The Corn Field or The case of the missing Jeff

Summer of 76'...........................That was one of the best summers of my life. Everyone has "that summer", that one carefree period when the stars aligned with God to give you the perfect season. Maybe it was the first summer you came home from the Army or college, the first Christmas you were married or took your children on their first vacation to the beach. Everyone is different, but for me it was the summer of 76'.

My parents and Grandparents were all living, healthy and happy. The economy was good and jobs were plentiful. The country was at peace and Skynrd was coming to Pittsburgh! Best of all I finally had my license and my first car, a 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, THE PARTY WAGON!

The car never stopped moving all summer long. Cheap gas and Blue Ribbon beer flowed through that car like a river. The clank of beer cans rattled in the back seat and when the windows were rolled down so much smoke came out it looked like a Cheech & Chong movie! When your 16 you don't think about DUI's or worse. Your invisible and bulletproof. Old people died not anyone your age. It took the death of a trio of classmates to dispel that theory. But that summer I was still innocent.

It was the end of August and the Jefferson County Fair was operating in Smithfield. The plan was to go to the fair and meet my parents that night but the day was all mine.

My friend Jeff and I were a lesson in contrasts. One dark-one fair, one big-one thin, but we found enough in common to feel more like brothers then friends. He was to be my Best Man at my wedding later in life. We hopped in the Caddy and rode in to the noon day sun straight to the local bar. Now we knew we were under age, they knew we were under age, and we knew they knew we were under age, But the $20 dollar bill we layed on the bar was at least 21 years old so it was Okay.

Adults think that teenagers can't find places to drink or have sex if they are in the park, but what they don't realize is that all teenagers are brain damaged and are naturally devious, a deadly combination. Because they don't expect to see teenagers sitting at a pic-nic bench drinking a case of beer they don't even notice them. The same goes for sex in a car in broad daylight. Most adults drive by oblivious to the fact that that white thing bobbing around in the car they just drove past was their daughters ass! "Was she a good girl? Man, she was Fantastic Mr. Smith!"

After making a very unsuccessful attempt at ruining the morals and reputations of a couple of local girls that we really didn't want anybody to see us with, we finished off the case of PBR to save our ego's and convince each other that we really didn't want anything to do with the girls anyhow.

Now by this time Jeff and I are shit faced, not drunk, not intoxicated, SHIT FACED!! And he is acting like a nut. What am I going to do with him? I can't take him to the fair with me, My parents are going to kill me! So I tell him to straighten up or I'm going to kick him out of the car and I pull over next to a corn field out in the boonies. Jeff gets mad and jumps out of the car and I take off down the road. Now I thought that I would go down the road around the bend and wait awhile till he calmed down. Then I would go pick him up and go to the fair. Back down the road I go to the corn field. No Jeff. Up the road-Down the road. Back and forth. I'm calling his name out the window like he's a lost dog. Now it's dark and I got to go home. I think that he must have found a ride home.

The scene opens on a hung over, still drunk Jeff waking up in a ditch next to the corn field in the middle of the night. He falls down and looses his glasses. Screams & cusses for about a half an hour as he grubs threw the dirt till he finds them again. He stumbles out of the field like he's auditioning for a part in Children of the Corn and starts running. He doesn't know if he's running home or to California but he wants to get there fast. To this day he doesn't know who picked him up but someone takes him home.

So what is the moral of the story? Teenagers that do stupid things eventually grow up to be normal adults that sit around and laugh at their own stupidity as teenagers.

Also God seems to protect Drunks and Idiots.

Just ask my wife.