All was looking good that first night in Florida! My two new friends and I bonded and looked forward to starting a band when we returned home to the ice and snow of Peoria Illinois. Over the next few days, the three of us began taking inventory of our current situation. Here we were, three young rock and rollers, off the chain for a few days and ready to party. I can't remember the exact details or timeline but I'll try and recount them as I remember them. The order of events may be somewhat out of order.
I seem to remember that the longer we stayed at our hotel, the further we began to journey outside our room. I think that most of the chaperones would have wanted all of us in the band to be secured and locked in our rooms in the evenings between band activity. That was impossible for the three of us. The first night, we strolled out of our room with no concern and frankly felt that we were mature enough to take care of ourselves. I seem to remember that we came upon a gathering of adults which consisted of many of the chaperones and others, perhaps other band directors. Hell, it was their trip too so I'm sure they were having a couple adult beverages and relaxing. Why not? They were the big people.
We nonchalantly mingled among the folks at the party, buzzing from our earlier smoke fest. Before long, someone noticed that three of the long haired boys were out of their rooms and now considered in possible danger of being injured, kidnapped, sexually assaulted or even worse!!!! We were their responsibility and therefore had to be quarantined for own own protection. We abided this first night and made our way back to our room but vowed that this was going to be an exception to the rule. We were NOT going to stay in our room after tonight.
I'm not sure what we did that next day but I'm guessing it was the day that the Jazz Band played at our hotel. I remember setting up the gear and doing a show like any other Jazz Band concert in the day. I'm sure we did a good job as we were a pretty good group. What I really remember, was later that night. Again, we had been fed and put to bed so to speak, until the next day. My buddies and I had different plans. The night was young and we had plenty of weed to smoke. After we fired up, we decided it was time to venture out into the wild again, but unlike last night, we'd have to be a bit more stealth and become one with our surroundings. In other words, we needed a plan.
Our plan was to stay as far away as possible from Mrs. Harris who seemed to be more aware of our escapades than the other parents. We began our mission just after dark and found ourselves darting from one large palm tree to the next....maneuvering like three soldiers deep in the Vietnam jungles...always aware that "Charlie" could be just a few clicks away at any time.
We tried to stay as far as we could on the peripheral as possible until we spotted a large body of water just on the outskirts of the hotel property. We noticed the the small paddle boats on the shore and thought to ourselves, this would be a perfect opportunity to pull out some wacky tobacky once we were in the boat and out in the middle of the pond . No one would notice and we would be surrounded by water on all sides. We all agreed that it was a perfect plan and began setting it into motion. It wasn't long before we were all inside the plastic pod and paddleing our way out to the middle of the water. Once directly in the middle, we packed the pipe and began sharing the sweet smoke and began chuckling at our current situation. Man this is great!!!
It was a beautiful night in February and we were feeling fine in Florida... watching the moonlight gently reflecting off the several pairs of eyes floating just under the still water. What?
Eyes???? That's right.... several pairs of eyes and they were multiplying and getting closer. I'm not sure who finally put it together, but it wasn't long before we were all paddling as quickly as possible to avoid being capsized and eaten alive by at least a dozen ALLIGATORS!!!!! We were met on the shore by Mrs Harris and another chaperone who personally accompanied us to our hotel room.
Tomorrow Was to be the best day of my life.
Disney World was going to be epic especially with a little help from my smuggled contraband. But tonight, we needed our sleep.
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