay there on the far side of the fire pit, entangled with the bike and moaning in pain while gasping for air, I lost site of him because of the tears in my eyes.
We were Glee before Glee was cool.
At my old elementary school (http://www.tvdsb.ca/McEachren.cfm) there were scheduled overnight class trips in certain grades: grade 5 you go camping, in grade 8 you go to Ottawa to see parliament (the government body, not the band), etc. Unfortunately the kids in my particular year were deemed from an early age to be a high risk due to behavioral issues, so all overnight trips were canceled and most field trips as well.
To be honest the school was completely justified in this policy.
I never went on a school trip overnight, but I was on the road in a top 40 pop/rock band in the mid 80s…it was kinda the same thing.
Senior Class trip in 1980, we went to Orlando and disney World for 5 days. We saved the previous year and a half for the trip. Total cost for flight from Scranton, hotel, and passes to Disney World…..$229.
Plus we had an EXCELLENT mustard fight in the Magic Kingdom.
School WAS my trip!!! Not a day went by that I wasn’t high…
I am still in disbelief at that mustard fight in Disney World. I lost the camera another friend gave me to hold while he got into the fray.
We lived too close to DC for that to be our overnight trip; instead we got Jamestown and Williamsburg. Meh. How much trouble can kids possibly get into in Colonial Williamsburg? I vaguely remember one kid wigging out from homesickness.
I took my “Surf Reporter Handle” from an experience on an overnight trip. It was a Boy Scouts trip to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. (I think I was only an actual Boy Scout for one year, so I was probably about 11 years old; but I had gone through the Cub Scouts / Weblos hierarchy.) A few fathers came along, one of which was the father of a kid who lived on my street, and for some reason I never liked the father and he never liked me. Whenever I went over to this kid’s house, or whenever the father came over to our house for whatever reason, he would ignore me, as if I were invisible. I could never figure it out. But I felt an instinctual dislike of the guy, so I didn’t really care that he ignored me. Anyway, in the evening before bed at the Naval Academy, the fathers decided they needed to do something to entertain the Scouts. And this father-guy that I didn’t like put on a skit that, if I remember correctly, was basically a Carnac the Magnificent (Johnny Carson) ripoff. But he called himself “Swami Baloney” (I prefer the more high-falutin’ spelling for my own name, but I use if phonetically here, just to emphasize the way it’s pronounced). Ever since that day, whenever I referred to this kid’s dad, I would call him Swami Baloney. Never to his face, but whenever his name came up in our family, that’s what I called him. And so when choosing a Surf-Reporter name, for some reason my memory went back to this guy (the Naval Academy trip would’ve taken place more than 35 years ago). In adulthood, I learned things about the original Swami Baloney that confirm that I had a good reason to dislike the guy. Turns out all those years he was living on our street in the upscale suburbs, he was beating his wife (who became an alcoholic and eventually went nuts), as well as beating his kids. I’ve always had a sort of sixth sense about people, and can usually sense who’s a good person and who has an evil soul. This guy was one of the evil ones. (And he was, and is, a self-made multi-millionaire — maybe one needs to have a touch of evil to rake in the riches.)
If we did any overnight trips I don’t recall it. I don’t recall much about school. i was pretty much not interested and hardly ever sober.
can’t wait until August- simply.cannot.wait. nancy and nostrils are my favorite stories EVER
Never went on an out-of-town trip with schoolmates.
However
I am sending one of my secrets to CHINA with her class
..and I am a bit terrified about it, to be honest.
BUT I cannot let this opportunity pass her up
so I am biting the bullet.
@Swami Bologna
I stole my nick too
from halcyon of web fame
All funnin aside, I attended about 10-12 grade schools all over the world and 3 high schools before attending college at Indiana University. I travelled with IU Soul Revue as part of the stage crew and sound engineer and summers with Road Master and Faith Band doing the same. Total cost to me, zilch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1-RFrL0TzM&feature=related
I went to an overnight church ‘lock in’ once when I was in 7th? or 8th? grade, which I thought would be ‘the bomb’ or whatever gay slang we used at that age, but I absolutely hated it. Of course it was just a gathering of horny little boys and prude little giggling girls, all running around poking and slapping each other about in the dark. At that age, I was always the tomboy who would rather be at home playing Sega and not giving a shit about having a boyfriend, or giggling and flirting, so it wasn’t fun for me at all. I think the only highlight of that trip was when one of the chaperones was telling a ghost story and I came out of the bathroom which make a very loud and creepy creaking noise, and one of the girls screamed and peed her pants a little.
