It is not known how long it took the town to recover from the party, but I’m sure it did, since the place is still there. There’s no question that Garrett and I did the best we could to be good neighbors. After all we were members of the United States air force. Nevertheless, we had another mission as well, to party and enjoy life. We became much more popular after the" big one." After that experience, we decided to settle down and just have our small "Git-togethers." We were still hanging out with the girls from Boston as well as our local girl friends too. Thanks to the band and our ability to be "out there." Our popularity soared in this quaint little Cape Cod town.
I loved going to the town beach and hanging out with locals as well as being invited over to someone’s house for a home cooked meal. We really tried to be normal neighbors, but our mischievous energies sometimes overwhelmed us, like the time we cut a plug out of a watermelon, and took a week to fill it with 100 proof vodka (one quart). We kept the melon in the fridge and slowly the poured the vodka into the plugged hole each day. At he end of the week we invited the girls to the beach for a picnic. It was a very hot day, just right for an ice-cold watermelon at the beach. We had a great time scooping out the scrumptious sweet juicy vodka soaked innards. It is difficult to taste the vodka when it is served this way. Consequently you won’t realize that you’ve had too much, until it’s too late.
After partying with the girls for a while on the beach, I decide to swim out to the raft anchored about fifty feet from shore with the balance of the melon smartly secured in a waterproof container. I was alone on the raft, enjoying my buzz while lying in the hot sun. Either I passed out or went to sleep on the raft. When I awakened, it was nearly sun down, and the fifty feet I swam out to the raft, was now considerably further from the shore. In my drunken stupor, I forgot about high tide. I knew I was totally drunk at this point and panic started to set in. Everybody had left the beach and left me on the raft all alone. I thought I was looking across the English Channel. I realized I had to swim back to shore un-attended, and I was almost panicking. I took a deep breath and jumped in. I didn’t know if I would make it or not but I was going to give it my best shot. While I was swimming, all I could think of were the famous words of a shark pursuing Dolomite in the open sea.
"Shine, shine, you’re stroking fine. If you miss one stroke, your ass is mine"
Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t going to make it, so I dropped to the bottom and walked back to shore. When I emerged from the water, I felt like Jesus Christ, except I was walking on the bottom, not on the top. I was overcome with emotion, because I was also feeling very stupid at the same time and vowed to myself that I wouldn’t let that happen again. After that episode I felt lucky, very lucky.
