To my suprise these places still exist. Haven't seen one in many years but I hear they are still around. Does anyone remember the one in LI on Hempstead Tpke.? Also does anyone remember... The Runway, Chico's, Falstaff's (AKA Joes), Desti's and every parking lot in NY, NJ and CT? Chicken Galore? Buba's "Masterpiece" left in the urinal? Buba? Vinnie? The Chili Dog truck at the dream every year? Hacker Shacker? SHACKER!? Shelly?, "Peg", Soupbone?, Dick & Dicker, Jose and hoseB, Rhino, Gallagher, the Camel, Truck, The Truck, Port, Rutgers Security, Nanuet Holiday Inn,Vinnie & Buba's house, The bohunks, SVEN!, Chalky, gagger, CoCo, Lumphead, Bambi, Hammer Hands, Hutch, Jesus the bassdrummer, the twins, CHOP!!!, Wonder Bass, George Washington, Mel's Brother Ringo, Farina, Hortence, Stumps, Root Beer, Terri Mompson, Valley Stream, Edison Lanes, Hoffstra, Floyd B Field, Firewater to the Indians Night, A motorcycle inside the bar, Anything goes Roto, Stan, The baseball mach. at desti's, The pinball and space invaders at Chico's, The darts at Runway, Stove & Dug Run, Jr. Men, Magnetic Dogs, Frans corps writeup for the dream, Doug in custody (" I gotta call ya back hon, They just brought in Zoro!"), Screech, Bug, Hey Ray, lenny Lenny...LENNY LENNY..Da Da Daaa, Mr. Low, doooooo RAP! (Dennis Dewey), Ski Mask, Les Cadets Du Ski Mask, PINOCCIOOOOOOO!, Al Franken, The Puzzle, Al's Pants....
I'm pretty sure we got tossed out of Chico's and moved on to the Runway.... the "Rundown".....LOL....not sure if we ever went back to Chico's after that. Stranger things have happened.
Reminds me of another "bar story".... this time from when we were at Joe's Bar..... Shirley, the manager, chasing Vinnie with the broom!!! "Vinnie, if ya don't behave I'll take the broom to ya!!!!" LOL
Hmmmm ... I saw Milt order there once, gave them a twenty and got back two dollars in change. He was a taco eatin mother.
Good Jack in the Box story:
Lenny, Doug Grunn and I leaving practice and driving up to Ross's house in Conn. We bought over $20.00 worth of food (remember that was a lot back in 77) that we only ate about half of. We left the rest in Doug's car that night and forgot about it the next day. There it sat, in 90 deg. the next day, in a closed car while we were at an all day practice before the show. Needless to say, the car was a little ripe by the time we went to it after practice. I don't think Doug was ever able to get rid of the smell completely.
BTW: that was also the night the Hawthorne song was born on that ride up to Conn.
God, I forgot all about Hortence. The looks we used to get on retreat from other corps. For those who don't remeber, Hortence was a mellophone which had been run over by a car a few times. It became the midrange mascot. Not to be outdone the sop line found a big rock for our mascot and I forget what the baris used. Every retreat, we get on the field, be called to parade rest and you would hear the cling of Hortence being dropped on the field followed by the thump of the rock. and there they would stay until retreat was over when they would be picked up and carried off when we left. That had to be 80, because that's when even Sky thought we were a little touched in the head. (Then again.....we were)
In and out burger! They say that's a decent burger that turns into filet Mignion after the bar and about 20 beers. Wasn't Hortence a front fork assembly from a bicycle or something? We went to the Runway after "Fire water to the Indians night" at Chicos. We had been pouring money into Chico's after we got thrown out of Joes (who became Falstaffs, also with our funding) One Saturday eve. we got out of rehearsal slightly early and everybody went to Chico's. They had new tap beers and pitchers. Yeah, that's just what we needed...a way to consume more beer faster....needless to say by the end of the night the bartender was furious, (New guy, not the old guy we had for years) I also remember Jimmie C breaking windows on the garage outside and we stopped him just before he got to the one that was a favorite of Fran's. It had a small sticker on it saying "Warning, Guard Dog on duty" and this rediculous picture of a wild snarling, foaming dog on it. We went to the Runway and about 2 weeks later had an even worse night of madness ending with Tony on his motorcycle driving through the bar.....I thought we were going to get tossed from there too but the barmaid just looked up and laughed. Some of those parties were like watching a circus complete with the side shows and freak tents...LOL...