I’m pretty sure I called my dad and had him come get me at like 5 am. It sucked.
I was never one for over night trips, especially with school.
I did the DC trip when I was a sophmore in high school. No incredible stories played tonsil hcokey all the way there with whatever girl was sitting in the seat with me.
More importantly, I left my DNA (saliva) at all the monuments and the museums, at the White House. That Way, I am now part of American history.
Correction: School or church….but all my classmates were in my ‘Sunday’ school class (which was actually on Wednesdays), so I got stuck seein’ em at school and after.
Mind you, these were all the jocks and cheerleaders, and I always somehow ended up in the mess of the lot. Oh how I despised it.
I went to DC with my safety patrol in 1975 and I’m from West Virginia too. Hmm, do I know you Jeff Kay? No, I’m from up norf from Dunbar. They must have been giving some kind of discount for safety patrols from WV. Who knows.
I also have no memories of what we actually saw. I do remember they let the whole busload of us out in front of the Smithsonian and told us we were on our own. WTH? We all just stood there and looked at each other for about 3 seconds and then took off.
Our first stop was the Washington monument and Roger N. spent every last cent he had at the gift shop on crap. Had to call his mother and have money sent down.
Outside of said monument my friends and I ran in to a Moonie (remember those). Him: a bald-headed white dude with a single ponytail in a Jesus robe. Us: three sixth grade “hicklets” from WV. Result: complete mockery, pulling ponytail, knocking his pamphlets on the ground, all done with hysterical laughter. Dude probably quit his peace religion on the spot.
My other friend Roger S. had one of those styrofoam peanuts, which were, I guess, new then. He called it his pet sperm and carried it around with him all trip. On the last day he said it jumped off one of the capitol steps and committed suicide.
Alice Cooper’s “Welcome to my nightmare” video or concert was on a late-night show and we stayed up to watch it because we were sooo cool. I think I was scared.
We did an 8th grade trip to St. Louis in about 1987. That was most memorable because a kid barfed in the little tram/elevator thing that takes you to the top of the Gateway Arch. Apparently, he was a little clostrophobic.. There were only 12 of us in my Catholic grade school and we’d all known each other since birth. We never let that guy live it down. In fact, I’ll probably jump over to his facebook page right now and remind him of it..
I also did a semester abroad in college. There are MANY memorable events from that trip.. most of which are not fit to print. Basically, my parents financed my screwing and drinking my way through Europe for 5 months. I’m sure they’d have been oh-so happy to know their education dollars were well spent.
So, Jeff, if you never throw anything away should well expect to see an episode of “Hoarders” with you as the guest star? If you haven’t caught it there is a good one on A&E & a ripoff on TLC. Best.Show.Ever.
Wow… a whole week of visitin’ in August?!? Get the padded Yurt ready…!
School trips…blech. I hated that shit. We went to D.C. when I was in sixth grade I think. At a time when kids that age didn’t give a shit about our nation’s history. Therefore, I remember nothing.
But… I do remember my summer trip between my junior senior year in high school….
My best friend, at the time, and I worked for about 6 months at Ronny Donny’s to save to go to the beach. Avalon, N.J. Our parents agreed to let just the two of us go. I drove my 1960-something, 4-door Olds F85… candy apple red. My dad was the only one not completely thrilled with the whole idea of his 16 year old daughter alone at the beach. Especially when he laid eyes on the two bumper stickers I bought for my bad-ass ride (on the way down at a rest stop)….”Ass, Gas, or Grass…No One Rides for Free” and the other one was, “Jesus is Coming and Boy is He Pissed”.
@Tyrosine
It would have been pretty cool to see George Clinton and Funkadelic instead of some government buildings.
