During the summer of 1976 we had 3 tents in the backyard and it was very common for my friends to spend the night pretty much whenever they wanted to. We were 16 at the time and the girl next door had a bunch of girlfriends for us and a pool so all was right with the universe.

I remember watching the All Star game that year, Ron LeFlore from the Tigers led off the game with a single and the sounds of “Frampton Comes Alive” filled the summer air.

One day, one of my friends, Bob Welker, was working at the K of C in the kitchen and saw that the beer tap was left unprotected so he grabbed an empty plastic gallon milk jug and filled it up with beer. He then hid the gallon of beer until he got off, then put the gallon in his newspaper route bag and rode it over to the tents in the back yard.

We had no way of hiding an entire gallon of anything in the tents and the only thing big enough to cover it up was a matress we had in one of the tents so we slid the gallon of milk under the mattress and except for a small lump you could not really notice anything (A combination of a lumpy mattress and an unlevel back yard).

That evening was the night we watched the All Star game and I had a few friends over to watch it with. All of a sudden dad comes into the tent to see how we were doing. We told him fine and said we were having a good time watching the game and how cool it was of Ron Leflore to lead off with a single.

Just that moment he decided to sit down, since all the chairs were taken in the tent he sat on the mattress that was covering the beer. As we watched this in horror we saw little trickles of beer begin flowing out from under the mattress. These actually began to puddle and we were certain we were going to be busted. Finally after what seemed an eternity, dad got up and left the tent and we quickly cleaned up the mess we made as Bob Welker shed tears of anguish for his once glorious gallon of beer.

Needless to say we never had any more gallon jugs in the tent that year.