In the world of the Southfield Ice Company the putting the production together took all year. Once one show was over the plans for the next show began. It was a good thing that for the working mother of currently two boys a lot could be done at home until the first of March. It was at that time that the ice hockey games were over and the ice belonged to the show. Practice began which meant every evening and all day on Saturday and Sunday until showtime the last weekend in April.
I was lucky, in a way, not being in very many numbers so practice for me was not everyday. Also nice that I finally decided that Wally was old enough to stay home rather than me dragging him to the rehearsals
and Wes was around most of the time so he was not alone.
The bad part but good at the same time was that I became friends with the show director, Ron. I was amazed by his ability to put all aspects of the show together. He chose the theme, the skating numbers, the choreography, the music and the set designs. He also designed the costumes and to my fascination, made all the headpieces and hats. Instead of just showing up for costume meetings or rehearsals I found myself going by the arena during the day when I had time. There were other women who showed up everyday to sew or help with other aspects of the show.
Ron was a perfectionist in every thing he did. There was good reason for me to have been quite frightened of him for the first two years of being in the show. He was not shy about yelling at people for the slightest mistake in front of the entire cast. Every piece of cut fabric needed to have a perfectly straight edge, every costume look exactly the same, every drop of hot glue precisely where it belonged and never was there an excuse for someone to be absent from a rehearsal unless they were competing in the World Championships. That may sound harsh but that was the reason Southfield had the greatest amateur show in the country.
For all his expecting perfection from the entire cast and crew he was always willing to teach everyone anything they wanted to learn. It took me taking what little spare time I had or what time I stole from work to realize how much I could learn from Ron. What I learned from him about every aspect of the show like costume design, drafting patterns, sequining and beading, the construction of the hats and headpieces and set construction was invaluable to me in later years. The fact fact I had led a little sheltered life and not really known any gay men was a real life lesson. He had his ups and downs in relationships and was very open and honest when he talked about his feelings. It did not take me long to realize that he had the very same feelings as a heterosexual person. I will always consider myself very lucky to have had him as a friend and teacher.
The show went off very well that year with the usual sold out performances. There were no major errors and Ron did not have to yell to much. It was always a terrific let down the day after the show was over. It was something you had worked on for pretty much a whole year and the all of a sudden it was over. But I always managed to live through the "letdown" as I did have other people that depended on me.
Perhaps it is a rite of passage but there is something about being a senior in high school that makes kids, maybe more so boys than girls, think they can do just about anything. When I was growing up the legal age for boys to purchase beer was twenty-one but for girls it was eighteen (or at least that is what the guys told me). There were numerous occasions when I would purchase a couple of cases of beer for the guys on a Friday afternoon. Not stellar behavior on my part but girls make dumb mistakes themselves.
One weekend in May Wes was driving the Ford Van leased from Ford Motor Company that was the vehicle they dragged the race car trailer around with. He was off on Saturday night and went to hang out with his high school friends. He was home that evening at his curfew hour or at least close to it. On the following Monday his Dad calls me and tells me that the van had been involved in a beer theft on Saturday night. He wanted to know how I let that happen. Since Wes was at school and I could not think how I let that happen he said he would come to see Wes that afternoon. Need I say he was not a very happy camper?
Dennis arrived before Wes got home so I did not chance to talk to him first. Wes tried to play stupid at first when Dennis told him that the Chief of Police in Royal Oak had contacted him to let him know the van had been involved in a beer heist. The Chief of Police had gotten Dennis' name as the leasee of the van from Ford Motor Company rather than to just tell anyone which Dennis said would cause him to lose his job, send him to jail and would probably be the cause of the end of the world. He always exaggerated just a bit.
So the story, partially from Dennis and a few admissions from Wes, was that Wes and five of his friends went to this liquor store. Everyone but Wes went in as he had a brace on his knee from some soccer injury and some of the boys got the owner busy while two of the boys ran out with two cases of beer. The owner got the tag number of the van before they got away and the police wanted the names of all of the boys. Wes would not budge on giving out the names. His Dad left in a fury and told him he better give him the names and the police only knew about Wes.
Wes was busy that night talking to his fellow criminals and no one wanted to have their parents find out what they did. Wes was on the hook but I had to actually commend him for not being a snitch. All of the boys came from really nice homes and Wes told me it was just like a prank. Senor boys do tend to have huge gaps in their thinking at times.
As the next few days passed discussions with the police Chief revealed
that the owner of the liquor store did not want to press charges but he wanted each boy to pay him $200.00 dollars. The police Chief did not have to think very long that wanting the boys to pay him amounted to extortion. How dumb do you have to be to announce to the police you want to blackmail someone rather than press charges? Needless to say the Chief was ready to press charges against the store owner himself and stated he could not even believe the heist really occurred. That was the end of the Great Beer Heist of 1988 as I named it.
I think the boys realized that what they had done had very serious consequences and was not just a humorous prank. It is amazing how brains can go dead when all of the boys knew better. I do have to admit that I had to hide in the kitchen to laugh when Dennis lectured Wes about losing his job as I had heard that when I dented a fender or got a speeding ticket for years in a company vehicle. I think the boys learned a good lesson and perhaps the liquor store owner did also. Maybe Wally, who was so terrified his brother was going to jail, learned a lesson from the whole episode.
Oh, the days before cell phones were great for excuses. One morning I got up and Wes' car was not in the drive and he was not in his bed. Being a mother I could think of horrible things that had happened to him. It was six o'clock in the morning and I started calling around to all of his friend's homes. I finally found him sleeping in one of the boys basements as he had gotten too drunk to drive home. The rule I had set forth was that if he was going to be late all he had to do was to call and tell me. I guess Wes was not thinking when he said he could not find a phone. Excuse me Wes - how are you talking to me now? No answer but I did tell him to get his little behind home pronto and I did take his keys away for the rest of the weekend. Their can't be a worse way to spend a weekend than with your mom and little brother especially when I drove him to work both Saturday and Sunday.
Detroit was a twenty-four hour city. Because of the automoble plants and their working three shifts a day people did activities at all hours of the day and night. There was good reason for skating rinks, movie theaters and bowling alley to fill every corner and be open all hours. Somehow we all like to go bowling. It was fun, relatively cheap and pretty good entertainment. There was a bowling alley not far from our house and was the sight of Wally's very first date. Cute quiet Wally had a huge crush on a really sweet girl named Sarah. He asked her one day to go bowling and together they walked to the bowling alley. No sooner had they gotten to the bowling alley but Wally had the nosebleed of the century. He didn't know really what to do . Sarah ended up walking home as did Wally. He arrived home in tears because everything had gone so wrong. I think it took him a long time to get over his first date but he and Sarah stayed friends for years. Wally was not the "Joe Cool" his brother was which was not all that bad as their were no beer heists in his future.
Similar to the east coast school was not until the middle of June. The end of the school year was always fun with Wally's band concerts. Then we would have all the Senior activities with graduation, sports banquets and of course a senior prom. Before school was out Wes got a job at a skating rink just a few blocks from where we lived. Guess he decided to stay with us until it was time to go to Kent State.
Almost made it through the summer with great stories.......almost.
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