When I was in the ninth grade at Lincoln, we went to Chicago on a bus trip, stopping in Indianapolis. I suspect that school kids were banned from every hotel in Indiana after we left. I do remember seeing the Shedd Aquarium and the museum of science and industry, but most of the memories came from being on the bus, pairing off and necking the whole way home. And after being told to wear/pack warm clothing, Chicago had a heatwave that week (early April) and we roasted in our turtlenecks and wool sweathers.
The only overnight trip when I was in school was to the Beta Club Convention in Huntington, WV when I was a senior (1973). At the time, as a native of Kopperston, WV, this was a big deal. My best friend and I ended up in a hotel room by ourselves. The chaperones didn’t even want to stay with us. I mean, in the one other girls room, people were sleeping on the floor and we each had a double bed to ourselves. I guess they didn’t want the wacky tobacky smell to contaminate them. One afternoon we had “free” time and my friend and I visited our older friends who were students at Marshall. When I think back to this adventure, I still can’t figure out the chaperones. We just did whatever we wanted to while all the goody goodies congregated together basically doing nothing. Anyway, I could give more detail, but from some of the other comments, I sense we are kindred spirits.
Man, did I get ripped off. I went to Redmond High School (scene a a HUGE methamphetamine bust last month!) and we didn’t get to go anywhere. My 8th grade daughter from Nome, AK did an 8th grade trip to Washington, DC. Some totally cool person who has visited here lets the students and chaperones stay in ther guest house (roughly the size of the Houston Astrodome) for a week each year. My daughter and her friends wanted to go see Panic! At the Disco,” so I offered to pay for 30 tickets so they could all attend. The lead chaperone put the kibosh on it, then took a powder that night to see “Elbow” all by his lonesome.
Closest I ever got to a class trip thing was one day each year that the Seattle Times sent their paper boys on a daytrip from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia. I remember a couple hundred young punks riding on a 4 hour trip aboard an old steamship. Pulling out of the pier, we passed the Edgewater Hotel, and the guests were up early, and out on their balconies waving to the ship. Of course, their waves were met with middle fingers, and several moonings. After that, we settled into smoking really nasty cirs, Canadian cigarettes, and perusing Playboy magazines that they actually would sell to 12 year old boys at the onboard gift shop.
Upon arrival to Victoria, we had 4 hours to check out the cheezy wax museum, “haunted mansion” and a sundry collection of tourist traps. Then it was off for a crappy lunch of fish and chips deep fried in lard, then a quick shoplifting spree of the souvenier shops, and then back on the boat. Good times…yet while I am ashamed of my behavior, I still can’t look back on those times and not laugh!
Ooooops…almost forgot this one. I did do an overnight for a Key Club convention at the Hilton Hotel in Seattle. One of our moronic members climbed out onto the ledge from our room on the 36th floor then froze in place and had to be rescued by the Seattle Fire Department.
@Steve from yesterday:
My hometown of Wellsburg, West Virginia had three outlying areas where all of those type people lived, Rabbit Hill, Forty Nine Hill, or McKinleyville.
I lived in that town for the first 26 years of my life. I could go 51 weeks and never lay eyes on any of those freaky people, not at the Kroger’s, the gas station, the bar, church, bank, no place.
Then one week in July, the carnival would come to town and every retard, every gimp, every waterhead, and dirty neck pony tail hick with his 500 pound pregnant girlfriend would show up for Bingo and funnel cakes all week long. The hollers and hills and trailer parks would empty out in to little Wellsburg to flick cigarette butts and throw empty popcorn boxes all over town.
That was me. I am the Wellsburg boy in the room.
No overnights, just a day trip to Philly in 6th grade. Actually we had a lot of field trips, just that they were all in town except for that one.
Swami, that’s a really sad story about your namesake. It’s disheartening to see scumbag behavior “rewarded” like that. Especially when others pay the price for someone else’s scumbaggery.
Hey…Drug Delivery Guy…I’d keep your schedule open for a week sometime in August……just sayin’
In 5th grade, we did an overnight trip to Fort Point, just under the Golden Gate Bridge. We ate the food that people would have eaten in the 1800’s, and had to stand watch during the night. Froze our young asses off.
On the trip home, in Mrs. Galindo’s car, I leaned over and vomited directly into her handbag. She later told me that I couldn’t have aimed better if I tried.