OK.... A Joe's Bar story here...true story, I swear to God:
One Sunday evening after rehearsal, a few of us were sitting at the bar at Joe's, and there was this little guy at the end of the bar who kept mumbling complaints about "the government"..... "the damn government is screwing all of us"..... "I'm sick of the damn government".... etc., etc.
Nobody really paid much attention to the guy..... until he got up from his barstool, walked outside the bar (onto the street on the back end of the bar...not Hempstead Turnpike, but the next big street over)... went over to one of those big mailboxes that are anchored on street corners, pulled the mailbox off its moorings and dragged the entire thing out into the middle of the street, at an intersection!!!!!
We were like, "WTF, are you kidding me????" Then we got to sit there and watch the show.... all the cars trying to dodge the mailbox!!!! The little guy then stalked off. I think we were just relieved that he didn't come back with a gun. Unbelievable!!!!!
After a Friday night practice at Hofstra, Lenny, my brother Steve and John C. were going to drive the corps truck all night to Saturday's contest sight in Providence or Boston or Rochester , wherever. Well, after quenching their thirsts and other enhancements (ahem) these three decided to get on their merry way but first, a stop at the Jack in the box in Mineola! As they pulled the truck onto a side street before stopping to get food, my brother noticed some low lying branches which began to scrape the top of the truck. Suddenly Steve yells out, "LENNY (who was driving) look out! The wires!! The wires!!," giving Lenny the idea that the truck was about to take down several overhead telephone lines.
OK the rest of the story....we pull in and Steve just starts saying "The Wires THE WIRES!!!"...."Don't anyone get out of the truck, DON'T MOVE, DON'T STEP OUT!!!!" we asked why and Steve said "THE WIRES".....turns out that he thought we took down some power lines with the top of the truck....in reality what he saw were the shadows of some branches that looked like lines ....needless to say he was banned from driving that night..flagged....LOL....the rest of the weekend anytime anyone went to do anything you would hear...THE WIRES!!"....lol...guess ya had to be there....Embarrassing when you think you are saving every one's life from your own hallucinations..
A corollary to the Runway stories....some time after we had left to congregate at Chicos Jan, me and a couple others chanced to enter the Rundown in our corps jackets. The bartender begged us to please come back. I guess we really were dumping major bucks into there every Wednesday, Friday and Weekends!
Here's more to the Night of the Wires:
1. We went onto a parkway-of course unbenownst to us-and nearly decapitated the truck.
2. We had the directions in hand and cruised merrily up 95 and ground to a halt on the bridge between Groton and New London.
We figured the busses would be along and we could load the equipment aboard the busses and then arrange for repairs....
but noooo. The busses decided to take 91 North at New Haven.
Along came Dave China with a carfull and found us there. Earlier a CT state cop came upon us-don't forget we were between towns on the bridge- and tried to help to no avail. Somehow Dave got us started and we limped to a repair shop. Of course there it was a comedy of errors, but the problem was electrical and one battery and some jury-rigged wiring later we got on our way. We got to the Boston area at the end of the last run through. The drummers descended on us and grabbed the drums and started doing that inbred, genetic thing they do.
The next day we went to a parade in CT. There the liftgate of the truck broke and we had to drag it all the way back into the city. Eventful weekend!
That truck almost killed allot of us. I went to get some things fixed a few years later in 85 and was told that I needed to get thousands of dollars worth of repairs and If I did not, then the garage owner was going to call the NJ state police and alert them about this thing. The next night (a Sunday night) a friend and I snuck into the station lot and with an extra key, took off with it and brought it to a parking lot in Edison where it rotted until finally being "stored" in a storage facility. It sat there for ever and about 18 months later Lenny got an enormous bill on his credit card for the whole term complete with towing charges and other various charges. As always Lenny just paid it.....I think that thing must have cost him thousands over the years. It got to be where NO ONE wanted to take the truck because you had a 50/50 chance you would make it to the gigs at all. In 85 I pleaded (and got) the management (Lenny, Buba, Gary, Tony and others) to adopt a policy of renting trucks. The main reason was that if the inevitable happened (accident) that the equipment was not covered and the corps would be out of business the day that happened. With Rentals we would pay the extra $10 per day for cargo insurance thus protecting the equipment. The truck was STILL used as a rolling warehouse for another 2 years. It was replaced with a much newer piece of crap 3X before we finally got a "Real" truck in 1997 bought by the bank....Then allot of people helped drive that thing...guess knowing that you will get there alive is an important factor in getting help...LOL...
