4th of July 1987


Message #17 Sat Jul 11, 1987
From: Third Generation John
Subject: If you insist, I'll write something...

   Things do seem to be a little slow here... maybe I should tell you how the
4th of July party went...
   Amazingly enough (to me, at least) there really were 10 kegs and 500 people.
Of course the kegs didn't show up until some time after the people, and since
they had all paid at the gate things were at the verge of a riot by the time
the beer showed up. The bonfire became three bonfires, one of them being part
of the remaining structure of the delapidated sand plant (and yes, we had
permission (sort of) from the owner to do this).
   Things were going ok, with mortars, rockets and bombs shooting off left and
right, until a couple of Marina Police officers showed up on their three-
wheelers. We had fun watching one of them spend ten minutes trying to get his
ATC up the last slope of sand. That gave people plenty of time to bury
chests of horribly illegal fireworks in the sand. They went roving around the
bonfires for a while before disappearing into the night. They probably saw
some minors drinking or something since they eventually barricaded the street
that led to the party so no one else could get in (they let people out though).
   The scene reminded me of that one in The Road Warrior where the bad guys
are driving around the oil refinery at night. There must have been 20 four-
wheelers there and assorted other vehicles that could handle the sand. They
drove around all night with banks of headlight glaring, trying to see who
could get up the steepest sand dune... mortar shells bursting overhead...
rockets criss-crossing the sky... it was really wild. I took about 150
pictures; can't wait till the slides come back. When I started taking pictures
of the police, one non-sober individual came up and put his arm around a
cop and hammed for the camera. I got a pic before the cop gave a gruff "okay,
that's enough of that" and drove off.
   Unfortunately it devolved into a drunken melee at about 7:00 the next
morning, when we were just beginning to have fun. Some of my friends got a bit
bashed, so we regretfully left. But not before someone converted the top of
a small sand dune from a convex to a concave surface with foot-long section
of five inch cardboard carpet tube full of flash powder... you probably heard
that thing here in Santa Cruz...
   So, how did the other Johns' 4ths go?
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