One of my favorite poets...yes, I like poetry, probably even love poetry even though it took me 50 years to learn to appreciate it...anyway, one of my favorites is Alfred Lord Tennyson. And, one of my favorite poems by said author is Locksley Hall. And, one of my favorite lines from that poem is "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." But until you've discovered love, the only thing that Spring reminds a young person of is either Baseball or Spring Break.
Since I've written about Baseball in the Spring, I guess that only leaves me to write about that time-honored tradition of college enrolled students or an occasional high school student or anyone for that matter who wants to participate in the Rites of Spring, i.e. Spring Break . Spring Break is the passage of youth into...yep, that wild child syndrome, that kids gone crazy lifestyle that we hoped our parents would never find out about.
When the cult movie, "Where the Boys Are" surfaced in 1960, I was just 12 years old and couldn't even imagine what an experience of heading off to the beach for a week of drinking, kissing, smoking and more kissing would be all about. Heck, I was still enjoying playing sandlot baseball and picking through neighbor's trash that was set out each Saturday morning. All that kissing and stuff was left for the older kids, for my older brothers and their friends. Well, that was until I saw the movie.
I guess it was hormonal and at age twelve, I guess I was curious as the "professionals" say. I loved that movie. I mean, come on, Yvette Mimieux. Who couldn't get "excited" over her. And on top of that her name sounded just like Corvette. I wasn't even in high school yet and already I was making my plans to go to Florida in the Spring while there was still snow on the ground in Dayton, Ohio. Pack the car full of my friends, get some of that near-beer, as we called it, and meet some girls and kiss them. Yep, that's about all I could imagine.
Fast forward to 1969 and I find myself at the University of Oklahoma and it's Spring Break. I hadn't done any of the crazy things that so many of my peers did the prior three years. Almost all of them headed off to South Padre Island, Texas or Mexico. I'm not sure what I did the earlier years. I know for sure it wasn't studying.
So here we were. School was out for a week. We had no money. But.....I had a Volkswagon bus. A truly hippe-mobile, though I was far from being a hippie. Sure we'd do a little doobie every now and then but nope, we were alcoholics, none of the stuff that altered your mind, we just did booze. So, we decide to head for Mexico.
I'm not naming names, but there were 4 of us. We had $10.00 each and one of us had a gasoline credit card. Hell, we didn't even have a spare tire for the bus.
We drove straight down I-35 from Oklahoma City to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, almost 700 miles ....stopping only to relieve ourselves every now and then and buy more beer if needed.
We arrived some time around 6:00 in the evening and as soon as we crossed the border, we started asking everyone we saw, "donde esta la ciudad del muchacho"....it was our rugged translation of "Where is Boys Town". Now that's not to be confused with the movie "Where the Boys Are". For those of you who aren't from around here...that stood for "Boys Town" as in..."Where are the hookers".
OK, so let's pause for a second. None of us were actually going to do any of that stuff. Sure we were stupid but we weren't dumb. We just wanted to go there. You know, just kinda look around. Unfortunately one of our group succumbed to "pleasures of the flesh" and he spent his entire $10.00 on a hooker. He did say it was money well spent, but he was already broke for the week.
The second member of our group decided to buy a taco from a vendor on the street. He gave the guy a dollar and the guy gave him a taco and some change. About an hour later, he realized he had given him his $10 bill by mistake, so now we were down to 1/2 of our loot and we had only been in Mexico for less than 12 hours.
We spent the next few days travelling along the border towns in Mexico and driving across the border to Texas at night to sleep in the bus. We headed over to Matamoros, Mexico got lost looking for South Padre and later ended up a few hundred miles north arriving in the middle of the night at Port Aransas and woke up with the bus submerged in the sand when the tide came in. Fortunately we had about 20 other college friends to pull us out.
We made it. We celebrated Spring Break and we lived to tell about it. Yep, it's a Rite of Passage by golly.
So, to all of you young-uns out there getting ready to make the big escape in the next few weeks. Here are two words of advice. Have fun. It's what life is all about and you'll have a story or two to share 50 years later.
When the cult movie, "Where the Boys Are" surfaced in 1960, I was just 12 years old and couldn't even imagine what an experience of heading off to the beach for a week of drinking, kissing, smoking and more kissing would be all about. Heck, I was still enjoying playing sandlot baseball and picking through neighbor's trash that was set out each Saturday morning. All that kissing and stuff was left for the older kids, for my older brothers and their friends. Well, that was until I saw the movie.
I guess it was hormonal and at age twelve, I guess I was curious as the "professionals" say. I loved that movie. I mean, come on, Yvette Mimieux. Who couldn't get "excited" over her. And on top of that her name sounded just like Corvette. I wasn't even in high school yet and already I was making my plans to go to Florida in the Spring while there was still snow on the ground in Dayton, Ohio. Pack the car full of my friends, get some of that near-beer, as we called it, and meet some girls and kiss them. Yep, that's about all I could imagine.
Fast forward to 1969 and I find myself at the University of Oklahoma and it's Spring Break. I hadn't done any of the crazy things that so many of my peers did the prior three years. Almost all of them headed off to South Padre Island, Texas or Mexico. I'm not sure what I did the earlier years. I know for sure it wasn't studying.
So here we were. School was out for a week. We had no money. But.....I had a Volkswagon bus. A truly hippe-mobile, though I was far from being a hippie. Sure we'd do a little doobie every now and then but nope, we were alcoholics, none of the stuff that altered your mind, we just did booze. So, we decide to head for Mexico.
I'm not naming names, but there were 4 of us. We had $10.00 each and one of us had a gasoline credit card. Hell, we didn't even have a spare tire for the bus.
We drove straight down I-35 from Oklahoma City to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, almost 700 miles ....stopping only to relieve ourselves every now and then and buy more beer if needed.
We arrived some time around 6:00 in the evening and as soon as we crossed the border, we started asking everyone we saw, "donde esta la ciudad del muchacho"....it was our rugged translation of "Where is Boys Town". Now that's not to be confused with the movie "Where the Boys Are". For those of you who aren't from around here...that stood for "Boys Town" as in..."Where are the hookers".
OK, so let's pause for a second. None of us were actually going to do any of that stuff. Sure we were stupid but we weren't dumb. We just wanted to go there. You know, just kinda look around. Unfortunately one of our group succumbed to "pleasures of the flesh" and he spent his entire $10.00 on a hooker. He did say it was money well spent, but he was already broke for the week.
The second member of our group decided to buy a taco from a vendor on the street. He gave the guy a dollar and the guy gave him a taco and some change. About an hour later, he realized he had given him his $10 bill by mistake, so now we were down to 1/2 of our loot and we had only been in Mexico for less than 12 hours.
We spent the next few days travelling along the border towns in Mexico and driving across the border to Texas at night to sleep in the bus. We headed over to Matamoros, Mexico got lost looking for South Padre and later ended up a few hundred miles north arriving in the middle of the night at Port Aransas and woke up with the bus submerged in the sand when the tide came in. Fortunately we had about 20 other college friends to pull us out.
We made it. We celebrated Spring Break and we lived to tell about it. Yep, it's a Rite of Passage by golly.
So, to all of you young-uns out there getting ready to make the big escape in the next few weeks. Here are two words of advice. Have fun. It's what life is all about and you'll have a story or two to share 50 years later.
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