@ Mark0510
I appreciate the comment on my blog! I couldn’t write you back on it, so thanks:)
Our 8th grader is also on the whirlwind trip to DC. On the bus all night, tour all day, overnight accomodations for four per room, look at other suff all day, then drive all night again. I couldn’t keep up with the pace, but completely understand the need to make sure those kids are too tired to get into anything. Did Toney chaperone? I’ll have to ask my son about his orange juice service.
I run the DC from my school. Things have not changed much.
What the hell? Did you all grow up in gated communities? Like Clint, I attended a high school in Washington State (Wilson High, Tacoma, Go Rams) and we had no overnights or all-days anywhere but at school. I did my share of overnights, Lord knows, but none of them was associated with school.
.
Kathy Valentine lyric for today from “Creation Myth” (from “Light Years”)……
What came from this nothingness?
It’s a mess; even on a good day
I’ll show you chaos
The rain will pour
The Earth will move
It’s all gone down before
Was it rapture you sought?
Beyond the reach of man woman and child
With this creation myth you wrote
Seems the wrath of heaven
Just can’t take a joke
Let there be truth
Let there be light
Let there be blind faith without foundation
Let there be truth
And sometimes light
.
Please do not compress. Thanks.
jtb
I had ny first cigarette on “quit day” when on a school camp. I thought I was soooooo rebellious. For some reason I was sent back to our shack in the middle of the woods in south west Western Australia while everyone else was allowed to join in the shenanigans at the main hall. I thought this’ll show ’em. Never took it up though, thank God!
Hi,
across here we had no such ‘overnighters’ but we did have a school trip that you (your parents) had to pay for.
It was subsidised by the school but it was still of money, which meant the promise of doing extra chores around the house etc…
I went to Greece when I was 14 and discovered that ouzo and gravity dont really mix at that age. We also discovered that flickknives were legal in Greece (and cheap!). My best memory was coming back through customs when our latin teacher got stopped. He had about a dozen stolen ashtrays from bars and hotels in his case. The humiliation was excellent.
I also remember having to lie to a 21 year old ‘woman’ and telling her that I was 17. I thought I was Humphry Bogart when I said ‘ i’d love to stay but my flight leaves in a few hours.’
Ha! Ha! What a knobend I was!
…Sweetheart.”
Ian, you need to add the sweetheart at the end for true Bogie style. On the other hand, when I was 14 I was a dickwash, which might not beat knobend in your neighborhood, but I would have been misquoting Eliot and catching myself in my zipper. I was just that fucking dapper.
jtb
two tings…
ting 1: I really enjoy how this forum follows the sun on its journey — from east coast to west coast to Oz to Zulu and back.
ting 2: Ian…I understand that Mr. Brown will be meeting with a whole shitload of elderly racists over the next few years.
jtb
The school system doesn’t pay for the trip, oh no!
6th grade patrol trip to DC we stayed at some swanky hotel (the Roger Smith, gone now) and they made the mistake of putting us on one of the upper floors directly above the canopied entrance. After we unpacked the balloons we brought and filled them full of water, hilarity ensued until we scored a direct hit on what we thought was a police car (it was a black & white taxi) and we called the operation off.
In 9th grade we went to Williamsburg and everyone had a grand time buying those long ceramic pipes along with the tobacco to put in them and then smoking them in our rooms.
i don’t know if it was too much pipe smoking or what, but I also recall one of the guys jerking off on another guy who was asleep. Needless to say, he was kind of confused when he woke up.
nice! the Bunker Cam is of a tree in Willamsburg, Brooklyn! Quite a sight at McCarren Park….
@dto – I’m clueless. What’s in August?
I went on many overnight trips as a teenager, on band trips or church youth groups. Also, one week in each summer was spent at Camp Crescendo for band camp. Between my freshman & sophmore years, the concert band went to Europe – 9 countries in 16 days. I was dosed on dramamine most of the time.
I went for two weeks to a summer honors course at Ind State Univ in Terre Haute to study archeology, not with a class but by myself. Looking back, I was always independent and wanting to get away. and I’ve got a REALLY BAD case of wanderlust right now.