I know Milton would remember this truck story...
The old truck was parked on a lot in Edison and was basically a warehouse. We would rent a truck for the weekend and put the equipment we needed in it and returned it on Sunday nights.
One time we had pulled up the rental to the old one and were transferring the equipment back when literally 10 Edison cop cars came blazing into the lot and rounded us up. I guess it was the Sunday night crime of the century.
Well, during the day, Bill in the guard had been driving the truck around and the rental agreement had gotten "misplaced" so they were ready to hit us for theft of the rental, robbing the old truck, etc.
Luckily for us, one of the cops recognized me - not from a lineup!!- and took me aside. He had grown up across the street from me. I told him the story. He knew I was in some kind of band because he had heard my raucus practicing over the years. He told the other cops and they were crestfallen-no Sunday night bust!
1988......it almost took out me, Milt and Jimmy Calogianes....LOL
We had the truck for the first show that season.... the Albany show. We left early that morning from where Milt lived at the time, way up there in northwest NJ. I remember there was something wacky going on with either the gas pedal or brake... I can't remember which, but basically the pedal was off-center, so when you pressed it down you really had to kind of "steer" it with your foot so it would line up properly.
So here we were in the "death trap" truck... LOL.... rumbling over the hills of northwest NJ.....it was foggy out...really early that morning... and it was like a roller-coaster going over those hills. We came over one hill, and standing on the road right there in front of us.... was a deer. We slammed on the brakes, and the truck came to a stop a few inches from the deer...literally. And the damn thing wasn't moving!!!!
Eventually the deer moved....but once we caught our breaths, we were all laughing about what we would have done if we had hit the deer!! I think it was Milt or Jimmy who suggested we could have thrown the thing into the back of the truck and then cooked it for the corps' lunch later.....LOL
Same Truck, different year... (1984/1985)
Right after DCA's the truck was parked over Ann Petron's (in Springfield NJ). That was not the place for a "Moving Warehouse" so I was told we had to get it out of there. My Dad, who knew nothing about the corps, or how we were operating (week to week) decided to help me out, so we moved it back to Edison. Eventually that night, after getting stopped twice we made it to Brick Church on Rt 27. Same deal, with the police, somehow someone knew who we were, or what we were doing so they just let us off with warnings. After that My Dad didn't come around the corps until 1988.
Early 80's?, we had rehearsal in New Brunswick, after I drove the truck to Lennys for a shower. I left for the show and make about tiwo turns in that truck and was soaked with sweat again.(no power steering) Going up the t-pike it was running like crap, I was two exits from Giant stadium (Cabs Gran prix show), when I had to pull over I thought I might get stopped for impeding traffic. I check the engine and found the choke was broke. (someone actually stopped to help, a drum corps fan going to the show). I found some wire on the shoulder and wired the choke open and made it to the stadium. Someone else drove the truck back to the Island that night, thank God.
1980, I was 21 my rookie year, at a friday night rehearsal they couldn't find anyone to drive the truck. Lenny asked if I could drive, I said I would if someone would co-pilot(keep me awake, etc.). They got George Smith to co-pilot, after getting some money from Nick for tolls and gas and oral directions from Lenny. Take the blah-blah to 80 West to Mifflinburg, PA rehearsal site/school. After about three hours of driving I thought I must be getting close (never been there before). Soon I see a sign for MifflinVILLE, and exit I find a school and park the truck and try to get some sleep in the cab. I wake up to the Sun starting to bake the truck and proceed to find a gas station in case they were closed after the show. While gasing up I notice a poster in the window advertising the show, I asked the attendant if we were at the right school and he informed me that we were in Mifflinville and the show was in Mifflinburg another 40 miles west. Needless to say I got back on 80 going as fast as the truck would go, thankfully I pulled in 5 minutes after the corps buses.
